Page 16 of One Night in Vauxhall Gardens (Singular Sensation #11)

May 11, 1819

Because the day was fair, and because her mother was a tad more overbearing than he wished to combat, when Harry called on Theresa, he asked to take her driving.

After the picnic in Hyde Park yesterday, he’d been eager to continue along in that vein. There were so many things he didn’t know about her, so many things he wanted her opinion on, that it would take a lifetime to finish the conversation.

I suppose that is the point of marriage, then.

Not that it was a bad thing, he realized now. Why had he been so opposed to it? Of course, he’d never met a woman like Theresa, and that made the difference. There was something both compelling and comforting in having her by his side in the open carriage as he handled the ribbons.

“You are quite fetching today. The yellow suits you.” She looked the personification of spring in the cotton dress of pale yellow. Daises were embroidered around the hem and the bodice, and that white and green thread made certain his gaze dropped to her décolletage more than once. The plain straw bonnet atop her upswept brown hair had been decorated with yellow satin ribbon and silk daisies.

“Thank you.” When Theresa turned her head to meet his gaze, she smiled at him, and his world tilted. “Though it’s not my favorite hue, I feel pretty when I wear it.”

“Well, if you were to ask me, I find you quite lovely no matter what you wear.” Or what she didn’t. Of course, he’d not seen her sans clothing yet, but he just knew she would be spectacular like that. “If you are tired of driving, I wondered if you might want to take tea with me at my house.” Since he lived alone and his parents were dead, there was no one there just now except servants. He gave her a rueful grin. “I am feeling in the mood to talk, you see, and don’t wish for the responsibility of driving at the same time.”

Her eyes rounded with surprise. “That sounds lovely. I would like that above all things.” She nodded, no doubt to make certain he understood. “The last time I was there, I didn’t have time to explore the house or fully appreciate the artwork you’ve collected or see any of the other bric-a-brac you might have collected.”

“Ah, splendid then. I’d be delighted to give you a tour.” With that in mind, he guided the horse back through Mayfair toward where his townhouse was located. Oddly enough, excitement buzzed at the base of his spine, for this time he was fully coherent in her company, and she wouldn’t need to see him in such a weakened state. “I appreciate the boon.”

She chuckled, and the sound further elevated his mood. “Haven’t you realized by now that I adore spending time with you? If we are to be successful in whatever we want out of our engagement, it is necessary and vital. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Indeed.” If life could always be as smooth and unbothered as this, he might have a chance at being a happy man.

A quarter of an hour later, he ushered her into the house and properly introduced her to his butler. “I am going to give Lady Theresa a tour of the house, then we will take tea together. I think in my study today, since that room is more cozy than the drawing room. If you could see that it’s ready and waiting for us in a half hour or so?” He removed his top hat as well as his gloves and gave them to the man. The day had been a tad on the warm side, so he hadn’t worn a greatcoat.

“Of course, Your Lordship.” The butler nodded. “I look forward to knowing you, my lady,” he added with a faint smile.

“How sweet of you to say. Thank you.” Theresa inclined her head then gave over her outerwear and gloves. “I should think we will have much to discuss ahead of us along with the rest of the staff.”

“I know the housekeeper and cook are most anxious to make your acquaintance once you marry His Lordship.” Then the butler looked at Harry. “I’ll order your tea.”

With a nod, Harry escorted Theresa upstairs to the second level. “Since you’ve already seen my bedchamber and that floor, there is no need to retrace those steps.” It gave him a sense of pride to have her in his house, for soon she would be in residence permanently.

If she consented to remaining, this was.

“I must say, your bedchamber is decorated quite tastefully. The navy blue and cream colors were soothing yet still masculine with the dark wood.”

“My mother had recently redone that suite just before my father died. Since it hadn’t been used all that much, I decided to leave it as it was once I came home from Rome. It makes me feel more connected to them both.”

“I can understand that.”

What would she decide to do once she was the mistress of the townhouse? If she wished to re-decorate everything, she had the right, of course, and it might prove interesting to see what sort of artistic eye she had as she made the place their home.

A home. Damn. How long had it been since he’d thought about that word with any sense of pride or security?

In the corridor outside the drawing room, six portraits hung on the wall in heavy gilt frames.

“There are all the Hedgecombs that have come before me.” As if he were a docent at a museum, Harry explained in a dry sort of voice who the various men in the portraits were. Most were fierce, unsmiling men portrayed on the canvas in poses of bravery or action, some with horses or dogs, and some posing from a position of power in a chair in a drawing room somewhere. “My father, my grandfather, great-grandfather, his brother, and so on. There are other, older portraits, but they haven’t stood the test of time and I didn’t wish to risk hanging them to age more rapidly.” As he spoke, he walked her down the corridor. “This, of course, is me, or rather it was the me of four years ago. I sat for this portrait just after I arrived in Rome.”

“How magnificent you were!” She tipped her head up to gaze at the portrait where he wore his scarlet uniform and sat astride a black charger with a saber in hand and gleaming Hessians firmly in the stirrups. “Though I can always see the military bearing in how you stand and move, it is quite evident here.” When she lifted a hand and traced some of the brush strokes with a fingertip, he shuddered as if she’d caressed him.

“That was certainly from a different time in my life, and I believe the last time I donned the uniform.” He frowned at the portrait. “While I will never forget that era of my life—largely in part due to the nightmares and memories that haunt me—I wouldn’t have changed my service to England either. It was the right thing to do even if everything was eventually warped.”

“I would imagine that time is what helped to forge you into the man you are today.”

He snorted in derision. “Oh yes, for good or for ill.” The bitterness in the words would always remain, he supposed, but he couldn’t help it. “Let’s continue with the tour.”

They passed through the dining room, the butler’s pantry then moved to the ground level where he showed her the back parlor and the library, and finally, they entered the study which was across from the library. “When I am in London and not at the club, I split my time in here as well as the library. There is a safety of sorts with books and papers.”

“That makes sense. Did you take books with you on the march?” She left his side in order to peruse the wooden bookshelf in the room where he kept some of his favorite volumes, as well as the tomes he didn’t wish to share with the others in the library.

“I did, and I was grateful for them. The nights were sometimes long and frightening, so having the distraction of a book was most welcome. It didn’t matter how often I’d already read through them.” Briefly, he paused, for a footman came into the room with a silver tray bearing the tea service. Once it was deposited on a low table at the opposite side of the space as his massive desk of cherrywood, Harry nodded. “Thank you, and please inform the staff that we are not to be disturbed for the next hour or so.”

“Of course, Your Lordship.” With a curious glance at Theresa, the young footman departed and closed the door behind him.

Because the study was on the wall that was shared with the townhouse next door, there were no windows in the room. The illumination from two gas lamps on the wall gave off a soft glow that made everything seem intimate as well as safe. And in this space that was truly his, he wanted to share some of his past, the deeper parts of himself so she would understand a bit of what happened and why he was so broken.

“How much has your brother told you about me?” Restless, he slowly paced the length of the room. This would not prove pleasant, but it might help to free him from those memories or at least take away some of their stranglehold.

Theresa shrugged. “Not much, truly. Whether from oversight or not wishing to frighten me, I don’t know, but I would much rather hear it from you.”

“That is probably best.” He nodded and loosened the knot of his cravat. “Much of my time in the military was uneventful. My regiment moved from place to place, seeing battles here and there, and while fighting was intense in some of them, we had been relatively fortunate to remain intact for many years.”

“I have heard that was how many of the rogues found the war,” she said as she watched him from the leather winged-back chair she’d perched upon. Her reticule was like a dollop of dropped cream on the Aubusson carpeting in varying shades of maroon.

“It’s true… until it wasn’t.” God, his chest was so tight. He didn’t want to relive those memories, didn’t want to share them with her either, but he was compelled to do so today, if only for a chance at peace. “There was a time in France when my whole life changed; it was the day my mind became broken.” He glanced at her. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes, of course. I want to know everything about you, but only when you’re ready.” The way she regarded him with those rounded doe eyes and lips slightly parted in anticipation, made him want to fall to his knees before her and lose himself in those brown depths, but he must do this.

If they were to have any sort of future.

“We were engaged in a fierce battle; I can’t remember the name of the village we were near or the exact dates of the fighting. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, perhaps I needed to block it from my mind. However, the pinnacle of that time impressed itself on my memory. A good friend of mine, a man I fought alongside regularly, had his weapon knocked out of his hands. There was smoke and fog on the battlefield that morning. We were quickly disoriented, couldn’t see our men or the enemy.”

As he talked, he rested a curled fist on the bookshelf, couldn’t look at her, didn’t want to see pity or disappointment in her expression. The terrible pain in his chest wouldn’t relent, and it made his throat tight.

“When we were separated from the rest of the regiment, we came under heavy fire so took shelter behind a fallen tree. I tried to shield him, tried to hide him, for he was bleeding profusely, needed to be seen by the doctor immediately. I did my best to defend him, but we were found, quickly outnumbered. The French soldiers were everywhere.” Sweat broke out on his brow. Gunfire rang in his ears.

“Harry, if you don’t—”

“I must.” He gasped for breath. In moments, if he wasn’t careful, he’d be trapped in the memories. For the space of a few heartbeats, all he did was breathe, then he continued. “Both of us were grabbed, beaten. My friend was already badly off. He didn’t survive the additional abuse. I was then taken behind enemy lines.” A wave of grief slammed over him, for he would always miss his friend Gregory.

“Oh, dear.” Her voice sounded from just behind him. “You were beaten and tortured I would imagine?”

“Yes.” The word felt pulled from his tight throat. When a wave of heat encompassed him, he wrenched off his blue superfine jacket and tossed it in the direction of a leather sofa, not caring where the garment landed. “For nearly five weeks in several creative and quite painful ways.” God, that was the worst time of his life, and he feared he’d never be rid of it.

“How did you survive?” When she laid a palm on his back, he flinched.

“I don’t know that I did, not really.” Staring unseeing at the books on the shelf, he clenched and unclenched his fist. “The scars on my back, my abdomen, and feet all bear testament to what I endured, what I went through on behalf of my country.” Thoughts raced through his head; emotions battered his insides. Panic rose in chest, for it was almost as if he were right back in that horrible place that stank of mud and piss. “I was weak, had nearly given up. I thought that was where I’d die, tied to that damned tree, half dressed, thrown moldy bread and cheese once a day, given water if I was lucky. I truly had nothing to live for, was waiting for the death that I assumed would happen imminently, for the French soldiers who took me had received orders to move on; I was dead weight.”

Theresa didn’t move away, kept them connected with her hand on his back. “That sounds hellish. How did you get away?”

“It had nothing to do with me. I hadn’t the strength to remain standing while tied to that tree let alone fight my way out. However, that last night, the French soldiers were celebrating; they were full of food and wine they’d stolen from people in the nearby village they’d recently marched through, and their guard was down. Some of the men from my regiment sneaked into the camp—a few of them were members of the Rogue’s Arcade.”

“Dear God, then you men are truly closer than blood,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Harry nodded. “Apparently, three of them refused to leave France without me.” Sweat beaded on his forehead, and as he wiped it away with the cuff of his shirt, tears fell to his cheeks. What was more, he didn’t care about the display of emotion. “I was in and out of consciousness at the time, couldn’t walk because the French had taken my boots when they tortured the soles of my feet, but my friends didn’t care. One of them freed me while the rest went after the soldiers.”

For long moments, he remained silent while trying to keep himself together… and failing. But he was nearly done with the story.

“After my brothers-in-arms decimated every last French bastard in that camp, they released me from the tree where I’d been tied for almost five weeks, no matter the weather. It was Rockwell—Edenthorpe’s brother—who ended up throwing me over his shoulder and dragging me to safety for I couldn’t walk and didn’t have boots besides.”

“I’m so sorry for what you suffered and endured. England should have treated you like the hero you are.”

“It was war.” He shrugged and when he glanced over his shoulder at her, tears reflected in her eyes, made more luminous from the candlelight. “Men did horrible things to each other and quite frankly in the doing of such, they lost the plot of why they had originally signed on to defend their countries.”

“I believe it.” As she spoke, Theresa worked the laces of his waistcoat. “War brings out the worst in men, the hate in men, driven by the leaders in charge who want nothing more than to advance their own agenda and line their own pockets.” She sniffled. “War is unnecessary in most times, and it changes everyone who had a hand in it. I have seen that in my brother.”

“That is exactly it.” For a moment, Harry bowed his head. “There was no coming home to England for me, for any of us, because we were no longer the same men who left. Our views were changed, our brains were scrambled, our souls battered.” More tears fell to his own cheeks; he was so close to breaking down. “The world itself had changed after the treaties were signed, and I dare wager not for the better, so why did we try so hard to defend it in the first place?”

“Perhaps there is no definitive answer. Only the men who came home can answer that.”

He blew out a breath. “In any event, one of the men from my regiment died in that midnight skirmish. I can never forgive myself for being the reason for that. Two men on my watch. What the hell kind of man does that make me?”

“Harry, no. It’s not your fault. Those men saved a good man too.” Theresa smoothed her hands over his shoulders and back. “You must believe that.”

Oh, God. Her touch made him shudder; he craved further intimacy but didn’t think he was good enough for that. “I’m not better than anyone else.”

“I’d beg to differ.” When she gently turned him about and slipped her hands up his chest to rest on his shoulders, he almost cried out, for it felt so soothing, left him with a sense of calm mixed with acute desire. “You are so different from any other man I’ve known that sometimes you leave me gasping, while in others I’m waiting for someone to laugh in my face and tell me it was all a joke.”

With a quivering chin and no longer able to hold back the wave of emotions he’d had to shove down and ignore for far too long, Harry went into her waiting and eager arms. The embrace was everything he dreamed it could be, everything he had ever thought such a moment might be, and soon enough she’d relieved him of his waistcoat.

“God, Theresa, I don’t understand why you’re still here,” he sobbed into the crook of her shoulder as she tugged his shirttails from the waist of his breeches.

“How can I not be? Unless I am going slightly mad, I have been waiting for you all my life.” As soon as she relieved him of the cravat and collar, she pushed and tugged at the shirt until it fell away from his body, even after being caught on the cuffs for a few fleeting seconds. Every garment fell to the carpet without thought. “Never think to shrink yourself down because you assume you don’t deserve to be seen. You are the best of men, Harold, and I want you to tell yourself that every damned morning. Do you understand me?” Tears wet her cheeks as she stared at him, left behind moisture as she pressed kisses into his skin. “Broken doesn’t mean not valuable. Broken means you went above and beyond and now are trying to find a way to reckon with what remains.”

“I…” He was rapidly losing his grip on reality even more than usual, but this type of insanity was welcome and not something to be frightened of. Perhaps he had been waiting for her all his life too, for this one moment.

Then he couldn’t help it.

With a soft cry, Harry framed her head with his hands, kissed her deeply and with as much passion and emotion as he could manage, and he hoped to God she understood what he couldn’t say. When she moaned her approval, that was all the permission or perhaps validation he could ever need, for he would do anything for this woman. There was no use trying to talk himself out of it or deny it; he was halfway in love with her, maybe even more, but hesitated to declare himself, for she’s had a hard time of it and was still wary of men—him—and he couldn’t bear the thought of being rejected by her after he’d shared so much.

But that wasn’t what was happening in the moment.

Theresa lifted on her toes and pressed her lips to his, even went so far as to bite his bottom one. That tiny hint of pain spurred him onward. “You are perfect as you are, Harry. Never think otherwise.”

He was lost from that moment onward, and after acknowledging that, he didn’t wish to find his way back. In her, he’d found a savior, an angel; she was his reason for being and his motivation for the future, a light in the darkness.

Over and over, he drank from her as he worked the buttons at the back of her dress. It was as if they shared breath, shared everything that was over and above the intimacy of a kiss. As soon as the bodice of the dress gaped, it took next to no time to remove the garment from her body. The dear woman assisted him by slipping out of her petticoat and toeing off her slippers, and then as she regarded him with those large eyes full of trust and anticipation, he fell all over again, and the moment he removed her shift, let it fall to the floor, he looked his fill at her nude body with the exception of her stockings and garters.

“Dear God, you are beautiful, a veritable goddess.” Even he heard the awe in his voice. “Well worth the wait.”

A blush stained her cheeks as she rested a hand on his chest. “Such gammon, Harry.”

“Let me show you then.” Lifting her slightly up, he carried her to his desk, and after setting her arse on the top, he kissed her as if his life depended upon it.

Over and over, he took from her, chased her tongue with his and all the while, he brushed the pads of his thumbs over her hardened, pebbled nipples. When she moaned and held him closer, he rolled those buds from root to tip as she flicked the flat discs of his own nipples and worried those buds.

Urgency and pleasure coursed through his body to harden his shaft to the point of painfulness, but he strove to ignore it all in favor of concentrating on her. “Dear God, Theresa, you make me wild.” He kissed his way down her body, between the perfect globes of her breasts, down her torso, past the soft swell of her belly then her mons, encouraging her to recline on her elbows over his desktop. When he reached the nest of feminine curls, he kneeled on the floor, parted that glistening flesh, and then put his mouth on the swelling nubbin that was the center of her pleasure.

A surprised squeal came from her when he began to suckle that swelling bud and bedevil it with his tongue. Damn, but she tasted sweet, and he couldn’t have enough. As he kept her thighs splayed, he continued to work her over, and when she fell over the edge into bliss, the soft cry that left her throat would forever endear her to him; definitely another first for her from him.

His heart pounded while he came back up her body to kiss her lips again, but she wasn’t having any of it. Instead, Theresa slid off the desk, though she wobbled when she stood, and seconds later, she dropped to her knees in front of him. “Surely you don’t mean to—”

“I do. You made me feel so lovely, so alive, so vital, that I want you to feel the same.”

“Damn.”

Was it any wonder why he was going tip over tail for her at a rapid pace? No sooner had he toed out of his boots—and almost toppled over in the process—than she helped him out of his breeches, had them yanked down in a thrice and waited with impatience while he wrenched the garment from his body.

There was every possibility he wouldn’t survive the night, for the moment she pumped her curled fingers along his engorged length, the second she fondled his stones, he nearly expired from the crash of pleasure moving through his body. But as his gaze connected with hers and she took him inch by inch into the warm cavern of her mouth.

And he was gone.

Though he’d been serviced in such a way in the past by various women, nothing compared to the connection he felt when Theresa swirled her tongue around the head of his member or applied suction while moving her hand in such a way that any further pressure on his stones would cause him to spend. The more he tried not to move his hips, the more he absolutely needed to, and when she put her free hand around to squeeze one of his buttocks, a strangled sort of sound left his throat.

For one moment of insanity, he buried his fingers into her hair, brought her closer, and thrust once and then again, sending his prick into her mouth and back out, and the heat of it, the way her lips and tongue explored that organ had him on the fringes of madness.

Eventually, he couldn’t bear another second, for he wanted to couple with her, to love her in all the ways she needed to be loved. With a soft cry, he pulled out of her mouth. “Enough. You make me mad with want.”

“That is the point, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I want you now, not the teasing.” As soon as he brought her into a standing position, he took her into his arms and kissed the hell out of her, for she was rapidly becoming his… everything. Dear God , the sweet press of her naked body against his hurtled him close to the point of no return, so he put his arms more tightly around her, lifted her, and shuttled her over to the bookshelf. Once he let her slide down, when her feet touched the floor, he immediately encouraged one of her legs upward until she hooked it around his waist and her heel dug into the small of his back. “Ready?”

“Yes.” Through passion-glazed eyes, she peered at him with her hands on his shoulders and her kiss-swollen lips slightly parted. “Give me all of you, Harry. All of you this time, come what may, because now that you have been given to me, I am not going anywhere. Do you understand?”

“More than you could possibly know.” Overcome with emotion and as moisture welled in his eyes, Harry fit the tip of his member to her opening, and with a flex of his hips, he penetrated her body and didn’t stop until he was fully seated. “Dear God, you’re perfect.”

As much as he wanted to enjoy a slow coupling, he was too far gone in her, far too spent emotionally to have that much control, but he withdrew from her body merely to enjoy the slide back into her passage.

“Harry, please… I’m going mad.”

The whisper shredded the remainder of his grip on sanity. Holding her hips, he stroked into her on a forceful plunge, and when she looped her arms about his shoulders and kissed the side of his neck, that was the beginning of the end.

Like a man possessed, he thrust over and over in a mad attempt to join them together. With powerful strokes that he hoped would make a lasting impression on her, he kept Theresa pinned to the bookshelf. Was he enough to banish her old memories and soothe the pain of the past?

Books tumbled down around them as he worked, went as deep as he could, and still he continued, for he wasn’t nearly done. She clung to him, and when he dared to put a hand between their bodies to play with her swollen nubbin, she apparently lost her control. Her head went backward against the shelf, and with her eyes closed and her fingernails digging into his shoulders, a half-muffled scream left her throat. As she remained lost in release, crying with abandon, Harry continued to claim her, ever deeper in an attempt to meld their souls. She bucked against him, tried to meet his thrusts, and all too soon, he was tossed into his own release. As it roared around him, caught him up in its vortex, he said her name and the hoarse sound was a testament to how much of himself he’d given her.

Unable to stop himself, he kissed her, pushed once more into her welcoming body, and this time, he didn’t withdraw before he spent. As the contractions in her core encouraged him to give up everything, he collapsed into her, pinning her between him and the bookshelf. Bloody hell but he’d offered her his very soul, all the important parts of himself, and in all truth, he believed that he’d received the same back from her.

Truly, they were one, at least in this moment.

For the span of a few heartbeats, he remained entwined with her then, exhausted, Harry lifted her into his arms. He carried her to a comfortable leather chair and after collapsing into it, he cradled her in his lap, holding her close as they both came back down to earth.

There was no doubt that his life had changed once more, all because of this woman.

And he didn’t want to do anything that would damage the enormity of that gift.

Eventually, he stirred. “That was extraordinary. You were even more so.” Oh, how badly he wished to declare himself, but this wasn’t the setting and he didn’t want her to think he only said it due to carnal endeavors.

“Do hush, Hedgecomb,” she said with tiredness in her voice, but she gave him a weak grin. “But I feel the same way.”

“Good.” He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. “Come with me to a late May Day ball thrown by the Duke of Broadmoor.” The man who didn’t like to leave his home wished to celebrate the impending birth of his first child, so he would make the sacrifice. “I want the beau monde to know that I am engaged to a lovely woman who has helped me more than she knows.”

“That sounds wonderfully fun. I can’t wait.” With what sounded like a happy sigh, she laid her head against his shoulder.

Not that he minded.

“Ah, Theresa.” He stroked a hand up and down her arm.

“I know.” She moved her head to kiss the underside of his jaw. “I need so much more of you, Harry. I don’t know why that is; my mind is lost to confusion just now, but until I can puzzle it out, until I can make sense of what it is I’m feeling for you and why, please let me stay for a few more hours.”

And he fell the rest of the way—lock, stock, and barrel.

“Of course you can. We’ll rest and after tea, I’ll put you through your paces again in an effort to help you decide. Would that satisfy you?”

“Yes.” Her eyes were moist from crying, the lashes spiked, her cheeks splotched red, but she was the most beautiful woman. “Thank you for understanding why I’ve struggled. My emotions and my mind have been disconnected for so long…”

“No apologies needed. You did that for protection. Give yourself grace enough that you can slowly start to live again.”

Wasn’t that what he was doing since meeting her?

Her eyes sparkled. “As long as you promise the same.”

“I do.” For the rest of my life.