Page 9 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)

CHAPTER NINE

WHERE AN ENGINEER PUZZLES OVER THE MECHANICS OF LOVE

W est glanced at his timepiece for the tenth time in an hour and, when he looked back to the row of calculations on the page, realized he’d lost his place.

“Shit,” he whispered and tossed the quill to the desk.

Penny wasn’t coming. The invitation was too forward, uncouth in some stiff, upper crust way he didn’t understand. He didn’t know how to ask a woman to dine at his home.

An invitation, if accepted, that would lead to more.

More . The word, breathless and shallow, stirred his senses as clearly as if she’d stepped behind him and whispered the plea in his ear. She had whispered it, in fact, when he had his head tucked between her creamy thighs, two fingers, if he wasn’t mistaken, deep inside her. Christ , she’d pulled his hair out when she came, more than a few strands.

He shoved back from the desk with a fierce exhalation, his chair skidding across the floor. It had been two days, and he missed her. He’d have been agreeable to another etiquette lesson if that got her here. Because no lessons meant no Penny. No Penny meant no kisses, no smiles, no laughter.

No more .

After their interlude in her attic, he hadn’t been able to get his mind off more .

He spun his quill in a slow circle, caught by indecision. He’d woken after dawn in her makeshift art studio, hanging half off the sagging settee, his arms full of her. She’d been sleeping so deeply, and he understood what could happen should he be seen leaving her terrace in a disheveled state at an intimate hour. Or discovered by one of her two servants. So, he’d done the courageous thing—the easy thing being to stay and make good on his pleasure promise—and gathered up his clothing, made what he could of his appearance, exiting her residence through the entrance from whence he came.

Not the first time, but maybe the last, he sneaked away from a woman’s abode.

He only lingered long enough to leave her a note—his invitation to dinner—and, helplessly, to take a daylight study of her artwork.

Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook was a painter, he reflected with a lovesick grin. An incredibly talented one. A singular soul in a sea of mediocrity.

And she’d shared her secret, her gift, with him .

The next day, unable to get her out of his mind and with no response to his invitation, he sent flowers. Without a sender’s name, of course, since his had been connected to a sordid gossip column of late. One of his lessons with Penny, about the many levels of aristocratic staffing and how word traveled from house to house quicker than newsprint, had put the fear of God into him. Domestics were the terror of London. He didn’t want to cause trouble for her, not after she’d clawed her way back into society. Seeing him creeping about after dawn looking like he’d had the greatest oral encounter of his life would do just that.

As would gifts arriving at her home with a rake’s name attached.

Though he couldn’t honestly say, if he saw Viscount Northridge on the street, he wasn’t going to make the blackguard pay for the damage he’d done. What peer of the realm didn’t need a knock upside his jaw every now and again to keep world order?

The only adverse aspect of his encounter with Penny was that West, for the first time, was angry with his mother over her decision to leave England. It was senseless, he knew, but if she’d stayed, worked out some arrangement with his father, he might have been raised under better circumstances than he had been in Philadelphia. There would have been no monstrous stepfather or a blinding punch that gave him headaches to this day. The English Weston Whitaker, acknowledged by a duke and a doting brother, might have been a better match for an earl’s daughter. He wouldn’t have needed to run to catch up with her, anyway.

He tossed the quill aside, ink splattering his ledger.

You know better, West.

This quaint daydream played upon the whimsy that there was one person meant for him, and no matter where he’d been raised, Penny was it. That they would somehow find each other. Fated to be together when he didn’t believe in love, not that kind. He believed in sex, passion, friendship. Mathematics. Excellent coffee. Lemon scones. Steam power. Trim ankles, which Penny had. Orgasms powerful enough to dim one’s vision, which he’d had two short days ago.

Maybe, just maybe, he was even coming to believe in brotherhood.

The rest? Not to sound tactless about it, but what a bunch of hogwash.

As he was talking himself out of the whole thing, his obsession walked through the door and changed his mind right back.

She was balancing a package in her arms and had a leather satchel looped over her shoulder. Strands of gilded hair were trailing down her jaw in windblown magnificence. Her coat was open, revealing a crimson gown that set his blood on fire with one glance.

“You left a note on the door for me to come in?” She laughed and wrestled with her package. “That is the most American thing you’ve ever done.”

“I let the staff go in case you showed.” He paused, allowing the pleasure of seeing her to cascade through him, his effort to grasp the rare feeling of happiness and tuck it close. Strength and serenity, that was his girl.

Seconds later, he was on his feet and striding across the room.

West didn’t give her time to think. Taking the chilled skin of her cheeks in his palms, he drew Penny into a heated kiss that said all he couldn’t. She tasted as magical as he remembered.

“I can stay the night,” she whispered against his lips. “And I didn’t wear a corset.”

He tipped her head until every thread of hazel running through her eyes was made known to him. His heart gave a decided, final thump he’d worry about later. His cock merely rejoiced. “My dreams realized.”

Stepping back because he had to, he lifted the package from her arms. “What’s this?”

She flashed a hesitant smile, her cheeks flushing. Her satchel landed on the faded Aubusson rug with a thud. “The painting you were admiring. Lever de soleil violent. The violent sunrise. I thought you’d like to have it. It’s been gathering dust in my garret for three years now.”

He glanced away and, after a moment of internal assembling, back at his gift. “Thank you,” he murmured over the rush in his ears, in his heart. It was too much, sometimes, with her. Esteem, affection, admiration, desire. He’d felt one or two, here and there before, scattered about like pebbles—but never all ambushing him at once.

Truthfully, his growing love for her seemed a bit like an ambush.

A breathtaking, terrified-to-accept assault.

“Unwrap it later,” she said and waved her hand, glancing about his study with what he suspected were nerves.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one under attack.

He leaned the painting gently against the wall. “This is the first present I’ve been given since my mother passed.” When he looked up and noted her stricken expression, he scrubbed his hand across his jaw, heat toasting his face. “Forget I said that.”

“I want to know. I want you to tell me.”

He shrugged away the offer. A man of the hour didn’t need to share his life story. “My cook made mutton something. I have wine, cheese, bread. I stocked up since I often eat at the warehouse. I also picked up a comb and some trinkets, trifling items, you’d possibly need.”

Her smile was radiant, and a hard thing to fight.

West frowned, half discomfiture, half fondness. “Anyone would do the same. You’ll need to brush your hair if I rough it up.”

She didn’t comment, simply removed her coat, and held it out to him. “Show me your home, Whitaker.”

Penelope shadowed him as they toured the ground level of his terrace as he claimed the upper floors were nearly vacant except for his bedchamber. They held a hot glance at the word, then quickly moved on.

Yet, it lingered in the air, testing their resolve.

Bedchamber .

He was dressed for the informality of home in a shirt and trousers, the shirt open at the neck, the sleeves rolled to the elbow. As he moved and the fine cotton shifted, she was allowed views of his muscular chest and the dark snatch of hair between his pectorals. She nearly shivered as visions of what was set to happen rushed through her. She marveled at the change in her thinking, an unexpected reward. Her encounters with Alain gave her an understanding that removed fear and ignorance about the process. Her scandal finally had purpose . She was steps closer to experiencing true love and true love making thanks to what had happened—and been missing—before.

Although she longed to touch him, the insight given by examining his personal effects was an enthrallment she couldn’t forego, not when he told her so little about himself. He kept his boots in an orderly line on a rack in the foyer, his coats hung on pegs, his quills collected in a dented cup on his desk. Pages upon pages of calculations, a bottomless sea of numbers, covered every table and an armchair, the only hint of chaos. He mentioned that living in an orphanage made a boy keep careful track of his belongings. She held herself steady when he said it, showing no dismay as she had with his earlier comment about her gift.

If she wanted West to share his past, there could be no tears involved.

As it was, she blinked them back when he wasn’t looking.

He chose to have dinner in an informal area off the kitchen, which she declined to tell him was for his staff. He was so capable and willing , another surprise, in a fashion men of society were not. He poured wine and water, assisted her in loading their plates with roast mutton, stewed potatoes, and carrots. Regaling her with a story about his brother wrecking a carriage on Bond Street in the wild days before his marriage, they lounged at a modest table set haphazardly with his servant’s flatware, candlelight their chaperone.

If the air pulsed with portent, they chose to ignore it.

For the moment.

“The words trip me up daily,” he grinned, chewing on a healthy bite of bread. His eyes were as light as limes, glowing against his dark skin. She wanted to drown in them. “Wardrobe instead of closet. Mad instead of crazy. Pram instead of baby carriage.”

“Biscuit instead of cookie,” she added after a sip of wine. She’d almost finished the glass and was starting to feel it.

West saluted her with his scratched butter knife. “That, too. I should keep a list.”

“Not quite as interesting as Debrett’s , but I’ll read it.”

“Tell me about the paintings. They’re good enough to hang in a gallery, Penny, no lie,” he said and propped his chin on his fist, his elbow braced beside his plate. He looked dreamy and relaxed, the dimple in his cheek winking. Love roared through her, incredibly, with such simple pieces of him driving it. She wanted this life, this man, this refuge.

How to make him settle his heart and give them to her was the challenge.

“Tell me about the engines,” she countered, prepared to test him a bit. “They’re good enough to change the world.”

He lifted his head a fraction, his gaze sharpening.

She smoothed her napkin across her lips. “If you don’t want to, fine.”

“Sure,” he whispered, “some choice you’re giving me.”

She was patient, nibbling on rather delicious carrots while he deliberated. For all his brilliance, West had a readable face. When the wheels of his mind spun, it was bright as the sun.

“I started working in the pantry, what you call a larder, of the children's home when I was ten or so. Boys of a certain age were expected to contribute.” He circled his wineglass on the table, his eyes downcast. “Somewhere along the way, I noticed an error on an invoice. A delivery of potatoes it might have been. I saw the miscalculation a mile away without having had many formal lessons. Mathematics is difficult for some, where it’s easy for me. No—”

Pausing, he tapped his fingers against crystal, finally lifting his glass to take a drink. His throat pulled beautifully as he swallowed. “Numbers slip into place for me, maybe like colors and landscapes do for you. They’re a flawless picture in my mind. The headmaster, for his benefit, although I’m grateful, found a tutor to work with me so I could handle his accounting, in part. Eventually, I handled all of it. Soon, the first tutor wasn’t enough because he didn’t have an aptitude for algebra or geometry, which is where I wanted to go. Had to go. Compulsions and such. He taught basic mathematics only. The next was better but had no use for calculus, which I needed for the dynamic calculations central to engineering. Also, physics, specifically motion and gravity, topics Newton pioneered along with calculus.”

Newton . Penelope finished her wine, the depth of his intelligence shocking her when it shouldn’t. Cambridge and the Royal Society didn’t give out invitations like sweets.

Wanting more from him, she drew a circle in the air. Continue .

He laughed, his gaze lifting. “Stubborn as the English are staid, aren’t you, sweetheart? Anyway, to end this absorbing tale, I raced ahead, surpassing expectations until there was no stopping me. The final tutor, the only truly gifted one of the bunch, introduced me to steam engine design. He had a cousin in London who’d started investing and sending him information about the industry. I had an apprenticeship for a time, low-level and grueling, at the Philadelphia Mint. That’s how I learned how inefficient their processes are compared to what you’re doing here. They’re still using hand-operated screw equipment, for God’s sake. When England is a few short years from having steam-powered railways. I realized, this is what I want to do and it’s a way to make money. It was really that simple.”

It didn’t sound simple. Plus, he was leaving out a lot. His mother dying, the dreadful stepfather. Emelia. Her chest ached to imagine how much he was leaving out.

“Believe me,” he said and held up his glass in surrender. “Hard work, thousands of hours of computations, selling myself using successful designs I created for other businesses, and I was on my way.” He shrugged a broad shoulder. “And here we are.”

“Have you ever told anyone else this?”

An acerbic snort shot past his lips. “Why would I?”

“Trust. Friendship.”

He squinted, trying to grasp her angle. “I trust you .”

She wasn’t sure he did, not fully, but some rewards had to be earned. “And the duke?”

“Tristan?” he asked, his calling the Duke of Mercer by his first name overly informal but lovely. “We’ll see.”

A wicked smile curved his lips as he skimmed his thumb around the rim of the glass. A memory of his finger sinking inside her and curling sent a tremor through her that landed squarely between her thighs. “I had another dream last night. Do you want to know what it was about?”

In addition to mathematics, Weston Whitaker was gifted at seduction . This realization moved her halfway to aroused without his once touching her.

She didn’t speak, but her tattered sigh said yes .

His lids lowered as he seemingly brought the picture to mind. “You were lying on my bed, the one upstairs, naked, and you were touching yourself. Your hair, your glorious hair, spilled across my sheets like firelight.” He opened his eyes, spearing her with his hunger. Raw, blatant, exposed. “You let me watch.”

Penelope licked her lips, her courage growing when he rocked forward in his chair, his glass hitting the table with a click. “I’ll let you watch, Whitaker, if you let me watch.”

He braced his hands on the table and rose, his shadow falling over. “You have a deal, Colbrook. I’d like to start the negotiations now, please.”

Before she could agree, he came around the table, lifted her from the stool she’d been perched on, and pulled her into his arms. Chest to chest, her feet didn’t touch the floor. The kiss was ravenous, every lusty fantasy they’d repressed for two days ripping free. As he was carrying her from the room, she lost a slipper in the corridor, the other on the staircase to the first floor. On the landing, he let her stand but immediately pushed her against the wall, slanted his head, and carried the contact to a bruising place.

She gripped his shoulders, his hips, pressing her body to his and matching him strike for strike. They strained against each other, struggling for closeness they wouldn’t find standing up.

Lurching back, he grabbed her hand, leading her up the staircase to the next level. Down a shadowed hallway and to a bedchamber door he bumped open with his fist. With a murmured apology for his inelegance, he swept her into another kiss, where they circled toward the bed. It was a mad, laughing dash, as fun as it was exciting. They tripped over clothing, ripped his shirt, and destroyed the strap on her chemise. The room looked like a tempest had hit it when they were through. One of his stockings ended up atop the canopy.

Gasping and giggling without a stitch of clothing on, she shoved him back. Removing her spectacles, she blinked as her vision blurred. Her eyepiece would not make it through this session, she feared.

He settled his hand on her cheek. “I want you to see me , sweetheart. Know it’s me making you feel this way. The only one to do it.”

His defenselessness awakened something inside her. Love stormed her heart. “I see you, Weston Whitaker. In my dreams, in each second of the day. I don’t need these to do so.”

Exhaling softly, he took the spectacles and placed them on the bedside table. She recorded every move, firelight illuminating his exquisite body, making her promise she’d sketch him.

Her arms were open when he returned, and he stumbled into them.

West caught her around the waist, lowering her to the mattress and scooting her high upon it. Crawling over her, he braced himself on his forearm to gaze down at her. “Because I’m soon to lose all reason, I want you to know you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The most everything, leagues above what I deserve. Despite my shortcomings, which are many, you provoke me more than anyone ever has, both in this setting and out of it.” Leaning, he palmed her breast, lifting her nipple to his lips. Sucking the hardening nub between his teeth, he murmured, “Your mind fascinates me as much as your body. Therefore, I intend to explore both.”

She didn’t ask what he planned to do. Or perhaps she did. Her words, if spoken, were lost in a sensual cloud. This play was new to her, and she found she adored it, adoration soon turning to desire. When he started to move down her body, she held him to her breast, bowing into his touch.

“You like this,” he murmured against the rounded globe. “Before?”

“ Never .”

Satisfied, he hummed a response, a vibration intensifying the suction from his lips.

She gasped, a blissful fissure swirling in her belly and sinking lower. “Oh, Wes, you are talented.”

His hand trailed down her side, over her hip, and across her thighs. “So, I’m Wes in bed and Whitaker out of it.”

She started to offer up a witty rejoinder when his fingers nestled through the curling hair at her core, one long digit sliding inside her and beginning to thrust. She closed her eyes to the thrill of him pinning her to his bed, his face held in tight lines of concentration, his hot breath washing over her nipples three times before he circled the rigid peak with his tongue.

Making her wait, then not making her wait at all.

He added a finger to the pleasurable torture he was inflicting between her thighs and whispered kisses across her breasts, her aching nipples. His mouth was working in tandem with the rhythm of his thrusts, an incredible combination. “Come for me, sweetheart. Before .”

“Before?” she managed to ask in a frayed voice. Her heartbeat was a dull howl in her ears, the throaty sounds spilling from her gaining in volume. She might bring down the walls like he’d said she could.

Dragging his lips over her collar bone, his tongue laving each sensitive spot along the way, he leaned to whisper in her ear, “Before I sink deep inside you, before your quim milks me dry, as I’ve dreamed of since the first time I laid eyes on you. Before I make you scream, before I scream myself.”

Acting before her mind left her, Penelope traced her hand down his body, searching. His shaft was silky smooth and hard as stone, caught between their bodies. She raked her nail gently along the length and felt her orgasm creep closer when his ragged oath met her ears.

“Penny,” he said on a panting breath, “you undo me.” He seized her mouth as he pressed his thumb to the bundle of nerves topping her sex. He worked her, played her.

Pleasure clawing for release, she tightened her hold on his cock, but she was far ahead of him. Her orgasm hit, a blind rush, pins and needles stinging her skin. A circuitous stampede of sensation that left her gasping, back arched, the cries she’d kept quiet in her garret hurtling from her. He continued to work his magic, his thumb pressing, spinning, exactly where she needed until it was too much.

This, too, he understood as he let her go and moved his cock into position at her entrance.

“Hang on here,” he whispered and wrapped her hand around a spindle on the headboard. “And to me.” He kissed her palm before placing the other hand on his shoulder. “Scratch me if you want, mark me in your bliss. Because I’m going to take you there.”

It was leisurely at first, tender. The head of his shaft edging between her swollen lips, a shift of his hips to ease himself inside. Her hold on the spindle gave her leverage she’d have been missing, the strength to bring her body more fully into his. Hips rising, she took some of his direction and ran with it, sending his cock deeper, faster, than he’d planned.

“Sweetheart.” His arm tunneled beneath her, palm flattening over her spine, fingertips digging into her skin. “Slow down. I’m trying… to be gentle.”

Her nipples scraped his chest, tickling in his hair, delight clouding her vision. She shook her head, rising again, sending him deep. Bumping against his pelvis, grinding. Her hand lowered, curling around his hip and handling him. She wasn’t an inexperienced woman he had to worry about. She could meet him, move for move.

He groaned, his head falling back. “I give up.”

Control draining away, he sank his shaft deep until they were locked together, until they were two people lost in the fog.

He was rough but tender. His whispered words of appreciation mixed with lewd intent flowed over each other and into her ear. She released the spindle to slap her hand to his back, her nails marking him as he’d suspected they would. The one time she opened her eyes, his were on her, burning with resolve. His skin was dewy with sweat, his exhalations scalding her cheek. He looked feral and a little possessed, and she guessed she looked the same.

The bed began to creak with his thrusts, the headboard making dull pops against the wall.

Chest hitching, he grasped her waist and rolled slowly to his side, taking her with him until they faced each other. He didn’t disengage, instead curving her leg over his hip, which sent him deeper, an impossible idea seconds before.

“ Oh , incredible,” she whispered in disbelief.

They clung to each other through what turned into a languid, more intimate joining. It took a moment to catch the new rhythm, a rolling grind. The still-groaning bed sounds mingled with terse gasps and hoarse moans. His lips swept her neck, ear, jaw, nipping, sucking, soothing. He teased her nipple, the skin of his palm hot, damp. While she touched every inch of him she could reach, his muscles rippling beneath her fingertips, the jutting bones of his back beneath her palm.

His lids fluttered, his pace speeding up. “Come with me,” he urged. When she didn’t reply, unable to with her senses aflame, her body floating in pleasure, he took the matter out of her hands.

He lifted her thigh a little higher, the angle hitting her perfectly. She groaned and rose to meet his thrusts, fingers twisting in his hair.

“I can feel you pulsing around me,” he whispered against her neck. She was sensitive from her earlier orgasm, and his skilled touch at her sex was all it took to send her over.

Her release splintered her consciousness, her mind vacating the room as waves of bliss stormed her, crest after crest. Breathless, she murmured her ecstasy into the firm muscle of his shoulder as the tremors ruined her.

The rest of the episode Penelope would have trouble recalling.

Cries, slick skin, and a groaning bed. Bodies bumping, the push and pull of fierce lovemaking as West arrived seconds later, crushing her to him as he thrust deeply. Words tripped from their lips amidst rushed kisses. In the end, they were nothing but tangled limbs, matted hair, and a crumpled disaster of a counterpane.

Brows touching, they dissolved, the most sated souls in England.