Page 19 of The Finest Print

18

Autumn, 1843

To my daughter Belle, on the occasion of her betrothal to Lawrence Duncan?—

Mark this book well but mark my words better. I promise to answer any questions you have with honesty and discretion. Embarking on a new life can be uncomfortable in many ways, but this should not be one of them.

—Inscribed by Emilia Sinclair inside

Every woman’s book, or, What is love?

The party was over, the revelers long gone. Beneath Belle’s feet, the printshop was quiet. The fierce thrum of her heartbeat was anything but.

Ethan had lit the fire in his bedroom and brought her close, unfastening the small hooks at the back of her bodice. Yearning turned her tender; tears threatened at the careful way his hands shaped around her shoulder blades. He kissed her neck and told her to take her time, then he returned downstairs to ensure all was well.

There was no need. She’d already helped him tidy the shop.

Ethan was giving her a moment, and it seemed to her a profound intimacy.

She turned down his counterpane, and the scent of his soap lifted from his bedsheets. Soon she would be in this bed, in his arms, and she tingled with expectancy as she finished undressing—gown, corset, petticoats, stockings. Her linen shift she left on, the fabric soft as it skated over the sensitive tips of her breasts.

She opened her basket and lifted the small jar she’d brought from home. Recalling her mother’s long-ago instructions for a wedding night that never came, she carefully maneuvered the delicate sponge, placing it as directed. It was a relief, to be ready for this evening in more ways than one.

Finally, she unwound her plait until her hair fell loose down her back. Having no brush, she ran her fingers through the long waves, trying to smooth them. She couldn’t see what she looked like; she didn’t know where Ethan kept his mirror.

No silk, no lace, no trousseau. Even so, devotion kept her calm. These were the preparations a wife would make, how she would anticipate her husband.

“I’m ready,” she said softly, sensing a shadow behind her.

She looked over her shoulder and took him in as he leaned in the threshold of his bedroom. Ethan’s shirt collar gaped open, his tie loose around his neck. His eyes glittered in the firelight as he stretched one arm above the door.

“You are so goddamn lovely.”

At the hoarse conviction in his voice, she colored instantly, everywhere. Her nipples puckered as he drew near. She glanced down at her shift, trying to stem a sudden wellspring of nerves.

“I should have brought something finer,” she whispered.

He reached for her, sliding his thumbs over her straps and peeling her shift away. His arms were around her before the linen kissed the floor.

“There is nothing finer.”

His mouth grazed hers, lingering there, gentling her upper lip until she opened for him. He deepened the kiss, the assured caress of his tongue sending a moan from her chest to his. His palm smoothed over her bare skin, and she arched her back for more.

“Please keep touching me,” she murmured.

“Keep touching you? I won’t be able to stop.” His mouth followed her blush over the small rise of her breasts. “This flush has cost me sleep. I’m putting my hands all over it.”

“You make me flush.” She lifted his shirt, lightly scratching his stomach. “You pull it from me. You do this to me.”

“Christ, you’ve no idea,” he groaned. “A flush is the very least of what I’ll pull from you.”

He kissed her again, thumbing her nipples until a syrupy heat settled low in her belly. Every teasing stroke heightened her anticipation, until she was thoughtless, airless, empty. She wanted fullness. She wanted more . More of this, more of him , the firm press of his body, the hungry slide of his tongue, the intoxicating scent of ink and soap.

“What can I give you?” Sweat beaded in her hairline, and he nuzzled there, groaning faintly. “My fingers? My mouth?”

“I want you inside me.” She kissed his neck. “Just that.”

“Not yet.” He brought her hand to his trousers, forming her palm around the growing length of his arousal. “Let me settle you.”

He stood back, shucking his shirt, dropping his trousers.

She drank in the firm slope of his shoulders, the tapered ridge of his collarbone, the way the firelight licked shadows on his skin. The broad expanse of his chest was forested with dark hair stretching down the thick muscles of his stomach. His cock jutted hard and dusky in his hand.

Her throat grew dry. So beautiful. All of him, all for her.

She reached for him, kneading the warm muscle of his chest as his palm curved over her bare bottom. An agonized craving tore through her as the rough pads of his fingers found wetness between her thighs.

She spread her legs, clinging to his biceps, dimly aware his bed was right there. She should lie down, she should be doing something for him.

“The bed,” she whispered. “Should I…how do you want me?”

He pushed a finger inside her—oh God , the stretch—then withdrew, circling her, stroking again. His other hand wrapped around her thigh, urging one leg up and over his hip as he teased and thrust. His cock was trapped between them, the hot press against her stomach eliciting a rush of desire that had her shamelessly arching her back.

“Don’t worry about the bed.” He put his mouth against her ear. “We’ll get there. Once you come apart for me, I’ll lay you back, we’ll see about the bed.”

She moaned as he pulled her into another long kiss. His hand continued its unhurried torment, but she found his wrist and held him where she wanted him.

“That’s it,” he muttered. His fingers filled her, stroking hard where she pulsed. “You can be selfish with me. I want you to be.”

She was quivering around him, the first faint flutter.

“I could never…be selfish with you,” she breathed, her voice slurring in his chest.

“Let me have it then,” he urged. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let it feel good.”

Her head fell heavily against his shoulder as she wound tighter, tighter , tight enough to unspool in a long, welcome release.

“Ethan,” she gasped, gripping his arms.

He was already lifting her, easing her to his bed. She stretched, sluggish with pleasure, as he stood over her. He raised her leg, pressing her foot flat against his chest as he moved his fist over his straining cock.

“Do you feel better?” His eyes were hooded, his handsome face lazy with satisfaction.

“Yes,” she sighed. “And no.” She lifted her arms for him. “Come here.”

He moved up her body, taking his time, and she was sated enough to let him.

In a dream state, sensations rolled together, building her back up. The brush of his beard along the inside of her knee, his thumb at the crease of her hip, the slow lave of his tongue over her damp, aching sex. All the while, his warm, deep voice floated to her, telling her she was good, she was precious, he would take care of her.

Finally, his hands came around her thighs, and she shifted, letting him settle between her legs. She reached for him, stroking his shaft as he’d shown her. His fingers joined hers, helping notch his cock to her.

“Easy, Belle,” he coaxed, breaching her with a shallow, patient thrust. “It’s going to take me a moment. We’ll go slow.”

She stretched around the slight rock of his hips, pulling tight and thin, eager to accept him, knowing it would be good, so good, as good as everything else he gave her.

“You’ll tell me if it’s too much.” He smoothed her hair. “Yes?”

She nodded, her forehead brushing his. It wasn’t too much; it was just as much as she wanted. She’d never felt higher than this, so certain of herself, so right in her body and mind. Ethan lifted her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close to his chest.

“Beautiful girl.”

He dropped his hips, sinking deeper now.

“Gorgeous girl.”

An enormous pressure, a breath-clutching sting.

“My sweetheart.”

The pain briefly grounded her before sliding away, turning as blurry as the rest of her. He spread her wider, his thumb finding the tingling apex of her sex. And then he was moving, slow, nudging thrusts, waiting for her marginal slackening, holding back until she yielded, her hips following his in mindless obedience.

“So easy, isn’t it?” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “So right. I knew it would be.” His voice was husky. “It always is with us.”

“You thought of this.” She cradled his jaw, stroking his beard. “Of being with me, like this?”

“Mmm.” He kissed her again, moving faster, his cock throbbing within her. “Every fucking night since the garden.”

“Me, as well.” She tilted her hips, taking him deeper, craving more of the rigid pressure where she was already tender. “Ethan, it’s better than I invented?—”

“No invention,” he breathed. “No fantasy.” He slowed his movement, his eyes searching her face as he laced their fingers together. “Only us.”

“Only us.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s always been enough.”

His thrusts grew longer, a sublime friction that had her free hand clutching his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark. She wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him close to her, luxuriating in the sheer force of him—the hard plane of his abdomen, the mat of hair on his chest, the sweat streaking his corded neck.

He was still holding her hand. She turned her head, staring at their entwined fingers. I love you , she imagined telling him, the words lifting in her throat. I love you.

“You can let go,” he whispered. He was watching her watch their hands. He tried to loosen her grip. “If you need to.”

“Ethan. I’m not letting go.”

A sound escaped him, a low, soft keen, and his control slackened. He hitched his hips, stroking harder, his thumb again playing at her clitoris.

“Please,” she gasped, seized by a violent jolt of pleasure. She was quaking, a veiled release flitting nearer, licking over her in waves, each surge tempting her to succumb.

“Yes.” He drew their still-twined fingers over her head. She was strung as tight as a bow, her arm stretching, her thighs spread, Ethan over and around and inside her.

“I’ll follow you, Belle.”

With his reassurance, her pleasure crested. She pressed her face to his arm as she met the next wave head-on, crying out as it dragged her under. Her climax came hard—she was shaking—she couldn’t let go?—

“Belle,” he murmured into her hair. “Breathe.”

She was still in pieces when he shifted her, gently rolling her to her side. He curved around her, his cock still hard. She foggily understood he hadn’t yet spent. He lifted her thigh in his palm, easing into her from behind. She shivered, clutching his forearm. She wasn’t certain how much more she could take.

“Ethan…my God.”

“I won’t be long now.” He kissed her shoulder. His thrusts grew very small, very deep, grinding a circle inside her. Her eyelids fluttered; the pressure was overwhelming. She let him move her, and in a daze, she sensed herself climbing again—or she hadn’t yet come down.

“Are you giving me another?” His breath turned shallow, his chest pressed against her back. His fingers moved her sweaty hair off her neck, and he kissed her there. “You are.”

“I don’t know…” she panted. She couldn’t stop convulsing. She didn’t know if it had ended or started. His hips rolled, his hand pressed flat on her stomach and— oh God, yes…

“There it is.” His voice, so low. “ Yes , sweetheart. That’s it.”

She couldn’t take in his words, only the way they moved through her, stirring a final flare, her body gasping as the quell of a candlewick. She had scarcely stilled when Ethan withdrew on a shudder, spending in a warm rush over her hip.

He groaned and collapsed back on his pillow, pulling her with him.

“Fucking glorious.” He pressed his cheek to hers, and she felt the wide stretch of his smile. “I’m not as deft with adjectives as you are.”

She couldn’t move. She could hardly breathe.

“No,” she managed after a long pause. “ Fucking glorious captures it quite well.”

Ethan laughed and rolled to find a handkerchief, gently cleaning her bottom and thigh before settling the counterpane over her. She sighed, curling into him. Soon, she would need to rise and see to her ablutions, but right now, she only wanted to lay with his warm body against hers.

“How do you feel?” His hand was on her back, seeking tension in her shoulders.

“I feel…”

Fine. The word nearly slipped from her, born entirely of habit. She always said she was fine whenever she was asked. How strange, that fine had seemed the most reasonable thing she could aspire to be.

She pressed her sleepy smile into his forearm. “I feel wonderful .”

Belle awoke in skin-warmed bedsheets with Ethan’s mouth moving slowly down her spine. She rolled to her stomach and buried her morning fog in his pillow, letting him pull her out of one dream into another.

Through heavy lids, she watched the morning find them. The gradual advance of dusty sunbeams—breaching the windowsill, stretching down the wall, lengthening across the floor—echoed their own lazy awakening.

By the time daylight spilled golden over his bed, Belle was newly drowsy and Ethan uncommonly cheerful.

“It’s Sunday,” she observed vacantly. She was sprawled sideways, her foot braced on his stomach. He hummed his agreement, and his muscles moved beneath her toes.

“You won’t have to work, will you?”

“What do you suppose I was just doing?” He rotated his head to look at her. “Was that not ambitious enough?”

“Well. It was rather?—”

She squealed, laughing as he lifted her foot and kissed the sensitive arch. “Ethan, no… don’t ?—”

“I would very much like to know how you were going to end that sentence.” He wrapped his hand around her ankle. “It was rather what?”

He kissed her again, his beard damnably tickling, and she wheezed, trying not to kick her beloved in the face.

“I suppose it was ambitious,” she relented, gasping for breath.

“You suppose .” His smile was dangerous. “Give me half an hour, and I’ll show you ambitious.”

She propped herself on her elbows, savoring his dark tousled hair, the beautiful curve of his bicep, flung behind his head. She’d never seen him so at ease.

“A whole half hour?” She smiled, feigning relief. “What a generous reprieve. I might even have time for a cup of tea.”

“Now she wants tea.” He gently lowered her foot and swung his legs to the floor. “Tea in bed, on a Sunday morning. Has pleasure turned you indolent, Belle Sinclair?”

“I don’t need tea in bed.” Belle stretched. She did feel rather indolent today.

He leaned over her and kissed her slowly. “You can have anything you’d like in this bed, including tea.”

“You spoil me.” She bit her lip as he crossed the room, taken by the strong line of his thighs, the flex of his shoulders, the taut globes of his buttocks.

Spoiled, indeed .

She could hear him whistling as he moved about the kitchen, a sound so perfectly intimate, it had her smiling like a fool. She sat up properly to survey his bedroom, which had become a mess of clothing. She should tidy up. He hadn’t many garments; she didn’t want them to wrinkle.

Belle climbed from bed and set about folding his trousers, wondering how they might spend the day. Perhaps a steamer to Greenwich Park? They could stroll beneath the old trees. If they didn’t see anyone they knew, she could even take his arm…

She lifted his coat to hang it on a peg. As she did so, she heard the rustle of paper.

Her stomach jolted.

The letter from New York.

Waiting in his pocket, where he’d tucked it away.

Slowly, she slipped her hand inside his coat, withdrawing the still-sealed envelope. She climbed back into bed, drew up the counterpane, set the letter on her lap.

She stared at it.

“Belle?” Ethan approached the bed with a steaming teacup on a mismatched saucer. When he saw what she’d rediscovered, his expression turned somber. “Ah.”

“ Newspaper Row ,” she said quietly. “That’s what you said, isn’t it? Last night in the alley?”

“Yes.” He sat on the bed beside her. “It’s what they call the street—it’s a publisher’s haven, of sorts.”

Haven implied safety, though Belle felt certain this letter contained only hazard.

Silently, she handed him the envelope.

He slid open the seal and unfolded the contents, holding it so they could read together. There was a long note and a few sheets that appeared to be a contract.

“Who is Todd Eamon?” She glanced at Ethan.

His face was very still. Only his eyes moved, up and down the page.

“Man I knew in Boston,” he finally said. “The desk manager at my old paper, though his brother is a publisher in New York.”

Belle licked her lip, drawing her gaze back to the letter.

Left the Sentinel…secured the necessary capital…establishing our own paper…We both thought of you…

“He’s offering you a position.” Belle folded her hands very tightly in her lap. “He wants you to be his editor.”

“So it would seem.”

He lifted the second set of pages, examining the terms of the offer, his jaw working so hard she heard a faint pop.

“Are the terms agreeable?” Her voice sounded remarkably normal.

“Ah.” He nodded once. “Yes.”

“When?”

It was the only question that mattered.

He scrubbed his hand over his beard, scanning the contract. “I would need to be in New York by July. They’ve secured passage from Liverpool.” He paused. “Departing the seventh of June.”

Belle stared at him as he folded the letter. “Who would have guessed the month of June would be so portentous?”

Her forced levity did not land. Her voice no longer sounded normal.

“Belle.”

“You’ll take this.” She directed her words to the teacup he’d brought her. “The offer. In New York.”

She’d never given much thought to New York. It was unfair so faraway a place could be such a direct and immediate threat.

“I don’t know that I will.”

She snapped her gaze to his face. His expression was grave.

“Of course you’ll take it. You must take it, Ethan. This is a sure path to what you want. Not like here, where you have the debt to pay, no paper to publish even if you do pay it off?—”

“I have the serial.” He studied her closely. “ Secrets is successful. It’s selling. And I promised you I would see you through a ten-week run.”

“Yes, but?—”

He took her hand. “Belle. We have a partnership.”

She shook her head. His words clarified her confusion. She glanced at the letter on the bedside table, gradually understanding what was happening here, or what might happen very soon.

Because this— all of this —hinged on their mutual need.

She’d known it from the first day outside the newsagent’s stall—the flaw in their plan was the resolution. The serial was a means to his end; the serial was her end. The first time she realized this, she’d felt foolish.

Now…

Now she was terrified .

“But ours is not a true partnership, is it?” she said slowly. “You shouldn’t be limited by it.”

“I don’t understand.” He looked at her sharply.

“If I walk away…” Her breath hitched uncomfortably. “If I walk away, you would be fine. You could hire another writer, and the worst it would cost you is the expense. You don’t need me in the way I need you.”

“That’s not true.” His voice was firm.

“You will be fine, Ethan,” she insisted, giving voice to her wretched fears. “Don’t pretend otherwise. Don’t pretend we’re even. We’re not, and we can’t ever be. It has nothing to do with where I live or my father’s profession or whatever self-flagellating game you play inside your head. The reason we aren’t even is that you are a man, and you have options. Your options don’t need to include me. They shouldn’t include me?—”

“ Stop . Stop talking like this.”

She snapped her mouth shut, shocked into silence by the blazing look on his face.

“I gave you my word, which is one of the very, very few things in my possession to give. I would ask you not to dismiss it so easily.”

She swallowed, chastened, and his tone softened.

“I told you I would publish you for ten weeks, and that hasn’t changed.” He grasped her shoulders. “I’m not responding to Eamon’s offer yet. There’s no need. We’re making strides, and we still have nearly four weeks to get where we’re going.”

“Are you certain?”

“I wouldn’t say it otherwise.” He gently touched the tangled ends of her hair. “My options include you, Belle. They’re because of you. The way I see it, we’re building something together. And I’d very much like to see what it looks like when the time comes.”

She clutched the counterpane. She didn’t know how to speak around the enormity of her hope.

“Do you believe me?” He raised his forefinger to her chin. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she whispered, releasing the bedsheets and reaching for his hand. “Yes. Ethan, I’m sorry.”

She kissed his knuckles, an uneven reassurance settling over her. When the time comes.

“And Belle…” His voice lowered with urgency. “Never again say I don’t need you. That I will be fine.” He shook his head roughly. “I wouldn’t be fine.”

His face changed before her eyes, his wary self-governance yielding to boyish, unmasked longing. Her nerves fell away, straight into the tender cracks he opened for her.

She knew what he wanted.

It already belonged to him.

“Ethan, I want to tell you something, but I don’t want to frighten you.”

He put his palms on either side of her face. His hands shook, just a bit, until his fingers wound through her hair.

“Sweetheart, I already know. And believe me, I’m already frightened.”

He exhaled slowly; his eyes were very, very green.

“God help me, Belle, I love you too.”

He pulled her into his lap at the same moment she kissed him—as ever, two halves of the same story. He embraced her for a long time, his arms winding tight, his chest moving against hers. She let him draw her into his cadence, until she could anticipate each breath before he expelled it. There was a space there, between the catch and the release.

That space was hers.

Finally, he pulled away. “Will you stay with me today?”

“Yes.” She kissed him again. “I’ll stay.”

But she wasn’t the one who would go.