Page 26 of The Lady Who Left (The Flower Sisters #4)

M arigold sat back on her haunches and surveyed the rough timeline they’d built across the office floor. She’d tied ribbons from her petticoat together and laid them out from one end of the room to the other, while Archie had hand-written dates on slips of paper, ranging from two years ago—the date of Agnes’ first correspondence with the marquess—to the most recent one six months prior.

“Do you have my letter from the middle of December in 1901?” she asked.

Papers shuffled behind her. “December sixteenth?” Archie said as he handed it over her shoulder. “Is this the one?”

She couldn’t stop her smug grin as she laid the letter her husband had written her—one swearing he was only missing Reggie’s birthday because of an important vote in Parliament—beneath the letter to his mistress lauding his sexual prowess during the three days they’d spent in bed together .

With the letters the marquess had sent her, the ones he’d sent Agnes, and the gossip column mentions Jasper had meticulously compiled, they’d set the goal of establishing a thorough record of the lies and deceptions her husband had employed to keep Marigold unaware of his affair.

Archie crouched by her side and swept his gaze over her compilation of evidence. “Does it bother you to see this?”

A wry laugh escaped, startling Archie. “No, it doesn’t.” She realized she hadn’t stuttered once since they started their work. “I was silent for so long, I forgot what my voice sounded like. And now, I feel powerful. Like I can control at least this.” She gestured to the timeline and sighed, shaking her head. “Look at this one,” she said, handing him a letter from near the middle.

His eyes ran over the page before they narrowed, his nostrils flaring, and she knew what he’d read.

She’ll never know, my dumpling. If you ever heard her speak, you’d know she’s far too addlepated to understand us and what we share.

“He never believed I was smart enough to catch him.” She huffed out her breath. “I doubt he ever thought much of my intelligence.”

Archie put the paper down in its original position and walked to his desk, where a stack of unassigned pages remained. “When he called you those things… Did he ever talk about… an institution?”

She tensed, then lifted one of the gossip column articles mentioning a certain Marquess of C— spotted with a much younger chorus dancer . “No, he didn’t. Why do you ask?”

His exhalation was audible. “Merely curious. What else do we need?” He motioned to her timeline.

She scanned the piles. “I wish we could catch him in a direct lie. Something unimpeachable, something he can’t talk his way out of.” Her attention caught on the most recent letter she’d put down. “Archie, can you find anything about when Parliament went on Christmas holiday last year?”

He flipped through the remaining pages on his desk for a moment. “It looks like the final vote was on the thirteenth of December.”

She huffed out a breath. “So the only reason he stayed in London and missed Reggie’s birthday was for his mistress.”

Archie’s lips flattened, and he rounded the desk to crouch by her side. “Marigold, I’m sorry—”

“I’m not.” She stood, and an incredulous laugh fell from her throat. “He lied. Read his letter, here.” She thrust the paper towards him and he came to her side, focused where her finger indicated and read aloud.

“ Once again, I am not supporting a mistress, and you must stop questioning my whereabouts and whom I will see when I’m in Town to vote. These wild theories of yours make me question your sanity. “ He stepped back and made a sound like he might put his fist through a wall.

She laid her hand on his forearm to still him. “He denies the mistress, but then writes to her about visiting at the same time. There was no vote in Parliament. This proves I didn’t know about or condone an affair. ”

He spread his arms wide, and his lips turned into that half smile that made her knees weak every time. “Brilliant. Well done, you.”

She took his open arms as an invitation and let herself fall against his chest, feel the heavy thrum of his heartbeat against her cheek. A shudder slid over her, and he pulled her close against him. He’d taken his collar out ages ago, and she pressed her nose to the triangle of exposed skin, that sliver of flesh so inviting and warm.

This was where she felt strongest, not because he protected her, but because he held her up, bolstered her enough to stand on her own. She was worthy of his faith in her, and the knowledge spread roots in her veins, dug into her bones and fortified her weak places, took the shattered pieces and created something stronger from her fragmented soul.

And Archie—she wanted him to see what lay beyond the broken woman she’d once been.

She pressed tighter against him, until no space remained between their bodies.

His hands flexed on her back. “Marigold, I’m not a strong man.”

“I’m strong,” she whispered, her lips brushing the divot of his collarbone, and she was so tired of being weak and afraid, of waiting for the next blow that would knock her to the dirt.

She longed to find the reckless woman she’d been the night they met, to set that Marigold free again. Her entire body, down to the tips of her toes, wanted him with a need she couldn’t satisfy with her hand in the safety of her own bed. He believed her to be brave, and so she would be.

She swallowed her fear and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the notch at the base of his throat.

Archie growled, the sound vibrating against her lips like an elemental force being released from its cage, as he crowded her backwards until her bottom knocked against the edge of his desk. “I told you I wasn’t strong,” he grumbled, his hot mouth against her temple. “I can’t resist you, but you’ve known that from the day we met. Do you need me to resist you now?”

The surrounding air became taut, the tension so much sharper than it had been moments ago. Her skin was alive with electricity, the space around them shimmering with it.

“No,” she breathed, a tremor running through her as he dragged his thumb down her vertebrae to settle low on her spine, just above the curve of her backside. “I’m choosing this, you.”

“The consequences…” His lips caught the shell of her ear and brushed a kiss. “If someone discovered us, we could lose ev erything.”

“No one will know,” she interrupted, running her hands down his waistcoat. He shuddered under her touch. “No one but us. Only for us.”

This man, this gentle giant, was entirely under her thrall. He wanted her; his blown pupils and the ridge of his erection pressing against her hip made that abundantly clear. And she wanted him, more than she wanted to live in fear of what could go wrong.

She cupped his cheeks, savoring the coarse hair of his beard, her fingertips skimming his sharp cheekbones as they reached his temples, and she removed his glasses, folded them, placed them on his desk behind her. “Archie,” she said, kissing his chin, “let me feel strong.”

He searched her face for another moment, a soft furrow between his brows. Then a tether snapped, because he was kissing her, but the word seemed far too innocent for what he was doing. His lips pushed hers wide and his tongue demanded entry, sliding against hers until her knees were putty. Thank god for the desk and his heavy forearm to hold her up, because she was lost to him, lost to the pleasure he was pulling from her, giving and taking until she lost track of where she ended and he began.

“I told you what I’d do if I had a second chance.” His voice against her neck sent goosebumps erupting beneath her shirtwaist. “I’d strip you down and make you come until you couldn’t stand anymore. God, but I don’t think I can wait that long.”

His hips pressed flush against her, the pulsing heat of his cock on her belly sending her wild with arousal, but not close enough to give her the friction she craved. His fingertips skimmed along her jaw, down the column of her throat, to her collar. “I want to tear this from you, Marigold,” he purred. “I want nothing between us.”

With a whimper, she started tugging at the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons down the placket of her shirtwaist, releasing them with trembling fingers before she went to work on her corset cover, the ribbons and lace that seemed so important when she’d purchased the bloody thing now taunting her.

He wanted her , with no embellishments or ornamentation. Her , for all that she was, for all that she wasn’t yet .

Finally, she’d released enough of the corset cover buttons that he could reach her corset, and his large hand dragged down her throat and over the front of her, plumping her corseted breasts before pulling the lace tie of her chemise free.

“ Christ, this body has been taunting me.” He was kissing her collarbone now, hot, wet kisses down the length of her sternum, over the swell of her breasts. With a tug and groan, he had her chemise open, and he pulled the corset down enough to expose her nipples. “Fuck, you’re more beautiful than I thought you would be.” He held the globes in his hands, thumbs sweeping over the tightly furled nipples, and she gasped, let her head fall back, arched into his touch.

He took her tacit invitation and swirled his tongue around one nipple, then the other, pulling them both even tighter and sending her core clenching around nothing. She shifted, spread her thighs wider, desperate for relief from the building tension between her legs.

“Ah, are you aching, beautiful?” he crooned, pressing his knee into the fabric between her legs. “You’re writhing against me. Wanting me so badly.”

“Yes,” she whimpered, “Don’t tease me.”

He hummed, razed his teeth over one peaked areola, and a broken cry fell from her throat. “I’ll make you come. Didn’t I promise I would?”

She gasped when he gripped her hips and lifted her, as though she weighed nothing, onto his desk. He hoisted her skirts around her waist, holding her gaze as his hands drifted up the expanse of her legs. Her thighs parted—her conscious mind controlled nothing at this point—and he stepped between them to grind his hard erection, still bound by his trousers, against the gap in her drawers.

They both moaned, the friction so necessary it seemed more imperative than breathing. His hot palm cupped her mound, stroked along the heat of her slit through the fine linen. “Christ, so wet. Is this all for me?”

She nodded, her breath catching as one thick digit slid through the gap, then inside her. He pumped as though he had all the time in the world, leisurely thrusts that drove her wild. She clawed at his shoulders, his upper arms, uncertain if she still possessed knowledge of any language besides pure animal want, lust, need . Her eyes opened to see his, his pupils widened until only a slim ring of icy blue remained. She’d give him anything he wanted in this moment.

No. She could ask for, and take, what she wanted. She’d no longer be a passive participant in her life, starting now.

“I want you to taste me, Archie,” she managed. “Like you said you would.”

He leaned around her and swept the contents of his desk to the floor. She heard glass breaking and pulled in a breath.

He stilled. “I’ll clean it up tomorrow.” He paused to kiss her, his tongue sliding against hers. Another kiss as he guided her to bear her weight on her elbows, then bent to untie her drawers and slide the two pieces down her legs.

Then he fell to his knees like a supplicant in church .

What a profoundly erotic image he created, pushing her thighs gloriously wide, his curls disheveled and eyes blazing as he stared at her exposed flesh like it was worthy of worship. She wanted to press her legs together but resisted, breathed past the anxiety that threatened to claw at her throat.

“Yes?” He pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh above her stocking, and she nodded. “Give me the words, love. Tell me.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice a rasp. “Please.”

“Anything for you.” He licked along the crease where her belly met her thighs and growled deep in his chest. “But this is just as much for me.”

He spread her lower lips with his thumbs, teased her swollen clitoris with flickers of his tongue until it was pulsing, her climax barreling towards her. But then he pulled away, licking along her cleft and stopping short of the bundle of nerves. She moaned, ground against him, dug her fingers into his hair.

“What do you need, love?” he purred against her inner thigh.

“Make me come,” she gasped, and he chuckled.

“You’re not even asking, you’re demanding .” He put his lips over her swollen nub and sucked, enough to make her gasp and writhe but short of pushing her over into ecstasy. “And I promised to do anything for you.”

She managed to open her eyes to watch him, how his gaze became hooded as he watched her in return, her arousal dampening his beard when he rose to kiss her mound before sliding two digits into her channel .

She cried out, bucked her hips, desperate for and terrified of more sensation, more pleasure. Her climax rose like a wave, swelling inside her until it broke, white hot and screaming from her belly. It spread through her fingertips and toes, until her neck could no longer hold her head up as she called his name, completely undone.

She was still trembling when he stood. “I have to touch myself, love,” he said, then released the buttons of his trousers and took his cock in hand.

Her breath caught and eyes widened. He was thick, with an angry, swollen head, and when he stroked, he hissed with pleasure.

Then he bent over her, one hand braced on the desk beside her hip, the other stroking his cock. “Nothing is better than this, Marigold. Nothing better than having you like this.” He bent and licked her again, took her clitoris between his lips and sucked, making her back rise off the surface. “I’m going to come so hard with the taste of your perfect cunt on my tongue.”

The first sparks of another release caught fire in her core, the conflagration growing out of control to the sounds of his moans, the steady thrum of his tongue on her clitoris. She gripped his hair, her hands spearing the soft curls as she held him in place, ground against him. When she burst, a fire flooded her from within, consuming whatever doubt lingered and clung to the surface of her skin.

Archie stood, cock in hand, his teeth bared as he grunted. “You’re mine, Marigold,” he growled, “mine.” Hot stripes of his release spilled on her thighs, her mound, her lower belly, marking her, claiming her.

To hell with what the law or society said, she was his, in every way that mattered. She had been from the moment he’d smiled at her.

He gasped as his eyes fell shut. “And I can never have you.” The last words emerged as a sob, and he fell forward, catching himself with his elbows on either side of her, his face buried in her neck.

A knot swelled in her throat, pressing until tears burned. Whatever desire—and try as she might, she couldn’t pretend all they shared was desire—existed between them, their time together would end after the hearing. Two weeks until everything in her life would change, and Archie would be the one to grant her freedom.

And she would never see him again.

He stood, not meeting her eye. “I’ll get a handkerchief, clean you up.”

Her heart clenched. He must have mistaken her silence as displeasure at what he’d said. “Wait, I—” She grabbed his hand, sat up, the evidence of what they’d done still streaked over her skin. “I want to be yours,” she whispered. “But… I don’t know how to be.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, and his breath, rasping and labored, mixed with hers. “I’ve always wanted impossible things. And I think I always will. What can I do to make you stay?”

She cupped his cheek, kissed him tenderly, even as her heart tore in half. “If I don’t put an ocean between my children and their father, he’ll try to control them. Control me . I can’t allow it. ”

“I won’t let him.”

A rogue, disbelieving chuckle escaped her. “Even you can’t change the world. If everything were different, if I weren’t a mother or a marchioness…”

“You won’t be a marchioness much longer,” he said, then swallowed hard. “We have ten days before the trial, and then we will know what happens next. But whatever it is, I won’t leave your side.”

But she couldn’t promise him the same. Giving her heart over to his keeping was a tremendous risk, but she trusted him, with her future and with her present, and she wouldn’t spend any more of her life regretting inaction. “Is this impossible?”

Archie smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I think,” he said against her lips, “it’s time to believe in the impossible.”