Page 13 of The Rake’s Absolutely Devilish Reform (The Notorious Briarwoods #4)

H ector had now attended more balls, teas, and curricle races than he had in the entirety of his existence.

Even when his two sisters were in their seasons, he had not attended so many, largely because his mother and his older brother Leander had done it. But when one was courting or in pursuit of a young lady, and did not wish to be left behind, one had to keep apace. And keep apace he did.

The whole thing was rather absurd to him. From the consumption of ices and tea to the banter of ladies rabbiting on about various modes of dress and the weather, he felt himself a bit overblown.

What was all this idle chatter and silliness? Didn’t people have things to do and lives to live? And then there was the fact that he barely got to spend any time with the lady of his affection. Priscilla was always dancing with other people. She was always chatting with other people.

But when no one else was looking, her perfect mask would slip, and she would look for a place to hide for a few moments.

He’d seen her do it more than once.

And this night was no different.

She headed out into the hall without looking back. He watched her slip away and find a quiet spot. He carefully followed. He didn’t wish to create a scandal, but he also wished to make certain she was alright.

He frowned as he watched her dart behind a door.

Without thinking, he glanced right to left and then followed her inside…

A closet.

A large closet.

But a closet all the same.

She whipped around, her eyes wide. “Whatever are you doing?” she gasped.

He tried to take a step back but jabbed his back with the door handle. He winced. “I wanted to make certain you were well.”

She folded her arms underneath her bosom, a gesture he only just made out for the room was quite dim.

“Are you certain? Or do you wish to win so much that you’re taking a quicker route?”

He tsked and rubbed the angry spot just above his hip “Please stop suggesting that I wish to force you into marriage. And I’ve wounded myself. The things I do for love.”

“Well, when you do things like this…” Her lips twitched. “Did the door attack you then? You do seem to have trouble with stones and doors.”

“It’s you. I can’t keep my senses in order. All I think about is you.”

She groaned. “Oh, Hector. When you say such things—”

“When I say such things,” he said, “it’s because I admire you, and I want to be alone with you. Don’t you want to be alone with me?”

She swallowed. “Yes, I do,” she confessed. “As a matter of fact, you keep tormenting my thoughts.”

“Just like you are tormenting mine,” he whispered.

“Am I?” she gasped.

“Oh, yes. The things you do in my thoughts and dreams… Oh, my dear Priscilla, you are a scandal, a queen, a goddess divine.”

“You, sir, are impossible…in the best ways,” she relented.

“I’m glad you can acknowledge my greatness,” he drawled playfully. “But I must ask, do you do this often? It seems so.”

“Rendezvous within closets?” she asked.

“Exactly, yes.”

“I often come to places like this to be alone.” She laughed softly. “Funnily enough, that’s how I became friends with Mercy. Both of us were hiding from the lot out there.”

“You don’t like them?” he asked.

“I don’t like them,” she affirmed. “Mercy and I call them the geese.”

“The geese?” he echoed.

“Yes, they’re a gaggle. Always giggling, always commenting, always standing in circles, judging, and I don’t fit in, you see. The gentlemen… Well, they like me just fine because of my money and because of my father’s financial power with the banks and all of that. But the young ladies… They will smile at me, but they don’t like me. I’m not one of them, and it can be quite lonely. And Mercy, well, she hasn’t been coming out as much to these.”

“I understand,” he said softly.

“Do you truly understand?” she queried, a surprisingly plaintive note to her voice.

“I suppose I can’t.” He’d always been popular, but he’d never tried nor wanted to fit in. “Not entirely. I’m sorry it’s been unpleasant.”

And oh how he wished he could take that all away for her and have her see how marvelous she was. She did not need the approval of geese. What need does a hawk have for approval from geese? For she was sleek, and smart, and swift.

She simply needed to learn how to unleash the rest.

“It’s all right,” she said, resigned. “Though I promised Trenty I wouldn’t disappear, I always need a few moments alone so I can make it through the night. I have to dance almost every dance, you see, and I have to suffer their withering looks. And the general feeling that I am tolerated, but only just.”

“I’m sorry, Priscilla. If I had my way, no one would be unkind to you.”

“Unkindness is a part of life,” she replied wisely. “It is what one does with it that matters,” she said. “One can be bowed down or overblown, but I am neither of those things. I simply prefer my own company, and so that’s what I choose.”

“But you don’t mind me, do you? Quite the opposite, no?”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “Hector,” she breathed, “you should turn around and go.”

“I want to kiss you so badly,” he said.

She bit her lip. “You are proving yourself to be exactly what you are.”

“And what is that?” he asked, his body heating with her nearness, with the fact they were in such a small place in the dark with no one to bother them.

“A rake,” she stated.

“No,” he returned. “A rake would be all about a moment’s pleasure between a lady and a man and be done. And that is not at all what I am doing.”

“Then what is it exactly that you are doing?” she challenged.

He lifted his hand to the pale oval of her face and skimmed his fingers along her chin. “I am tempting you to spend the rest of your life with me. One kiss at a time.”

Even in the dim light, he could see her smile and her pleasure.

A soft laugh tumbled from her lips, and he felt a sheer jolt of delight as if he had been struck by one of Cupid’s arrows. She was smiling at him. At him. She had approved of his jest.

“That’s just how I should like to make you feel and look for the rest of our lives, Priscilla”

“How can you say such a thing?” she groaned.

“Because I trust my instinct, and because I’m a Briarwood,” he said.

“Oh, to have the confidence of a Briarwood that it will all work out in the end.”

“Do your parents not love each other?” he asked softly.

“My parents?” she blurted, quite surprised. “You wish to know about my parents.”

“Of course I do. If they make you unhappy, if they make you happy, it matters a great deal. After all, our parents often form who we are.”

She swallowed. “My parents love each other dearly and deeply. My father works all of the time. I barely see him now. My mother… She is melancholy and overwhelmed, you see, by all of this.” She gestured toward the opulence outside the door.

“I see,” he said gently. “They are not happy.”

“I can make them happy,” she said firmly.

“Can you?” he asked carefully.

She nodded. “Of course, I can, by securing their future. It’s all they fought for, you know, since I was small. Our security and our future.”

He swallowed the words that nothing was secure because it would be an inappropriate thing for a man like him to say to someone who had been born without his chances. “When you were small, it wasn’t secure?”

“No,” she said honestly. “It was not. Not at all.”

“And you think that Lord Fitzhubert will make you secure?”

“His family has been around for a thousand years. How can it not?”

He nodded. “I see your point of view, of course.”

“But?” she prompted.

“Security is in more things than just castles and houses and old names.”

“Is it?” she queried.

“Yes. Security is in thought and well-being and in feeling joyful every day.”

She cocked her head to the side. “You talk utter madness, sir.”

“No,” he countered, taking her hands in his and twining their fingers. “Anything else is madness, Priscilla.”

And with that, he pulled her close, wrapping his arms about her. How he wished he could take all her suffering away, all that she had fought against, all that she’d had to climb and overcome. But if he did that, she would not be herself. She would not be the woman that he so admired, the woman that he, with each time he encountered her, was coming to love.

Yes, to love. It was the way of his family. He couldn’t deny it, and he had no wish to. But he needed her to give in too, and so he was going to do exactly as he said. He was going to tempt her, lure her, bring her over to his side with any means necessary, except duplicity or manipulation. So he raised one hand and slowly traced his thumb along her lower lip.

He could not resist this moment. It was as if the fates had perfectly conspired for them to be alone. For him to show her what life with him would be like. Nor could he deny how much he burned for her. With every moment, it only increased.

And here in the dim closet, hidden away from prying eyes, he took his chance. With the touch of his thumb upon her lower lip, she softened, arching towards him. It was the only invitation he needed.

Hector leaned down and stole her lips with his. His passion for her was unprecedented. It molded him, making him anew.

As if she longed to give in despite duty, despite rules, she opened her mouth, and their kiss built with heat and fervor.

He could bear it no more. He tilted her head back and kissed down the line of her throat. She clung to him as he teased the delicate skin. As he kissed the top of her breasts, he slid the folds of her skirts upward, his hand tracing the line of her thigh.

Her breath came in rapid takes as he caressed upward, stroking his hand under her chemise and between her bare thighs.

“Hector?” she gasped.

“Do you trust me?” he growled softly as he straightened and gazed down into her hooded eyes.

For one moment, he feared she would say no, but then she nodded.

“Against all reason, I do,” she whispered.

His heart, his bloody heart? It leapt, so full at that moment with his feelings for her. For the world suddenly seemed an impossibly beautiful place, and he wanted her to feel the same.

As he studied her face, a face which captured his soul, he slid his fingers gently into her wet folds.

Her eyes widened with shock as he began to circle over her most sensitive spot.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders as her lips parted. That sight? It nearly undid him, and he took her mouth again in a kiss that felt as powerful as a storm sweeping in off the sea. He circled and teased his fingers over her sex. A feral part of him was determined to take her to bliss. Determined to show her that he was the one. The only one for her.

And then he teased one of his fingers over her opening, gently thrust in, and pressed against her swollen bud.

She let out a cry against his mouth as ripple after ripple of pleasure traveled through her.

As he let her skirts trail down her legs and broke their kiss, he knew he had to make her see.

“I wish you hadn’t suffered, my darling, but I cannot be sorry for who you are. For who you are is magnificent.”

Priscilla gasped, still reeling from her pleasure. “You are impossible again, Hector! You say the most wonderful things.”

“And that is difficult?” he asked, his heart and soul aching for her.

“Yes, because you make my heart…”

“What?” he asked gently.

“Long for more,” she confessed. “And that is such a dangerous thing, for one should be happy with what one has.”

“It is all right to want more, Priscilla, if it drives you to a better life. Isn’t that what your father did?”

There was something on the tip of her tongue, but she did not say it.

“Tell me. Tell me,” he said.

“You’re right. It did not make them happy,” she rushed, her voice shaking with emotion. “And I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” he murmured, holding her close. Holding her so that she knew she would never be alone.

“What if I fail them?” she rasped. “What if I cannot make them happy?”

“What if you cannot make them happy no matter what you do?” he dared.

Priscilla tensed against him and then pulled back. Her eyes were wide, and horror had washed over her face.

He’d said exactly the wrong thing, even if it was the truth.

And he knew then that all she’d ever wanted was to make her family happy, proud, and safe.

And he’d never be able to change that.

“Of course, I can,” she declared. “And I will not let you take that from me.”

Priscilla darted around him and rushed out into the hall, leaving him to his thoughts and to the understanding that not all prisons were made of bars.

Some were made of thoughts and beliefs, and he feared she might never be free from hers.

And his heart? It splintered then. And he sucked in a ragged breath.

This was bloody devilish. He was a rake who wished to be reformed. Hell, he’d reformed himself. But the woman he loved might never be free of her own sense of duty to see who he truly was.

Hector cursed himself for a fool, for being too truthful, for saying what was in his heart. But that was who he was, who he had always been, and who he would always be.