The Spinster's Secret (14 page)

One hand stroked down her back, coming to rest on the curve of her hip. “You have the body of Venus, with hips to cradle a man.”

He sighed and released her. “I should go.”

Don’t. Please. Stay with me
. Mattie bit back the words. She nodded, mute.

Edward climbed off the bed.

He handed Mattie her nightgown. “Get into bed before you freeze.”

Mattie pulled on the nightgown. Her skin shrank from the touch of the cold flannel. Edward put on his dressing gown and picked up his handkerchief from the floor. It was no longer neatly folded. His seed lay within it. He thrust the crumpled handkerchief into his pocket.

“Sleep well, Mattie.”

Don’t go. Stay with me
. She swallowed the words.

“You too.”

He grinned, a sudden flash of white teeth. “I shall. Believe me.” He bent, kissed her cheek, whispered “Good night,” against her skin, and was gone.

The bedchamber was echoingly empty without him. Mattie lay down on the counterpane and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. Her body felt different, stretched and replete in a way that it had never been before.

And bereft too. Alone.

She missed Edward. His warmth, his scent. She wanted to curl into the heat of his body and sleep with him.

Her throat tightened. Tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them back.
Don’t be a fool. Don’t imagine yourself in love with him
. What they’d done had nothing to do with love.

Mattie went over it all in her head again, making sure that she remembered everything—kissing Edward, watching him undress, touching his organ, the shocking, wild pleasure he’d given her with his hand. Most vivid of all was the sensation of Edward inside her, the tiny flare of panic and then her body’s instinctive acceptance of his invasion.

She sat up abruptly and checked the counterpane for blood. There was none. All she found was a tiny smear on her inner thigh. That smear and the slight ache where he’d breached her body were the only signs that her virginity was gone.

“So much for rivers of blood,” Mattie said aloud.

She climbed off the bed, wrapped a thick shawl around her shoulders, and sat down to write Chérie’s wedding night.

Chapter Eleven

The morning was well advanced when Edward finally woke. He stretched beneath the covers, feeling rested and invigorated. More than that, feeling
alive
. The funereal gloom of his bedchamber—the dark paneling, the dark bed curtains—failed to diminish his sense of well-being. He lay for several minutes, savoring the sense of contentment, before ringing for Tigh. For the first time since Waterloo the sight of his right hand, the stumps of his missing fingers, didn’t bring a jolt of disbelief or grief.

Edward whistled beneath his breath as he shaved. His scarred face in the mirror, the clumsiness of his butchered hands, failed to dampen his mood. It was as if he’d been wearing someone else’s skin—ill-fitting and uncomfortable—for the past five months. Today he fitted into himself again,
was
himself.

He stopped whistling when he caught Tigh’s puzzled, sideways glance. Could the bâtman tell that he’d had sex last night?

I am a man, not a eunuch
. Edward buried a grin in his towel, drying his face.

He kept his expression carefully bland as he dressed. It was hard not to whistle. He had to bite the tip of his tongue several times to stop himself.

“I’ll eat breakfast down in the village,” he told Tigh as the bâtman helped him into his riding coat. The dark blue superfine was snug across his shoulders.

Tigh grunted. “Lucky.”

Edward tucked an extra handkerchief in his pocket for gingerbread, pulled on his gloves, and headed for the stables, swinging his riding crop against his thigh. Contentment hummed beneath his breastbone. The guilt of Toby’s death was still there—as it always must be—but somehow, overnight, he’d found Edward Kane again. A little battered by Waterloo but still the man he’d once been. Recognizable. Familiar. Someone he could live with.

…

Mattie copied the precious first chapter in her best copperplate. It was past noon by the time she’d finished. She folded it inside a letter to Anne Brocklesby, sealed it with wax, and walked into Soddy Morton to post it. She lifted her face to the grey sky and felt relief bubble inside her.
Soon I’ll be free of Creed Hall
. She felt like spreading her arms wide and pirouetting in the middle of the boggy field.

“Another letter to Lunnon, Miss Chapple?” the innkeeper asked as she entered the taproom, her half-boots heavy with mud.

“Yes.”

Mattie’s buoyant mood faltered for a moment. What had happened last night between her and Edward was private and precious, something to be kept just between the two of them, not to be shared with thousands of readers.

She took a deep breath,
forgive me, Edward,
and handed the letter to Mr. Potts.

…

Edward visited the second person Miss Eccles had mentioned—a gentleman by the name of Scudley. Signs of Mr. Scudley’s new wealth were evident. The paint on the drawing room walls was so fresh Edward could almost smell it.

Scudley’s manner was welcoming, but Edward had been an officer long enough to see beneath the façade. The man was nervous and edgy.

“Pleasant room,” Edward said as he took the chair that Mr Scudley indicated. “Newly decorated? What color is the paint?”

“Er…Turkish red.” The man’s eyes were fixed on his face, wide and dilated, fearful.

There was only one thing that Scudley could be afraid of.
He’s Chérie
.

Edward was conscious of a pang of disappointment. He’d wanted Chérie to be someone more interesting than a plump little man dressed in a tight spotted waistcoat and yellow pantaloons and with perspiration shiny on his face.

Scudley cleared his throat. “How can I help you, Mr Kane?”

Edward pulled Chérie’s letter from his pocket. It was almost in shreds.

“I believe you wrote this.”

Mr Scudley glanced at it. His nervousness evaporated.

“That’s not my hand.” He jumped to his feet and scurried over to the writing desk. “See?”

Edward didn’t need to look at the document Scudley held out. The man’s posture, his eyes, his manner, told him all he needed to know. Whatever Scudley was afraid of, it wasn’t being unmasked as Chérie.

“I apologize for wasting your time.”

…

Edward rode back to Soddy Morton, whistling under his breath. The fact that Scudley wasn’t Chérie didn’t dampen his mood, nor did the raw wind and the heavy pewter-colored clouds that promised snow. Even the sight of the Hall, glimpsed across the valley, bleak and grey, failed to depress his spirits. His body was alive again,
he
was alive. The world was a different place from the one he’d been living in for the past five months. The colors were brighter, the air sweeter.

Memory swept over him—not blood and smoke this time, but the scent of sex, the heat, the delicious friction of being inside a woman. Edward inhaled deeply, feeling his ribcage expand, feeling the sense of well-being swell inside him. Underlying the well-being was a deep gratitude to Miss Chapple.
Mattie
, he reminded himself. Because of Mattie, he was happy in his own skin again.

Edward stopped at the bakery for gingerbread, examined the sky, and prudently returned to Creed Hall. The last person on Miss Eccles’s list could wait until after the coming storm.

In the stables, he swung down from Trojan’s back and handed him over to Hoby.

“Have you seen Miss Chapple?” he asked, aware of the gingerbread nestling in his pocket.

Hoby glanced up at the hayloft.

Edward nodded and strode toward the ladder, but as he climbed the whistle died on his tongue. How did one greet a respectable spinster whose virtue one had taken?

He climbed the rest of the rungs slowly.
Should I apologize? Thank her? Pretend that nothing happened?

She lay on the hay, watching the kittens play. Miss Chapple. Mattie. A Venus that he’d seen naked, had kissed, had coupled with.

Edward gripped the topmost rung as memory swept over him again. The muscles in his groin tightened.

She didn’t look like a Venus now. The voluptuous body was hidden beneath a shapeless sack of a gown, and the lush hair was pulled back into a tight knot at the back of her head.

What the devil am I going to say to her?

No inspiration came. Edward hesitated, aware of a craven urge to creep back down the ladder, to postpone this moment until he’d decided how to greet her.

Miss Chapple turned her head.

For a moment they stared at each other in silence, and then she said, “Edward,” and sat up.

The awkwardness in the way that she spoke the two syllables, the tension in the way that she sat, told him that she didn’t know what to say any more than he did.

Edward climbed the last few rungs and crawled up into the hay. “Miss Chapple. Mattie. Good afternoon. I, uh…”

I, what?

I can’t thank you enough for last night. You’ve given me back myself.
Edward rejected those words.

“I, uh…”

What?

What had last night been for Mattie? A moment to be treasured? A terrible mistake?

The silence became awkward.

Discomfort spurred Edward into speech. “I must apologize, Miss Chapple. Last night was…I should never have…it was very wrong of me . . .”

Mattie’s face tightened as if he’d slapped her.

Edward bit back the rest of the words crowding on the tip of his tongue. Dismay swept through him. He’d said the wrong thing.

“The fault was mine,” Mattie said in a stiff voice.

“No, no,” Edward said hastily. “That’s not what I meant! What I meant was…”

What? What did he mean?

He shifted his weight uncomfortably.
I should never have come up here
.

“I am very grateful for your kindness,” Mattie said in that same, stiff voice.

“Uh…” Edward said, and cast desperately about for an appropriate answer.

There didn’t appear to be one.
So tell her the truth.

“It wasn’t kindness. I wanted you.” He wanted her now, in the dusty, shadowy hayloft. He wanted to taste her mouth again, wanted to peel off her clothes and explore the ripeness of her body, wanted to bury himself in her.

“I, uh…as I told you last night, I haven’t been with a woman for a long time.”

And then he realized how that sounded, as if any woman would do. “You’re very beautiful.”

Mattie looked at him. She made a small, derisive puff of sound. The gloom didn’t hide the tightness of her mouth, the disbelief.

“It’s the truth.” Edward reached across and touched her cheek lightly. Her skin was as soft as he remembered. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

Mattie turned her head away. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. He thought she was trying not to cry.

Edward eased closer to her on the hay. “Mattie…”

He stroked her cheek again, and then dipped his head and kissed where his fingers had touched, inhaling her scent. “Believe me.”

“I know what I look like,” she said, pulling away from him. “I can see it in my mirror.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You told me that last night. Remember?”

And Mattie, naked, was one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen in his life. He captured her chin, turned her face to him, and kissed her softly.

“Thank you for last night,” he whispered against her mouth.

Her lips stayed closed for a moment and then trembled and opened to him. She was as sweet as he remembered, as intoxicating.

Edward gathered her closer. His awareness of his surroundings faded. The hayloft, the kittens, the horses in the stable below, all ceased to exist. His world narrowed to Mattie’s mouth, to the utter pleasure of kissing her.

A clatter in the stables below, a muffled curse, brought him to his senses. Edward lifted his head and dragged air into his lungs. He was drowning in heat, in lust. He was aware of the soft fullness of Mattie’s breasts pressed against his chest, aware of the throbbing, urgent heat in his groin. He wanted—quite desperately—to bed her again.

Edward pushed away from her.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, struggling to find his breath, aware of Hoby moving in the stables below them. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Mattie shook her head mutely. She looked as flushed and dazed as he felt.

“I…uh…” He’d been trying to make a point, hadn’t he? “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten what I was saying.”

“I haven’t.” Mattie reached out and touched the back of his hand lightly. “Thank you, Edward.”

He captured her fingers. “You’re welcome.”

He knew that he should go, but he daren’t while his breeches were stretched so tightly across his groin. He lay down at arm’s distance from her, holding her hand. After a moment, Mattie turned her hand in his and traced the stumps of his missing fingers, a light, stroking touch, as if she was trying to fix the shape in her memory.

“Does your hand hurt?”

“Only when I knock it.”

Mattie nodded. She didn’t withdraw her hand. Instead, she stretched out beside him on the hay. For long minutes they lay side by side, holding hands, listening to Hoby sweeping out the stalls.

Finally, Edward released her and sat up. “I’d better go.”

And then he remembered why he’d climbed up to the hayloft in the first place. “Here,” he said, fishing in his pocket for the slices of gingerbread. “I brought this back from the village.”

Mattie sat up. “Thank you.”

She unfolded the handkerchief. The gingerbread was almost black against the white linen. “Would you like some?”

What I’d like is to have sex with you
. Edward shook his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek, inhaling her scent for a brief second, and climbed down from the hayloft.

…

Mattie didn’t eat the gingerbread. She wrapped it again in the handkerchief, bade the kittens farewell, and went back to her bedchamber, where she opened the escritoire and laid out her writing materials. She could still feel the imprint of Edward’s mouth on hers, still taste him on her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring the memory of his kiss for a long moment, and then dipped the quill in ink and began to write.

I beg your attention, kind readers, while I share an episode from my past. The events that I shall relate occurred while I was the guest of Lord D. at his hunting box. One afternoon, while D. was riding with the hounds, in consequence of a housemaid telling me that there was a litter of kittens in the hayloft, I wandered down to the stables. Only one groom was there, a strong and burly young fellow, with his shirtsleeves rolled up to show sun-browned, brawny forearms.

He had a plain face, but there was such pleasing openness in his expression, such frank and innocent admiration in his eyes as he watched me approach, that I found myself smiling warmly at him as I requested that he show me where the kittens were.

The groom laid aside his broom and led me to the back of the stables, where a ladder led up to a hayloft. “Up there, ma’am.”

“Will they be afraid of me?” I asked.

“Belike, they will,” he said, and then after a hesitation he offered to accompany me up.

He must have known me for what I was, but he spoke to me with such respectful courtesy, as if I was a virtuous lady and not an Impure, that I found myself quite unafraid to be alone in his company and willingly accepted his offer.

The groom ascended the ladder, and I climbed after him and crawled into the hay. It was warm and shadowy beneath the roof of the stable block.

The groom called softly, and after a moment there came rustling in the hay, and two kittens emerged. They greeted the groom as a friend, purring, allowing him to pick them up and hand them to me.

I spent some minutes stroking the kittens, before allowing them to escape back into the hay.

“Thank you,” I said to the groom, and on impulse I kissed him upon his cheek.