Wedded in Sin (36 page)

He pulled nearly out, froze a moment at the very edge, and then thrust back in. She thought he meant to go slow. She could read it in the hesitant jerk to his motion. But he was losing control. His arms were trembling, his breath was short and uneven. He pushed inside, and she released a soft sound of delight.

It felt good.
He
felt good.

“Yes,” she whispered again, speaking more to herself than to him. Yes, this was what she’d wanted before but was missing. Yes, this felt right. Him inside her. Him trembling as she tightened. Him withdrawing again, only to have her wrap her legs around him. Him gasping her name as he thrust into her again.

“Penny.”

“Yes.”

Then there were no more words. He thrust into her; she pushed up against him. His breath shortened; her body tightened.

His tempo increased.

She arched.

The coils tightened.

Pleasure!

Thrust.

“Yes!” he cried.

Together. They shared the light this time, and it was…

Wonder!

“Mmmmm.” Her voice was a low rumble against his
chest, and Samuel smiled. He’d managed to shift positions, pulling her on top, then adding a blanket to keep them warm. But beyond that, he’d been too blissfully happy to do anything else.

She was his. She’d said it.
Yes
. He’d said mine, and she’d said yes. Or perhaps it had been different words—he couldn’t exactly remember—but it didn’t matter. In his heart and his mind, she was his. She loved him. And he…

And he…

Hell.
He loved her, but he couldn’t support her. Worse, with his current debts, he would be a burden to her and Tommy.

“You’re thinking,” she murmured, her voice drowsy and absolutely adorable.

“I am not,” he lied.

“You are. Your heart is speeding up and your breathing is tight.” She lightly punched his shoulder. “Stop.”

“Anything you command,” he answered, though it would be impossible for him to comply. He had to find a solution. He had to find a way that he could be worthy of her. He had to—

Her sigh cut off his thoughts. And when she started to roll off him, the mental silence shifted to alarm. “Penny!”

“No, Samuel, let me hear what it is that bothers you so.” She paused and bit her lip, her gaze dropping to the bed and their naked bodies. “Are you ashamed of me now? Have I fallen from queen to—”

“Don’t even say it!” The snap in his voice startled them both. Then he touched her chin, drawing her eyes up to his. “I still worship the very ground you walk on. And if this hadn’t been your first time, I swear to you now, you would have no respite from me.” His gaze dropped meaningfully to her breasts and lower. Lord, he was already stiffening up again and he could tell by her hitched breath that she could see it, too.

“Then what, Samuel? What is it that makes you think so very hard?”

He laughed, though the sound was tight. Did she not understand the least thing about him? “I think all the time. It is a miracle that you silence my brain as much as you do.”

She nodded, as if she already knew that. “So what are you thinking about now?” She grabbed the pillow and braced it behind her back, then pulled the blanket up to cover her luscious breasts.

He flopped onto his belly to hide his erection, then—because she had taken his only pillow—tucked his other blanket beneath his chest so he could easily see her. She waited patiently while he moved, but he could see she would have her answer. Sadly, the problem was not so easily discussed. Or perhaps it was because, a moment later, words began tumbling forth.

“I have failed. I have failed you, my brother, and my friend. I think of myself as a smart man, but in everything that matters, I have failed utterly.”

She blinked, and he could tell she was startled. He waited while she formed her thoughts, but in that time, more words tumbled forth.

“My mother is the one who told me—repeatedly—that I must use my intelligence for good purposes. Then she told me exactly what that purpose should be: seeing to the safety and stability of my brother, Gregory.”

“She told you to look after your older brother?”

He nodded. “Greg is the most amiable and good-hearted of men. Excellent as a baron, generous with his tenants, and a rather perfect father as fathers go. But he is not smart. Without me beside him, he got rooked left and right. Without me, he probably would have purchased magic beans.”

“Good Lord, he cannot be that daft.”

“He is, I assure you. Now to his credit, he would tell you that he knew there were no such things as magic beans, but that the poor fellow selling them was so delightful that he hadn’t the heart to say no.”

Penny rolled her eyes. Obviously, she knew people just as foolish. “So you looked after your brother.”

“I did,” he said with some pride. “And then a terrible thing happened.”

She tilted her head, waiting for the rest. He released a dramatic groan.

“He met Georgette, a woman as managing as it is possible to be. It was a match made in heaven and Greg fell deeply in love. I was released from my duties because she had taken over the task, leaving me suddenly free to pursue my own goals.”

“That must have been very painful,” she said, her eyes filled with sympathy.

“Painful?” he mocked. “I was free! How could you—”

She touched his arm, silencing his protest. “From the earliest moments of my life, I was raised to be a shoemaker, and yet the more work I did, the more it was denied me because I am a girl. I know the pain and fury of that.”

“I am nothing like—”

“But you are,” she pressed. “From the earliest moment, you were raised to take care of your brother. And then suddenly, you were free.” She shook her head. “That would be like someone taking Tommy away from me. I would be free, but it would tear my heart out.”

He blinked, processing her words, slowly understanding what he had never voiced aloud. No one else could understand why he didn’t dance at his brother’s wedding. Why he tried to be happy but could not. No one else saw what this woman did.

She stroked her thumb across the back of his hand, and he quickly flipped it over so they could entwine their fingers.

“What did you do after Gregory married?”

He snorted. “I did what all good second sons do: I went into the military.”

He felt her body tense, though she didn’t say a word. But their legs were touching. Indeed, the steady heat of her soft length was a sweet distraction. And the more he focused on that, the easier it was to talk about his past.

“I thought I would bring my intelligence to bear to aid England against her enemies. But I hadn’t counted on the one indisputable fact of the army.” He flashed her a rueful smile. “The military, as a rule, has no interest in logic or reason from the lower ranks. Superiors ask for obedience, and as we had no money to buy me a higher commission, I left as soon as it was possible.”

“But that’s not failure,” she said. “That’s making a different choice.”

He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “I saw battle, Penny. I saw men under my command die for no good reason. I saw illogic everywhere I turned, and I saw men—many of them just boys—perish in the most horrible ways. I couldn’t stomach it, Penny. So I left.”

She had no answer to that. He could see it in her eyes. The same helpless futility that dogged him in the mirror. The stupidity of the military was not something either of them could change.

“Then what?” she asked.

“Then nothing. I came back to London. I nattered about and I am still nattering about.”

“You invested in those factories.”

He nodded. “And they are now ashes. As are my brother’s fortune and Bingley’s.”

“And yours. That was to be the making of you, wasn’t it?”

He sighed. She understood. And as soon as it was daylight, he would have to deliver that awful news to his brother and Georgette. And Max. What would he say to Max?

He heard her sigh, and then she shifted on the bed. She pulled the pillow down to his head. He rolled to his side and settled her on his shoulder. He tucked her under his chin and tried to burn every sensation into his memory. This was a moment he never wanted to forget.

“With a fortune, I could marry you. Without it, I have failed you, too.”

She didn’t deny it. He knew she wouldn’t risk marriage to a man in debtor’s prison. Instead, he felt her leg slide against his and her lips press tender kisses to his throat.

“There is an answer,” she whispered. “To all of it. Addicock and my shop, the factories and your fortune. All of it has an answer, Samuel.”

He didn’t say anything. She was wrong, but he would not take away her hope. He had no solution to proving Addicock a fraud. Not an immediate one. Certainly not one that would come to fruition before he was tossed in jail.

Then she lifted her head to look directly into his eyes. “You’ll find your place, Samuel. It’s not as your brother’s keeper. It’s not in the military. It’s somewhere else. You’ll find it, Samuel, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.”

He looked at her, her words flowing into him like a slow and steady pressure. Water, pushed between the cracks of his heart and mind, tiny drops at first but more and more with every second that passed. As he lay there against her, he felt all the weight of his failure lift up and wash away. The great load of his mistakes—one after another—just floated away. Because she would wait for him.

“I cannot ask that of you,” he whispered. “I have no idea how long this will take. How many years before I am clear of debt and can come to you as a man, not a—”

She cut off his words with a kiss. It was swift and fierce, just like her. Then she pulled back and looked into his eyes. “You didn’t ask, and what I said—it’s not a promise. It simply is, Samuel. I love you. I will wait because my heart will not choose any different.”

“I won’t fail you,” he swore. “I’ll find an answer.”

“I know,” she said. Then she smiled before she echoed back the words he had said to her so often. “No matter what happens, Tommy and I will be just fine.”

But it mattered to him. It mattered a great deal. He didn’t say the words. He had made the vow enough times that he didn’t need to repeat himself. Especially as she stroked her fingers across his forehead, smoothing the furrows he knew were there.

“I want you to love me again, Samuel. Right now. Please.”

“It’s too soon—”

She didn’t let him stop. She took charge, kissing him deeply, sweetly, and with enough demand that he was all too happy to comply. He took what time she allowed, stroking her body, kissing her skin, sucking her nipples to tight, hard points. This time, she helped him with the French letter. This time, he took her to her peak twice before he finally thrust inside. And when they both shuddered with their release, he knew that he would do anything, say anything, become anything if it meant he could have her forever.

“Wait for me,” he said just before he slept. “I’ll fix everything.”

“Tommy and I are fine,” she murmured into his shoulder. “Fix yourself. Then come find me.”

Chapter 22

Penny went with him the next morning to talk to his
brother. He didn’t want her there, but in this she knew he needed her. Not to say anything. He had words on top of words. No, she would be there to look Georgette in the eye and let the woman know that she would not be laying the blame for this on Samuel’s doorstep.

That was the trouble with smart men. They thought they had all the answers, and then when life knocked them aside, they thought it was all their fault. Couldn’t be that life didn’t always work out. That sometimes evil won. Samuel saw that as his own personal failure, and there was nothing she could say to change that.

But she could sit there in the library as he explained things to his brother and Georgette. She sat with folded hands and a serene expression. And whenever Georgette opened her mouth, Penny glared the woman into silence.

It worked. Never before would Penny have thought that she could silence a nob. Certainly not a baron’s wife who was as managing a woman as could ever be. But Samuel had given her a new strength. The way he looked at her, the way he
listened
to her, gave her a confidence that had slipped in to replace the fury that had been so much a part of her life. Thanks to Samuel, she was no longer angry. She was strong, so in thanks—and in love—she would use that strength to defend him.

Until the moment he abandoned her. Which was at nine o’clock that morning.

He’d finished giving the news to his brother and Georgette. He’d spoken quietly and calmly to Max. And then, finally, he’d turned to her. She’d smiled at him, expecting that he would drive her back to the shop, that he would tell her that last night meant as much to him as it did to her, that he needed to see her again tonight. Any of those things.

Instead he took her hands and pressed a long kiss to the back of her knuckles. “I have to leave now. As soon as the word gets out, I will have creditors dunning me. My brother and I are going to see the factories. If nothing else, I will know if it was a crime or simply bad luck.”