Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(185)

“I liked you,” she blurted. “When we…met at the princess’s garden party.”

“Indeed.” A faint flush rose in his cheeks and the stiffness returned to his person.

“Yes.” She met his eyes straight on. “I could tell that Mr. Twelvetrees didn’t like you.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he said. “So you say he asked you to steal my letters—why did he think you would be the person to employ for such a venture? Do you steal things professionally?”

“Well, not often,” she said, striving for composure. “It’s more that we—I—discover information that may be of value. Just…inquiries here and there, you know. Gossip at parties, that sort of thing.”

“We?” he repeated, both brows rising now. “Who are your confederates, may I ask?”

“Just my father and me,” she said hastily, lest he recall the chimney sweeps. “It’s…the family business, you might say.”

“The family business,” he repeated, with a faintly incredulous air. “Well…putting that aside, if you refused Edward Twelvetrees’s commission, how did you come to be in possession of my letters, anyway?”

She commended her soul to a God she didn’t quite believe in and threw her fate to the wind.

“Someone else must have stolen them for him,” she said, with as much sincerity as possible. “But I had occasion to…be in his house, and I found them. I…recognized your name. I didn’t read them,” she added hastily. “Not once I saw that they were personal.”

He’d gone white again. No doubt envisioning Edward Twelvetrees poring greedily over his most intimate wounds.

“But I—I knew what they must be, because of what Mr. Twelvetrees had told me. So I…took them back.”

She was breathing a little more easily now. It was much easier to lie than to tell him the truth.

“You took them back,” he said, and blinked, then looked hard at her. “And then you thought you’d come put them back in my house? Why?”

“I thought you…might want them,” she said in a small voice, and felt her own cheeks flush. Oh, God, he’ll know I read them!

“How very kind of you,” he said dryly. “Why didn’t you just send them to me anonymously, if your only intent was to return them?”

She took a small, unhappy breath and told him the truth, though she knew he wouldn’t believe it.

“I didn’t want you to be hurt. And you would be if you thought someone had read them.”

“You what?” he said, incredulous.

“Shall I prove it?” she whispered, and her hand floated up without her actually willing it, to touch his face. “Your Grace?”

“What?” he said blankly. “Prove it?”

She couldn’t think of anything at all to say so merely rose on her toes, hands on his shoulders, and kissed him. Softly. But she didn’t stop, and her body moved toward his—and his toward hers—with the slow certainty of plants turning toward sun.

Moments later, she was kneeling on the hearth rug, fumbling madly under folds of eau-de-nil for the tapes of her petticoats, and Hal’s—she was frightened and exhilarated to realize that she was thinking of him as Hal—uniform coat had struck the floor with a muffled crash of buttons, epaulets, and gold lace, and he was ripping at his waistcoat buttons, muttering to himself in Latin.

“What?” she said, catching the word “insane.” “Who’s insane?”

“Plainly you are,” he said, stopping for a moment to stare at her. “Do you want to change your mind? Because you have roughly ten seconds to do so.”

“It will take longer than that to get at my blasted bum roll!”

Muttering “Irrumabo” under his breath, he dropped to his knees, rummaged her petticoats, and seized the tie of her bum roll. Rather than untie it, he jerked it, broke the tie, slid the bum roll out of her clothes like a huge sausage, and flung it onto one of the wing chairs. Then he threw off his waistcoat and pushed her onto her back.

“What does irrumabo mean?” she said to the hanging crystals of the chandelier overhead.

“Me, too,” he said, breathless. His hands were under her skirt, very cold on her bottom.

“You, too, what?” The middle part of him was between her thighs, very warm, even through the moleskin breeches.

“I’m insane,” he said, as though this should be evident—and maybe it was, she thought.

“Oh,” he added, looking up from the flies of his breeches, “irrumabo means ‘fuck.’?”

Three seconds later he was alarmingly hot and terrifyingly immediate and—

“Jesus Christ!” he said, and froze, looking down at her, his eyes huge with shock.

It hurt shockingly and she froze as well, taking shallow breaths. She felt his weight shift, knew he was about to leave her, and gripped his bottom to stop him. It was tight and solid and warm, an anchor against pain and terror.

“I said I’d prove it,” she whispered, and pulled him in with all her strength, arching her back. She let out a stifled shriek as he came the rest of the way, and he grabbed her and held her, keeping her from moving.

They lay face-to-face, staring at each other and gulping air like a pair of stranded fish. His heart was hammering so hard that she could feel it under the hand she had on his back.