Once Upon a Maiden Lane (Maiden Lane #12.5)(29)

“I’m not frightened for me,” she said rather tartly—the idea that anyone would care enough to kill her was simply ludicrous. “I’m worried about you. Lane is still abed from that shot to her arm. He missed yesterday. What if he’d hit you in the head?”

“Have you no enemies?” he asked, searching her face. “Perhaps someone who is envious of your good fortune at having been found to be Lady Cecilia?”

“No.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “I don’t know all that many people in the first place, and I assure you that I’ve never done anything to make an enemy. Shouldn’t you at least talk to your cousin?”

He sighed. “If I promise to talk to Richard, can we cease this discussion for the nonce?”

She firmed her lips, but really it was the best she could hope for. Why Henry had decided that she was the target was beyond her. She wasn’t the heir to an earldom. “Very well.”

“Good.” He opened the door to the orangery and stood aside, gesturing her inside ahead of him.

She walked into a humid wonderland. Green was all around: trees in pots bearing oranges and lemons, lush flowers blooming in rows, and glass walls letting in the sun.

“Oh, this is lovely,” she breathed.

“Let me show you,” he said, taking her hand and leading her farther into the foliage.

Bright-pink and -red and -orange flowers were all around. Mary didn’t recognize the blooms, but then she was used only to the flowers that grew in the Caire House gardens.

At the back of the orangery was a stone bench surrounded by orange trees in great pots. She and Henry sat on the bench, and Mary inhaled the scent of oranges, damp dirt, and mysterious flowers.

Then she turned to Henry. “It’s your turn, I think, for a question.”

His blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Very well. What do you dream about?”

She blinked, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said in a low voice, leaning closer so that his lips brushed against her cheek as he whispered, “what do you think about, late in the depths of night? What things do you long for but cannot put words to in the light of day? What are your deepest desires?”

She swallowed, very aware of his big body next to hers, of her breathing, beginning to quicken, of the heat between her legs. “How do you know that I dream of anything at all?”

His chuckle was dark as he turned her face toward his. “Because I know you now, Mary. You may have a staid exterior, all prim propriety, stiff posture, and starched linen, but beneath…” He opened his mouth against her neck and she gasped at the feel of his tongue on the spot just below her jaw. “Beneath, you’re a spirited thing, questioning and wondering. Let me help you explore.”

He ran his lips up to her mouth and took her forcefully, opening her beneath him.

Her head fell back helplessly under the assault. How did he know what she’d thought about in the dark midnight? For he was right:

She wondered and she wanted.

She wanted him.

“Henry,” she whispered, her voice unrecognizable to herself, just a husk of sound.

But he seemed to know what she wanted.

“Darling, let me,” he whispered.

She felt her skirts moving. He was drawing them up with one hand as he took her lips again.

When his hot hand ran up her calf, she shivered like a startled mare. She was wildly aware of his movement. Of his fingers drawing closer to her center.

“Shh,” he whispered against her lips. “Just let me…”

She parted her legs for him.

He traced a meandering pattern on her inner thigh, higher and higher, until at last his fingertips brushed against her tender, wet flesh.

She gasped, breaking their kiss. No one other than she had ever touched her there, and she didn’t know where to look, how to react.

He seemed to understand her distress.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, brushing openmouthed kisses against the corner of her mouth. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” she breathed, shuddering. “No, don’t stop, please.”

She thought she heard him chuckle, and then his fingers—those thick, knowing fingers—were parting her folds. Stroking against her. Stroking into her.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.

She whimpered and grasped his face with both her hands, kissing him urgently.

He took possession of the kiss. Of her. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, and she helplessly suckled as he circled her down there. Down below. There at that sensitive spot that no one was supposed to know about.

She’d heard what the boys at the home had called this. Nasty, dirty names. Names that made it sound shameful and wrong.

But this wasn’t wrong. She knew it in her soul. This profound, lovely pleasure he was giving her. Nothing this wonderful could possibly be wrong.

He lifted his lips from hers and looked into her eyes.

“That’s it,” he said, unsmiling. It was as if he were searching for something. “You’re so beautiful like this. So open and wanton, all your defenses down. I want to keep you like this forever, hanging on the edge of my hand, weeping over my fingers, desperate and undone. Mary, my Mary. Darling. Let go for me and only me. Let go for me now.”