Leave a Widow Wanting More by Charlie Lane
Chapter 14
Henry sequestered himself to a corner of the family sitting room. The others gathered around the fire while Sarah cajoled them with stories of working in the bookshop. It was at once a warm and disheartening scene. He’d observed many like it on his travels—scenes of familial bonding. And like those times, he was outside of it all, a stranger, an observer only.
Sarah and James should be the strangers, but Henry’s family treated them like old friends. Pansy leaned her head against Sarah’s knee. Nora and Ada sat entwined on a nearby chaise. Nora toyed with the bracelet he’d given her, but Ada’s book lay abandoned on a nearby table. And though he couldn’t see it, Henry knew Pansy’s tiny fist clutched the blue scarab beetle. She’d been delighted by the gift, as Nora had been with hers. Ada had simply flipped through the tiny book and said, “Thank you, Papa,” before casting it aside. The twins’ reaction to the colorful beads he’d brought them both was much more gratifying. Why couldn’t Ada whoop and holler as they had?
Pansy looked up at Sarah and said something Henry couldn’t hear. It made his new wife laugh and stroke her fingers through his daughter’s hair.
A feeling, hot and wicked, coursed through Henry. Jealousy?
When Pansy looked at him, stood near him, she expressed no such familiarity. Just distance, shyness. Even fear.
He thought his heart had died long ago, that he’d killed the longing for home and family, for the warmth of the familial hearth, the security of tiny arms wrapped around his neck. Nothing made a man feel stronger or more helpless than those tiny arms, than the scene of domestic bliss playing out before him.
No more. He stood. “Sarah.”
They all turned at once to observe the forgotten stranger in their midst.
Sarah stood and stepped toward him, reaching out a hand.
Tempting, that hand. Terrifying too.
Henry shook away its beckoning call. “I’m retiring for the evening.”
Nora rushed toward him. “So soon?”
“Yes. It’s been an exhausting day, and I’m an old man.”
Sarah snorted.
Ada laughed at the snort. At least, he hoped it was at the snort.
No matter. Let her laugh at what she would. “Good night.” Was that really his voice? So gruff? So shaky?
Nora grabbed his hand, staying his escape. “We’re going to play cards and teach Pansy and the twins, Papa. But we’re uneven. Play with us?” she begged him with amusing confidence, with the voice of a woman who often got her way and expected nothing less. Well, he’d become adept at disappointing his children.
“No thank you, love.”
Sarah strode toward him. “You’ll be even, Nora.” Her fingers found his, intertwined, locking him in place. “I’m retiring with my husband.”
Nora pouted. “Must you?”
Henry frowned. Perhaps Nora liked having her way a bit too much. Did anyone check her desires? He certainly didn’t on the rare occasions he visited home. Why would he? He wanted her to be pleased with him. Had he spoiled her? “Nora, if Sarah is ready to retire, you will respect her wishes.”
He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but Nora took a step back, blinked, rolled her lips between her teeth. “Ye-yes, Papa. Of course.” She crept back to Ada, who swatted her sister’s wrist.
“Let them be, Nora.” Ada’s voice held an eye roll, though her features remained steady. “It’s their wedding night.”
James groaned and Pansy and the twins looked from one adult to the next in the room.
Pansy found courage (or the right question) first. “Are you not supposed to play cards on your wedding night?” When no one answered, she said, “Well, then what do you do on a wedding night?”
“Yes,” the twins said together. “What?”
Ada groaned. Nora and James coughed. Sarah’s usually pale features burned rosy. Her fingers tightened around his.
Pansy’s confusion brought Henry to his knees. Literally and metaphorically. “Pansy, dear, on their wedding night, the bride and groom spend time getting to know one another better. I’ve only known your new stepmother a few days.” Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. It had been that short of an acquaintance! Was he a fool of the first order for shackling himself to a complete stranger?
Sarah knelt beside him. She stretched out a hand and smoothed Pansy’s curls. Jealousy stung Henry in the gut once more. All that easy contact and easier smiles, and they’d only known each other a few hours. But hadn’t that been how he’d felt with Sarah? Immediately easy, comfortable. It was no wonder Pansy felt the same.
Sarah spoke low, gentle. “We will play tomorrow. You and the boys can show me all your favorite places.” She snuck a glance at Henry. “Perhaps your Papa can take us on a picnic.”
“Yes! All of us!” Nora exclaimed.
“I like a good picnic,” James added.
“Us too!” the twins said.
Sarah stood, smiling at the children. “A picnic it is, then.”
Henry had not agreed to any such thing. “Here, now,” he began, “I—”
Pansy threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She smelled of jam and earth. “Thank you, Papa,” she breathed. The picnic was a damned genius idea.
He buried his face in her hair. “You’re welcome, my little flower.”
She pulled away all too quickly and hugged Sarah, too. “Good night, then.” It was a dismissal. His daughters were, it seemed, entirely too used to getting their ways.
But Sarah radiated heat beside him. He could consider that problem later. He stood, and after a flurry of hugs from their amassed children, they were alone in the hallway. Then alone on the stairs. Alone in his bedroom.
Sarah glowed in the firelight, all shy smiles and fidgeting fingers.
Henry eyed her gravely. The shadows, the firelight, the glow of her pale skin all conspired to fill him full of nervous energy he’d not felt since he was a green lad. Best to focus on tangible facts. “I’ve had another room readied for you in case you don’t wish to consummate tonight.”
A hint of a frown flickered between her brows. Then she grinned, wide and open. “I thought I was supposed to be a woman with passions and base desires. One of your points in favor of matrimony depends upon it.”
He untied his cravat. “It was a gamble, that argument.” A hope, really. “But I couldn’t be entirely sure.”
“What made you gamble?”
He perched on the edge of a chair and tugged one boot then the other off. It had been years since he’d been in his bare feet in front of a woman. He hoped she didn’t mind. “I’m not sure.”
She sat down and unclasped her own practical boots. Apparently, she didn’t mind at all. “Such hesitancy in a scholar of such renown?”
“It’s why I’m good at what I do. I don’t jump to conclusions based on assumptions. I base my conclusions on observable facts, no matter how long it takes to verify them. But sometimes I have hunches. They lead me places, so when I have them, I investigate. I had a hunch you might be passionate. I suppose it was a hopeful hypothesis.”
She laughed. “Based on what?”
“The look of you.”
“Ragged and gray? Pinched, exhausted, and old?”
“Your eyes are the same exact color of lapis lazuli.” She looked down at the ring on her finger. The very same stone winked up at her. “See,” he said, gesturing to the ring. “Your eyes should be cold and hard like the stone. But they’re not.” They were warm. Often determined. Sometimes laughing, like now. “And the way you handled Gulliver’s.”
Her face grew curious. She was going to ask what he meant, and telling her would make him hard.
“What do you mean?”
He swallowed, his path already chosen, his pants already tight. “You caressed it like a lover. I couldn’t help but imagine your hands on me like that, your fingertips trailing down my spine.”
She held his gaze for a long breath then walked around the room. Was she avoiding or thinking?
“I’ve never slept with a man other than my husband.”
Unexpected, both the fact and her admission of it. He cleared his throat. “I’ve not slept with a woman since my wife.”
Her gaze pinned him. She scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“But surely a man like you has slept with many women. Exotic women. It’s been, what, half a decade, and you’ve been all over the world in that time.”
The room grew hotter than before, and he shrugged out of his coat. “Lovemaking is a serious business. You must be careful with it. Besides, in my travels, I’m an observer. I try not to interact, especially not in intimate ways. It would spoil the observations.”
Sarah nodded and turned her attention to a row of books. She seemed to gravitate to whatever books were in the room. When he came home, he’d have to carry books about his person to get her attention.
He crept closer. “Why have there been no other men for you?” He couldn’t help asking. He had to know.
She spoke without turning around. “James and I were good friends. I was happy to marry him, to have his son. There was no grand passion, though. There was one man, after James’s death. His friend. He came to visit, to check on us and see if we needed anything. He was very handsome, sympathetic to a young widow. I thought I was in love with him. I considered … but in the end, I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “Guilt, I suppose. James had not been dead more than a year, and I felt more strongly for that man than I’d ever felt for my husband.” A catch in her voice propelled Henry into action. He reached her in three strides and laid his hand on the bare nape of her neck. He was rather obsessed with that slender column. She turned to him, and he lifted his other hand to her cheek. She was lovely. Terribly so. He wanted to kiss her more than he’d ever felt compelled to kiss a woman before. Even Emmeline.
He’d loved his first wife; so much so that losing her had torn his heart from his chest and poured the cavity full of fear. But she’d been a fairy tale, more vision than reality. Sarah was solid, real, earthy, strong. Emmeline had been his opposite, but Sarah was his match.
Exhibit A: The truth of his hopeful hypothesis. She was a passionate woman. Perfect. He was a passionate man. But did she feel such passion for him? Past experiments suggested a positive answer. But he had to know without question she desired him before making their marriage true.
“Do you feel guilt over me, Sarah?”
She leaned her cheek further into his palm. “No,” she sighed.
The single syllable cooled his ardor. He dropped his hand, took a step back, but she pulled him forward again, just as quickly, her fingers tangling with his.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her sharp eyes searching.
“I won’t lie with you if you don’t desire it.” If you don’t desire me.
“But I do!” She looked well and truly shocked. “What did I say to indicate otherwise?”
Hm. He’d missed something. How to continue? His cock told him it didn’t matter how he continued as long as it was now. It had sprung to life at her emphatic exclamation of desire. Down boy. “But you feel no guilt over this desire? Why? Is it because, as with your first husband, you feel nothing but friendship for me?” Not the way he wanted to end his half-decade of celibacy—a lukewarm coupling provoked by friendship.
She shivered. “No. Not at all. I feel no guilt because I’m older now. Wiser, I hope. James gave me a son, a short reprieve from poverty. He served a good purpose in my life. But I’ve changed much since his death. I no longer feel guilt is necessary.”
Henry needed more clarity. “How, then, do you feel about me? Be direct.”
Her eyes heated. One hand slipped away from his and slid up his arm, over his shoulder, and around his neck to tangle in his hair. She used the new position to pull herself upward until their breaths mingled. “I feel,” she said, her voice husky, “that I want to undress you. Though I don’t know how to do so. Fast? Or slow?”
Henry had the answer, and he didn’t have to rely on scholarly deductions to arrive at it.
“Fast.”
She grinned, leaned in, and kissed him with lips soft as satin, breath fragrant with wine. She pressed her stomach against his groin as her hands drifted to his cravat, tangling, pulling, tossing the unnecessary cloth to the floor.
He’d return the favor. The buttons of her gown ran down her front. He released her to make short work of them.
“No,” she groaned, surging to close the space he’d put between them.
“Ah, ah, ah, Sarah-mine. Patience.”
“But you said fast.”
“And fast has its merits, but perhaps what I meant was right. Now stay put. Why are there so many damnable buttons on this dress?”
Sarah wiggled beneath his hands then looked up at him, determined. “Rip them.”
Henry’s hands stilled. “What?”
“I said, rip them. The buttons. I need new clothes anyway.”
“Will you have anything to wear tomorrow?”
She shrugged the worry aside. “I’ll borrow something from Ada.” Her eyes lit with merriment, challenge. “Or can you not rip them? I know a scholar’s fingers should be strong from all that writing, but otherwise, scholars aren’t known for their physical strength.” She eyed his shoulders from end to end. “I had thought you possessed a hardier constitution, but—”
She played at being a minx, then?
Fine. He could play, too. He silenced her with a kiss then pulled away, searching her face to see if she cared. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. Right. She didn’t care. His hands crept to her bodice. His fingers toyed with the button at the top. He flicked it open. Then the second one, revealing a creamy swell of skin that sent his heart pounding into his rib cage.
She growled. “That’s not ripping.”
He smiled. “Astute observation. Now, tell me, is this ripping?” He pulled with all his might. And damned if the thread holding the buttons on her gown didn’t give way like the cheapest paper.
Sarah shrieked as buttons sprayed in every direction, bouncing off walls, chairs, and Henry’s eye.
It stung! He rubbed his eye with both hands. “Bloody hell!”
She giggled, covering her mouth when he shot her a one-eyed frown. But her laughs escaped anyway. “You’re. A. Pirate.” She wheezed the words between guffaws.
Henry blinked his eye open. The damned eye was leaking.
“Are you crying?” Sarah asked through wheezing laughter.
No reason to dignify that with an answer. He blinked several times. The eye appeared to (1) still be there, and (2) still function properly. Good. But … “Not quite the reaction I expected,” Henry grumbled.
Sarah straightened, catching her breath. “Not what I expected, either.”
“You did ask for it.”
“Yes. But who knew the buttons would attack you? Poor buttons. They were shocked to be treated so.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and melted into him. “Poor Henry’s eye.” She hid her face in his neck, her body heaving.
“Are you laughing again?”
“No,” she wheezed. “All those buttons. Popping. And bouncing about. And one landing straight in your eye!”
He held a laughing hyena in his arms. “Are you going to be all right?”
She waved away his worries, and he held her while her amusement rocked them both. He had started chuckling too when her shoulder rammed into his gut.
“What?” He staggered backward and fell, landing and bouncing on the bed behind him, Sarah stretched out on top of him. He pushed tumbling curls from her face and cupped her cheek. “Is bed sport with you going to be an actual sport?”
He’d ever seen anything, inside or outside of England, as bright as her smile. She rubbed against him. “Perhaps. Have you gotten more than you bargained for?”
“More than I deserve,” he whispered. He’d discovered many truths in his lifetime, but that was the truest of them all. He’d lucked into meeting Mrs. Sarah Pennington. He’d bumbled into making her Lady Eaden. But tonight, he’d do everything exactly right. Tonight, he’d give her exactly what she deserved, and she deserved the world.