Tugging her closer to the dressing table, he pulled her in front of him. “Turn and look. Look how extraordinary you are.”
She looked. And saw a woman wearing a gown of dark, brilliant pink. The color should clash with her hair. It didn’t. It shimmered in the lamplight. Her hand brushed the flowers on the skirt. Embroidered silk. She’d never possessed anything so fine, even when her father had been alive.
“Do you see?” he demanded, his voice a rasp.
Her eyes lifted to meet his in the mirror. There, in the black, the intensity nearly drove her to her knees. “Sebastian.”
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Understand? No lady could match ye. By God, you are a thousand times their worth, Gus. A thousand times.”
She longed to kiss him. Hold him. Feel him against her. “I want to touch you,” she said.
His nostrils flared on a rough breath. “Then do it.”
Slowly, gently, she laid her hands upon his chest. Hard muscle and smooth skin and straight, springy hair. Her fingers pressed. Tested. Her palms smoothed. Stroked.
Hard, flat nipples fascinated her. Bellows breathing excited her. Drumming heartbeats invited her.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and found her way home again.
He cupped her head against him. “Never be ashamed of your hands, love. They are strong. Capable. Like your mother’s, eh?”
Tears sprang forth, not to be stopped. They spilled and washed between her cheek and his chest.
“Those hands have comforted your sister. Protected her. Built a life out of nothin’ but work and bloody-minded backbone. Hands like yours are most pleasin’ to a man like me.”
“They are not a lady’s hands,” she repeated, the echo ghostly and weak.
“Then I do not want a lady.”
Generations of Widmore pride lived in her blood and bones. And she had failed to sustain it, try as she might to disguise the truth from curious neighbors. Never before had a man’s opinion meant more to her than the shame of her poverty. But his did.
Sebastian Reaver was no gentleman. He cared nothing for one’s genteel status or, by contrast, signs that a noble family had fallen into ruin. He had no name to enhance, no legacy to maintain. He was a commoner. A tradesman. Indeed, should she ever marry, she could not do better than a husband like him.
The thought was a bolt of lightning, spearing through her from the middle outwards, bright and hot.
Husband.
Sebastian.
Yes. Oh, yes.
Dear heavens. Everything inside her clenched around the words. Husband. Sebastian. So brilliant and … right.
“Augusta. I should … take you home.”
She shook her head. Kissed his chest madly, over and over. His hair teased her nose. His scent and heat made her want more.
“Ah, God. Love, ye must stop.”
“Why?”
One strong arm anchored her lower back and forced her ribs and belly tighter against his hips and thighs. “Feel that?”
Her heart kicked and pounded. Good heavens. “Oh.”
“Aye.”
“Perhaps we could—”
“No.”
With dragging reluctance, she withdrew her arms and slipped from between him and the dressing table. “Very well,” she sighed, her fingers trailing against his ridged abdomen as she moved away.
His answer was to grunt and brace a hand on the dressing table as though needing to catch his breath.
She sniffed and went to the settee, using his cravat to dab her cheeks. At least, she pretended to. In reality, she gathered up the scent of him. Like a ninny in … love. Her mouth went dry. Her heart jumped, paused, then flew back into rhythm.
Love. Sebastian. Husband. Yes. Heavens, yes.
She needed to think. Contemplate how she might lure him into such an arrangement. Surely there was a way. More kisses, perhaps.
Later, she decided. Too many thoughts swarmed and spun. For now, she needed a distraction. She collected his garments, draping them neatly over her arm and presenting them to the glowering giant she … loved. Hmm. Yes. Love was precisely it. Perhaps adored. Desired, certainly.
He plucked up his shirt without a word.
“Take me home, then,” she said, attempting nonchalance.
Next was his cravat, tied carelessly. She reached to help him, but he brushed her hand away and snatched up his waistcoat.
“Promise me you will commission a taller carriage, Sebastian. The one you currently possess cannot be comfortable for you.”
As he shrugged into his tailcoat, tugging it into place across massive shoulders, he shot her a heated glare. “I haven’t been comfortable since the day I met ye, Augusta Widmore. A right nuisance, you are.”
This time, when he said it, she did not take offense. She blushed. And smiled, slow and breathless. Then, she began formulating a plan.
A plan to claim Sebastian Reaver as her own and give him a very comfortable life, indeed.
~~*
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“As I have had no response to my last four letters, I assume you require greater intervention than correspondence allows. I shall accompany Lord and Lady Rutherford to London, though it pains me to contemplate it. One hopes a journey so fraught with tedium and inconvenience will be compensated by gifts of equal proportion. Deliveries may be made at the Park Lane house.” —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Mr. Elijah Kilbrenner in a letter informing said gentleman of an impending (and generous) visit.
Standing in the midst of Sebastian’s new study, Augusta trailed her fingers across the vast expanse of oak and smiled. He was going to love it. Polished and rich and substantial, the desk anchored the center of the room. Beneath it, an azure blue carpet warmed wood floors and echoed the draperies on the window. Behind it sat a padded, carved, high-backed oak chair with casters to slide easily, even with a giant’s weight resting atop the seat.
She pictured Sebastian there, his funny round spectacles upon his nose, his pen scratching away at the accounts. She would bring him coffee and discuss plans for the expansion at Number Five. Then, she would tease him and kiss him and slide down upon his …
She sighed, covering her cheeks.
He would love this room. She would make sure of it.
How to ensure he loved her, on the other hand, remained a mystery. She’d ruminated upon the subject for two days, and apart from a blunt declaration or outright blackmail, a plan had yet to materialize.
Enticing a man fell well outside her talents. She was dreadful at flirtation, more apt to frighten a potential husband than lure him into her web. Not Sebastian, of course. He was too imposing to be intimidated by the force of her will. It was merely one reason she loved him. There were countless others.
His tenderness. His strength. The warm shelter of his arms and the rumble of his voice. The way he called her “nuisance” when he meant something quite different.