Temptation (18 page)

A cloud passed over his face. “Then you will not be coming back to see me?”

“I am sorry. I will miss your company.” The words were so inadequate to express all she wanted to say.

“And I will miss yours. More than I can say.”

They sat there in silence, hand in hand. Mrs. Bettina did not know what to say, how to say goodbye to the man in the bed who had come to mean so much to her in such a short space of time. Was it wrong to have fallen in love again at her age?

People would laugh at her if they knew how her heart beat in her aged chest at the sight of him. But did she not deserve love as much as any younger woman?

The sergeant-major cleared his throat. “I hate to have to ask you this, Nancy. I have no future and little to offer any woman and I hate to think that you might take me out of pity. But would you consider, would you possibly think about, becoming my wife?”

She froze. She hadn’t expected him to offer her marriage. They had become lovers out of simple need. Each of them had needed what the other had given them. There had been no agreement between them, no understanding—just pure physical passion. She had not meant to fall in love with him, and had not expected him to return her foolish affections. “You are asking me to marry you?”

“I would get down on one knee and ask you, but I wouldn’t be able to get up again.”

Happiness was bubbling up inside her like water from a pure spring. “I don’t know what to think, what to say.” To think that he returned her love. To think that she had found a man to love her again after so long alone. She must be the most fortunate woman in all of England.

“You don’t have to answer me now if you’d rather think on it.” His voice was diffident, as if he expected her to laugh at him. “I’m only a sergeant-major, and this leg is going to see me invalided out of the army. I’ve got little enough in savings, and not even a house to take you to. If you take me, you’ll only be getting a broken-down old soldier on half-pay. Not much of a bargain by anyone’s standards. But I am fond of you, lass, and I’ll do my best to be a good husband to you.”

“I’m hardly much of a bargain myself.” Honesty forced her into the admission. “I’m getting a bit long in the tooth. I’ll never give you children.”

“I can do without children. I never expected to be a father, and wouldn’t miss it. But I can’t do without you. I’ve been a bit of a rover in my youth. You are the only woman I’ve ever met who I could love with all my heart. The only one I have ever wanted to settle down with. I’ve seen enough of the world now. I could happily grow old in a cottage by the sea in your company.”

“It doesn’t matter that you’ll be on half-pay. I have a comfortable boardinghouse that would give us enough income for us both to live on. You can save your pay for a pint of bitter at the local.”

His face lit up then, as if a gaslight behind his eyes had been turned on. “Does that mean you’ll have me?”

How could he ever have doubted it? He was offering her a chance at the kind of happiness she had thought was lost to her forever. “Of course I will. I would be honored to become your wife.”

He pulled her down toward him and enfolded her in his arms. “How can I ever thank you enough? You are the best woman I have ever met, and I love you dearly.”

She kissed him then, and ran her hand lightly over the graying stubble on his cheek. He was hers, all hers. She would take good care of him for the rest of her life. Never would he regret taking her as his wife. “I am the happiest woman in all of London, to have found a man as good as you are.”

Lenora watched Dr. Hyde as he cast a perfunctory glance around the patients in the room. It was late and he should have gone home long ago, but he had stayed restlessly pacing the corridors of the hospital.

She knew what was bothering him. Beatrice Clemens and her captain, and the compromising position he had seen them in. Beatrice had found the man who heated her blood, and it wasn’t Dr. Hyde.

Lenora couldn’t be sorry. Dr. Hyde had never loved Beatrice. Not really. He had only ever seen one side of her—competent, composed Beatrice, the dedicated nurse. He had never known who she really was, or seen the streak of adventure that she kept hidden under her starched white uniform.

It had doubtless helped that Beatrice had beautiful wavy brown hair with golden highlights, a complexion like a rose, and a figure that made her plain white uniform look positively exotic. An enticement to sin.

She heaved a sigh as she thought about Beatrice’s good looks. No one would ever call her an enticement to sin. Her hair was too red even to be called auburn, and her face had a tendency to go all red and blotchy whenever she felt shy or out of her depth. Which, around Dr. Hyde, was pretty much all the time.

It was a shame that he could not see beyond her lack of beauty to the person inside her. She would be good for him, she knew it. If only he could see her as a woman, not just as his devoted colleague.

Just then his pacing took him in her direction. He stopped short before colliding in to her. “Miss Coppins, what are you still doing here?”

To her annoyance, she could feel blotches of red disfigure her complexion as he addressed her. “Night duty, Dr. Hyde.” He would think she was suffering from a terrible skin disease instead of from terminal embarrassment.

He stroked his goatee idly, his attention already having wandered off elsewhere. “Harrumph.”

“Did you want me for anything?” she ventured, unwilling to leave him in such a state. She would feel the waves of frustration pouring off him, the overwhelming sense that he felt at sea.

“No, nothing.”

She left the ward with a sigh and returned heavyhearted to the nurse’s office at the end of the corridor. She could not help a man who did not want to help himself.

No sooner had she sat down at her desk to catch up on paperwork, then he was at the door. He leaned against the doorjamb, still stroking his beard. Her insides ached with love for him.

“Tell me, Miss Coppins, have I been wrong about women all along?”

She steepled her hands together and looked at him steadily. “What do you mean?”

“I was fond of Beatrice and thought she would make me a good wife. I thought she was fond of me in return. I was a gentleman, and treated her as a lady. As I would wish for my sister to be treated.” He gave a laugh so harsh it would scour a bedpan clean. “But she didn’t want to be treated as a lady. She chose a soldier over me. Even though he treated her like a common woman. Like a whore.”

Lenora tried to keep her countenance, but her face was turning a more fiery red than usual. “He was treating her as a man treats the woman he loves.” Beatrice had chosen her own path. It was not Dr. Hyde’s part to criticize her choices.

“You know what he did to her. We saw them rutting like animals. And Beatrice was enjoying it. She was on her hands and knees with her rump in the air begging him to fuck her as if she were a common harlot.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

Her face turned redder and blotchier than ever at his language. “Would you rather she had hated it?”

“Beatrice is a gently bred young lady. Such creatures so not feel animal passions like men do.”

Lenora shook her head. If only he knew what went on in her head at night he would not be so sure of himself and his silly notions about women not feeling desire. “What makes you think that?”

“Take you, for example. You would not have been moaning out your pleasure in the arms of a soldier and begging him to fuck you harder and faster.”

“What makes you think that I am immune to passion? Because I am homely?” She gritted her teeth to hold in the frustration that threatened to explode out of her.

He looked at her as if he had never actually seen her before. “Homely? What nonsense. You are a lady.”

“I am a woman.” A woman who is deeply, desperately in love.

“You are no Beatrice.”

“No, but I am still a woman.”

“You would not behave in such a manner. And with such a man.”

“My chastity has not yet been tested by a man I really want. If that were to happen, I do not know how I would respond.” The thought of being in Dr. Hyde’s arms, moaning with pleasure and begging him to fuck her harder and faster made her face hot enough to cook her dinner on. Lucky Beatrice, to have found a man to give her such wanton pleasure. Once again, she envied her friend. If ever she had the chance to behave in a similar fashion with Dr. Hyde, she knew exactly what she would do.

His eyes narrowed. “I do not believe you.”

He was handing her the opportunity she needed on a plate. Did she have the courage to speak what she was feeling? Or would she live out the rest of her life with useless regrets?

She hesitated. No, she had enough regrets already. “Try me.” Her voice was a mere breath of sound.

“If I were to ask you to bend over that desk and raise your skirts so I could fuck you,” he said, fixing his eyes on hers and daring her to object to his deliberate crudity, “you would slap my face for insulting you. And I would deserve it.”

“Try me.”

“Ladies want to be treated with kid gloves, not taken roughly.”

“Try me.”

At her third invitation, his patience snapped. “Bend over the desk, then, Lenora.” He crossed his arms and looked at her, confident in her refusal. “Bend over and beg me to fuck you like an animal just like Beatrice begged her soldier, if that’s what you women really want.”

Unhurriedly she rose to her feet, smoothing her hands down over her skirts to dry the nervous sweat. Whatever happened, she would not back down now. She did not
want
to back down, not with Dr. Hyde looking at her in such a predatory way, as if he were an eagle and she was a tasty mouse on which he was about to pounce.

She moved to the front of the desk and leaned over it until her bottom was raised high in the air in invitation. Then, with deliberate slowness, she started to lift her skirts.

Dr. Hyde swallowed to get rid of the dryness in his throat. Was that really Lenora in front of him, leaning over her desk and posturing in such a shameless fashion? As if she were a woman for sale? He ought to be repelled but instead he was desperately aroused.

He watched her, fascinated, picking up her skirts and lifting them, inch by torturous inch. First a pair of shapely ankles came into view, clad in buttoned-up black boots, then her calves. When her skirts were up to her thighs, showing the plump, bare flesh above the top of her stockings, he could stand it no longer. “Stop,” he cried. “You do not want to be doing this.”

“Yes, I do,” was her calm response, and she kept on lifting until her skirts were around her waist.

She was wearing white bloomers, with lace around the edges. He ought to move away, prevent her somehow from behaving in such a wanton way, but he had to look.

Her hands crept under her skirts, and then her bloomers fell away, leaving her bottom exposed. Her rounded bottom, and that pink cleft between her thighs that called to him so strongly. “Fuck me, Dr. Hyde.”

“You do not know what you are asking of me.” He ought not be looking at a lady in such a lascivious way. He ought not be thinking of how good it would feel to plunge himself deep into her cunt, but he was. A force too strong for him to resist had him unbuttoning his trousers and taking out his cock. He was already stiffening, and a few strokes made him as hard as rock.

“Yes, I do.” She gave her rump a little wiggle. Her cleft was moist and her lips looked swollen. Her entire body was begging him to touch her, to taste the forbidden paradise she was offering. “Come and take me. I know you want to. I bet your cock is hard as nails now, just looking at me.”

He stepped closer to her, until she was trapped between his thighs, and placed his cock right at the opening of her cleft. The tip slid easily over her slickness, nudging apart her folds. “You are a lady. You should not want me to do this.”

God help him, but he wanted it. He wanted to take her hard and rough, to fuck her until she cried out for more, just like Beatrice had called to her soldier. He was as capable of pleasing a woman as any soldier.

“But I do want it. Fuck me, Dr. Hyde.”

He could have resisted a practiced seduction, but he was no match for the sweet pleading of an innocent. With a cry almost of pain, he gave in to his need and with one long, slow thrust, pushed inside her.

The mere act of entering her was almost enough to make him come. She felt like the softest bed, like the most delicious food, like the most heavenly scent all rolled into one. He wanted more of her. He could not stop himself from taking more.

Her bodice was fastened in the back with tiny pearl buttons. He did not wait to undo them, but wrenched them off. They pinged onto the floor and scattered in all directions.

Rough with need, he pushed her bodice down over her shoulders and took her breasts in both hands. Her nipples were tight and hard, and her breasts gloriously full. He’d never noticed before what delights lay under her starched white uniform, but now that he’d discovered them, he wanted to taste them all.

With his hands on her breasts, he slowly withdrew. Her muscles contracted around him, protesting his departure. But he had only withdrawn so he could thrust into her again, until his body was jammed against hers as close as it would go and he was buried in her soft body up to the hilt.

She moaned underneath him, but he could not tell whether it was from pain or pleasure.

Summoning the last vestiges of his self-control, he forced himself to stop moving. “Should I stop? Am I hurting you?” It would kill him to stop now, but he would do it if she asked him to.

“No, don’t stop.” She gave another moan, and pressed herself harder against him, encouraging him to go even deeper inside her. “You could never hurt me.”

That was all the permission he needed to allow his desire to take over. With mindless abandon he poured himself into her.

She matched him, stroke for stroke, until he was afraid he would spontaneously combust with the force of his desire. Just as he feared he could not hold out for a moment longer, he felt her muscles contract around him, and she cried out in ecstasy.