The King of Threadneedle Street (32 page)

“Never. But perhaps you should, a little.”

“Do
you
disapprove, Lisa?”

She paused to hold up his hand and saw it weathered and callused. He used to have elegant, masculine hands. Now they were plainly masculine. “I suppose I can’t call you a spoiled brat anymore. But can you still play the piano?”

He snatched his hand back. “Of course. I think so. I haven’t had the instrument here tuned yet, that is.”

“Hold still. Unless you really do want to be bald.”

“At any rate, I prefer to oversee operations here personally, and it helps me blow off steam.”

“Oh?” her voice slid from low to high, meaning he should expound, but she wouldn’t ask.

“Yes. I think you like hearing me say it. So, I am a healthy man in my prime, deprived of an outlet for my energies, if you will. Thinking of you at night when I am alone is bad enough. Do you think I could maintain my sanity if I dawdled about indoors all day pining over you? Or is that what you want?”

Alysia stifled her laughter. “You nearly spout poetry, in a vehement sort of way. I find it rather touching. And my original intent, if you remember, was to pay you a compliment.” She resumed cutting his hair, glad he couldn’t see her flush. “I remarked that your physique is very impressive, and while I am not precisely complaining, you are half naked, and it is rather difficult to concentrate. That is all.”

“That is a rather
wifely
thing to say, Lisa.”

“I said it from the perspective of an artist who admires good form and proportion.”

“You desire me still.”

“I shouldn’t feed your insufferable ego. Besides, was it not more what a mistress would say? It seems a wife would be more modest, and a mistress eager to please.”

“Then you should be both to me. That is what happy men manage. They marry the one they love and save themselves a world of trouble.” Andrew sobered his voice, “Marry me, Lisa, and I will never stray. I swear it.”

Alysia tried to swallow over a suddenly swollen throat. That didn’t help the stinging behind her eyes, threatening tears. “How did we come to that from arguing over your hair?”

“If you weren’t wielding a sharp pair of shears, I would attempt to persuade you.”

She ignored him and triple-checked the ends long after she had finished in order to delay facing him to trim the front. When she had herself under control, she walked around the chair and found Andrew dozing. She worked through the hair framing his forehead and temples, and had no choice but to stand between his knees and lean in to accomplish the task.

Andrew’s soft groan meant he had opened his eyes and found her décolletage in his face. He pulled her into his lap, and she sat with a mild sound of contempt, then resumed trimming his hair.

“Is that better?” she taunted.

“Marginally.”

Alysia was stalling again, rechecking the lines and trimming in small adjustments. His hands gripped across her back, keeping her balanced. She set the scissors down and brushed the clippings from his shoulders, then his chest, and kept her hands there even when she had no excuse. The trail of hair across his chest and down the center had grown thicker than before, and she brushed her fingers in it curiously.

The past spring and summer had aged him beyond his years. He was as warm as ever, his embrace felt the same as she remembered, and that gave her comfort. But he was so excessively masculine, it made her a bit anxious. His demeanor had lost its capriciousness, wisdom and sobriety in its place. That made him seem a completely different man.

A full-grown man. The boy was gone.

She curiously ran her fingers along the bulging veins, the cords of sinew and muscle over his arms and neck. His shoulders had grown so broad her hand couldn’t span them front to back, his musculature tight and knotted. He resembled more a blacksmith than a lord.

“Hmm. How did it turn out?” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.

Magnificent.
Oh, he meant his hair. “Tolerably. You will have to judge for yourself.”

“I could never visit a barber again, after
this
.” He likely had no idea the effect his smooth bass voice had on her, lowered and mellow near her ear.

She shifted her weight to retreat from his lap. “Shall I fetch a mirror?”

His arms locked her in place. “Later.” His hands traced lazy circles on her back from shoulder to hip. “I haven’t thanked you properly yet.”

He delved his fingers into her hair and worked her chignon loose, dropping pins onto the floor with ominous little clatters. He arranged her hair over her shoulders then lifted a curl to his lips and closed his eyes to inhale.

“We are always getting into trouble when we share a chair.” She hardly recognized her own voice, throaty and suggestive.

“Then why don’t we get into trouble some place else?”

Without another word he stood holding her, ignoring her startled gasp. He walked back inside, past the sitting room, and set her on his bed. Pinning her with his gaze, he crawled toward her until he held her trapped between his arms. She squeaked, not feeling as bold as she wished.

He smiled and chuckled, then lay to the side, placing a kiss on her temple. “You are nearly twenty and one,” he said against her hair. “And I have a special license from the Vicar General. Wilhelm and Philip will witness. How would you like to be mistress of Dunsbury?”

Her heart leapt, and she couldn’t help the stupid grin on her face. How would she like it?
Only a dream come true, that is all.

He tucked a pillow under her head and framed it with his arms, forcing her to look at him. “I am building you a lake. Did you notice the work on the stream on the east side?”

“Will it have a waterfall?”

“Oh, yes. And a cave.” He spoke inches from her lips, “Come live in the country with me. Make love to me in this bed and wake every morning in my arms. I like smelling you on my skin all day.”

Was that a proposal? At his kiss placed strategically under her jaw, Alysia fought the urge to grab him by the hair and fuse his lips to hers. It would be no mystery what would follow. She resisted, wanting to hear him ask. Directly.

His tongue grazed her neck as he dragged his lips down to her collar. She breathed as though she had climbed the stairs to his tower room only moments ago.

One of his hands left the pillow and traveled slowly down her neck, until resting on her abdomen. “I can imagine it, Lisa. You, round with my child.” He stroked her tenderly as though she already carried his baby. “Alysia Tilmore, Lady Preston. Do you like it?”

His lips worked over hers, impatient. “This is where you say
yes,
Lisa.”

When she was too slow to answer, he lowered himself on top of her, making her aware of every inch of him. He gripped his fists in her hair to tilt her head back, then kneaded his lips under her jaw until she whimpered.

“Mmm, Drew. Stop. Wait¯” He bit down over the nerve he’d been teasing, shooting sensation down her spine to curl her toes. The rest of her question turned into an embarrassing moan.

“Marry me.”

Trust him
, she reminded herself
.

She shut her conscience in a trunk and tossed away the key. She surprised Andrew by kissing him back, hungrily in slow, deep motions. Tracing across his waist with her fingernails made his skin raise tiny bumps. At the small of his back she found a pair of dimples and rubbed her fingers over them, then explored the stark, supple lines across¯

He gasped and collapsed on top of her, panting. “Lisa, you are
not
a virgin.”

“Yes I am, Drew. Lily-white, excepting what you and I…” Her indignant tone was lost in her breathlessness.

“You do not seem so.”

“Find out for yourself, then.” She shot him a suggestive smile and slipped a finger under his waistband, slowly tracing his skin from hip to hip. Andrew shuddered with a groan and pushed her into the mattress.

“Last time¯” He kissed her again. “Was the last time you bait me and escape. You have gone too far this time, woman.” He sat back on his heels and lifted her against his chest like she weighed nothing. Unhooking the back of her dress, his fingers were deliberate and calm but his kisses along her collar frantic. Alysia had a stray thought for the marks he would likely leave there but didn’t care.

He peeled the dress from her back. “I am still waiting for your consent. One
yes
will do, Lisa, for what is happening now and for my proposal of marriage.”

Alysia looked him in the eye, seeing the same wildness she felt. “Yes. Yes forever. You are
mine,
Andrew.” The thrill of saying those words delighted her to laughter, but it came out sounding sultry. She had not seen him smile like that since he got his first telegraph machine on his seventeenth birthday. He answered with another rowdy kiss.

It had taken her a quarter hour to dress from inner to outermost layer, but Andrew did the reverse in minutes. He stared — did his cheeks color? — frozen in a kneeling position with her drawers folded in his hands. His gaze raked her from head to toe and back up. A relief he didn’t seem disappointed. He blinked then forced his gaze down to the bed, but only a moment later he glanced again, and a smile spread on his lips. Men had been staring at her bosom since her fifteenth summer, but never Andrew. He made up for years of gentlemanly restraint now, but the expression he wore made her feel beautiful.

“I don’t mind, Andrew. Look, if you want to.” Good, she managed not to sound giddy. She turned on her side to lie propped on an elbow, liking the way he followed her every movement.

She couldn’t help chortling at his reddened cheeks. Who was behaving like a virgin now? She reached for his neck to pull him in for a kiss. She meant it to be playful, but she had drawn his bare chest against hers — a thrill of sensation. A tug on the waistband of his trousers meant
get these off,
and he obeyed, shucking out of them while she pulled the drawstring loose on his drawers.

The same, yet not the same Andrew she had drawn naked three years ago. He didn’t give her much time to gawk, which she didn’t think was fair, but then he knelt over her, looking rather serious. The anxiety returned in a rush.

Expecting him to simply get on with the deed showed how little she knew.

“So beautiful, Lisa. A dream.” He dotted kisses everywhere until she giggled, ticklish. He wanted to play chase-and-catch, then kiss some more.

She hooked a leg over his hip and pulled him close. Lovely, lying skin to skin with him, a paradox of silk and steel. She realized he had been trying to ease her into feeling comfortable with him. It had worked; the nervousness was gone. A primitive drumming in her pulse reminded her that he was male and she female, and there was really only one thing to do about it.

The way he kissed over her abdomen and held the small of her back made her feel like the main course for a banquet. She could no longer think through the blazing hunger; it raced in her veins and narrowed her perception. Musky balsam and leather scent on his neck. His skin, slick with a sheen of perspiration. The ragged rhythm of his breath, and hers the same… Her hands roamed greedily over his back, kneading and scratching in frustration.

Andrew put his lips to her ear. “Eager?”

“Yes!” She wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure what for. “Please.”

Impossible to describe the way he moved, or why it was both excruciating and soothing. She mirrored his movements, similar to the way he kissed her with his tongue, like the way he guided her with his thighs when they danced too closely to be polite. She was gratified when he couldn’t keep his groans in his throat either.

“
Please!
” She thumped him on the chest then scratched her nails down, which he seemed to like.

“Do you know what happens next?”

“I said I was a virgin, not an ignoramus,” she snapped, but then he coaxed a repentant sigh from her.

“No need to be temperamental.”

“Sorry,” she breathed.

“I think I am more anxious than you. It is one thing to tease, but another to follow through, you know? I have never deflowered anyone before. Oh, but you know that.”

“I am not anxious now, Drew. Only impatient.”

“Your birthday is in two weeks, the day of our wedding. Tell me, wife, is there any reason to prevent conception?” He wrapped a hand around her knee and hitched it over his hip.

“None.” She smiled, imagining the chocolate-eyed little boy who lived in her fantasies, but with the wistfulness replaced by hope.

He grinned, the boyish lopsided one that stole her breath. “I love you, Lisa.” His fervent kiss accompanied his body lowering onto hers, and she exhaled in satisfaction. His heartbeat over hers, his head in her hands — exquisite.

Then he didn’t move. She waited, restless…

The long moments passing while he looked her in the eye seemed to stretch into years. His smile faded into a serious expression, one she knew well. It meant some thought had landed with a crash in his mind and grown barbs.

“Andrew?” She stretched her spine and squirmed, registering for the first time that he weighed quite a lot. Or perhaps the worry in his expression made her lungs struggle for air.

Brows furrowed, he reached for the stray strand of hair draped over her shoulder and rubbed it between his fingers.

“What is it, Drew?”

“Guilt. Loads of it. I can’t do this. Not like this.”

“But— Not…
Why
?”

“Honor. My conscience. I don’t know what got into me. It’s not as though I am an unruly adolescent.”

“Right. You are an unruly adult.” Easier to make a joke than confess she didn’t just love him; he’d become her everything. It would be no sacrifice to make her life his; he had already made her happiness his purpose.

“Sorry, Lisa.” He kissed her temple, rolled aside, then went silent a long while, fidgeting with her hair again.

Irrational or not, the suspicion that his reticence was in truth a rejection made her feel as though her skin was on fire. She groped the mattress for the sheet then pulled it over her shoulder.