A Governess Should Never... Tempt a Prizefighter Page 19

“Yes. But in an entirely different manner.”

  Their hands gripped, sparked, and he drew her to the arched construction, where he grabbed a towel from the shelf and dried her hair with measured, firm strokes. That one was tossed to the floor and a new towel now whispered over her shoulders, then the translucent chemise. And finally, on one knee, he dried her lower legs with delicate exquisiteness.

  Matilda wished to do likewise to Seth – be slow and investigative – but it appeared his patience was limited, as he whipped a towel over his own body with undue haste and hurled it aside, drawing her toward the daybed.

  He reeled her close for a ruthless kiss, but her glasses slid, knocking his cheek, so she flung them off without a care as to where they landed. “I can see no further than four feet, but my near sight is adequate.”

  “Then I shall stay unbearably close.” He cupped her cheeks within broad hands. “I will be so gentle. I do not wish to cause you any discomfort.”

  “The procreational mechanics of mammals cannot be so bad otherwise the human species would have gone extinct,” she said in all seriousness.

  Besides which, Matilda wasn’t entirely sure she wished for gentleness – maybe later, but for now she yearned for a Seth untamed and wildly groaning with passion.

  So with absolutely no idea what she was doing – except for the knowledge that he appeared to enjoy her touch – she traced a finger upon his chin, newly shaven and smooth, tracked a chord in his neck, outlined his magnificent pectoralis major, flexed her fingers through the slight hair, sketched the muscles at his stomach, and dipped to the indentations of his hip; then internal curiosity having won out, she allowed her hand to stray over his cotton-clad manhood, tentatively brushing.

  Seth groaned; she grinned.

  “Bad governess,” he growled, tumbling her backwards to the daybed, lips and hands all over her, peeling off straps and coating her bared skin with bites and kisses.

  The untamed Seth she’d desired yanked her chemise down, revealing her breasts, and although his expression was fierce, his lips were yet tender, nipping and laving.

  One candle flickered and guttered, the remainder casting shadows that leaped upon the walls, and she stroked his vigorous back and nape as he drew her up and stripped the chemise from her body, kissing his way to her toes.

  Shyness ought to have overtaken her, but like all the adventures of these past weeks, she would relish each moment with all her body, soul and heart.

  Seth reared, his mighty chest heaving, eyes roaming, and never had she felt such emotion, such thundering need for another.

  Thought to tell him so…but insistent lips returned to hers, hands now driving her thighs apart. She allowed it, trusted Seth completely, gasped as his fingers caressed and dipped in a rhythmic stroke that coincided with rough kisses upon her throat and breast.

  It snaked within, the pleasure, a never-ending tightness and tension as she twisted within his embrace and pushed against his palm.

  “Seth,” she gasped.

  “My beautiful, exquisite Matilda,” he whispered, and with those words – ones no one else had ever applied to her – that tightness released and the rosemary-scented room ceased to be as her eyelids closed, rapture flooding to every tip of limb, submerging her beneath warmth and light.

  With a rip of cotton, a heady, muscled weight was upon her, powerful hips and thighs parting her legs further before a thrust against her core, raw and rude and resolute.

  A stretched pain robbed her breath and she lifted her gaze, witnessed Seth with jaw tense yet eyes tender, and aching need shook her once more as she arched into him, heard a harsh groan.

  “My Matilda,” he bit out, low and agonised. And he dragged back, only to plunge anew, a guttural grunt locked in his throat.

  The tightness caused a sharp inhale but the rapture of before still simmered, and as he rocked, gentle and short, that hurtling bliss returned – faster and tauter.

  “More,” she gasped, aware he held back from whatever he wished to do, aware his strained arms and clenched teeth hid a sharp longing. So she caressed his back, scratched those magnificent buttocks.

  His hips jerked, and a growling Seth began to pound. A broad hand claimed her thigh, hitching it aloft as she cried out, and he plunged deeper.

  Seizing her hands within his, he pressed them to the cushions to prevent any more daring assaults. Lips scalded her breast and so, like this, restrained in his arms with his persistent heavy thrusts driving so deep, the pressure surged anew, thrashing her body with fervour and torrid bliss.

  His raw groan likewise echoed from the tiled walls, fingers clasping, flexing against hers as Seth raised his chest and wrenched his head back. Her eyes fell to where their bodies blended – so as one as he roared his pleasure, hips brutally lunging.

  Their panted breaths mingled as his head slumped, ragged kisses exchanged as his forehead dropped to meet hers. Seth’s hips still bucked, but now diminishing to lackadaisical thrusts, each inciting a gasp, a nuzzle to her breast producing a languid smile.

  Rolling her head to the side, her imperfect vision transformed the room to a distorted landscape of mere colour – sky blue and earthly burgundy – so she twisted back to focus upon Seth, the sole defined treasure.

  He grinned that lopsided smile and causally flipped them both over as though she weighed naught, still joined so intimately that she felt a blush rise from her toes to her forehead as she lay atop.

  On many occasions she’d dreamed of those rugged knuckles and now they kneaded her backside, those wonderful rough-skinned fingers splaying and tightening, then rising to her waist and spine – calloused pads clutching.

  And all the while, she too explored – lips grazing his chest, nails teasing his hips, toes brushing his calves.

  A mounting heat, which had nothing to do with the humid surroundings, swirled afresh, their bodies rocking in accord.

  “I believe,” she whispered, pushing up to her forearms to gaze into sultry hazel eyes, “that no adventure could better that.”

  Seth gripped her nape and surged his hips, unabashed and voracious as she gasped anew.

  “Our adventures,” he rasped, “are never to end.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Of marriage and domestic comforts you should banish every idea. A governess cannot expect offers from men of birth and fortune.”

  Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.

  Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.

  Matilda scrunched her nose.

  ‘Love is full of anxious fears.’

  Not in the least reassuring, and she discarded the poems of Ovid to flick through the pages of the next tome gathered to her side upon the library sofa.

  ‘Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.’

  Pah, what did Samuel Johnson know?

  Matilda had decided to while away the evening consulting the great names of literature in order to discover whether her feelings for Seth coincided with their stanzas and prose on love. Yet not one of them had endorsed her hypothesis, for it seemed each held a differing view – love could be fierce or gentle, jealous or trusting, selfish or altruistic, protective or unbound.

  She eyed a leather-cased book of Plato. Now there was a man who surely knew himself and everything else, so she settled into the sofa cushions to begin somewhere in the middle.

  ‘Love is a grave mental disease.’

  Oh, good grief, and she abandoned it to the stack upon the floor before reclining to twiddle her thumbs as night descended.

  All day she’d waited for Seth to return from who knows where…and still she waited.

  Matilda tugged out his note, wedged as a bookmark amongst the pages of Shakespeare – ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’

  Hah.

  And she re-read Seth’s words.

  Dearest Matilda,

  Kian has some information. I shall be out for the morning.

  Yours, Seth

 
Functional but not altogether informative. Incorrect as he’d not returned. But she appreciated the ‘Dearest’. And the ‘Yours’.

  Indeed, at eight this morning, Matilda had greeted the day with vivid elation, full of promise and hope, but that note amid the breakfast toast had rather dampened her spirits, reminding her of Astwood’s shadow.

  The daylight hours had been spent well enough in lessons with Chloe, but by six of the evening, they’d congregated in the kitchen where Betts and herself had glugged the master’s claret and they’d all dined upon his beef pie.

  She reached for the last unread book by her side, to caress the leather spine of the keepsake that Seth had gifted her and–

  Memories flickered. Of words… Words from this book that her father would recite before casting a soft glance upon Mother.

  ‘Why did I love her? …Because it was her; because it was me.’

  And that was why no love was the same, for it was something intangible, deep in one’s own self that connected with another.

  She wanted for nothing more than to witness Seth smile, to revel in that sonorous voice, to caress his Herculean body.

  To be the recipient of his kindness, loyalty, devotion and protection.

  To give him everything of herself. To care for him.

  Why did she love him? …Because he was Seth; because she was Matilda.

  She hugged the book close and knew her heart.

  But how did one divulge such an emotion?

  Not once had she confessed to a real person that she loved them, and Miss Appleton’s half-baked governess tome failed to instruct on how one could convey more tender sentiments to one’s employer.

  Did one blurt it out? Expose it by degree? Or steer a path of conversation to it?

  The clock chimed a quarter after nine and she rose, placing her beloved book on the sofa. She’d left the curtains open, savouring the sight of Green Park as night had claimed it, and now she ambled over for a closer inspection.

  A London drizzle had commenced again, a warning that summer was in no way ready to lay its warmth upon them and–

  The creak of a gate took her attention, followed by the low rumble of voices, and she squished her nose to the window, could make out two figures stalking up the garden path, both with greatcoats and easy lopes.

  Seth and Mr Finlay.

  She dallied, shifting from foot to foot. Should she descend and greet them? Or stay here? Or just go to bed?

  The bold and brave lady that Seth had called her would dash downstairs and find out what was happening… So that’s exactly what she chose to do, extinguishing the lantern and grabbing the candlestick.

  From the stairs, she could hear their murmurs and the banging of cupboards from the kitchen – they wouldn’t find any leftover beef pie for supper.

  “Whatever is in those vaults is worth a tidy amount,” came a Scottish burr, “if a man is willing to kidnap for it.”

  “Any clues at all?” Seth replied, and Matilda paused outside the door.

  “None. And Miss Griffin’s birthday won’t solve it as the vault’s contents still go to her husband should she be forced to marry by more sinister means.”

  “Damnation!” And a thump, as though a fist struck a table. “But we can’t risk it.”

  “Risk what?” asked Matilda wandering in.

  Both men leaped to their feet, Mr Finlay with a bow and Seth… His gaze appeared to devour her appearance yet his lips were arrow straight, brow furrowed.

  Their damp cloaks lay haphazard upon the chairs – hopeless men – and she ambled over to hang them on the hooks by the warm range.

  Mr Finlay cleared his throat. “Well, lass, we’ve been digging around a bit. On yer cousin.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, please sit. I’ll make some tea, shall I?” Both men crumpled their noses as they reclaimed their seats and Matilda sniggered, lifting the kettle to the iron surface. “With a tot of whisky, of course.”

  “I always said yer were a fine lass, Miss Griffin. And I know Seth agrees. Eh, Seth?”

  But Seth remained silent. Merely stared with eyes she could not fathom – not alight with rapture as of last night but gravely dark. With hair damp from the rain and wearing his ‘ale-house’ togs, he looked every inch the malevolent prizefighter and Matilda silently quivered, locked within his gaze.

  “Ahem,” said Mr Finlay.

  She blinked and twisted. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  “I wasna, but… Astwood has turf debts up to his red eyeballs and a cut-throat lender on his tail, did yer realise any o’ this?”

  Matilda slung more firewood in the range and stoked it as Betty had shown her. “I had my suspicions as I came across quite a few vowels in his study desk when…reconnoitring. But as heir, he inherited all my parents’ money, and he has access to my dowry – supposedly for my yearly needs.”

  “Och, that’s all gone, lass.”

  Her head bowed. She’d thought that might be the truth of the matter but was astonished anyone could spend such an amount in so little time.

  “It appears, however,” rasped Seth, “that personal effects remain secure in the bank vaults, deeded to yourself and to be passed directly through the Griffin line to your children. Not to be touched until you are…married.”

  Mr Finlay dallied with a kitchen knife. “Sidlow parted with that knowledge…” His blue eyes were now of a January lake. “Once they’d got yer married, they planned to sell these effects and split the proceeds. I dunno what it is about them nobles and spending.”

  “No appreciation of what they have, I suppose,” she ventured, removing the boiling kettle to steep the tea.

  Seth rose, and for the first time that day she felt his nearness and then his touch, a hand upon her shoulder. “So, Matilda, do you have any clue what is in those vaults?”

  “Well… I suppose it might be… I’d not realised they were still there but…” She screwed her eyes shut. “Father kept a selection of old books, you see, in a vault. If I remember correctly, the 1477 edition of The Canterbury Tales, a manuscript comprising Da Vinci’s own writings, and, er, I believe various copies of Shakespeare’s Folios, amongst some other bits and bobs. Illuminated manuscripts, Saxton’s maps and so forth. Oh, and some old jewel of Anne Boleyn’s.”

  “Folio…” Seth’s eyes widened. “Shakespeare’s First Folio, you mean?”

  “Well, yes. Father acquired one of those. In calfskin. But I presumed all his chattels had been sold at some point.”

  “Never mind the bloody Folio,” interrupted Mr Finlay. “What about the jewel?”

  “Well, I don’t know too much. It was given to an ancestor who was a lady-in-waiting. It’s been passed down the female line. I thought never to marry, you see, and I’d never sell it, of course, hence it would be inherited by my thrice-removed half-cousin’s daughter. Phyllis is her name. Her father is the Duke of Aberdare. I told you about him at the interview.”

  Seth breathed deep. “Matilda, all this must still be in those vaults then and will be yours on your birthday, and if you marry, would, of course, become the property of your husband. These have much value.”

  “Do you think? But they’re items to be treasured for future generations, not to be bartered for gambling debts.” She scowled and paced the kitchen floor. “Are you saying that Cousin Astwood attempted to kidnap me in order to leg shackle me to a mutton-mongering buck fitch, just so he can sell my books? What an utter…shagbag!”

  “It would appear so, lass. Astwood has sold all that’s not entailed or nailed down, but ’tisn’t enough. He owes money to a villain not to be messed with, one who’s becoming a mite impatient. It’s his life we’re talking about.”

  She crossed her arms and muttered.

  “Kian believes Astwood will try and take you again as he’s running out of time.”

  The Scotsman leaned back in his chair, causing the spindles to creak. “My idea is to draw him out. Easier and quicker to catch the smetchet in the act rather than guarding
yer all hours. Then we can fetch the magistrate.”

  “He wants to use you as bait,” Seth grouched, seating himself once more with crossed feet and folded arms.

  “Well, ’tis either that or I…get rid of him, but I thought yer might not approve.”

  “Hmm…” Matilda tapped a lip. “But no, I don’t believe we’d best do that, Mr Finlay.” She rummaged for three mugs. “So instead you want to use me as a worm on a hook. Good idea. As you said, you cannot guard me all hours.”

  “Exactly so,” he agreed. “And we’ll take good care of yer. But tell us, lass, how smart is this cousin, d’yer reckon?”

  With a certain weariness abruptly taking its toll, Matilda sat. “He’s not stupid, by any means, but arrogance causes him to blunder.”

  “Most likely he’s got someone keeping an eye on us,” rumbled Seth.

  Mr Finlay poured the tea with expert aplomb. “I reckon if we attend a few events about Town, or lurk in some theatre gaffs, he won’t be able to resist another attempt to grab yer. There’s a Gaelic saying… ‘Desperation drives on cowards’, and I reckon yer cousin to be both.”

  Seth’s gaze remained sombre. “But are you sure, Matilda?”

  “Yes, quite sure. And besides what choice do I have?”

  “Well,” muttered Mr Finlay with a smirk, “if yer married a certain someone at Gretna post-haste, that’d end it.”

  With a bashful smile, Matilda peeped to Seth, to exchange a clandestine wink or wait for him to tell his mischievous friend to mind his own business, but…

  Silence.

  Those hazel eyes weighty and troubled, a hostile scowl upon his lips.

  Matilda’s smile wilted.

  Confusion and doubt, that treacherous doubt, filled the void where elation had earlier dwelled.

  “I…” She placed her own mug down. “I don’t believe I will join you for tea after all. I’ll–”

  Abruptly Seth rose and forestalled her departure with a firm hand to her wrist. “Matilda, meet me in the library. I shall be but a moment.” He stared deeply. “Please.”