He kissed her, felt her taste herself on his mouth and eased the head of his shaft into her entrance.
‘Oh, my,’ she whispered.
Eyes fixed on her face, he concentrated on the blinding sensations of joining her in her pleasure, absorbed the tiny pulses of the aftershock of her orgasm, stroking the walls of her tight sheath fraction by fraction with minute shifts of his hips.
Bringing all of his skill into play as never before, the urge to take her, to drive into her, to lose himself in lust, grew ever stronger. Her body called to him as no woman’s had ever done. Her gaze, so full of trust and something he couldn’t name, tore at his will. Shook him to the very depths.
Left him primal.
His woman.
The words pounded hot in his veins, setting a rhythm that rode him hard. And still he circled his hips, fighting every instinct with the last atom of his will.
Her eyes widened in shock. Her expression tightened. ‘What are you doing to me?’ she moaned.
She was almost there. Thank God.
He bared his teeth. ‘Bringing you more pleasure,’ he panted. Making her his. Binding them together.
The thought sent him over the edge of reason.
He drove into her.
She lifted her hips. He pounded into her body. Her inner walls tightened around his shaft, drawing him deeper. He thrust harder. Faster. Nothing existed but the feral force of their mating.
And then he exploded.
He lost himself in the pure blinding bliss that seemed to go on and on. He shuddered and managed to roll to one side before he collapsed.
Never did he recall such a powerful joining.
Or so much loss of control.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. Had she also reached her climax? God. Why didn’t he know?
But the expression on her face was pure satiation. Relieved, he let his eyes close on a groan.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘That was lovely.’
He heaved himself up on one elbow, kissed her eyelids, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth. ‘You were wonderful. Sleep now.’
He tucked his arm beneath her head and drew her close. She lay still in his arms, her breathing slowing. She snuggled closer.
‘R-Robert?’
‘Mmm…’
‘I love you.’
Blood roared in his head and a pounding shook his chest. It was as if a fissure had cracked in a wall and bricks were crashing down. Those same words hovered on his tongue.
He stiffened against them. Kept them behind his teeth. She was too young, too innocent. And he too unworthy. Cast out by his peers. Even if he believed in love, and he wasn’t sure he did, he was not the man for her.
Frederica turned her face away.
Damnation. He’d hesitated too long. Left it too late to say something teasing, the kind of thing he said to all his lovers. How lucky I am. Or, You are the sweetest woman I know.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.
But there was heartbreak in her voice. He reached out, then let his hand fall away. What she thought of as love was merely the afterglow. When the fire cooled she’d move on. Or he would.
It was the way it worked.
He just wished that the thought of it didn’t make him feel physically ill. Or wish he was wrong.
But the glow was still there, bright and enticing. If only he believed it would last. It never did.
But he could stay until it dimmed. Until they tired of each other. He could find work in Italy just as easily as he could find employment in England, could he not? Mother could no doubt be persuaded to use her influence to help him find a position at the consulate in Florence. He could support them both while Frederica painted until her heart was content.
Until the glow faded. It might take a while. Longer than most. They would laze in the heat, travel around the country looking at paintings and ancient monuments. Now the war with the French was over, there were lots of places he longed to see. Perhaps they could even go to Paris. Why not? He had nothing keeping him in England. And until she found someone more worthy of her love, he could keep her safe.
He leant over her and kissed her cheek. ‘Let us see what tomorrow brings.’
With a muffler covering the lower half of his face, Robert peered around the corner. Everything was set. While he couldn’t see her, he knew Frederica and John were standing in the shadows of an alley a few yards from Bliss’s front door. When the hue and cry started, John would whisk her in. Robert was escorting the disguised maid because Lullington would know him despite the drunken stagger he planned to affect.
A fussy-looking lawyer in his wig and gown bustled up the street. A skinny, shabbily dressed clerk with red-and-yellow-striped stockings scurried along behind him, his arms loaded with tomes, his floppy hat falling over his eyes. A trickle of recognition played at the fringes of Robert’s memory. He shook his head. Legal types had been coming and going to the various solicitors’ offices all morning. He must have seen this pair before. They headed straight for Bliss’s door.
‘Damn,’ Robert said. He hadn’t reckoned on strangers being in the office when Frederica entered.
‘Oooh,’ moaned Betty behind him. ‘I think maybe this is a bad idea. What if they arrests me?’
‘Ten shillings,’ Robert said, doubling her price.
‘How much longer does we have to wait?’
Robert turned back and gave her the quick once over. With her rather ridiculous coal-scuttle bonnet and a dress obviously far too big, she looked like a woman in disguise.
The panic in her blue eyes said if they didn’t go now, she was going to balk no matter how much money he offered.
Robert put one arm around her waist, and grabbed her hand. ‘Remember, follow whatever I do. And when I say run, you run back the way we came.’
They staggered into the street and wove among the lawyers and city gentlemen. A loiterer leaned on Bliss’s office wall. He straightened. He’d seen Betty. Another, on the other side of the street, headed for the curb. The traffic would slow him, but it wouldn’t take him long to cross to their side.
‘Are you ready?’ Robert whispered, aware of the violent tremble of Betty’s hand. His heart picked up speed. His muscles tensed, ready to run. ‘Keep walking. Just a little bit farther.’
There. Stepping out of the alley, Frederica.
Robert frowned. What the hell was she doing? With a dark cloak and a hood pulled up over her head shielding her face, she looked more suspicious than he and Betty did. She was supposed to be wearing a blonde wig and trotting along as if she was simply out shopping, not looking as if she was a spy for the French.
And where the hell was John?
The man on the other side of the street spotted her.
Robert quickened his pace. Something had gone wrong. He had to get to her before they did. She must have lost her nerve and decided to cover her face.
‘Now,’ he said to Betty. ‘Run.’
With the shriek she’d practised in the inn, she turned and fled with the first man Robert had seen racing after her.
The second man had his gaze fixed on Frederica.
Robert started to run towards her.
A