A while later, after Mr. Brown had pressed a new set of clothing on him to make him look “more like a gentleman”, Marcus was ready to set off again. His new path took him past Fletcher Square onto fashionable Oxford Street and into Mayfair. He seemed to know his way around quite easily, but no one seemed to recognize him, which was a blessing. There were still huge gaps in his memory, but he was fairly certain that Marcus Stortford was his true name.
He found his way into one of the lending libraries and booksellers and spent a few moments looking up the Stortford family in Debretts. Strange that he couldn’t remember where he lived, or how many siblings he had… After a few moments, he had to close the book against the beginnings of one of his black headaches. A clock chimed four times. He needed to get back to the brewery to help Jem load the cart.
Gripping his parcel of new clothes under his arm, he started back down toward the Thames and the less salubrious area of the docks where the brewery was situated. Part of him didn’t want to go back, but he’d promised Mrs. Smith he would at least return.
He found Jem easily enough and enjoyed the physical effort of loading the barrels simply because it stopped him having to think. Jem took him into the inn to have a pint of ale and some supper, an offer that Marcus accepted with gratitude.
Eventually, they were ready to leave and Jem had the horses harnessed while Marcus held their heads.
“Come on then, Marco. Let’s go.”
Marcus walked around to Jem, who had already mounted his box, and looked up at him.
“I can’t come back yet.” He swallowed hard. “Will you give Mrs. Smith a message for me? Tell her I have discovered important information and I’m pursuing it. Promise her that I will return when I have news.”
Jem nodded and gathered the multiple reins in one capable hand. “Aye, I’ll tell her.”
Marcus stepped back. “Then Godspeed.”
He watched the cart trundle off, the barrels swaying ponderously in the rear and then turned back toward the city. There was one man whose name he had remembered who might be able to help him discover more about his past. Now all he had to do was find him.
Two weeks left before she would be leaving Dove Cottage…with no occupation, a small pension and nowhere else to go. Amelia forced herself to pick up her quill pen and draw the sheet of paper toward her. It was well past midnight. Betty was asleep and Amelia was… contemplating her uncertain future.
She couldn’t go back to her family. Even if she begged, she knew they wouldn’t help her, and she had no intention of asking them. Her decision to marry Matthew had permanently cut all ties. She’d known it then, and she still didn’t regret it. She let out her breath and the candle flame wavered and then straightened again. All her applications for positions as a governess had been ignored, and no one seemed to need any schoolteachers.
Even as she completed that dismal thought, she remembered that her old governess, Matilda Stone, now worked at a girls’ school in Tunbridge Wells. Dipping her pen into the inkpot, she composed a letter to Matilda about her current circumstances and asked for advice.
After searching for Matilda’s address and sealing the letter with wax, Amelia tidied up the desk. She had to make Betty believe that she was leaving voluntarily for something better, or her aunt would worry terribly and might even refuse to accept her decision. Despite all his stuffiness, she knew that Jonathan and his wife would take care of Betty for the rest of her life.
Tears rose in her throat, and she resolutely pushed them down. She would survive. She wasn’t a pauper. If the worst came to the worst, she could move to London, find lodgings and seek a job there. She glanced across the table at the empty chair where Marco usually sat and pictured him there—his expression serious, his attention fixed on her. She missed him. He was the first man since Matthew who seemed to like her exactly as she was. Ever since he’d left she’d dreamed about him, the curl of black hair that fell over his forehead when he was concentrating, his wry smile that hid so much pain, and the intensity of his regard when he touched her even in the smallest way.
Amelia pressed her hands to her cheeks as she relived each and every one of his caresses. He’d made her feel alive again. Made her want things that she’d thought had died along with Matthew. If she’d known her future was so precarious before he’d left, would she have allowed him further liberties? Would she have allowed
herself
to want him back?
There was a tapping sound on the glass, and she stifled a gasp as a ghostly figure appeared at the window and disappeared around the side of the cottage toward the kitchen.
Heart thumping wildly, she tiptoed through the silent house and unlocked the back door.
“Mrs. Smith. I do apologize for disturbing you at such a late hour but the coach lost a wheel and I had to walk from the previous village.”
“Marco.” She congratulated herself on the calmness of her tone, and then took in the differences of his appearance. Had she conjured him with the intensity of her need? Was he really here? He wore a dark brown coat, new buckskin breeches and a black waistcoat. His boots looked new, too. “How nice to see you.”
She’d wanted him to come back so badly, and now that he was here, she wished he hadn’t come. She was ashamed of her inconvenient lust for a man who needed nothing more than her calm acceptance and support. The last thing
she
needed was to try to explain why he could no longer stay under her roof.
Not even her roof. Matthew hadn’t thought to alter his will and had left everything to his favorite aunt.
Removing his hat, Marco set it down on the table and bowed to her.
“You look very well, Mrs. Smith.”
“Thank you.” She gestured at his clothing. “You look like a different man.”
His disarming smile swept across his face. “Actually, I believe I am the man I was.”
“They
recognized
you?” She clasped her hands to her bosom. “You have discovered your identity?”
“Some of it.” He cleared his throat. “May I sit down?”
“Of course. Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you. I don’t wish to put you to any bother, I just wanted to explain.”
“That’s very kind of you.” She sat opposite him at the table and smiled encouragingly.
“My name isn’t actually Marco, but Marcus. I was a major in the Forty-eighth Foot.”
“Which makes perfect sense.” She nodded. “Did you find your family?”
“I believe I know who they are. I intend to visit them fairly shortly. They aren’t currently in London.”
She reached across the table to take his hand. “I am so very pleased for you.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You saved my life, Mrs. Smith. You gave me a future. How can I ever repay you for that?”
The tears she’d managed to stifle earlier rose again and she had to blink hard. “You owe me nothing. I did what any Christian woman would do.”
He kept hold of her hand. “I’ve read my Bible, Mrs. Smith, and we both know that there aren’t many good Samaritans in this world. How can I repay you?”
A thousand words crowded her mouth, and she fought them all back. She would not ask him to help her financially. She would
not.
“Take me to bed.” She blurted the words out before she even realized her intent.
He went still, his blue gaze inscrutable.
“I cannot do that and walk away from you again. And I
cannot
stay.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In the morning.” He hesitated. “I just wanted to see you and tell you that I have rediscovered myself.”
“You said that you couldn’t have me when you didn’t know who you were or when you had nothing to offer me. What about now?” Amelia stood and walked around the table to stand in front of him. She let her shawl drop to the floor, leaving her clad in only her nightgown. His gaze fell to the shape of her body outlined by the fire behind her. He swallowed hard and looked up at her.
“I can’t stay, Amelia.”
“I know.” She bent her head and kissed him gently on the mouth. “I don’t want you to stay. I just want this night with you.”
If everything was to end, didn’t she deserve one selfish memory to take into her new life with her? Matthew would never begrudge her that. Marcus muttered a curse, and she kissed him again, opening his mouth with hers until he kissed her back, his hand coming to rest on the nape of her neck, holding her close.
“Are you quite certain?” he whispered against her lips. “Because I want you very badly, but, God, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You will be giving me a gift.” She smiled into his concerned eyes. “And I will treasure it for always.”
He kissed her with all the ferocity of a starving man. She responded with the same need as he drew her between his knees, wrapping one hand firmly around her hips.
“Take me to bed,” she murmured between kisses. This time she meant every word.
“If you wish.” He stood, his hands still tangled in her hair, their mouths fused together, and picked her up. She clung to his shoulders as he mounted the stairs and eased her bedroom door open. After laying her carefully on the bed, he locked the door and built up the fire.
Amelia remained where he’d placed her, watching him move around her bedchamber, and then he finally come to kneel on the bed beside her. Holding his gaze, she pulled her nightgown over her head, leaving herself naked. His breath stuttered in his throat, and he leaned over her, his gaze everywhere. She hid nothing, enjoying his avid stare and the now obvious bulge in his breeches.
“Beautiful…” He breathed the word like a prayer. Dipping his head, he dropped a kiss on her breast and swirled his tongue over her nipple. She liked being naked when he was clothed, liked the contrast between the softness of her skin and the roughness of his wool coat and buckskin breeches.
She went to sit up, but he gently pushed her down again.
“Stay.” He smiled and brought her wrists over her head as he knelt between her thighs. Shrugging out of his coat and waistcoat, he unpinned his cravat and tossed it to the floor. “If you touch me now, I’ll come.”
“So quickly?” she teased.
His mouth quirked up at the corner. “I haven’t done this for a long time. In fact, I don’t
remember
the last time. It might’ve been years. I might even be a virgin.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“So do I.” His gaze dropped to his tented breeches. “My cock seems to know what it’s doing.”
“And what it wants.”
He kissed her slowly, and she wiggled against him until he trailed kisses down her throat and took her nipple in his mouth. While he feasted on her, his other hand wandered still lower, coming to rest between her legs and sliding easily over her slick folds.
“You’re wet for me,” he murmured.
“I believe it makes it easier to take all your hardness inside me.”
He groaned against her breast. “You are not helping my ability to be restrained.”
“I’m not trying to. I want you.” He raised his head to look at her, his blue eyes narrowed with lust. “I want you to take me like this, as if you couldn’t bear to wait to get out of the rest of your clothing.”
He went still, his gaze fixed on her, his throat working. “Hard?”
“Yes please.”
He knelt up and ripped open his breeches, shoved his underclothes and shirt to one side and came down over her and…
“Oh God.” She moaned as he pushed inside her. “Yes, just like that. Please.”
Marcus set his teeth and tried to ease himself inside Amelia, aware of every inch gained as she tightened around him. When he was only half way in, she came, making him shake with the need to just take her as she had asked him to. Her heels thumped into his arse, pushing him deeper until he had to move, had to thrust in and out of her as hard and deep as he could go, because nothing mattered except this joining, this need, and this sense that he had finally come home.
She climaxed again, and he followed her over, frantically trying to remember how to breathe, kiss and fuck at the same time. Only at the last second did he remember to pull out, and he hated doing it, had probably left it too late…
“I’m sorry,” he gasped and came up on his elbow to look down at her. “I didn’t mean to stay in you, I…”
She reached up and placed her fingertip against his lips. “I’ve never conceived a child. I don’t know if I can.”
He tried to speak, but she kept going. “I’m due to bleed any day now.”
Her matter-of-fact attitude and knowledge about her body spoke of her years traveling with the military. He’d been told that the women following the army knew how to stop a child being conceived in the middle of a battlefield, and it was true that there had rarely been any babies in the baggage train.
He rolled onto his back, and she followed him, her head under his chin and her hand over his heart. His eyes threatened to close…
“You still have your boots on,” she whispered.
He sat up, dislodging her from his chest. “God, I’m sorry. What a clod you invited to your bed.” He bent to his boots and then hesitated. “Unless you wish me to go?”
She smiled. “I wish to see you naked.”
“Then I am more than happy to oblige you.” It took him a few moments to ease off his new boots and mere seconds to shove his breeches and everything else out of the way.
Firm hands pressed him back down onto the bed, and Amelia bent over him, her gaze intent as she traced her fingertips over his multitude of scars and battle wounds. Her breast swung perilously close to his face and he licked her nipple, making her shiver.
His cock kicked up again as she kissed his chest and the jut of his hip. His hand closed in her hair, dislodging the last of the pins and allowing it to fall around her shoulders in a dark red cloud like a sudden fall of autumn leaves. Her tongue followed the trail of dark hair that speared down over his belly to his groin and alighted on his cock, drawing it into the warm cavern of her mouth.
His hand fisted in her hair, holding her exactly where he needed her as she bathed his rigid flesh with kisses and nips and sucks until he was big and crowding down her throat. He tried to ease back, but she wouldn’t let him. Who would’ve thought she’d be so fierce in bed? Not that he disliked it at all. It was just that in his experience, ladies didn’t enjoy sex quite as much as gentlemen.