Compromised by Christmas (32 page)

"Miss Winston," he said, and she had forgotten how
low his voice was and how the timbre vibrated through her.

"Your grace," she answered as calmly as she could
manage. Inside she was in turmoil, but, thankfully, her voice did
not betray her.

Madame Roussard hung back on the stairs, waiting.

"Thank you, Madame. You may leave us."

Madame Roussard nodded and descended the stairs. She
would lock up and leave.

Max looked behind him at the empty stairs. "Are you
sure that is wise?"

Roxana paused in moving toward the stove. She chose
to ignore the jibe. "Would you like tea? I am sorry there is no
sugar or milk."

"Please."

She could feel his gaze on her, like being watched by
a wolf. Max seemed rangier, leaner and harsher. An undercurrent of
anger hung in the air and made her jumpy. Had he searched for her
only to satisfy his sense of honor? Oh God, she had missed him.

"So you have found me," she said as she poured water
into her teapot and added tea leaves. She also lit the lamp with
its precious oil. She could not skimp while he was here.

"Yes," he answered.

She turned and realized he still wore his caped
greatcoat. Was it the same one that he had thrown around her
shoulders when she had chased after Breedon in the snow and grown
too cold? "May I take your coat and hat?"

He handed her his hat and slid off his greatcoat. He
looked around as if he had not even noticed his environment before
now. Her heart beat madly as she stood close enough to smell the
cold on his skin, the hint of bay rum and just him.

She stood clutching his coat to her, afraid to move
yet drawn close as if he were a warm fire in the middle of winter.
Her body remembered his touch with every fiber of her being.

His exploration of the room stopped on her iron bed.
She had curtained it with heavy velvet to keep the warmth in as she
slept, but the curtains were drawn away from the foot to allow the
heat from the stove to enter the enclosure.

He turned toward her as if aware of her reluctance to
move away. "Roxy?"

She forced herself to draw back and cross the room to
one of the work tables, where she laid his greatcoat and placed his
hat. "As you can see, this is my workroom. I have four seamstresses
who work for me during the day, and of course Madame Roussard
provides a face to the world, so no one of consequence knows I am
here."

"I take it you did not want to be found."

Roxana bit her lip. Did he appreciate anything of her
efforts to start her business and make a success of it? She turned
and leaned against the work table. "I am glad
you
found
me."

"I came to take you back home."

She turned her back to him and leaned her hands on
the table. "I am happy here. Well, mostly happy here. I confess to
occasional loneliness. I miss my family, but I do not wish to
return home."

"Not there. Not your father's home. I wanted you to
know that my offer is still good."

He was still talking of marriage? She looked down at
the table. "I have no wish to leave here."

It was a lie. At times she wanted to be with him much
more than she wanted to be here, struggling to make her business
work. But turning over control of her life, mind and body to him,
to any man, terrified her.

"Roxana, marry me."

"I'm a woman in trade, Max. A duke cannot marry a
person like me. I won't give this up. I have worked too hard for
it."

Could they not have closeness without marriage? Many
women took lovers and Max was already that in her mind. He was her
lover, the man who made her come alive in the night, the man whose
touch made her shiver, the man who had woken her to a side of life
that offered so much more than she expected.

Max crossed the floor behind her, his footsteps solid
thuds on the floor. He reached around her for his coat and hat. "I
don't know why I came here," he said.

The idea that he would leave so soon, before she had
a chance to tell him that he had changed her, had woken her to the
joys of pleasure. That she wanted him to stay. That she thought
about him every minute that was not filled with work and many times
when she sat sewing or listening to the seamstresses gossip or when
she lay alone in bed at night. Especially when alone in bed at
night.

She turned, caught between him and the table. Her
breasts brushed against his chest and they both went still. Under
her bodice her breasts tingled, ached. Her blood rushed to her
nether regions.

"I do not want you to leave," she whispered, breaking
the charged silence.

He looked down on her, his brown eyes searching.

She put her hand on his chest, then the other hand,
and she slid them up to his neck.

"Roxana." His voice was anguished.

She pushed closer to him. "I want you to stay," she
said with more surety.

"You don't know what you are saying," he said. As he
looked down at her his breathing quickened and his nostrils flared.
He felt the burst of passion too. She knew he did.

"I am a woman grown now. I know what I am
saying."

He winced as if she had struck him.

"I am not quite as naïve as I was at your house," she
said urgently. She had grown up and gained confidence in her
ability to make her way in the world.

"And that is my fault."

She heard the heaviness in his words and did not know
how to make him see that she did not regard maturity and knowledge
as a burden.

Roxana stretched up on her tiptoes, sliding her
breasts against his chest. And he kissed her. He kissed her like he
was starving, and she was glad the desperation was not all on her
side.

She pushed up into him, relishing the feel of his
arms around her, his hands against her back, fingers splayed. He
held her tight with hunger, but also with gentleness, as if he
meant to treat her like a precious and rare treasure.

She threaded her hands in his hair, feeling the
strands curl around her fingers and holding his head down to hers
as their tongues swirled in an age-old dance.

She could barely think; her thoughts became just a
jumble of disordered sensations of his solid strength, his probing
kiss, the taste of him and his cradling hold. Her body, so long
deprived, came alive, quickening and melting. Heat swirled and
simmered below her skin and sparks shimmered along her spine.

She wanted more, and she tugged at the knot of his
cravat. He yanked it free and the ends dangled. She eased around
toward her living space and, pulling the ends of his neck cloth,
she tugged him toward her bed.

As if with great reluctance, he ended the kiss, but
then nibbled at her lips. "Roxy, we cannot unless . . ."

"Hush," she murmured. "I know what I want."

He dug in his heels, and she let loose of his cravat.
Instead she backed toward the bed, pulling out the beaded pins that
held her bodice closed. As the material loosened and slipped, Max's
gaze dropped to the falling material. As Roxana remembered how she
had felt watching Max undress in front of her, she wondered if she
could manage to be that brave.

"Christ, you would be wearing that," he said as if
she had played unfairly.

She glanced down at the red silk of her shift. She
had forgotten she had worn the nearly sheer undergarment. But as
her clothes wore out and the likelihood of her ever wearing her red
silk ballgown again faded, she had begun wearing the two silk
shifts in the normal course of the week.

He closed the distance between them and lifted her
off her feet. He kissed her again, and she could feel his restraint
dissolving.

"Are you certain, Roxana?" he asked.

"I am certain. I have missed you so much more than I
ever would have thought."

"Then you will—"

She cut off his words with a finger across his lips.
They would have to settle many things, but she did not want that to
intrude now. "Not now, Max. Please, not now."

She told herself that he understood she wanted him in
her bed. That she was no longer the semi-innocent young lady of the
ton, but a working woman of a different class and station. "If you
must talk, talk to me of Christmas trees and such nonsense."

"Roxana, that night I wanted to calm you." He stroked
the side of her face.

"I know." She reached for the buttons of his coat.
"You did. I was frightened."

"Odd—you seem fearless."

She paused for a moment. "I was afraid you'd stop
searching before you found me." She had not realized how much she
hoped and yearned for him to find her. She knew he would eventually
succeed. She had been counting on him coming to her. "Will you
forgive me for being so foolish as to run away?"

"I would forgive you anything," he said, but he shook
her shoulders back and forth as if he would punish her instead.
Then he kissed her.

She pushed her dress down and shivered as the cold
air of the room encountered her heated skin. Or she shivered
because even though he said he would forgive her anything, he made
a mocking gesture of punishment. She was not so certain of his
reaction when she stood in the way of what he wanted.

Yet, sometime in the last months, as he searched for
her and her family's sparse letters reported his kindness and
offers of support, she realized she had slipped over the edge into
a commitment of her heart. She might not be able to tell him,
because he would expect her to marry him, but she had fallen in
love.

Of everything Max imagined when he found Roxana
again, this was the stuff of dreams, not the small hopes he had
held. As her plain green gown slipped to the floor and exposed the
bright red of her sheer shift, he wondered if he had died and gone
to heaven.

But then, heaven probably wasn't located in the
corner of a cold attic workroom above a dressmaker's shop. He did
not want to let her go, for fear she would evaporate into thin air.
Yet she felt real to him. Her skin soft and smooth, her body warm
and pliant, her kiss as welcoming as any man could want.

Roxana had changed into a woman in the time they had
been apart, and the thought broke his heart, yet it only made him
want her more. He could make love to her without restraint. Before,
he had been constrained by her innocence and her need for
instruction. Still, his thought was to treat her with reverence.
And this time, they would be married. He could not bear the thought
of it any other way. If she had any fears that what had gone on in
the last year deterred him in any way, he would set her mind at
ease. They were meant to be together, even if she had not realized
it. But she must know it now.

He kissed her and allowed his emotions free rein. His
heart galloped and his blood coursed through his body, journeying
to his lower half. He leaned down and caught her legs under her
knees, lifted her and carried her across the room.

The cold sheets jarred him as he placed her on the
bed. He would take her out of this place and show her that she
deserved to be pampered and surrounded by comforts. He only
stripped off his coat and waistcoat and dumped his Hussar boots
before he slid in beside her. She caught him to her, and he found
her lips again.

As he ran his hand over her ribs, he suspected she
might have lost weight, weight she did not have to lose.

"Have you been eating?" he asked.

"Hush," she said with a slight laugh. She trailed her
hand down his front to find the buttons of his falls.

His heart pounded and he slid his hands over her
curves. For the next few minutes he was lost in the feel of her.
Then their clothes were pushed off in frenzied haste. He tried to
pause to be certain, but she writhed under him, urging him with her
kisses and eager touches.

He had so much to say to her and so much they needed
to settle, but he had wanted her too long, wanted her with an
aching hollowness since the morning after she had crawled into his
bed. In the back of his mind was the fear that he would be cut off
before he could complete this union with her. When he tried to
speak, she would press her mouth to his, touch her tongue to his
lips, sigh into him.

And he had one burning thing he needed to tell her,
that she needed to know as he nestled between her legs, prodding
her woman's core with his male member. She needed to know how he
felt before he made them one in body, because for him it would be
more than just a physical union.

He held the reins of his urgency. He needed to make
her understand. He cupped her face and stroked her hair back,
holding her down, impeding her efforts to keep their mouths locked
together in one endless kiss. "Roxana."

Her blue eyes opened and she looked sultry and dazed
all together. She made a slight moan of protest and shifted against
him. The rush of heat nearly overwhelmed him. His hips rocked
forward, probing that warm wet entrance to heaven.

For a second all he could think of was the silk of
her skin against his, the taste of her, her scent. "I love you," he
whispered, and then again louder. "I love you more than
anything."

He eased his hips forward and encountered the
resistance of her body.

He reached to check his position, not fully
comprehending the impediment.

A look of determination crossed her face. Roxana slid
her legs up and folded them across his hips and added pressure.
Then with a jerk, as if he had broken through a barrier, he slid
inside her. Her body gloved him like a tight sheath. She whimpered
and shuttered her eyes.

That he had hurt her tore at his heart. He had
thought she had gained experience to match her confidence. He had
accepted that she was no longer chaste in his mind, had thought
that was one reason she did not want to talk, but his every thought
was shouting that she had been a virgin. "Sweetheart, look to
me."