Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

hers was warm and soft. He could feel her heart beating and her breath tickled his neck. He thought the scent of her skin would never leave his memory.

      ‘Lily.’

      ‘Mmm?’ Jack felt her lips move against the front of his shirt and fought down the need to seek them out again with his own.

      ‘Time you were in bed.’

      ‘Mmm?’ This time there was a decidedly mischievous note in her voice.

      ‘Your own bed, by yourself,’ he added firmly, wondering which of them was most in need of the reproof.

      ‘Jack?’ Her voice was muffled. ‘Jack, don’t you want to … to …?’

      ‘No.’ Yes, oh, God, so much. Yes.

      ‘I don’t think I understand. You did not—I mean, I know what happens when a man lies with a woman, and that was not it.’ Ah, that’s my Lily. Questions and more questions until you get to the bottom of things!

      ‘It is one of the things that can happen. One of many things.’

      ‘Oh.’ There was a hint of worry behind the monosyllable. Jack pushed the weight of her hair back from her face in an attempt to see her face, but Lily burrowed against him. ‘Am I still—’

      ‘A virgin? Yes.’

      ‘Oh.’ He could almost feel her thinking. ‘Good. I think.’

      ‘Definitely good.’ He had to tell himself that. And assuredly he would be thankful for it in the morning, if his body ever stopped screaming at him for release. He reached down and smoothed her skirts back over her legs, trying not to look at the naked whiteness of her thighs, the elegant curve of her calves.

      There was a sigh so deep he thought it stirred the hairs on his chest, despite his buttoned shirt. Lily uncurled herself and sat up, hairpins falling to the floor as she did so. In the firelight her eyes glinted, but he could not read the emotions in them. ‘We had better find all of these before the housemaid does,’ she remarked prosaically, sweeping her hand across the carpet.

      Jack sat back on his heels and began to search too. ‘What about your maid? Will you have to wake her to unlace your gown?’

      ‘Yes.’ Lily frowned at the handful of pins. ‘I wonder if there are any more of these. Janet will just think I have let down my own hair, especially if I take off my jewels as well.’ She swept her hand across the woollen pile again and their fingers touched. Lily moved her hand until they intertwined. ‘Jack, I am sorry.’

      Hell. Guilt hit him in the belly. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel ashamed of what had just happened.

      ‘I should not have behaved like that when you are too much the gentleman to take advantage of me.’ She bit her lip and looked him in the face. ‘I know perfectly well what would have happened if you had been Adrian.’

      He closed his fingers hard around hers. ‘You did nothing wrong, other than to trust me. The blame is mine. It will not happen again.’

      ‘I will always trust you.’ She got to her feet, her hand still clasped in his, and he stood too. ‘Give me those pins. We had better see how the back door is secured.’

      Lily hopped down off the stool, gave the garden door a last shake and went back to the salon for one final check. All seemed orderly and innocuous. The fire was smouldering safely behind the fire screen, the brandy glass was back on the tray, and one pearl pin glinted on the carpet. She stooped and picked it up.

      What a strange, wonderful, evening. Lily picked up the branch of candles and shut the door. She had behaved with complete impropriety, she knew that. Inside she felt warm with the knowledge that she had been right to trust Jack, and guilty to think she had taken more, far more, than she had given. And yet, he had seemed content. Perhaps he was simply so much more secure in himself than Adrian was that he did not have to take in order to be happy. Perhaps, this time at least, simply making her happy was enough. And she was happy, happy with a bone-deep physical contentment that overwhelmed all her mental anxieties.

      How many women fell in love and found out too late that they could not rely on the man, as she knew she could upon Jack? Then, as she reached her chamber, reality rolled back out of the rosy mist she inhabited. What had just passed between her and Jack was all that there could be. He would go back to his mine, far away. She would continue with her social whirl until she found a titled husband whom she could tolerate, and thus fulfil her duty.

      Lily sat down in front of her dressing-table mirror and began to unhook her earrings and unfasten her necklace. The pearls slid over her skin in a sensual whisper as the double rope uncoiled. Could she ever be touched by a man again without remembering Jack’s caress, the way his hard hands were so gentle on her body?

      ‘Miss Lily?’ She jumped. Janet emerged from the dressing room, pulling her wrapper tight and yawning. ‘You should have called me, Miss Lily.’

      ‘I thought I might be able to manage without disturbing you.’ Lily stood up and let the maid begin to unhook the fastenings of her gown. A hair pin fell out. ‘I made a complete mull of taking down my hair,’ she confessed. ‘I was fiddling with it in the salon just now and it all came tumbling down. I have probably shed pins over half the house.’

      ‘Never mind, Miss Lily,’ Janet said comfortably, lifting the heavy silk skirts over Lily’s head. She set the gown down and rapidly counted the pile of pins Lily had put on the dressing table. ‘Ten, and the one I’ve just picked up. That makes eleven. There ought to be twelve. I’ll warn the parlour maids. That’s a pretty set, we don’t want to lose one of them.’

      Lily tossed aside her chemise and petticoats and dragged on her nightgown. She had never felt bashful about undressing with Janet in the room. Now she was so conscious of her own body that she felt sure she must be one rosy blush from head to toe. Should she still throb and tingle like that in places she had hardly been aware of before—and would certainly never have considered it modest to have thought about? And yet Jack had caressed her there, brought her the most delicious pleasure with a touch, and she had felt not the slightest glimmering of shame.

      ‘Will there be anything else, Miss Lily?’ The maid shook out the undergarments and draped the gown over her arm.

      ‘No, thank you Janet. Just snuff out the candles as you go, please.’

      On the landing the clock struck a quarter-hour. Quarter past two? How long had she and Jack stayed together in the salon, locked into that private dream world? Lily snuggled down under the covers and thought about Jack. Was he too trying to sleep, or sitting up working on those complex plans and calculations that littered his work table? Or perhaps he had gone straight out again, to find an obliging Cyprian and take his pleasure with her. She stiffened at the thought of the betrayal, then forced herself to be fair. Why should he not? He was a grown man, and, unlike her, had no tie of affection to prevent him. For Jack, taking another woman would be no betrayal at all.

      Lily was heavy-eyed at breakfast, toying with her toast and earning a sharp enquiry from her aunt about what she had been up to the night before to put dark circles under her eyes.

      ‘I danced too much, that is all. And then when I got home I was too restless to sleep, so I sat up in the salon for a while.’ She flicked open the pages of the Morning Post, pretending an interest she did not feel in a report of a debate on trade in the House of Commons.

      ‘And Mr Lovell escorted you?’ Now how did Aunt know that?

      ‘I invited him to, but he had to join me there, in the end.’

      ‘You are blushing, miss! Did he kiss you?’

      ‘Aunt! Lady Billington was with me.’

      ‘He’s not the man I think he is if he let that sharp-nosed creature stop him kissing a girl if he wanted to. Well?’

      ‘Yes,’ Lily admitted baldly.

      ‘Enjoy it?’

      Lily