“Of course I know what you meant,” she said, sounding a little indignant. “I’m not a child. You want to lie with me. Well,” she added before he could even express shock at such blunt speaking from an innocent like her. “Well, I want that, too. Max, I’m leaving soon. Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, I have to return to my old life.”
“No, you don’t. You have connections now, and Delia said she’d chaperone you—”
“Oh, Max,” she cut him off, smiling, shaking her head. “This holiday has been wonderful, the most romantic, beautiful two months of my life, but that’s all it is, and we both know it.”
He didn’t know anything of the kind. But how could he argue the point in a way that didn’t show his hand too plainly? If she had any inkling his intention was to make her his duchess, she’d panic and bolt, or laugh in his face, or—worst of all—she’d harden her resolve against the idea so completely, he might never convince her. No, this had to be done gradually, easing her into the idea of becoming a duchess.
Before he could decide what to say, she closed the distance between them and cupped his face in her hands. “That’s why I’m here,” she said softly. “I’ve never had a romance before, and given the circumstances of my life, I doubt I ever will again. And we have one night left. So, I’m here to give both of us what we’ve been yearning for before it’s too late.”
She rose on her toes and kissed his mouth, and with that, all of Max’s resistance crumbled to dust. Honorable courtship, he decided as his arms wrapped around her, could start tomorrow.
18
He might be weak as water where she was concerned, but that didn’t mean he was about to abandon the patient tenderness of courtship. In fact, making love with Evie was going to require every bit of patience he could muster, so that he could make it as tender and gentle as he’d intended his courtship of her to be. He forced himself to pull back.
“If we do this, there’s no going back,” he said, impelled one last time to caution her. “Once it’s done, it can’t be undone.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“All right, then.” Banking his lust as best he could, he took her hand in his. “Come with me.”
He led her into his bedroom, pausing at the foot of the bed. “Wait here,” he said and pressed a quick kiss to her mouth. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked to the dressing table and opened his toiletry case, rummaging amid the contents, hoping Stowell had packed the one little thing he really hadn’t thought he’d be needing this season. When his fingers closed around the slim velvet box at the bottom, he let out a sigh of relief, decided his valet deserved a raise, and pulled the box out of his case.
“What’s that?” she asked as he returned to stand in front of her.
He opened it, revealing the flattened wisp of vulcanized rubber and silk ribbon nestled within a crimson velvet lining. “It’s called a French letter.”
“Oh, a condom?”
He gave a shout of laughter. “Evie, you never stop surprising me.”
“I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’m quite well-read, you know.”
“Yes, but this isn’t the sort of thing innocent women usually read about.” He pulled it out, enabling her to have a better look at it before he put it back in the box. “Given your extensive literary knowledge, I’m sure I don’t even have to ask, but is there anything you’d like me to explain before we start?”
She shook her head and looked up. “I don’t think so.”
He nodded, then he moved to the side of the bed, where he placed the box under his pillow.
“There is one thing I ought to tell you,” he said as he returned to stand opposite her and took her hands in his. “It might hurt, Evie. Sometimes it does, for women. But if so, it’s only the first time,” he rushed on. “After that, it doesn’t. And if there’s anything I do that you don’t like or don’t want, or if you want me to stop at any point, just tell me so. And I’ll stop.” He drew a profound, shaky breath. “I’ll stop.”
“I won’t ask you to.” She smiled. “Not now, not after coming here and flinging myself at you so shamelessly.”
“Just so you know, you can.”
“Remember what you told me you wanted to do to me that afternoon at Idyll Hour?”
He had only the vaguest recollection of the actual words in his frenzied, passionate declaration that day, but the essence of it he could hardly forget, especially since he was aching with it right now. “Yes.”
“Good.” She lifted their joined hands, pulling his to her breasts. “Because it’s time for you to do it. All of it.”
He opened his palms over her breasts, making a sound of appreciation as he realized that this time there was no confining corset to get in the way, but as he cupped and shaped them against his palms, he knew it wasn’t enough. He had to see them.
He slid his hands out from beneath hers and looked down, but though the light spilling through the doorway from the sitting room enabled him to see well enough, the flounces of lace that trimmed her gown made it impossible for him to find any hooks or buttons. “Help me, Evie. How do I unfasten this thing?”
“I thought you knew all about women’s clothes,” she said, laughing a little.
