She cupped his cheek, pulled him closer. The world had fallen away. There was only this. Only them.
Then a knock shattered it.
They both froze, breaths coming in harsh, fast pants against each other’s faces.
Ewan groaned against her skin. “That better not be?—”
“Uncle Ewan?” Percy’s voice came through the main door. “Sorry to disturb, but I most urgently need your help. You must supply me with more of those ordinary conversation topics you have mentioned several times. One can only find so many synonyms for ‘pleasant’ to describe the weather.”
Samantha blinked, still dazed.
Ewan buried his face in her lap and cursed with impressive fluency.
She laughed, a breathless, slightly unhinged thing, as she pulled her robe back around her.
He lifted his head, wild-eyed. “I’m going to strangle him.”
“You should go before he decides to come in,” she said gently, trying to calm the thundering of her heart.
He stood, reluctantly. Buttoned his shirt with fingers that trembled slightly. He looked at her like a man who’d been pulled from paradise too soon.
“Stay,” he said again, rough. Hopeful.
She looked away. She didn’t know if she could. Now, with the high of bliss wearing off, Samantha was left to face the reality of what had just happened.
Of what she’d just let him do to her. His words from before were now ringing in her head:
You’ll beg me to touch you… totasteyou, to make you forget everythingbut the way I make you feel.
It left a bitter taste in her mouth to remember it like this, in this moment. The fact that he was probably thinking about it, too… probably…gloating.
“I… I think I should go to sleep now.” She said, even as she made no move to stand yet. Her legs still felt like wheat stalks.
He hesitated, then crossed to the door. Paused with his hand on the knob. His voice, when it came, was soft. “I’ll be back soon.”
He would, she knew that. But she didn’t thinkshewould still be there when he did. And somehow, she had a feeling that he knew that, as well.
The door clicked shut behind him.
She remained curled on the settee, trembling, stunned by everything that had just passed between them. Her skin still tingled. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. Her soul was no longer entirely her own.
And she forced herself to rise from the settee and wobble back to her own room, securing the deadbolt on her side of the door. She had a feeling that she would lose even more now, if she didn’t do that.
And when he came back, she heard his footsteps pad over to the door, but he didn’t knock.
That night, they slept separately.
CHAPTER 14
“Are you quite certain you wish to discuss this particular passage, Lady Pemberton?” Jane whispered, leaning closer to Samantha as they settled into the ornate drawing room of Lady Harrington’s townhouse.
“Hush,” Samantha murmured back, though her cheeks warmed at her sister’s knowing look. “It’s a perfectly respectable literary discussion.”
The Athena Society had gathered for their monthly meeting, hosted by the dowager Lady Harrington, who was in town for her goddaughter’s wedding. The elderly woman commanded attention from her high-backed chair, her silver hair perfectly coiffed and her sharp eyes surveying the assembled ladies with evident satisfaction.
“Ladies, if we might begin,” Lady Harrington announced, tapping her walking stick against the marble floor. “Today we shall discuss Mrs. Canterbury’s latest work and the themes of?—”
“Oh, Samantha has the most fascinating thoughts on marriage dynamics in literature,” Jane interrupted cheerfully, blatantly ignoring her sister’s mortified gasp. “Don’t you, dearest sister?”
