He could not bring her back to the peak, and he began to feel foolish trying. He sat back in a squat, realizing how much his knees hurt from kneeling on the wood floor.
Frances sat up, looked down at him from the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry.”
Her face looked pale. Her eyes and cheekbones were shadowed. Or perhaps it was only the angle at which she watched him, the light from the window striking her from above.
Henry clutched at the tangled bed sheet and pulled it around himself. This left no cover for Frances, but he didn’t care right now. Something had gone wrong, and likely it was his fault, and he didn’t want to face that reckoning with a bare arse.
He shut his eyes and thought of the most un-arousing things possible. Pus. Brussels sprouts and goat brains. Lord Wadsworth’s sneer.
That did it. His too-eager body succumbed to his control again, and he mustered a reasonable amount of calm as he creaked from the floor to his feet and sat next to Frances on the bed. Again, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She crossed her arms across her chest, covering as much of her nakedness as she could. She rubbed at her upper arms with her hands. “Well, not exactly. I suppose I am a bit distracted.”
“Distracted.” Was she, now? When she’d stroked him to life, opened herself to his mouth and his most intimate touch.
Frances unfolded her arms, began gathering and twisting her hair from where it had spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Pins had scattered everywhere, and she slid from the bed to search out the small metal wires on the floor with one hand as she held her hair in a loose coil with the other.
So they were done, then. “Are you going to tell me what was distracting you?”
She kept picking up pins from the floor. Her hair was already restrained, a ludicrous pairing with her lush nudity. “It was nothing serious,” she said in a tight voice. “I was—”
A scratch at the door cut her off. “Mrs. Whittier?” a young-sounding female called.
Frances stood up as quickly as if she had a spring within her. “Yes, Millie?” She shot a warning look at Henry, and he felt a contrary urge to announce himself to their interrupter. Come back later, Millie. Madam and I are trying to fornicate.
Trying and failing. He clamped his mouth shut and looked at the wall as Frances began to pace around. Thick billowing sounds told him she was snapping out her rumpled clothes. She’d need help putting on her stays. Well, much luck to her.
The unseen Millie spoke through the closed door. “Excuse me, mum. But Lady Stratton says as she needs you right away. His lordship the ferrety-looking man seems likely to pop the question in front of everyone.”
“Wadsworth,” Frances said. “The man ruins everything.”
Was it Henry’s imagination, or did she not sound as disappointed as she ought?
“Please, mum,” Millie said, her slightly muffled voice now sounding panicked through the door. “Do come right away. Lady Stratton says you’re ever so good at keeping the man in line.”
Henry relented before the servant had an apoplexy in the corridor. “Help me get dressed,” he whispered, catching Frances’s eye. “Then I’ll send the maid in to you.”
Frances nodded at Henry, then called back through the door, “Of course, Millie. Tell her I’ll be there directly. And then come back to me, for I’ll need your help dressing.”
***
Considering how debauched they’d been this morning, Henry thought they looked respectable enough right now. Frances had donned a demure gown of blue serge—there was simply no hope for this morning’s gown, so crushed had it been by Henry’s fingers and their tangled bodies.
She might wear prim clothing, but he knew the truth.
As Henry had dressed, his light mood had returned. The world had opened for him in the last twenty-four hours, and only he knew its secrets. He knew what fires lay beneath Frances’s cool exterior. He knew how her lips parted when she reached her peak, how she gasped his name as if it were a prayer or a plea.
So he had not been able to bring her to climax with his mouth. What of it? They would have all their lives to try other things. He would make it his mission to find what brought her to ecstasy. He had never had such pleasurable orders before; it would be a delight to carry them out.
There was no one to see his wolfish grin. Frances was marching ahead down the stairs to the first floor and the drawing room. Her shoulders were straight and drawn slightly back, as if her heart was presenting a target. Do your worst, world.
He really felt as if the world could, and he would not be a bit bothered.
“Frances,” he said as they reached a landing. He had to stop her. One more turn of the staircase and they would reenter the public world. She would become a companion again, and as far as anyone knew, he’d be just another caller for Caro.
Surely they could not transform so easily. Had they not shared something irrevocable? Could they not promise the same?
She faced him, looking solemn. Those peach-black shadows still darkened her eyes.
“Frances, let us announce our betrothal today. Right now, even. In the drawing room.”
“Our betrothal? Are we betrothed?” She gave him a teasing smile. “You have never asked me to marry you.”
A finger of unease poked Henry’s spine. “Please, be serious. I’m in earnest, Frances. You must have known we’d never”—he lowered his voice—“never do such intimate things without being bound to each other.”
Her smile sank down into a crooked, twisted thing. “It’s not wise to take anything for granted.”
The words were a swift jab in the gut, not at all the response he’d expected. Henry could only gape.
You really are terrifying. For the first time, he thought so—because she batted his offer away as though it meant nothing.
He must have shown his shock, for she softened at once. “But you are right. I consider myself bound to you, quite tightly.”
It seemed she was going to say more, but a shout from the drawing room below interrupted her. There was a crash of something heavy being broken, like a china ornament or a vase thrown against the stone of the hearth. Or against Wadsworth’s head if Henry was lucky.
“Good Lord.” Frances sounded worried. “Wadsworth must have proposed already. He’ll be in an almighty rage. Quick, Henry, go downstairs and find your flowers. Be ready to give them to Caroline, as if you’re calling on her. Hurry. No one must suspect anything about us.”
She shoved at his chest, then pressed herself against the landing wall, as if her dark blue dress could possibly vanish into the green and white plasterwork on the landing.
Henry planted his feet. “What is wrong? There’s no need to lie, is there?”
“It’s just for today,” she said in a ragged whisper. “Please. I don’t want Wadsworth to say anything to you.”
“Wait.” He shook his head. “Why? Do you think he will insult you?”
“Probably, but I don’t care about that.”
“Then you think he will insult me. Frances, I don’t care about that either. But if you do, let’s go back upstairs until he leaves.”
“I have to go in. I’m sorry. Caroline has asked for me; she will need me.” Her eyes met Henry’s, wide and panicky.
Not what one expected to see when a woman agreed to marriage.
So. She was ashamed of him. And this was what happened when one showed a woman one’s every weakness: it became magnified. Now it was seen by two, not just one.