“I’ll drink to that.” He took the bottle from her and downed another swallow. “What has happened at home to bring you to my doorstep, such as it is?”
She inhaled, and the crisp, clean scent of him spun through her senses, left her nearly wanting to beg him to make the pain, the sadness go away. “My mother is fading and so very frail.” Her words sounded small in the pressing darkness. If not for the warmth of Royce at her side, she would give into the tears that grew in her throat. “I fear it won’t be long before she leaves me.” A few tears spilled onto her cheeks despite every effort to keep them at bay. “I both want to be at her side but want to run far from there, so I don’t need to bear witness to death.”
“That’s understandable. There is no joy in it, and it only makes a person’s life more complicated.” He took another drink then placed the bottle on the floor. When she dashed at the persistent tears, he stretched out upon the bed and encouraged her to do the same. With her back flush to his front, he wrapped his arms around her. “Stay with me awhile.”
She didn’t want him to see her in such a vulnerable state. It didn’t go well with the image of the devil-may-care lady she’d carefully cultivated. “But I—”
“Shh.” His breath warmed the shell of her ear. “Let me hold you, Isobel. Borrow my strength and let me do the same from you.”
There was a certain comfort in that. By increments she relaxed into his embrace and let the heat of his body seep into hers. “I’m so afraid, Royce.” Her tears came fast and furious, but she let them fall, for perhaps that was what she needed. “Once Mother dies, I’ll be alone. I don’t know how to acclimate to that.”
He stroked a hand along her torso, up and down, the gentle motion soothing. “You have the whole of the Storme connection around you. That’s the wonderful thing about a large, extended family.”
“I suppose.” Isobel ran her fingers down his arm. “They’re your family too.” And frankly, they’d rally behind him more than they would her. That made her tears continue. “Caroline is out of reach. She rarely visits, and I rather doubt even Mother’s passing will change her mind. William is married and has started his own family. His time is already split. To say nothing of my cousins and their busy lives.” A shuddering sigh escaped her. “But I’ve told you all of this before. Nothing has changed, and I largely feel as if I don’t matter. Exactly like I felt during my childhood.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t offer empty platitudes or advice; he merely held her and caressed his hand up and down her body. Was he even aware he did it?
“Once Mother leaves me, I’ll have no one left to talk with. She was a good listener.” Isobel wiped at her tears. The ruby ring twinkled in the moonlight, yet another reminder that a life of domesticity wasn’t for her. Perhaps the other Stormes were made for it, but she wasn’t. “I rarely took her advice, but she always listened.”
His chuckle reverberated in her chest and set off frissons of need throughout her body. “Somehow I believe you don’t take advice from anyone.” He moved his hand to her right breast, cupping it through the muslin of her dress.
“Of course not,” and the words came out as a breathless whisper. “I know myself better than most, so I’ll do what I see fit.”
“Even if those things rarely bring about the satisfaction or security you unconsciously seek?” he asked in a soft voice. His whisky-scented breath skated across her cheek. “You forget that I know you fairly well too.”
That he did. She ignored it and concentrated on how he felt layered against her back. There was a certain part of his anatomy that was quite interested as it pressed insistently into her bottom. Imagining that hardness pushing into her core left her heated and needy, but she didn’t try to initiate intercourse. For this night, she was all too vulnerable and wished to let him make the first inroads if that’s where this interlude would go.
“It’s neither here nor there. I’m not a lady in the usual style.”
“Ah, my dear, that is the understatement of the year.” With a couple of insistent tugs to the loose-fitting bodice—she’d chosen a dress she could manipulate herself without a maid for the stays—he bared that breast. Soon enough, he brushed his wandering fingers around and around that mound of flesh, bringing the nipple to erect attention.
A tiny whimper left her throat. Desperate for either his approval or attention, she blurted, “Over the past handful of days, I’ve tried to act the proper ton lady.”
His hand stilled on her breast, and she nearly begged him to continue, but she bit her bottom lip. Well-bred women didn’t give into their lustful urges. “Why the devil would you wish to do that?”
“As you mentioned, I’ve yet to find satisfaction or security, and since the woman I am hasn’t brought about those things, I thought perhaps being someone else might.” Oh, how she hated herself for both the admission and the wish to mold herself into the same sort of people she despised. How weak can I be? Yet it was a trying time.
“Then the world will suffer for the loss of the individual you’ve become.” Once more, he stroked his long, elegant fingers over her breast, and this time, when he trailed the pads of those fingers over her nipple, her poorly stifled moan echoed in the silence.
That little bit of praise temporarily buoyed her spirits. “I failed. Quite miserably in fact.” Pleasure rippled over her body at his continued play. “My embroidery thread kept knotting. My attempts at doing watercolors resulted in my paints running into each other. Ivan deserted me when I tried to play the pianoforte. He, in fact, howled his displeasure. And it’s become painfully obvious that I do not know how to make a perfect pot of tea.” To any other woman, that list of failures would result in self-recriminations, but to Isobel, she shrugged it off. Those skills simply weren’t what defined her.
Yet, what did?
“You have much more to give the world than those mundane things.” Why did his voice sound strained and tinged with disappointment? “However, it would behoove you to find your purpose in this life. Discover what sets your soul on fire and follow it with fierce determination.”
“Like you have with being a physician?” She gasped when he lightly pinched that aching bud. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to feel his naked body against hers! During the course of their apparent ill-fated affair, she’d become all too accustomed to sharing carnal relations with him.
“Yes.” That one-word answer was graveled with emotions she couldn’t identify. “No one should ever feel useless in this world; there is something special and unique waiting for each of us.” For long moments, silence reigned in the cozy room while he kneaded and caressed her breast. “I’ve had years at following my heart. Now I must shift my focus to the title.”
With every pass of his fingers, she yearned for more, but talking with him so candidly took some of the edge off her longing too. How curious. “What if I’m unable to find my calling?” Clearly, there was nothing she excelled at except flirting, for it there had been, wouldn’t she have found it by now?
“It will come, but you must be open to it, and it might prove painful in the beginning.” Royce left off from playing with her breast to draw up her skirting. Once the fabric bunched at her hip, he put a knee between her thighs and encouraged her to rest a leg over his, leaving her body open. “Above all, never let it go once you do find it.” He slid his fingers through the feminine curls shrouding her sex, and when he used those talented digits to coax her swelling pearl out of hiding, a strangled sort of moan escaped her. She laid her hand atop his, guiding him to exactly where she needed him to be.
“Royce…” When he took the hint, she sighed. Isobel lifted her arm and wrapped her hand about his nape. She wanted to feel his lips on hers, know that he still desired her even though a gulf of distinction had formed between them. Now they moved in opposite directions and there was naught she could do about it, but here, tonight, in the dark with a relatively cool summer breeze coming in from the window and the moon’s light frosting everything in silver, she could pretend nothing had changed.
“Shh.” Around and around that button his finger went, and with every pass pressure built and stacked in her lower belly. “That fact of the matter is that you and I can only be who we are, no matter if we’ve found our purpose.” He nuzzled the crook of her shoulder, and the scrape of his stubble over her skin gave a new awareness to their play, a wicked edge she desperately wanted to explore. “There is no escape from that. I suppose there never has been, and I’ve fooled myself too well over the years.”
Her heart ached for him and the desolation that threaded through his voice. Perhaps he was as trapped and as hopeless as she was only in different ways. Though her body grew more and more wanton the longer he rubbed his fingers over that nubbin, she said, “What if that’s not good enough?” For while she was quite good at finding scandal, none of that would elevate her in his eyes. Not now that he was an earl, and she was merely the forgotten youngest child of a troubled and volatile viscount.