Page 68 of To Hunt the Hunter

“Lucian,” she begged, and he heard the plea in her voice, heard the urgent demands of his own flesh as he buried his face in her neck and breathed, steadying himself. “It’s all right, please, I want this.”

He closed his eyes, wanting to rage and curse as he shook his head, loathing himself for denying her anything at all when he wanted to give her everything. Yet this would not be giving but taking, and he could not, could not dishonour her so thoroughly, could not risk leaving her with child, and he did not have nearly enough control to promise he wouldn’t let that happen.

She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Damn you, Lucian, and your blasted honour.”

“Yes,” he agreed, utterly wretched. He turned onto his back, releasing her and more than a little surprised when she shifted close again. “I’m so sorry.”

The words sounded hollow, pathetic, and he had never hated himself more.

“I know,” she said, regret and forgiveness in her voice.

She moved over him, her hair tickling his chest as she pressed kisses to his skin, and his breath caught as she slid her body intimately against his arousal. He watched as she sat up, her hair a tumble of golden curls about her beautiful face, her blue eyes staring down at him with such love he felt his heart would burst. She bent and pressed her mouth to his and he gripped her hips, taking control, wanting her to take her pleasure with him.

She sighed and closed her eyes. He watched, imprinting the sight on his mind as she rocked against him until she cried out, clutching at his shoulders, and he could hold back no longer. He pulled her down to him and they clung together, shipwrecked in the storm until it tore them apart for good.

Chapter 19

Dearest Ruth,

I don’t know whether you will be fortunate enough to intercept this message on your journey to London, but if you do, please come at once to Matlock Bath instead. Matilda is there and she will need us all.

In haste, with much love,

―Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Bonnie Cadogan to Mrs Ruth Anderson.

9th May 1815, The Old Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire.

“I wish you could come too,” Phoebe said with a sigh.

“So do I,” Matilda replied. “I have wanted very much to visit the mills and see everything your uncle has been doing to improve them. But you must tell me all about it, so fetch your bonnet and gloves and get ready. You don’t want to keep him waiting.”

Matilda watched the little girl run off, looking up a moment later as Lucian came into the room. He stole her breath away as he always did, impeccably dressed and empirically handsome, he exuded power like no other man she’d ever known. She smiled at him as he came forward and took her hand, bowing over it and kissing her fingers, a courtly gesture that made her smile.

“Good morning, my love.”

“You said that already,” she observed, daring to remind him of how he’d woken her this morning and all that had followed.

“So I did,” he said, the warmth in his eyes bringing an answering spark of heat deep in her belly.

“You’re taking Phoebe with you,” she remarked, tearing her eyes from him before the temptation to throw herself into his arms and disarrange his perfect cravat became too overwhelming.

“You disapprove?”

“No,” she said, frowning a little. “At least, I don’t think so, but… if it is a very dreadful place….”

Lucian nodded, understanding at once, as she’d known he would. “It is no longer the hellish place it once was, but it is not a comfortable place to be either, and so Phoebe must see it. We live gilded lives and it is dangerous to believe anything other than luck separates us from them. Phoebe must appreciate the privilege to which she has been born, and the responsibilities that come with it. It is no more fair that I cannot marry the woman I love than that they live the way they do, but it is the world we have been born to.”

Matilda stared at him, a little surprised even after everything she had learned about him. “You believe it is nothing more than luck that stands between you and a beggar on the streets?”

He shrugged. “Luck, circumstance, whatever you wish to call it. An accident of birth, of fate.”

He laughed as her mouth fell open, and she closed it with a snap.

“I have heard no one of your rank speak so, have heard no one who did not believe their blood, their breeding made them superior.”

A derisive snort was his first response, and she saw the glimmer of Montagu in his eyes, haughty and aristocratic.

“Naturally, class yields advantages, a superior education being only a part of it. My blood is bluer than most anyone outside the royal family, but who decided I was born to be Lucian Barrington, and what sleight of hand might have seen me raised in a workhouse? I don’t pretend to understand whether that be the hand of God, fate, biology….” He made a dismissive gesture, the heavy gold signet ring he wore on his little finger glinting. “But we all have two eyes, two hands, two feet, a heart, and all the other component parts that make us the same.”