Wes moved over her. His arms bulged as her hand slid up and down his length. Her body humming, Viola guided him between her legs and hooked one leg over his hip. His entire body was taut, and she thought she might burst into flames if he didn’t take her then.
He pressed inside, making her gasp. He slid almost out and licked his thumb. “You’re so beautiful,” he rasped. “I’m about to spend myself just looking at you.” He touched her as he slid deep again. Viola arched off the mattress and gripped handfuls of the linens.
Again Wes pulled back. “Open your eyes.” His voice had gone ragged. His body was shaking. Viola forced open her eyes and saw that his face was tight with strain. “I want to see the moment when you find your pleasure . . .” He stroked again, his hips moving in slow, hard time with his thumb. Viola stared into his eyes until she couldn’t, until the waves of climax made her vision go dark and her body convulsed. She clutched at him and he thrust hard and deep as he kissed her. Dimly she felt him shudder in his own release, but he kept kissing her until she felt soft and exhausted.
“Viola,” he murmured as he nuzzled her ear. “I want to stay the night with you.”
So he could make love to her again. So she could make love to him, and wake up with his arms around her. Viola gave a sleepy smile. “Please do.”
Chapter 10
Viola had never had a happier Christmas Day.
She woke with Wes stretched out in her bed, looking down at her with a wicked smile. He made love to her again, and only left when the full light of day shone through the small window.
Breakfast was quiet. Withers told her the Cavendish girls had gone to eat with their mother in her apartment, and the other guests were sleeping late. She drank her tea leisurely, wallowing in the memory of every wicked, sensual thing Wes had done.
The rest of the day passed much the same way. Bridget cajoled everyone into one last rehearsal for the play, and dictated several notes for improvement to Viola, but the sun had come out and the young people wanted to go outside. It was cold and bright, and before long the company was throwing snowballs at each other, the ladies shrieking in glee and the gentlemen roaring about battlefield honor and glory. Lord Gosling took a large snowball to the face and Bridget laughed so hard she went head over heels backward into a snowdrift. Lady Alexandra threw one at Lord Newton, who seemed to enjoy it very much. By then Miss Penworth and Lady Jane had dug a hollow under a tree, and began throwing snow at everyone from the safety of their fort. Viola managed to hit Wes in the shoulder with a snowball, and in retaliation he chased her into the garden, out of sight of everyone, and kissed her among the snow-covered rosebushes.
Tonight Viola was invited to dine with the guests. She wore her best green gown and her mother’s pearls, and felt Wes’s admiring gaze as if it were a physical touch. When he tapped lightly at her door late that night, she was waiting, ready to spend another night in his arms.
Boxing Day brought a return of duty for Viola. Lady Charlotte Ascot finally arrived, after being snowed in at a roadside inn. The dowager was well enough to come down, swathed in shawls, to present the servants their gifts and thank them. Viola accepted her gifts happily—a length of blue silk, oranges from the hothouse, and five gold guineas—and belatedly sat down to write her brother a letter. She had to share her happiness about Wes with Stephen.
It led to a surprising discovery.
She found Wes in the billiard room with his nephew and some other gentlemen. When he caught sight of her he put down his cue stick and excused himself.
“Come with me.” She took his hand. “I want to show you something.”
He raised his brows but came with her willingly. Viola led him to the duke’s study, quiet and hushed in His Grace’s absence. She felt a frisson of nerves just entering the room; normally Mr. Martin came to her when she needed to know something about the duke, to tell the duchess or arrange the calendar. But sometimes she had cause to enter here, as she had earlier today.
“I had to fetch more quills,” she said as she closed the door carefully behind them. “Mr. Martin, His Grace’s secretary, keeps a supply of the best ones in his desk.” She nodded at Mr. Martin’s desk in the far corner of the room. “And while I was here, I took the very smallest peek at the shelves. Guess what I discovered?”
Wes’s face blanked. “Do you mean—?”
Flushed with eagerness, she nodded. “The Desnos atlas. At least, I believe it is so. It was put away with the other books.” She went to the shelves beside Mr. Martin’s desk and took out the book she’d seen earlier. “Only you can say for certain.” She brought the book to the duke’s wide desk and laid it flat.
There was a haunted hunger in Wes’s face as he opened the cover. It was not a terribly large book, but it was bound in fine old leather, the titles stamped in gilt. Viola watched his fingers caress the binding, lingering on a small crease near the spine. “It’s very like my father’s,” he murmured. Reverently he opened it, turning a few pages.
“A map of the new world.” His finger barely touched the page as he indicated the illustrations. “These were the maps that sent me off to read journals of explorers, and to scalp Anne’s doll.” He turned another page. “And here—star charts to navigate by! I should have studied these more closely, to be able to discuss them intelligently with you.”
