By the time he turned back, she had her skirts and petticoats hiked above her knees—just high enough that he could glimpse the ribbon ties of her garters and the milk-white skin above. Her inner thigh quivered. Perversely, he wanted to bite her there.

But there was no time for that.

“Hurry,” she whispered, leaning back against the wall and canting her hips in invitation.

He freed his erection and knew a moment of cool night air before finding her waiting heat. Lifting her by the hips, he thrust into her tight sheath. Again and again, plunging a little deeper each time, feeling her body give him more, and yet more, but still not quite enough. He worked harder, boring into her with insistent thrusts, determined to penetrate her just as deeply as he could. It still wouldn’t compare to how she’d invaded him.

“More,” he growled. “Take it all.”

At his words, she came apart. Her teeth scraped the tendon of his neck as she stifled her cry of ecstasy. Her intimate muscles clamped down, making his way even more difficult, but ratcheting the pleasure to an unfathomable degree. And he kept thrusting, pushing through the exquisite resistance, until he sank all the way to the root.

Ah, God. So good. So good.

“Stop,” she whispered frantically. “There’s someone …”

He froze. Light footsteps clattered down the cobblestone street, ever louder. Ever closer.

He pressed her into the furthest corner of the alcove, guarding her body with his. With his dark clothes, they would melt into the shadows and remain unnoticed. He hoped. Their combined breath was a dull roar in his ears, and his heartbeat knocked loudly against hers. He could only be still and pray their passion wasn’t audible from the street.

All the while, the last tremors of her release caressed his arousal, teasing him to an unbearable peak of tension. Not helping the cause of silence.

By the time the footsteps finally faded, Rhys’s legs were shaking with need. He withdrew and thrust again.

Sweet mercy. This was rapture.

Their forced interruption had heightened every sensation. Not just heightened—multiplied. In that spirit, he doubled his pace, stroking into her with abandon. The base of his spine tingled in anticipation. So close. So close.

A hoarse shout tore from his chest as pleasure exploded inside him, blanking his vision and driving out everything else.

He slumped against her chest, pinning her to the wall. Pure joy simmered and hummed in unlikely parts of his body. His stiff finger. His damaged left knee. The scarred, wounded chest that covered his wildly thumping heart. For this one blessed moment, pleasure was all he knew.

“Merry, I …” Words failed him. He just stood there, panting into her hair, just waiting for her to tell him what came next. Because damned if he knew anymore.

“Ask me,” she whispered in his ear. He could hear a smile in her voice. “Know that I don’t believe in fate, or destiny, or anything else except what lies between us, right here, right now. Now ask me to marry you.”

Oh, God. As he pulled in a deep breath, her jasmine scent permeated his very being. He could taste her sweet nectar on his tongue. All this could be his, so easily.

And he was about to do the most damn fool thing of his life.

“I will.” He cleared his throat and pulled away to look her in the eye. “But I must tell you something first.”

Chapter Twenty

“You need to tell me something?” Meredith felt her smile spreading into a silly, cheek-stretching grin. “Yes.”

Please, she thought. Please let it be I love you. And then, like Echo, she could say the words back. Not just once, but a hundred times. I love you, I love you. I have always loved you. I will love you so hard and hold you so tight, I will make everything better. Every instance of pain will be forgotten, and from this moment forward, you will only know bliss.

But as the silence stretched, Meredith felt her smile fading. “Are there more than three words involved?”

He sighed. “Most definitely.”

His eyes were so earnest, so troubled. He seemed to have missed her hopeful hint completely. Which, in that case, was probably for the best.

“Oh.” She became suddenly conscious of the stone digging into her shoulder blade. “Then … may I lower my skirts?”

“Yes, of course. Sorry.”

He withdrew from her body and tucked himself back in, refastening his trousers in haste. The cravat was a lost cause. He wadded it up and stuffed it in his pocket, where it shared the space with that last orange. Meredith felt, with a sad, sudden certainty, they would never eat it.

She shook out her skirts and smoothed them down.

“Let’s walk,” he said. “It’s easier to converse that way.” He took her by the hand and led her out of the shadows. The street being deserted, they promenaded down the absolute center at a stately pace. A parade of two. Her heart served as the pounding bass drum.

“After what you told me, earlier …” He rubbed his neck with his free hand. “I gather you know my father and I … Well, we didn’t get on.”

The understatement was so great, so absurd—she had to bite back an incredulous laugh. “Yes. I know he beat you. Regularly. Severely.” For her part, she wasn’t going to mince words. If he wanted to talk about it, they were going to talk about it. He’d been holding his silence for far too long. “Until that last summer,” she added softly. “What made him stop?”

“I grew too big. I came home from Eton four inches taller and two stone heavier than when I’d left.”

“I remember.”

He looked askance at her, as though questioning why she should have noticed such a thing. She shrugged. How could she not?

“I came back to Nethermoor that summer,” he said, “and for the first time I stood taller than my father. I was younger than him, and healthier, too. We both knew I could best him in a fair fight. So the next time he tried to order me into the cellar … I simply stood tall and said, ‘No. Not anymore.’ And that was the end of it.”

She hugged his arm. “That was very brave of you.”

“It was stupid, is what it was. He was enraged, and the fury had no outlet. One night, a few weeks later, I came back from a ride to find him in the stables. He was worked into a frenzy, whipping a mare for only the Devil knows what reason. The grooms were powerless to stop him. Your father wasn’t around.”

Her whole body tensed.

He noticed. “I gather you know where this story is going.”

She nodded. Queasiness puddled thickly in the pit of her stomach.

“I fought him,” he said. “And in the scuffle, I knocked a lamp into the straw. That’s how the fire began.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. This was her every worst fear coming true.

She reeled to a halt and turned to him, eyes wide and burning with tearful fatigue. She wished she could shut them and just sleep. Pretend this conversation wasn’t happening. “But …” The word fell off her trembling lips.

“Yes.” He sighed heavily. “You know how it went from there. The horses … most of them died. Horrible, agonizing deaths. Your father was crippled trying to save them. The entire estate was lost, plunging the village into economic depression. And not a day has gone by in the fourteen years since that I haven’t thought of that night. Dreamed of it. And wished that I’d died instead.”

“Oh, no.” Her hand went to her mouth. “You can’t possibly blame yourself.”

Fool thing to say. Obviously, he could. And had, for all the years since. The realization seized her heart and wrung it hard. She couldn’t breathe.

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have fought him back. He wanted to beat that horse. I should have just let him beat me. I’d taken countless beatings from him over the years. If I’d just taken one more, none of it would have happened.”

“How can you say such a thing? That fire, it … it was an accident. It wasn’t your fault, Rhys.”

“I don’t believe in accidents. And it hardly matters whether or not I own the blame. The responsibility is mine, the duty to make it right. I’m Lord Ashworth now, much as I prayed I’d never live to inherit that title.”

“I …” A wave of dizziness unsteadied her. “I think I need to sit down.”

He pulled her over to a small row of steps leading up to a narrow stoop and urged her to sit on the topmost riser.

Then he sank to one knee before her.

“I couldn’t bear to hide it from you,” he said. “You deserve to know the truth. And I need you to know it. If you marry me …”

His voice trailed off. Meredith was struck by the significance of what he’d just said. If. For the first time, he’d used the word “if.”

“If you marry me,” he repeated slowly, “you’ll be waking up every morning next to the man responsible for your father’s injuries, the village’s plight, your own years of work and sacrifice. I need to know you can live with that.” He held up an open palm. “Don’t answer me right now. Think on it, good and hard, before you decide. You were right. I owe you this much, to offer you a real choice.”

His big hands engulfed hers where they lay folded in her lap. “I swear, if you give me the chance, I will fix everything.” Sincerity rang in his voice. “I vow to you before God, I will take care of your father for the rest of his years. I will make certain the villagers never go hungry. And I will devote all the strength of my body and all the determination of my soul to the purpose of making you happy. All I ask of you is the chance.”

She swallowed hard, shivering with emotion.

“I need this, Meredith. I need to make it right, or I don’t know how I’ll go on.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Please. Marry me.”

A tear streaked down her face. Lord, this was terrible. And not in the way he believed. Even if he had knocked over that lamp, she would never hold him blameworthy for that fire, nor any of its consequences. But could she truly consent to marry him, knowing that he viewed their marriage as a sort of penance for sins that weren’t even his own?

Perhaps she could, and that was the worst part of all. Even now, the word “yes” hovered on her tongue. She wanted him so much. Maybe she truly had it in her to let him live under that perpetual burden of guilt and keep him for herself, always. Maybe she could even trick herself into believing that if only she loved him fiercely enough, it would all be for the best, in the end. Did she have the capacity for a lifetime of deceit? She was a little afraid to look within herself and find out.

“You’ll think on it?” he asked.

She managed a nod. “Can we go home? Tomorrow?” She tightened her fingers around his. At home, everything would be clear. There, she would know what to do. “Rhys, will you just take me home?”

“If that’s what you wish …” Wearing a grim expression, he rose to his feet. “Yes, of course.”

She talked all the way home.

Rhys had never known Meredith could have so many words to speak and so very little to say. As the coach rolled on through Somersetshire and Devonshire, their cargo of porcelain and silver clinked in crates above them, whilst Meredith kept up a steady rattle of her own. He supposed she was afraid that if she stopped talking for any significant length of time, he would come forth with another shocking revelation. He didn’t know how to reassure her that there were none left. So he simply sat and listened—the sound of her voice was never hard on his ears. Every once and a while, she would go pensive for a bit, but soon she’d burst forth with an entirely new topic. All of them, however, had something to do with the inn.

“I’ve decided what to work on improving next, once the new wing is completed.” Without waiting for his encouragement, she continued, “I need to help Mr. Handsford smarten up his house, and add a fresh coat of limewash to the church.”