Fic: Another Chapter (3/5)
Title: Another Chapter (3/5)
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Carson
Ratings & Warnings: rated R for sexuality
Format & Word Count: WIP, 2742 words in chapter 3
Summary: When Mary agrees to write another chapter in the book of Haxby Park, she unexpectedly writes a new start to her story with Sir Richard. [2x06 AU]
Author's Notes: I wanted to finish this and get it posted by the end of the day and didn't think I'd make it--but I have! With no small amount of thanks to phoenikxs, for being such a great cheerleader, and to everyone who's been following this story and leaving such encouraging reviews. It's such a pleasure to have such lovely Richard and Mary fans (and even a few non-fans ;)) to share this story with. ♥ Hope you enjoy this chapter, in which things heat up...or do they? ;)
One | Two |
Three
"Now this is a surprise," says Richard, lowering his newspaper as Mary sweeps into the dining room the next morning, "seeing you at breakfast."
Not as big of a surprise as he's given her, Mary thinks, but she says, "And here I thought I'd slip in unnoticed while you read your newspaper."
She passes behind his chair en route to the buffet, but Richard catches her around the wrist, drawing her back to him as he tilts his face up toward hers for a kiss. Flushing, as much from the memory of his lips locked passionately on hers before she'd gone up to bed last night as from awareness that Carson stands at attention at his station by the sideboard, Mary turns her face so that his kiss will just graze her cheek.
Richard, of course, can't leave it at that; he leans in closer to nuzzle her ear, his breath hot on her neck yet raising gooseflesh as he murmurs, "I notice everything, Mary. I only acknowledge what I deem worth my while."
His fingers uncurl from around her wrist, but his eyes hold her where she stands.
"You look lovely," he says. "It's nearly enough to make me reconsider attending church with your family."
Mary outfit is the same scarlet skirt and jacket she'd worn when she called on Richard in his London office, chosen in consideration of the shameful confession she'd had to make. A little--but not by much--more subtle than a letter pinned upon her breast. She wonders if he remembers, if he'd made the connection then or now, but his lips curve softly, his eyes crinkle at the corners without a trace of their more familiar shrewdness, in what she can only take to be a look of genuine admiration of her person.
Of desire for her, she amends, recalling how he'd kissed her last night. Is this how he's always looked at her? Cheeks prickling and pulse quickening, she tears her eyes away.
"If you do, I won't be with them," she says, too embarrassed by her thoughts to spare Carson a smile of greeting as steps past him to pick up a plate from the buffet and begins scooping portions onto it without bothering to glance at the contents of the silver chafers.
"You're not going to church?" Richard asks.
Mary imagines Carson's substantial eyebrows rising on his forehead at this revelation, though she knows he's not unaware of how spotty her church attendance always has been, if she could help it.
Until Matthew went off to France.
"You're not," she says, composing herself, and turns toward the table, where he sips his tea and watches her intently as she seats herself across from him. "Aren't I supposed to follow your lead in these matters, once I'm your wife?"
"I believe wives are generally meant to have a gentling influence on their husbands with regards to religious practices. Politics, now--you're to form those opinions around mine."
"I'm afraid I'm as likely to turn Liberal as you are to set foot in a church."
Richard's chuckle rumbles low, underscored by a roll of thunder that had woken Mary earlier so that she lay in the grey dawn mulling over the things he'd said to her last night until she could no longer stand the sight of her red papered walls closing in around her. She chews her toast, the only appetizing thing she managed to put on her plate amid the kippers and stewed prunes taken by mistake, and thinks that the Richard sat across the breakfast table, leaning back comfortably in his chair, not trying to impress anyone is a Richard she can like. The Richard she had liked, very much, at Cliveden, when they'd shared many a bantering conversation such as this one and it had been enough of a salve to her wounded heart that she'd allowed herself to consider it might be possible to be happy with a man who wasn't Matthew, after all.
Not that the happy future she'd imagined herself sharing with Matthew had been built solely upon banter over breakfast. Or included stewed prunes.
A flash of lightning illuminates the dining room, only to leave it feeling darker than the moment before.
"I thought I'd go over to Haxby with you," she says. "If you don't mind."
"Mind? It would please me very much to have the company during the drive."
"Would it?" Richard's grin dazzles her nearly as much as the lightning beyond the windowpanes, so Mary adds another lump of sugar to her tea and takes a fortifying sip as Granny would no doubt advise. "Quite as much as the Sunday paper?"
As if to emphasize his denial of the accusation, he folds up his newspaper and sets it aside. "I admit I'm rather curious as to why you want to go. Somehow I doubt it's a desperate longing to see the business skills that earned my millions at work."
"It's more a desperate longing to stop you from talking about all the millions you've earned and embarrassing yourself. And the poor Russells. Carson," she shifts her attention to the butler as she pours herself another cup of tea. "I'd been hoping for a moment to speak with you apart from the family."
She watches as the dark eyes beneath the heavy brows flick sideways to Richard, and imagines the lines of his face etching themselves a little deeper in an expression of dislike before he returns his gaze to her with a deferential nod of his head.
"I think I can guess what about, Lady Mary."
"Sir Richard's told you how much we'd love to have you at Haxby?"
"Indeed, m'lady."
His embarrassment at the untoward offer of alternative employment is so palpable that Mary feels her own cheeks redden. She glares at Richard across the table for a heartbeat, then forces a smile at the butler that refuses to admit the awkwardness of this situation. A situation, she reminds herself, which she never should have been put in--and she doesn't mean the situation instigated by Richard Carlisle.
"You know I've always expected to run a household with you as my right hand," she says. "Please say you'll consider it."
She breathes again when she notes the softening of Carson's features. "What I say will, of course, depend on what his lordship says."
"But if Papa says yes?" Mary feels like the little girl in braids who so often conspired with Carson in the butler's pantry, but she doesn't care, because he's giving her that indulgent look he'd always worn in those times, that made it so clear to him she was his favourite.
"If it'll make you happy, Lady Mary."
"Almost as happy as I'll make her, I'm sure," says Richard, chuckling at his own joke.
"Oh, Richard. Don't you think that's selling Carson a bit short?"
Mary meets his eye over her teacup, and though he says nothing--for once--his smirk very plainly states that he will later.
She looks forward to it.
~*~
"Perhaps I won't bother hiring a butler at all," Richard says as he slides the old-fashioned brass key to Haxby Park into the even more ancient lock on the front door. "I'm quite capable of opening my own door, and I won't have to worry about you preferring Carson to me."
It's the opportunity she's waited for, and Mary pounces on it. "Will you dress in livery, too?"
The lines of Richard's face deepen in a frown as the key sticks and he must give it a two-handed wrench--and, apparently, curse under his breath--before the latch turns over with a clunk. When he turns to Mary, however, he looks smug rather than vexed.
She tries again."You should have considered that before you asked Carson and made the offer to someone less agreeable than yourself. Like Thomas."
"Corporal Barrow, the former footman who's now lording his military authority over Carson?" Richard asks, rubbing his chin. "I don't know, I find him rather relatable. A young man scheming to work his way up in the world...Perhaps I should withdraw my offer to Carson and make it to Thomas instead. He'll be looking for work after the Army no longer requires his services, won't he?"
Mary makes a sound that she realises, belatedly, is one she's heard Granny make in such moments as these. Usually involving Richard. "Well, it wouldn't be any more gauche than offering a job to your someone else's servant. And you wouldn't have to worry about him stealing my affections."
Richard lifts his eyebrows, the blue eyes beneath them gleaming almost hungrily. "I sense a story."
"Only if you think the story about one of the staff nicking the good wine will sell newspapers."
Though Mary harbours no especial like for Thomas--Papa should have sacked him before he had a chance to quit, in her opinion--she does feel at least one person in the world ought to be able to keep a secret from Sir Richard Carlisle. Still, knowing the talent her fiancé possesses for sniffing them out--especially the really dirty ones--she's surprised when he doesn't question her further, but instead hauls open the great oaken door.
He sweeps his free hand in an almost gallant gesture for Mary to go through. She does, but turns back on the threshold, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Surely you're not going to let me off so easily for having a go at you in front of the man you hope to employ?"
The stoop adds just enough to her height to place her exactly at eye level with Richard. Is he aware, she wonders, that he lifts his chin slightly so that he can just look down at her?
"I hadn't planned on it," he says, "But I just became the owner of an estate, and social climbing always makes me feel like being nice."
"Does it?"
The only reply he makes with his lips is to brush them over hers. When his fingers alight on her shoulder, Mary instinctively leans in to him, fully expecting him to deepen the kiss; instead, he gives her a gentle nudge, and turns her to the open door.
"Go on, then. Let's introduce Haxby to the new owners."
She feels his hand at her back as she moves all the way to the very centre of the hall, looking up and all around at the white marble which reflects the grey light that filters through the high windows, actually making it lighter inside than it is outside.
"Seeing it as more than just a big, empty house now that it's your big, empty house?" Richard's clear tones reverberate through the space.
Despite having come with him to escape the shrinking gloom of Downton, Mary had been braced for Haxby to feel like a prison or, at best, a gilded cage. She'd just wanted to get on with her sentence, but now that she's stood here, it doesn't feel like that at all.
Haxby's not an empty house, it's a clean slate. A blank page. Waiting for her to write a new story on it. Her new story.
The room begins to glisten, then blurs altogether, so she keeps her back to Richard as she chokes out, "It's just your big, empty house, until the wedding."
From behind, he slips his arms around her waist and draws her back flush against his body, his chin prickling her skin as he leans around to press a kiss to her cheek. "But I bought it for you."
Mary opens her mouth to say something snide about being more impressed with his gift if she didn't know he'd got it for a bargain, but finds she hasn't the voice. Or the heart. She can't mock Richard for who he is, because who he is right now is a man--the man--who wants to make her happy.
The words she'd scratched in the old book return to her from seven years past, faded ink on yellow pages, blotted by tears: For the first time, I understand what it is to be happy. It's just that I know that I won't be. And beneath them, written in a hand as clear and bold as his voice, Carson's words: Don't raise the white flag quite yet. You're still young.
Well, she isn't very young now, but one thing she's sure of is that no white flag will ever fly above Haxby Park. Richard would never allow it, for one. Not he, who's never given up--not on the life he wanted, not on her. We're strong, and sharp. We can build something worth having, you and I--if you'll let us.
She'll let them.
She'll do more than that.
She turns in Richard's arms, scarcely taking note of his lips parting in surprise before she claims them with her own. When he tilts his head to return the kiss, his forehead bumps her hat askew; he starts to break away to prevent it slipping backward off head, but Mary grasps him by the lapels and holds him where he stands as the hat falls to the floor. His fingers find their way into her hair instead, brushing against the pins, and she imagines him carefully removing them, one by one, setting her hair free from its coif to tumble down, long and loose, over her back. Perhaps Richard imagines it, too, because no sooner has the picture flickered through her mind than his hands leave her hair.
The disappointment she murmurs against his mouth turns to a shuddering gasp as he drags his fingers down her neck, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw, her chin, the hollow of her throat.
His palms and the tips of his fingertips are rough and callused against her delicate skin. Once Mary would have sneered at the telltale signs of Richard's humble roots, but now she relishes the sheer masculinity of them, the ambition and the passion they signify, which had earned him wealth and power, now focused entirely on her.
She crumples his jacket tighter into her fists, drawing his lean body as close against hers as she can. Still he isn't close enough--though she gets nearer to what she wants to achieve when his fingers slip inside the velvet collar of her coat...beneath the neckline of her silk blouse...just skimming the lacy edge of her chemise...
Richard tears his mouth away hers, only to dip his head to kiss the perfumed hollow of her throat; he withdraws his hands from her collar, but settles them on either side of her ribcage, high enough above her waist that his thumbs brush the sides of her breasts through her coat. She rakes her fingers through his thinning hair and bites down on her lower lip to stifle an undignified gasp when she feels him taste her, her pulse pounding beneath the tip of his tongue.
"My God, Mary," he rasps, his breath so hot against her skin. "April suddenly seems bloody far away."
"Did we settle on April?"
He chuckles low, the rumble of it stealing all through her. "I did."
"We don't have to wait, you know."
Richard lifts his head, surprise as plain on his features as if it were printed there in large typeset. "I thought you'd prefer to start our married life here at Haxby, but if you don't mind staying in London for a while, I certainly won't object to pushing the wedding forward--"
"I don't mean for the wedding," Mary says, rolling her eyes at his obtuseness, though inwardly she's pleased to learn that her past indiscretion hasn't made Richard less respectful of sexual boundaries.
For a heartbeat he stares up at her, then, slowly, he straightens up, his hands leaving her to smooth his lapels and his mussed hair.
"Tempting as that offer is," he says, "I'd rather not give you one more reason to feel you must marry me."
She's been so engrossed in the story that's unfolded over the past few days that she'd all but forgotten what started it in the first place.
"But I must marry you," she says. "Mustn't I?"
Richard stoops to pluck Mary's hat from where it fell to the floor. As he hands it to her, his eyes don't quite meet hers. Almost if he is ashamed.
Almost--but not quite enough to tell her no.
Read Chapter Four
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Carson
Ratings & Warnings: rated R for sexuality
Format & Word Count: WIP, 2742 words in chapter 3
Summary: When Mary agrees to write another chapter in the book of Haxby Park, she unexpectedly writes a new start to her story with Sir Richard. [2x06 AU]
Author's Notes: I wanted to finish this and get it posted by the end of the day and didn't think I'd make it--but I have! With no small amount of thanks to phoenikxs, for being such a great cheerleader, and to everyone who's been following this story and leaving such encouraging reviews. It's such a pleasure to have such lovely Richard and Mary fans (and even a few non-fans ;)) to share this story with. ♥ Hope you enjoy this chapter, in which things heat up...or do they? ;)
One | Two |
Three
"Now this is a surprise," says Richard, lowering his newspaper as Mary sweeps into the dining room the next morning, "seeing you at breakfast."
Not as big of a surprise as he's given her, Mary thinks, but she says, "And here I thought I'd slip in unnoticed while you read your newspaper."
She passes behind his chair en route to the buffet, but Richard catches her around the wrist, drawing her back to him as he tilts his face up toward hers for a kiss. Flushing, as much from the memory of his lips locked passionately on hers before she'd gone up to bed last night as from awareness that Carson stands at attention at his station by the sideboard, Mary turns her face so that his kiss will just graze her cheek.
Richard, of course, can't leave it at that; he leans in closer to nuzzle her ear, his breath hot on her neck yet raising gooseflesh as he murmurs, "I notice everything, Mary. I only acknowledge what I deem worth my while."
His fingers uncurl from around her wrist, but his eyes hold her where she stands.
"You look lovely," he says. "It's nearly enough to make me reconsider attending church with your family."
Mary outfit is the same scarlet skirt and jacket she'd worn when she called on Richard in his London office, chosen in consideration of the shameful confession she'd had to make. A little--but not by much--more subtle than a letter pinned upon her breast. She wonders if he remembers, if he'd made the connection then or now, but his lips curve softly, his eyes crinkle at the corners without a trace of their more familiar shrewdness, in what she can only take to be a look of genuine admiration of her person.
Of desire for her, she amends, recalling how he'd kissed her last night. Is this how he's always looked at her? Cheeks prickling and pulse quickening, she tears her eyes away.
"If you do, I won't be with them," she says, too embarrassed by her thoughts to spare Carson a smile of greeting as steps past him to pick up a plate from the buffet and begins scooping portions onto it without bothering to glance at the contents of the silver chafers.
"You're not going to church?" Richard asks.
Mary imagines Carson's substantial eyebrows rising on his forehead at this revelation, though she knows he's not unaware of how spotty her church attendance always has been, if she could help it.
Until Matthew went off to France.
"You're not," she says, composing herself, and turns toward the table, where he sips his tea and watches her intently as she seats herself across from him. "Aren't I supposed to follow your lead in these matters, once I'm your wife?"
"I believe wives are generally meant to have a gentling influence on their husbands with regards to religious practices. Politics, now--you're to form those opinions around mine."
"I'm afraid I'm as likely to turn Liberal as you are to set foot in a church."
Richard's chuckle rumbles low, underscored by a roll of thunder that had woken Mary earlier so that she lay in the grey dawn mulling over the things he'd said to her last night until she could no longer stand the sight of her red papered walls closing in around her. She chews her toast, the only appetizing thing she managed to put on her plate amid the kippers and stewed prunes taken by mistake, and thinks that the Richard sat across the breakfast table, leaning back comfortably in his chair, not trying to impress anyone is a Richard she can like. The Richard she had liked, very much, at Cliveden, when they'd shared many a bantering conversation such as this one and it had been enough of a salve to her wounded heart that she'd allowed herself to consider it might be possible to be happy with a man who wasn't Matthew, after all.
Not that the happy future she'd imagined herself sharing with Matthew had been built solely upon banter over breakfast. Or included stewed prunes.
A flash of lightning illuminates the dining room, only to leave it feeling darker than the moment before.
"I thought I'd go over to Haxby with you," she says. "If you don't mind."
"Mind? It would please me very much to have the company during the drive."
"Would it?" Richard's grin dazzles her nearly as much as the lightning beyond the windowpanes, so Mary adds another lump of sugar to her tea and takes a fortifying sip as Granny would no doubt advise. "Quite as much as the Sunday paper?"
As if to emphasize his denial of the accusation, he folds up his newspaper and sets it aside. "I admit I'm rather curious as to why you want to go. Somehow I doubt it's a desperate longing to see the business skills that earned my millions at work."
"It's more a desperate longing to stop you from talking about all the millions you've earned and embarrassing yourself. And the poor Russells. Carson," she shifts her attention to the butler as she pours herself another cup of tea. "I'd been hoping for a moment to speak with you apart from the family."
She watches as the dark eyes beneath the heavy brows flick sideways to Richard, and imagines the lines of his face etching themselves a little deeper in an expression of dislike before he returns his gaze to her with a deferential nod of his head.
"I think I can guess what about, Lady Mary."
"Sir Richard's told you how much we'd love to have you at Haxby?"
"Indeed, m'lady."
His embarrassment at the untoward offer of alternative employment is so palpable that Mary feels her own cheeks redden. She glares at Richard across the table for a heartbeat, then forces a smile at the butler that refuses to admit the awkwardness of this situation. A situation, she reminds herself, which she never should have been put in--and she doesn't mean the situation instigated by Richard Carlisle.
"You know I've always expected to run a household with you as my right hand," she says. "Please say you'll consider it."
She breathes again when she notes the softening of Carson's features. "What I say will, of course, depend on what his lordship says."
"But if Papa says yes?" Mary feels like the little girl in braids who so often conspired with Carson in the butler's pantry, but she doesn't care, because he's giving her that indulgent look he'd always worn in those times, that made it so clear to him she was his favourite.
"If it'll make you happy, Lady Mary."
"Almost as happy as I'll make her, I'm sure," says Richard, chuckling at his own joke.
"Oh, Richard. Don't you think that's selling Carson a bit short?"
Mary meets his eye over her teacup, and though he says nothing--for once--his smirk very plainly states that he will later.
She looks forward to it.
~*~
"Perhaps I won't bother hiring a butler at all," Richard says as he slides the old-fashioned brass key to Haxby Park into the even more ancient lock on the front door. "I'm quite capable of opening my own door, and I won't have to worry about you preferring Carson to me."
It's the opportunity she's waited for, and Mary pounces on it. "Will you dress in livery, too?"
The lines of Richard's face deepen in a frown as the key sticks and he must give it a two-handed wrench--and, apparently, curse under his breath--before the latch turns over with a clunk. When he turns to Mary, however, he looks smug rather than vexed.
She tries again."You should have considered that before you asked Carson and made the offer to someone less agreeable than yourself. Like Thomas."
"Corporal Barrow, the former footman who's now lording his military authority over Carson?" Richard asks, rubbing his chin. "I don't know, I find him rather relatable. A young man scheming to work his way up in the world...Perhaps I should withdraw my offer to Carson and make it to Thomas instead. He'll be looking for work after the Army no longer requires his services, won't he?"
Mary makes a sound that she realises, belatedly, is one she's heard Granny make in such moments as these. Usually involving Richard. "Well, it wouldn't be any more gauche than offering a job to your someone else's servant. And you wouldn't have to worry about him stealing my affections."
Richard lifts his eyebrows, the blue eyes beneath them gleaming almost hungrily. "I sense a story."
"Only if you think the story about one of the staff nicking the good wine will sell newspapers."
Though Mary harbours no especial like for Thomas--Papa should have sacked him before he had a chance to quit, in her opinion--she does feel at least one person in the world ought to be able to keep a secret from Sir Richard Carlisle. Still, knowing the talent her fiancé possesses for sniffing them out--especially the really dirty ones--she's surprised when he doesn't question her further, but instead hauls open the great oaken door.
He sweeps his free hand in an almost gallant gesture for Mary to go through. She does, but turns back on the threshold, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Surely you're not going to let me off so easily for having a go at you in front of the man you hope to employ?"
The stoop adds just enough to her height to place her exactly at eye level with Richard. Is he aware, she wonders, that he lifts his chin slightly so that he can just look down at her?
"I hadn't planned on it," he says, "But I just became the owner of an estate, and social climbing always makes me feel like being nice."
"Does it?"
The only reply he makes with his lips is to brush them over hers. When his fingers alight on her shoulder, Mary instinctively leans in to him, fully expecting him to deepen the kiss; instead, he gives her a gentle nudge, and turns her to the open door.
"Go on, then. Let's introduce Haxby to the new owners."
She feels his hand at her back as she moves all the way to the very centre of the hall, looking up and all around at the white marble which reflects the grey light that filters through the high windows, actually making it lighter inside than it is outside.
"Seeing it as more than just a big, empty house now that it's your big, empty house?" Richard's clear tones reverberate through the space.
Despite having come with him to escape the shrinking gloom of Downton, Mary had been braced for Haxby to feel like a prison or, at best, a gilded cage. She'd just wanted to get on with her sentence, but now that she's stood here, it doesn't feel like that at all.
Haxby's not an empty house, it's a clean slate. A blank page. Waiting for her to write a new story on it. Her new story.
The room begins to glisten, then blurs altogether, so she keeps her back to Richard as she chokes out, "It's just your big, empty house, until the wedding."
From behind, he slips his arms around her waist and draws her back flush against his body, his chin prickling her skin as he leans around to press a kiss to her cheek. "But I bought it for you."
Mary opens her mouth to say something snide about being more impressed with his gift if she didn't know he'd got it for a bargain, but finds she hasn't the voice. Or the heart. She can't mock Richard for who he is, because who he is right now is a man--the man--who wants to make her happy.
The words she'd scratched in the old book return to her from seven years past, faded ink on yellow pages, blotted by tears: For the first time, I understand what it is to be happy. It's just that I know that I won't be. And beneath them, written in a hand as clear and bold as his voice, Carson's words: Don't raise the white flag quite yet. You're still young.
Well, she isn't very young now, but one thing she's sure of is that no white flag will ever fly above Haxby Park. Richard would never allow it, for one. Not he, who's never given up--not on the life he wanted, not on her. We're strong, and sharp. We can build something worth having, you and I--if you'll let us.
She'll let them.
She'll do more than that.
She turns in Richard's arms, scarcely taking note of his lips parting in surprise before she claims them with her own. When he tilts his head to return the kiss, his forehead bumps her hat askew; he starts to break away to prevent it slipping backward off head, but Mary grasps him by the lapels and holds him where he stands as the hat falls to the floor. His fingers find their way into her hair instead, brushing against the pins, and she imagines him carefully removing them, one by one, setting her hair free from its coif to tumble down, long and loose, over her back. Perhaps Richard imagines it, too, because no sooner has the picture flickered through her mind than his hands leave her hair.
The disappointment she murmurs against his mouth turns to a shuddering gasp as he drags his fingers down her neck, his thumbs tracing the line of her jaw, her chin, the hollow of her throat.
His palms and the tips of his fingertips are rough and callused against her delicate skin. Once Mary would have sneered at the telltale signs of Richard's humble roots, but now she relishes the sheer masculinity of them, the ambition and the passion they signify, which had earned him wealth and power, now focused entirely on her.
She crumples his jacket tighter into her fists, drawing his lean body as close against hers as she can. Still he isn't close enough--though she gets nearer to what she wants to achieve when his fingers slip inside the velvet collar of her coat...beneath the neckline of her silk blouse...just skimming the lacy edge of her chemise...
Richard tears his mouth away hers, only to dip his head to kiss the perfumed hollow of her throat; he withdraws his hands from her collar, but settles them on either side of her ribcage, high enough above her waist that his thumbs brush the sides of her breasts through her coat. She rakes her fingers through his thinning hair and bites down on her lower lip to stifle an undignified gasp when she feels him taste her, her pulse pounding beneath the tip of his tongue.
"My God, Mary," he rasps, his breath so hot against her skin. "April suddenly seems bloody far away."
"Did we settle on April?"
He chuckles low, the rumble of it stealing all through her. "I did."
"We don't have to wait, you know."
Richard lifts his head, surprise as plain on his features as if it were printed there in large typeset. "I thought you'd prefer to start our married life here at Haxby, but if you don't mind staying in London for a while, I certainly won't object to pushing the wedding forward--"
"I don't mean for the wedding," Mary says, rolling her eyes at his obtuseness, though inwardly she's pleased to learn that her past indiscretion hasn't made Richard less respectful of sexual boundaries.
For a heartbeat he stares up at her, then, slowly, he straightens up, his hands leaving her to smooth his lapels and his mussed hair.
"Tempting as that offer is," he says, "I'd rather not give you one more reason to feel you must marry me."
She's been so engrossed in the story that's unfolded over the past few days that she'd all but forgotten what started it in the first place.
"But I must marry you," she says. "Mustn't I?"
Richard stoops to pluck Mary's hat from where it fell to the floor. As he hands it to her, his eyes don't quite meet hers. Almost if he is ashamed.
Almost--but not quite enough to tell her no.
Read Chapter Four