Page 69 of The Wedding Challenge

“Yes, please.”

“I, uh, perhaps I can find you something to, um, sleep in,” he went on as they left the room, color tinting the high ridges of his cheekbones. “One of my shirts or…” His voice trailed off.

Callie thought of sleeping in one of Brom’s shirts, and her loins prickled with desire. It seemed far too intimate, almost as if he would be there with her. She wondered if any scent of him would still linger on the material.

They started along the hall to the staircase, which lay near the front door. Callie saw the small cloth bag that she had brought with her lying beside the door. She supposed it must have been there earlier, though she had not noticed it in her panic as she ran out the front door.

“Look. It is my bag.” She went forward to pick it up, but Brom took it from her hand. “That man must have brought it in. I did not notice.”

“Good. Then you will have your clothes.” He looked away as he said it.

Everything seemed awkward now, Callie thought. She wondered if he, like she, could not stop thinking about the fact that they were alone together. There were no chaperones and no one to tell tales. No one would know what transpired tonight except them.

He led her up the stairs and along the hallway, stopping at the last door. “Here is your room. I fear it is rather cold. Let me light you a fire. Excuse me a moment.”

It was indeed chilly in the room, which had clearly been unused for a while. Bromwell set down her bag and lit the lamp on the table beside the bed, then left the room. He returned a few moments later, carrying some firewood and kindling in his arms. Callie noted that he had also taken the time to put on a shirt, though he had not bothered to tuck it in, so that it hung loosely outside his trousers.

He knelt in front of the fireplace and began to build a fire. He coaxed the flames into life, and before long the fireplace was giving forth warmth. Callie, who had stood watching him, huddled in the light blanket he had given her, went over to the hearth.

He smiled at her. “I hope you have not caught a chill.” He reached out and smoothed back a stray curl of her hair, which had caught upon her cheek.

Callie found herself wanting to lean into his hand like a cat, to close her eyes and give herself up to the wonderful feeling of being with him, of feeling his skin touch hers.

His hand fell away, and he moved across the room to the window. He parted the curtains with his hand and stood there looking out into the dark night.

After a moment, he said, “I believe I told you that my mother died when I was young. My nurse used to call Daphne my ‘little mother.’ She looked after me, played with me. We were all we had growing up. My father was…” His lip curled in distaste. “I have always sworn that I would never be such a one as my father. He had no understanding of or love for children. He expected us to behave as adults, and there was no quarter given for youth or a lack of strength or skill.”

“I am sorry,” Callie said, her heart melting in sympathy.

He looked over at her and smiled. “I did not mean to ask for your pity. I wanted to explain about Daphne. She protected me from him. His punishments were stern, even cruel, and she tried to shelter me from them. She would hide me, make excuses for me, even take the blame for something I had done because she could not bear to see me hurt. I have much to be grateful to her for.”

“I know.” Callie’s smile was sad. She understood his love for his sister. Daphne had been the only one who loved him. She knew that he could never give up his sister, no matter how wrong she was in her actions.

“She had to bear a great deal. I was too young to shelter her in any way. My father insisted that she marry advantageously. She was beautiful, and there were many men who wanted her. She married a man years older than she, a man she did not love, and she did it for us, to keep our estate from being swallowed up in my father’s debt. I remember hearing her weep in her room the night before her wedding day. And then, when she was finally free of him and could have a new life, a good life, she fell in love with Rochford. I hated him for her unhappiness. For her having to marry another old man and wither away for the last fifteen years, so far from everything she loved.”

He turned to Callie, frowning. “And now…now I feel as if I do not know her. The things she has done to try to harm you. This ruse. That night at Vauxhall Gardens. I can scarcely believe that this is my sister, that she would stoop to such tricks. Her heart seems filled with bitterness and hatred. And now I…now I cannot help but wonder if I ever really understood her at all. Were all those things she told me lies? Was she the same then, and I just did not see it? Was I simply too young and foolish to recognize the truth?”

The look on Bromwell’s face was so wretched that Callie went to him and put her hand on his arm. “I am sorry,” she told him softly again, gazing up into his face.

Her dark eyes glowed with compassion, large and warm in her delicate heart-shaped face, and he was struck all over again by how beautiful she was. Her face, he thought, was perfect in every way, framed in a riot of black curls. Her lips were full and red, and he could not help but remember how her mouth had felt against his. And though he was across the room from the fire, his skin was suddenly searing.

The wrap had fallen from her shoulders when she reached up to touch him, and his eyes dropped down to her shoulders and chest. The scoop neckline of her plain dimity gown revealed only a slice of skin along the rounded tops of her breasts, but the material, still slightly damp, clung to her form. His heart was hammering, his breath suddenly faster in his throat. As he gazed at her, her nipples tightened, thrusting against the cloth in a blatant show of desire.

Suddenly he found it very difficult to think. He knew he should tear his gaze away from her, but somehow he could not. His body was pulsatingly aware of her hand upon his arm, now burning where it touched.

“I, um…should go,” he said vaguely.

“No. Do not,” Callie replied. She was aware that everyone would tell her that what she was doing was wrong, but it felt absolutely right to her. The pain of the past few weeks seemed to have melted away all fear, all doubt. The heat in his eyes as he had looked at her had opened up some deep, primitive longing in her. She wanted to feel again what she had felt with him before. She wanted to experience everything that had lain beyond that, unexplored.

She slid her hand up his arm and onto his chest, aware of the smooth curve of his muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. The quick, harsh intake of his breath, the sudden sharpening of his face, stirred her. He wanted her, and that knowledge made her hungry.

“Stay here with me,” she murmured.

“Callie…” He released a shaky breath. “You are playing with fire.”

She smiled slowly, sensuously, her eyes heavy with meaning. “Ah, but I like the heat.”

Looking at him, seeing the desire that washed over his features, she felt heady with power, filled with the triumphant knowledge that she could move him, and she ached to test the limits of that power. She loved the sensations sizzling inside her, and she wanted more, wanted it all. She wanted him.