Читать книгу In Bed With...Collection - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 56

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BEAU very quickly understood his grandfather’s enchantment with Maggie Stowe. She was so eager for knowledge, she soaked up everything she could, loving the experience of a wider world, the wonder of it sparkling in her eyes. Fatigue, hunger, discomfort... none of it meant anything to her if there was something more to take in and savour. London was a historical feast and even its present living culture was endlessly fascinating to her.

She wasn’t a tourist as Beau knew tourists, notching up places they’d been. She wasn’t interested in buying souvenirs, nor even looking at them. That took up time better spent in active pursuit of a bigger treasure house of memories to be kept in her mind and heart and soul. So she said.

Beau suspected she automatically dismissed souvenirs as excess baggage. In a life led travelling lightly, books and ornaments would simply weigh her down. She didn’t have a family home where she could store them. What most people took for granted had not been available to Maggie Stowe.

To have carried through such an isolated and alienated existence and still have an open-hearted zest for exploring more and more of life, showed a truly amazing resilience. Gutsy and grand, Beau thought, and found himself admiring her more than he usually admired anyone.

Even with places he had already seen, she revitalised his interest and extended it. He remembered on his previous visit to the Tower of London with his grandfather, he’d been captivated by its fortress aspect, the rooms where famous people had been imprisoned, the instruments of torture, suits of armour. Maggie was more enthralled with the Queens of England who’d been buried in the chapel, and shocked by the wealth of the British Empire, embedded in the Crown Jewels.

It was fun to be with her. She brought a kind of magical joy to each day with her vibrant enthusiasm, a dancing smile and evocative comments inviting him to share everything that touched her. He loved her uninhibited reactions, enjoyed her perceptions, found intense pleasure in her company, and thought how much he’d like spending the rest of his life with her.

He took her to Harrods since a visit to London wouldn’t be complete without a look at the famous store. It was a natural expectation that Maggie would be tempted into buying something from the rich array of goods on display, if only one of the exotic pastries from the food hall. She did end up making a purchase, but not for herself, for Sedgewick.

“Look, Beau! A silver stopper for bottles of champagne. It’s to keep the bubbles in after the bottle’s been opened.” Her eyes sparkled with glee. “Sedgewick will love it!”

“Why?” he asked, bemused by her pleasure in it.

“Oh, he looks so pained when nobody wants any more champagne and there’s still some left in the bottle. With this stopper he can keep it for later and enjoy it himself. He never drinks while he’s on duty and he hates waste. I must buy it for him.”

She was being served when she was struck by second thoughts, turning to Beau in agitated uncertainty. “Maybe I shouldn’t. You don’t drink champagne as Vivian did. If you don’t intend to throw any more parties or do functions at Rosecliff...”

“Buy it,” he said decisively. When still she doubted, he added, “I won’t be dropping my grandfather’s charity balls. If I’m not there to host them, I’ll put Sedgewick in charge.”

And on such an off-the-cuff incident, the future of Rosecliff suddenly turned. Or maybe the decision had been building up in him from the day he’d first returned home to a heritage he couldn’t quite disown. Rosecliff represented home to him and having a home with a sense of continuity to it had a value now it didn’t have before getting to know Maggie Stowe. Every child deserved a proper family home and Beau was determined on giving their child the best he could offer.

Having said what he’d said, it felt right. He’d make it happen. And Maggie was an integral part of it. Somehow he’d make her realise that before this trip was over.

They caught the Eurostar train from Waterloo to Paris, travelling under the English Channel and speeding across the countryside of France faster than any cars they saw on the roads. They both gave the trip top marks for inclusion on a tour.

To Beau, in his teens, Paris had been a city of stupendous grandeur, dominated by the architectural splendour of its public buildings and monuments, the marvellous precision of their mathematical alignment, the spirit of Napoleon and the fantastic Eiffel Tower. He hadn’t seen it as a romantic city for lovers. He did now.

Spring in Paris. There was a nip in the air as Wallace had forewarned but the sun shone on them as he and Maggie followed the walking tours he’d planned; enjoying the pretty tree-lined streets that led up to the Sacre-Coeur, stopping to watch the clever acts of mime artists; strolling from the Louvre, through the Tuileries and all the way down the Champs-Élysées, pausing to cast a critical eye over an exhibition of sculptures, admiring the massed displays of flowers in the gardens, having fun simply people-watching.

On the very first day, he’d caught her hand when she’d stumbled over uneven cobblestones. He hadn’t relinquished it and she hadn’t withdrawn it. The tacit acceptance emboldened him to take her hand every day. Beau could hardly believe how good it felt...this least intimate of physical links. In his mind he tied it to liking, approval, acceptance and respect, and his heart swelled with the sense of achievement this gave him. He was breaking down the barriers between them, winning her trust.

They spent a day at Versailles, marvelling at the incredible artistry involved in supplying the best of everything to the Sun-King of France; the riches of the palace, the extravagance of Le Trianon, the breathtaking design of the forest and fountains and gardens. Maggie bought a book of photographs of the latter to give to Mr. Polly.

“Just to satisfy his curiosity,” she remarked. “He’s such a master gardener himself, he’ll appreciate the attention to detail in all of this.”

Another day, they wandered around an antique fair, set up along the banks of the Seine near the Bastille. On one of the stalls Maggie saw a collection of elaborately designed brass buttons. “For Wallace,” she cried excitedly. “He’d just love these on his chauffeur’s uniform. Help me choose, Beau. I’ll buy them and sew them on his jacket for him.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, surprised by her perception. “Short of a red Ferrari, you couldn’t buy him anything better. Wallace will be puffing his chest out everywhere.”

They both grinned over the little vanity, enjoying their shared knowledge of the chauffeur’s pride in his uniform. Once again Beau was touched by Maggie’s thoughtfulness in the gift.

He was further struck by her caring perception when she pulled him into a lingerie boutique in the Place des Voges. He initially thought she was finally going to buy something for herself, but it was Mrs. Featherfield she had in mind.

“A nightgown from Paris with real French lace. She’ll adore it, Beau.”

The saleswoman obligingly laid out several on the counter. Beau eyed the sexy gown Maggie was fingering, trying to see it objectively instead of envisaging her in it. So far he’d managed to keep his desire for her under control, but willpower couldn’t quell the needs she stirred and the display of highly erotic lingerie was dangerously arousing.

“You don’t think that’s a bit...well, Feathers isn’t exactly young and she is rather buxom,” he commented critically, thinking the sooner they got out of this shop, the better.

Maggie laughed, her eyes teasing his ignorance. “A woman is never too old or plump to enjoy feeling feminine and deliciously sensual,” she declared knowingly. “Mrs. Featherfield loves the nightie I...”

She stopped, biting her lips as heat flared into her cheeks. Beau knew instantly what she was remembering. The image of her in the navy silk and lace gown burst into his mind, tempting him beyond endurance. He sensed her own sharp awareness of it, the flash flood of desire sweeping through her, the struggle to contain it. A wild exultation possessed him. It was the same for her...the want...the need... the same for her!

Beau didn’t pause to question the compulsion that seized him. He swept the array of nighties on the counter over his arm. “Trying them on,” he threw at the saleswoman, nodding to the change cubicles at the back of the shop. He scooped Maggie along with him and she came unresistingly, hustled into movement, catching her breath, looking hotly confused but not protesting.

His heart was hammering as he yanked the curtain of the cubicle closed behind them and tossed the nightgowns on a padded stool. His whole body was tingling with feverish anticipation as he turned to gather Maggie to him. She dropped the bags she’d been holding, her emptied hands lifting, but not to push him away. No. They slid inside his jacket, wanting to touch, wanting to feel him, and the intense yearning in her eyes set him on fire.

He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her with all the pent-up hunger of weeks pouring into a passionate need for her wholehearted response. She left him in no doubt of it, her mouth as urgent as his in tasting and accelerating the intensity of sensation generated by their mutual desire for each other. He covered her face with kisses, breathed in the seductive scent of her hair, moved her back against the wall for support as they both trembled with the force of their release from the restriction they’d imposed on themselves.

With his hands free to revel in the soft curves of her femininity, his mouth sought hers again, loving it, caressing it, savouring its hot sensuality. It was like drinking champagne on an empty stomach. His head swam with the exhilarating intoxication of it and he couldn’t put a stopper on the bottle. Her arms were around his neck, her body arched excitingly against his, her fingers curling into his hair, holding him to her, wanting him.

His erection was painfully hard, fighting the constriction of his jeans, throbbing for release, desperately seeking its home within the soft cradle of her hips. And Maggie was burrowing closer to him, the thrust of her breasts pressing deliciously against his chest, her stomach curling around his hard shaft, relishing it, inviting him, encouraging him, the quiver of her thighs revealing the same feverish desire that gripped him.

His hands scrabbled at the cloth of her long skirt until they found the hem and pulled it up. Then came the fierce delight of finding she was wearing garterless stockings, not tights, and the silky scrap of her panties gave easy access to the intimacy he craved. She was already wet with need for him, and she shuddered and gasped as he stroked her.

A purring sound came from her throat, music to Beau’s ears, but not to hers. Her eyes opened wide, the sudden realisation of where they were and what was being done rocketing through the sensual haze of satisfaction.

“Beau, we can’t...” The shocked whisper fell from lips swollen with his kisses and tremulous with a denial she didn’t really want to make. Her body was straining to give, to feel all he would give her.

“Maggie, I’m dying for you...” He pinned her skirt up with his thighs and tore his zip open.

Then as he guided his own hot flesh along the soft path of her other lips, already so sexually aroused they welcomed him in convulsive ecstasy, she sighed with exquisite pleasure, “Yes...yes...” and her eyes swam with sweet relief and a wild, reckless acceptance of any time, place or circumstance.

She lifted a leg, opening herself further, sensuously stroking his leg with it. Only a shallow penetration was possible and the teasing of it was driving him crazy with excitement. He shoved his jeans down his thighs, filled his hands with the soft roundness of her buttocks and hoisted her up, the explosive tension inside him demanding the thrust that took him deep inside her, fast and strong and intensely fulfilling.

She wound her legs around his hips, sinking him even further. And there was a moment to die for, a moment of stillness, of exquisite appreciation of how it was to be together like this, so deeply co-joined, owning an inner world that was uniquely theirs, that drummed only to their beat.

Her hands clutched his shoulders, fingers digging into his flesh as though they, too, would claw inside, holding and possessing what they shared by any primitive means. Her head was thrown back, exposing her long throat, and there at the base of it her pulse visibly throbbed. He kissed it, drew on it, loving the sense of her heart thrumming with his.

He felt her muscles start to spasm around him and he abandoned the kiss to ride the gathering storm of sensation, driving ahead of it, pushing it, rushing along with it, plunging from crest to crest, as the waves of her climax rolled through him and the sheer wild glory of it caught up with him and spilled him into the sweet peace of heaven.

She slumped over him, hugging his head, and he buried his face in the heaving softness of her breasts. He wrapped her fiercely in his arms to prevent her slipping away from him, holding on to their intimacy as long as he could. Her fingers stroked his neck as though gentling him and he felt a rush of tenderness for the woman she was, the mother she would be.

He listened to her heartbeat, feeling an emotional intensity he’d never felt before. This woman belonged to him. He would never let her go. Never. He would fight whatever he had to fight to keep her.

Only when she stirred did he become aware of external sounds; footsteps, a burst of conversation in French, the click of hangers on racks. “Beau...” she whispered, her breath warm on his skin, fingers stroking his hair, alerting him to the shift that had to be made.

She leaned back against the wall. He lifted his head. Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliantly luminous, her mouth slightly parted as though her lips were too sensitised to close. She met his gaze unflinchingly, locking on to it, determined on open honesty yet unable to hide a shimmer of intense vulnerability.

“Other customers have come in. This isn’t exactly a safe place,” she murmured shakily.

“Doesn’t matter. They’re strangers we’ll never meet again,” he answered. “This... us...is far more important, Maggie.”

Her smile was wry. “I can’t believe I let this happen again. It’s crazy.”

“But you wanted it,” Beau pressed, alarmed at the thought of her backing off from him.

“Yes,” she said helplessly.

His fear dissolved into a relieved and happy grin. “Maybe it seemed crazy the first time, when we didn’t really know each other, but this time it makes perfect sense.”

She giggled. “In a change cubicle?”

“Marks a change, doesn’t it?”

She shook her head in bemusement. “I didn’t imagine change would come quite like this.”

She accepted it though, Beau thought exultantly. “Spontaneous combustion,” he explained. “I promise I’ll romance you tonight. How about a dinner cruise on the Seine? The lights of Paris, seductive food, French champagne...”

Her eyes softened. She stroked his cheek. “You don’t have to, Beau. It’s not really about romance, is it?”

“No. It’s about what we give to each other. Very basic. But there’s no reason we can’t put a shine on it, Maggie, and I want to give you all the highlights the world has to offer.” He meant it, too. There was nothing glib about what he felt for her.

She expelled a deep sigh. To his ears it was the sound of contentment in their understanding. Her eyes flirted with the confidence he’d imparted. “Well, I think it’s time you put my feet back on the ground so we can resume our journey.”

He kissed her to make up for the more intimate disconnection and there was no awkwardness at all about fixing themselves up before rejoining the public world. Acceptance, approval, liking, respect, Beau happily recited to himself as he waited for Maggie to complete the purchase of a sinful piece of sensuality for Mrs. Featherfield.

There was one thing wrong with the list, he decided. Liking wasn’t strong enough.

He loved Maggie Stowe.

He felt he couldn’t bear her out of his sight, let alone out of his life. It wasn’t simply the part of him she carried inside her—their child—that made it essential to convince her that marriage to him could never conceivably be a prison. It was the person she was...his mate in every sense he could think of. He wanted—needed from her—the commitment of marriage.