The Lost Soul of Lord Badewyn by Mia Marlowe

Author:Mia Marlowe [Marlowe, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Entangled: Select Historical
Published: 2015-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

~ Proverbs 30:18-19, King James Bible

Chapter Twelve

His lips formed the word, but he wouldn’t let himself voice it. Still, his unspoken You seemed to reverberate in the air around them. The fire had banished the chill from the room, but her nipples stood out in hard points beneath the fabric of her chemise. The linen was so sheer; he could see the dark shadow of her areolas. Samuel ground his teeth together.

He wanted her, God help him. He’d never wanted anything so much in his whole life.

“If you want me, take me,” Meg whispered. She leaned forward to rest her forehead against his.

Samuel would bet any amount of money she had no idea he could see down the front of her chemise, through the sweet hollow between her breasts clear to the soft indentation of her navel.

It wouldn’t be fair, his light side argued. You can’t marry her.

She wants you to do it, his dark side reminded him.

He reached up and drew a slow circle around one of her nipples. It tightened even more at his touch and she drew in a shuddering breath.

“I’ve never had a woman,” he admitted.

Grigori had taken him to a brothel when he was fourteen, to try and “make a man” of him. To spite his father, Samuel had resisted. He’d spent the hour talking to a girl not much older than he. She only wanted to find a way to go home to her family, but was afraid they’d reject her if they learned the desperate path she’d taken to keep body and soul together.

I just knows they’d see it on me, the girl had explained. A body can’t live like I’ve been living without it leavin’ a mark.

During the Season he’d spent in London, Samuel wouldn’t allow himself to meddle with any of the debutantes who’d flung themselves at him. It would only lead to a forced marriage and that would be as good as signing the young lady’s death warrant.

His father’s plans kept him from women.

Call it having a soul. Call it yearning to have one, for Samuel wasn’t sure he did. But there was something within him that longed for a shining moment of honesty. His whole existence was one lie after another. He ached for one true thing.

He met Meg’s clear-eyed gaze. Maybe she was his one true thing.

“I guess if you’ve never been with a woman that would make us even,” she said softly, “because I’ve never been with a man.”

Even if they came together, she still wouldn’t be. Samuel wasn’t a man. He was a deviation, a misbegotten creature. He’d tried to convince her of this. But when she looked at him with her heart reflecting steadfastly in those changeable eyes of hers, he didn’t feel like such a monster.

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