rigidly against her side, gripped into a fist as she thought of the tiny grave at the chapel in Aix-en-Provence planted with spring bulbs because they were all she could leave untended.
Not now. Not now. The guilt that rode her dreams nightly opened into full bloom, reaching down into the very core of her heart. Swallowing, she made herself relax as puzzlement crept into his eyes.
‘I would not hurt you, Eleanor.’
She blanched at the pitch of need so clearly heard and the distance that held them apart lessened. Closer and closer as his hands tightened on her shoulders, drawing her in. Six inches and then her breasts flattened against his chest, finding home.
No child. No husband. Only him. Only him with his silvered wet hair and his magical mouth and his hand around her head tilting her into more, their breath heavy and torrid as she matched his desire with her own.
Mine. Again. Amongst the trees and the oncoming darkness and the call of the birds as they settled for the night, watching. Watching a dam break in the circle of flesh, tipping into utter need, his grip tightening in her hair as an anchor, no breath or ease or quiet exploration. Only five years of apartness and ten thousand hours of regret. Only the sweet rush of his breath and the clamp of passion that knotted her body from tip to toe into some other unknown force, giving back all that she was getting, opening to him so that he could come in, deeper, closer, the feel of him against her body so very, very right.
‘I want you …’
His voice was strained, no longer distant, no longer indifferent, only pain within them.
‘I am married.’
Martin. She tried to bring his face to her thoughts, but couldn’t. Cristo smelt of soap and musk and strength and the memory of Paris flooded back, of arching into delight and finding the hidden notes of pleasure in the slightest of caresses. Potent memory, honed with a celibacy that had taken all her passionate years since, month by month by month.
Sweat dripped beneath the raindrops as ecstasy boiled, and then the seconds ran out under the urgent shadow of lust and she surrendered to the sheer promise of what was offered. Her toes arched in her boots and her head tipped back, his hands steadying her.
Even then she could not feel shame or contrition. Nay, all she could feel was the throbbing release through the very core of her body, untying all the knots and the pressure and leaving a freedom that she remembered from only once before.
‘I love you.’
Had she whispered it? Please God, let it not be so!
He broke away and laid her face against his chest, his heart wild-beating fast.
‘Damn. Others are coming.’
She could not hear a sound.
‘They will be here inside two minutes.’
She was glad he did not look back at her as he walked away.
Asher Wellingham and his men came into the glade by foot and along the same route that Cristo had taken.
‘Her steed was lame,’ Cristo said from his place on the other side of the horse. He sounded normal, indifferent, the kiss of a moment back a long-forgotten thing. ‘You found the marker, I guess.’
The Duke of Carisbrook nodded. Up close, Eleanor could see a familial resemblance that had nothing to do with the shape of nose or mouth or face. It was menace and danger that entwined the Wellingham brothers as well as height and darkness of eye. Both looked at each other with a glance that held a myriad questions beneath the polite exterior.
‘Are you quite well, Lady Dromorne?’ Asher Wellingham addressed her now, as he picked up a stick and threw it into the undergrowth.
‘Very well, thank you, your Grace. I walked along the path and was lost …’
‘But now you are found.’ The sentiment was not quite said in the way Eleanor would have expected it and when she turned to Cristo she saw him send a flinty glance in warning to his oldest brother.
The Duke laughed.
‘Is your mount able to be ridden at all, Lady Dromorne?’
All she could do was nod.
‘Then if you will ride behind me, Cristo will bring up the rear. Would that meet with your approval?’
Such formality in the middle of nowhere was confusing, but she was pleased for the proposed distance.
Cristo dried himself off in the bedroom he had been given and one that reminded him of his own childhood chamber at Falder. Even the fabric on the bed was similar. Golden. Sheer curtains and French doors along one whole side of the room. But it was the books that caught his attention. His books, title by title, of collections he had begun as a youth. He ran his finger across the spines in wonder. Who had brought these here? Who had cared for them? Hearing footfalls, he turned and Beatrice-Maude swept into his room after a quick and perfunctory knock.
‘I hope you do not mind about the books.’
‘You took them?’
‘Cared for them,’ she amended, ‘until you should want them back. At Falder they had begun to wilt and I thought if they had been mine I would hope someone should watch over them.’
‘Thank you.’
He waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t.
‘Have you read many?’
She ignored this line of conversation completely.
‘Eleanor Westbury is not a woman who would survive being duped. She is young, after all, and her husband of some years is sick …’
‘Did Taris send you here?’
‘No. I am here because a few weeks ago Lady Dromorne told me that you might defame her character. Given the time you spent alone with her today I wondered if there was indeed some truth in her fear?’
Taris’s wife was not a woman to bandy her thoughts around and yet all his training told him that she held the best interests of Eleanor Westbury at heart. He could use a woman like her on his side.
‘I knew Eleanor once many years ago in Paris and under another name.’
‘How many years?’
‘Five.’
The number lay between them coated in question.
‘Her daughter …’
‘Is five.’ He finished the sentence for her and leant against the wall, the rushing in his head alerting him to another onslaught of his ailment.
‘God.’ Two attacks in two weeks. They never came this close.
