“That’s wonderful news, Your Grace. This makes me so very happy but …” Her face fell.
“What is it, Frances?”
“In the short time I’ve lived here, I’ve grown to love this house, and love you and Meredith as my family. I will be sorry to leave. Would you permit me to visit you often? I would like to find a place to live that isn’t too far away by coach so that Meredith and I could have tea each week.”
Darius took the woman’s hands in his. “Frances, you’ve become family to us as well. You do not need to leave.”
She shook her head. “I would only be in the way of a newly married couple.”
“Nonsense. You are staying, and that is the end of the matter.”
Frances’s eyes shone with happy tears. “Then I shall bid you goodnight on such happy news.”
“Good night,” he said with a chuckle before continuing down the stairs to the kitchens.
Meredith woke to find herself alone in bed. Her first thought was that Darius hadn’t been there at all, and that what they had shared had just been a dream. Her eyes filled with tears, and she covered her face with her hands.
She didn’t hear the door open, nor the rush of footsteps until they were right next to her. A pair of strong hands caught her wrists and she looked up into Darius’s concerned face.
“Meredith, what’s the matter?” His dark hair fell in his beautiful blue eyes that seemed to peer straight to her soul.
“It’s rather silly. I thought … When I woke and found you gone, I thought perhaps I dreamed everything that we…” She choked on a sob.
He sat down beside her. “Sweetheart, you didn’t dream it. We did do that, all of that. You also agreed to marry me. After you fell asleep, I went to scrounge up a late supper.” He nodded toward the tray of food he’d set at the foot of the bed.
“Oh …” She felt even more silly now.
“Now, if you will permit me, I will fetch us some wine. I will be back.” He promised with a kiss that made her swoon before he left again.
Meredith pulled the sheet up around her body as she slipped out of the bed and walked over to the window overlooking the gardens.
It wasn’t a dream. She was going to marry Darius St. John. He wanted to marry her. He loved her.
The world became filled with wonder and possibilities. It was like a dream come true, one that she hadn’t even dared to dream for herself. Such things belonged in the realm of fairy tales.
But as Meredith’s gaze drifted to the darkened Crell house beyond the garden wall, she remembered that not every tale had a happy ending. For a brief instant, she thought she saw the shape of Minerva Crell standing just beside the heart-shaped hole in the wall, but the figure was nothing more than shadows.
Meredith had the terrible sense that something was about to shift. She was standing on the edge of the cliff knowing that she would have to jump, but to what ultimate fate?
16
Waking up next to Darius was like a lovely dream, made even sweeter because it was real. Meredith cuddled against his body and savored the warmth of him. In the soft morning light, she had a chance to caress his body with a longing gaze. With a soft smile, she brushed her hands over his chest. A faint patch of dark hair was framed by his pectoral muscles, and another faint trail of hair below his navel led to…
Oh heavens…
With a little smile, she slid her hand beneath the sheets and gasped when her hand touched his male hardness. Darius groaned, and his eyes opened. When he realized who was touching him, his lips curved into a sensual grin.
“Good morning,” she said. It should have been terribly embarrassing to be caught holding his cock, but she was too startled at having been caught to let go.
“It certainly will be if you keep touching me like that, love.” He slid a hand under the sheet to join hers, showing her how to grip him but covering her fingers with his own, and urging her to stroke him. “Like that.”
The roughness of his fingers over hers and touching the hot, hard part of him that had always been forbidden to her gaze was nothing short of erotic. But more than that, she loved that their hands were touching, that they were experiencing this moment of his pleasure together.
With a bit of practice, she learned how to squeeze him at a certain pressure as she moved her hand up and down.
“Yes, that’s right…”
Meredith glowed with pleasure as his eyes closed. He threw his head back with a gasp of her name, and then a sudden wetness coated the sheets, and her hands.
