“Ohhh…”Someone lifted her a little and the water ran down either side, then there were shoulders between her legs and a mouth and tongue replaced fingers.
“Oh God,” she cried out. The sensual assault increased as lips suckled on her breasts and hands ran over every part of her body. She tensed as that magic tongue laved the sensitive bud of her pleasure, teasing and tempting and finally pushing her up and over the edge.
Her cry startled birds in the willow tree and the rustle of leaves took the sounds and whispered them on the night breeze.
She was moving, being carried back to the bridge, four strong bodies acting as her ferry. Limp and relaxed, she let them guide her through the water, still shivering from the after effects of her experience.
Her lower body still tingled, the memory of the fierce spasms fresh, the exquisite release leaving her weak physically, but with a renewed sense of her own emotional strength.
She had survived the worst life could offer. She had lost everything and nearly lost her soul.
But she had survived.
And now she was going to thrive as the Lady of Wolfbridge. In any manner she chose.
*~~*~~*
Unaware of Gwyneth’s emotional awakening, Giles sat in his study with the windows open, enjoying the evening air and listening to the melodies of birds, insects and the occasional frog. Country sounds that soothed him and had become a steady accompaniment to times like this.
Beside him, on a small table beneath the window, was a glass of his favourite whiskey. The house was quiet, and he was alone but for his thoughts—and the letter next to the glass.
He had yet to open it.
Another lay beside it, this one addressed to the Dowager Duchess of Kilham, Wolfbridge Manor.
Both letters troubled him greatly, and he frowned as he reached for his glass, took a hefty swig of the warming liquor and pondered the questions running through his mind.
Who could’ve known Lady Gwyneth was now at Wolfbridge? Anything local would have been delivered as a message or in person, and besides, she wouldn’t be the addressee for estate business. That would all go to Royce. There was no sender, or seal, or identifying information, just an envelope sealed with perfectly ordinary wax and a stamp that one could find anywhere. From Randschen, perhaps…but if not, who else might have known her whereabouts?
Giles was at a loss.
He was uncomfortable at the thought of opening it himself, and rightly so. He might run Wolfbridge, but that did not offer him a licence to open her Ladyship’s post.
So, slowly, he reached for his own letter, both eager and afraid of what it might contain.
The marks and scuffs on this small package told of a long journey, and he knew for certain that it had indeed travelled many miles to reach his hand.
He lifted it to his nose, wondering if he could detect a trace of the scent that had once been so familiar—the salty floral air of Jamaica.
But he could detect no sweet jasmine or spicy smell, no touch of the ocean or rich deep mountain forests. Perhaps he was imagining that he might recall those fragrances, or perhaps it was all just wishful thinking. How far away it all seemed sometimes, and yet then one night he’d dream—and it was all there.
Nearly thirty years. So much time had passed since his sojourn in a part of the world so different from England it looked like a vision from some fantastic painting.
The light, the colours, the heat—all strange manifestations of a realm he could never have imagined, and yet found himself travelling through, surrounded by a teeming and boisterous town, soldiers, slaves and settlers; an endless ocean of humanity washing the beaches of an endless ocean of blues that dazzled the eye.
So long ago.
Some things a man could never forget.
Giles sighed, reluctantly recalling himself to the present. He had never regretted becoming part of Wolfbridge Manor. He loved the house, the estate and the people who had lived and worked and loved here for generations. How could he not? It was his home and had been for more than two decades. He had made it what it was today, in many ways, and was proud of what he’d accomplished.
He was even prouder of the women he’d stood beside over those twenty years. Right up until today, when Lady Gwyneth showed every sign of becoming a true Lady of Wolfbridge.
He’d seenthatlight come into her eyes today. The one that inevitably dawned when the sheer pleasure her gentlemen took in making her life better turned into an awareness, the beginnings of desire.
Gwyneth was one woman who would definitely be strengthened by this knowledge, and by acting upon it. She had received the worst treatment possible at the hands of a man, and this was after a marriage that had brought her little in the way of joy.
Yes, she would learn how to hold her head high, how to be better than she was. She would learn the depths of pleasure that hid within every woman, and again, that learning would add to her self-confidence.
