He knelt and removed her shoes, throwing them negligently over his shoulder before massaging her foot. Smoothing his hands up her leg to the end of her stocking, he undid her garters and skimmed his fingers over the smooth skin of her upper thighs. He rolled down her stockings while kissing his way down first one leg and then the other. All the time she watched him. He seemed to be very dedicated to his task, intimately stopping tokiss the inside of her knee or the arch of her foot. She had never felt anything like it, and she never wanted it to end. At the same time, she was excited by the prospect of what else he would do to her.
She had no idea what he was thinking. She hoped he wasn’t thinking at all. She so desperately wanted to feel tenderness. She wanted to feel the joy of copulation, not the fear of fornication that she had felt for so long.
“Stand up, my beauty,” he said.
She did as he asked. He smiled as he looked up at her, kneeling in front of her, still wearing his pants.
“Just a little tug and…” Her chemise fell to the floor to pool at her feet.
Oliver’s mouth went dry. He sat back on his heels and absorbed the naked beauty of her. She was Venus, Athena, and Aphrodite in one. It was cliché, he knew, but his brain wasn’t functioning with any great clarity right now. He was running on pure desire. Seeing her like this, naked and reclining seductively against the bedpost, he felt even less worthy of her.
He hoped this would not be his only chance to be with her, to show her how it could be, how it was supposed to be.
She gave him a slow, lazy smile. Encouragement or dare? Was she daring him to stay? If only she knew how needless that look was. He was hers, had been since he first laid bloodshot eyes on her all those weeks ago, even if it was only now that he was realizing it. Even if it was for this night only that he surrendered to her—body and soul.
He was still on his knees, so he kissed the inside of one of her thighs, making his way back up her body while she clutched the bedpost and made the most beautiful of sounds. When he put his mouth to the juncture of her thighs, the place where heaven resides, she simply uttered, “Oh!” Then, “Oooh my God!”
It was music to his ears and he wanted to hear the whole symphony. He was sure the perfect melody was inside her just waiting for him to play the right notes. He held her to him and began to play. It wasn’t long before the crescendo began and she writhed above him like an out-of-control violin. Her hands were the conductor instructing him where to place his tongue and how much pressure she desired. Her final note hovered in the air like a ghost and then disappeared as she collapsed back against the mattress, breathing heavily and clutching at her chest, her eyes wide with wonder as he looked up at her.
“I see you enjoyed that?” He couldn’t help but feel a measure of arrogance.
“Pardon?”
It seemed she was not quite back from her ascent just yet. “Never mind.” He began to kiss her hip, intending to kiss his way up to her mouth and everywhere in-between.
It was on his travels up her beautiful, mesmerizing, and completely enchanting body that he noticed them. They were so faint he wasn’t sure he was really seeing them at first. They were small silvery lines across her lower abdomen. He knew what they were, how one got them. He looked up. His question must surely have been clear. She was staring down at him with a grief that quickly filled her eyes. He saw her blink the tears away.
“He died,” she said softly.
“How?” he asked without thinking.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you are thinking!” She put her arms around her belly trying to hide the scars as if cradling the memory of her child. Her face turned away from him.
“Of course not! You must have been devastated.”
“Does it really matter?”
Well, no, he supposed. It did make him wonder how she had survived everything that had happened to her and not gone to Bedlam long ago.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Influenza. It was influenza,” she said moving away from him, her voice hitching with emotion. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nathaniel blamed me, of course. I had produced a sickly child. If he had just let me…” She hid her face in her hands.
“Lisbeth?”
She looked at him, hard. “He took my baby away from me, Oliver!”
The look of defeat on her face filled him with such anger. He curled his fingers into fists at his sides to control the urge to punch the bedpost beside him.
“My baby was dying and he… he would not let me see him. He said I was a bad mother. He said I didn’t deserve to kiss my son goodbye.” The total devastation of her experience was etched in her eyes, in the tone of her voice. It was all there for him to see, the pain, the suffering, and the guilt of not being able to be there for her child.
“I begged to let me see him. I sat outside the nursery and beat my fists on the door until they were bloody,” she explained, while silent tears slipped down her cheeks and her hands made fists.
“I listened at the door as his cries grew weaker. I sat there, imagining I was holding his… his little hand in mine. I promised him I would never leave him. I would let no door prevent me from loving him with all my heart. After he passed away, I stopped caring, about anything or anyone—including myself. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I think it made Nathaniel despise me more.”
