Her breath caught as he rubbed slow circles with his thumb. “Honesty,” she said, and it was true. Watching him come apart, helpless in the face of his pleasure, so aroused by such simple things that he couldn’t help himself, had been one of the most erotic experiences of her life.
And she was the only woman who had done that for him. There was more than a little satisfaction there.
Her swell of desire at the thought brought her abruptly to the edge.
“Henry—” Her voice cracked. She took hold of his wrist, holding it there as heat overwhelmed her. The knot of tension erupted in waves, and she drowned under the force of it as he whispered praise into her damp skin. How beautiful she was, how much he wanted her, how he could never have dreamed of this.
The thud of his heartbeat was the last sound that followed her into oblivion.
Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, painting gentle, swaying patterns onto the polished wood floorboards. Sleepy, feeling almost drugged with contentment, Louisa watched the play of dark against light. Dancing leaves. The image was pleasing, and for a few lazy moments, she thought of nothing.
Slowly, the happenings of the past few minutes—hours, perhaps, given the soft fingers of sleep that still clung to her mind—filtered back, and a tight feeling of dread infiltrated her sweet calm.
She had done the thing she had vowed never to: taken Henry as her lover.
His arm was still wrapped around her waist, holding her against him, and by the soft rise and fall of his chest, he had succumbed to the same slumber that had overtaken her. His breath was soft against her hair, and when she closed her eyes, all she could see was the heavy intensity of his gaze on her.
There was no occasion for the pride that rose in her chest at the way she had coaxed pleasure from him. Perhaps she had been his first, but she would never be his last.
Nor did she want to be.
Although she had to admit there was something pleasing about waking in his arms. She had vowed never to marry again, but this was the closure they had never had.
A distressingly pleasant closure. The assurance that had they married, they would have found satisfaction in this, at least.
Well, it was done now; all she could do was learn to live with her choices, as she always had.
Henry was not to be hers. And time had proven it was for the best—he needed a wife who could provide him with heirs, and she was not the lady for the job. Nor would she, if she had him, allow him to produce heirs elsewhere.
Nor wouldheeven contemplate it for a second. She knew him well enough for that.
Gingerly, she rolled, freeing herself from the heavy weight of his arm, and faced him. The orange tinge in the sunlight helped soften the stern lines of his face, giving him the appearance of long-lost youth.
This, here, was the man she had fallen in love with a decade ago.
A part of her still loved him. There was hardly any point denying it any more, at least to herself. A part of her loved him and a part of her hated him, and she could not reconcile the two.Young Louisa and present-day Louisa, the two sides of who she was and who she wanted to be, vied in her heart for dominance.
She would not allow either to win.
“Goodbye, Henry,” she murmured, rising to leave.
His eyelids fluttered, and with a stab of mortification she realised he had not been asleep as she had thought. His hand flashed out to wrap around her wrist and his eyes slitted open, narrowed from the light. Even after everything, he was the handsomest man she knew.
“Wait,” he said, thumb lazily moving across her wrist.
“For what, pray?”
“We had a truce.” His eyes finally opened fully, and he slid his hand from her wrist and along her palm, fingers linking. Although that same hand had recently been between her legs, this felt more intimate, even if she could not articulate precisely why.
“Did we?”
“Did we not?” he countered, and finally sat up. The sheets fell away from his chest, and she remembered he was still wearing his clothes while she was naked. But although his gaze travelled down her body, heating a little, he made no move to pull her closer. His thumb swiped across the side of her hand.
“They will miss us.”
“Comerford will make our excuses.”
“And what of Knight?” she asked, not drawing her hand away. She ought to end this now before she betrayed more of herself, but she had the feeling that once she left the room, there would be no coming back. And she wasn’t ready for that quite yet. “And the letters?”
