‘All I did was try,’ she spat, and pulled the axe back.Hefted and raised it again.‘I almost died giving you a son.’As the blade struck, a sliver of wood chipped away to show raw grain, stark against the paint.‘And you didn’t care.Couldn’t even spend a day with him.Just wrote orders.’Her muscles strained as she gripped and swung again, this time at the post, so hard her body juddered with the impact.Her arms, so unaccustomed to physical labour, were already hurting.A bead of sweat raced down her spine, but the damn bed still stood there, firm and immovable.As if the slight nicks in the paint were mocking her.She raised the axe again and swung hard at the exposed chunk.The blade struck.Then stuck.
‘I can’t break it.’
Behind her, Tillman chuckled.‘Of course you can’t.’
‘You knew I wouldn’t be able to.’She pulled at the handle, but it would not budge.He crossed the room and wrenched the axe free, then handed it back to her.
‘That wasn’t the point.Do you feel better for letting all that anger out?’
Breathless, she could only nod.Shedidfeel better.She’d felt anger and then rage, and instead of turning the pointed spears of criticism back on herself as she usually did, she’d put all that feeling to use.Sent it out and released it into nothing.
‘Do you want to keep at it?’he asked.
She shook her head, but giving up didn’t feel like defeat.
‘What shall we do with all of this then, Your Grace?’
‘I want it gone.’She swept her free hand across the room.‘Sell it and give the money to a charity.Any will do.’She crossed to the connecting door and flung it open.‘Clear this room, William’s room, too.When he’s of age, Arley can buy his own furniture.’
‘Anything else?’Tillman asked.He folded his arms across his broad chest, a soft smile showing between his rough whiskers and in his eyes, glinting with life.
‘Yes.’The axe slipped and dropped to the floor with a thump.‘I want you to kiss me.’
Chapter eight
‘It’snotsomethingthatshould be done.’Tillman’s voice sounded strained and thin to his own ears.
‘It’s not.’She stepped over the axe, towards him.‘Do it anyway.’
Tillman strode across the room, his feet swallowing the space between them.In one movement drawn from endless years of longing, he threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped her neck.She tilted her face up to him like a flower chasing the sun, offering lips that almost never curved into a smile.
He dreamt about them anyway.
Tillman bumped his nose against hers.She smelt like warm summer days and flower buds, like afternoons of lazy bees dawdling around blooms and fresh-shot grass.
‘Am I… am I doing it right?’she asked.
‘Everything about you is right.I’m just enjoying you.I’ve thought about kissing you more than is polite to say.I don’t want to rush it.’
‘Oh.’She dropped her gaze, then lifted it back up to him.‘I was worried I was doing it wrong.It’s just that… I’ve never really kissed anyone before.’
Tillman leant back so his eyes could adjust and focus on her face.‘You were married.For years.You had ababy.’
‘The making of heirs does not require kisses.’Pink and red blotched her cheeks.‘Apart from a peck in the church, I don’t think he ever kissed me.’
An onslaught of emotions erupted into battle in his chest.Indignation and embarrassment, churlish gratitude and ridiculous anger at a dead man.Tillman gathered all the threads together as they rose.Kept them quiet and stuffed them out of sight as he’d done so many times before.
‘Her Grace has never been kissed.’Tillman pressed his cheek to hers, relishing her softness against his coarseness, and moved his lips close enough to brush her ear.‘It would be my honour and privilege to be your first.’
A small gasp escaped her lips.Tillman swept an errant curl away from her forehead.He was not a man of vast experience, but he knew that what mattered was to take his time.He ran his thumb—far too rough and coarse for skin like hers, which was always shielded from the sun—along her jaw, then over her lower lip.Its petal-soft flesh was the exact same shade as a late summer rose.
He traced her cheekbone.Hooked a finger under her chin and tipped her up, just a little.Her lips parted, and she closed her eyes, a vision of perfect innocence.
He moved slowly, like she might fracture against his harshness.Teased himself with her plumpness.Sought her lips with his.
For a long, long moment, their connection was just this.Just their lips and her hand on his hip.Then she stiffened as she inhaled, and her fingers slid and spread against his waist.She moaned, vibrating against him in welcome, and he embraced her.Not like she was something delicate, a debutante in need of a waltz… but like she was made for tumbling in the hay or for tugging behind trees in the fields.Like he was a cad, and she was a sweet maid.He touched his tongue to her lips.She opened, and softly, experimentally, he tasted her.Her tongue met his, and now the only parts of him that were alive were the parts connected to her, his only movements were those that made her feel good.
He kissed her.And kissed her.Kept kissing her until the air in his lungs thinned and his chest screamed, until he had to break away to suck in a breath.
