She pinched her eyes closed tighter.
After a rustling of clothes and then a pause, the mattress dipped. She stiffened as he climbed into bed beside her and then tentatively edged closer until his body formed an arc around hers.
“Lillian.”
“I’m asleep.” she answered.
He embraced her from behind. “I’m sorry. It was… I––”
“If you are coming here from another woman’s bed, I beg of you to leave at once.” Only he didn’t smell like women’s perfume, or smoke, or even liquor. Of course he wouldn’t do that to her. She knew it deep inside.
“I met with Crawford—with your brother. He said his mother assured him that I had not coerced you.”
She sniffed. She hadn’t thought of that.
“But after that, I was walking.”
She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness. “Walking? All day?”
She felt his nod behind her head. “And thinking.”
Lillian waited.
“Everything you said today… it makes perfect sense.” He buried his head in her hair. “I don’t want it to be true. But I have no choice… I’m so damn sorry for bringing you into all of this. I never imagined that I could hurt you. Have I hurt you? I think that I have. I don’t know what to do.”
The sob escaped as she rolled around to face him. In the moonlight she could see pain in his eyes. And doubt. And uncertainty.
Tracing her fingers along his jaw, her throat thickened. “People hurt each other all the time without intending to. I know you would never hurt me. I… I trust you. Ilike you, Christian.” Oh, but it would not be very difficult to come to love him. “Your actions will always have the ability to hurt the people who care for you. And I will not lie to you. Knowing you believe you are going to die hurts me.”
“I can’t help it.” One of his hands was caressing the dip in her waist and the other cradled her face. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But there is no turning back.” Already her body was responding to his. Without consciously deciding to forgive him, she welcomed his kiss.
She welcomed his touch.
“I’m sorry.” He murmured the words over and over again as his mouth trailed around her chin, his hands lifting her gown.
She clutched the sides of his head, holding him to her breast, comforting him in the only way she knew how, and opened her legs so he could settle himself between them.
Their lovemaking up until now had been an exploration of one another, a celebration. Even if everything else was a lie, this would always be real.
This lovemaking was frantic, compelled by the perils lurking between the them. She saw the future in terms of uncertainty. He saw no future at all.
But they were bound together, legally and by…something else.
And as their bodies came together, all of it fell away. He belonged inside of her. She arched her back and urged him deeper. A combination of panic and wanting and pain and…love. Yes, in that moment, it was love that drove them both.
And when white lightening shot through her body at the same time the warmth of his seed filled her, Lillian didn’t know if she felt joy or despair.
When she awoke the next morning, she was alone.
In the following days,though never as carefree and open with her as he’d been the week they drove back from Gretna Green, he came to her every night and his touch was always loving and passionate. Afterwards, they sometimes fell right off to sleep and other times discussed trivial events and household matters.
He wanted to know how she was getting along with Bernadette, did she miss her sisters, which events should they plan to attend. They never discussed anything farther into the future than a day or so. It was the one topic they could not agree on. For this reason, they avoided any subject that bordered on emotional intimacy. Because then they would have to acknowledge one another’s feelings, one another’s beliefs. And acknowledging them would then require some sort of commitment for the future.
They were able to be vulnerable with their bodies but not with their hearts.
Oh, but shelikedhim. She loved when he let his guard down, she loved watching him with his sister, she especially loved the evenings they spent together by the hearth, her reading a fictional novel and him going over various correspondence.
