Slipping a hand to my favorite place tangled in her honey-gold curls, I kissed her with the pent-up desperation I wouldn’t be able to follow through with. My lips pulled a desperate moan from her chest and that was worth all the aches.
She moved to pull away slightly, and I made to chase after her. She must have caught the wince I tried to hide because she pulled away completely. If I whined after her, who could blame me?
“Will, we cannot.”
“We can…”
“You’re hurt.”
I caught her hand and pressed it to the newer, more urgent and infinitely more pleasant ache that was forming.
“I am, but I’m sure you can help with that.”
“Will…”
“You are too,” I whispered against the rainbow bruising decorating her neck. I slipped a persuasive hand under her skirts. My cruel ribs protested the effort. Did they not understand the urgency of the situation? Celine had agreed to marry me, and she had been curled against my side, soft and sweet-scented for days. We were alive.
“But…”
“Celine,” I pouted as my hand trailed upward. I was man enough to admit to pouting if it got me what I wanted.
“I don’t want to hurt you…”
“I’ll let you do all the work. I’ll just lie here…”
“Well, we both know that is a lie.” I choked out a laugh as I finally reached my destination under her skirts.
With a resigned, pleased sigh, she gently pressed a hand on my chest, pinning me to the bed.
“You’re going to lie very, very still.”
“Of course, love. Say, if smiles mean a dance, what does it mean when a lady presses you to a bed and tells you to lie very, very still?”
“Whenyourfiancée does it, it means she loves you.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Enough to brave anything.” Her lips met mine and we were brave together.
Epilogue
HASKET HOUSE, LONDON - JULY 22, 1816
WILLIAM
“I’m not preciselysure how this goes,” I said as I brushed the dust from the bench across from him. It would not do to ruin my best trousers.
For unknown reasons, I waited a beat for a response that wouldn’t come before continuing. “I, um... Gabriel, I wanted to thank you. And forgive you. And all that other nonsense.”
From the oak tree’s branches above me, I heard the familiarchirp-chirpof the damn great tit. It fluttered down from its perch, no worse for its injury, before settling atop the tombstone across from me.
“Adriane— Well, it wasn’tentirelyyour fault. She could have gone to you. You would have at least helped her. I knew that even then. But she was… She never did things properly. What happened after she chose to go to France, it wasn’t on you. And I’m sorry for blaming you for that bit of it.”
The damn bird stared at me with its beady eyes before offering a rude double chirp.
I pressed onward. I had a deadline, after all.
“Thank you for helping me. I know you didn’t do it for me, but I… I’m so, so grateful that I didn’t have to leave her.
