Then Lise rose, pulled a shawl around her shoulders, and crept down the stairs.The dark kitchen was still warm from the cooking, smelling of meat and bread and ashes.Methodically, she filled a pail with cold chicken, cheese, bread, and a stoneware bottle of beer from the larder.Her hands moved automatically, although her mind raced ahead to the stable, to the loft, to him.
She could send Hans.The thought flickered through her mind as she lifted the pail.Hans was loyal, discreet.He would not question.But then someone else would know.Another thread connecting Jonathan to this house, to her family.Another person who could be questioned, threatened, forced to speak.
And Anna loved Hans.Thus, Lise must protect those in her household when she could.
Her father already knew.With deliberate precision, he’d avoided even looking in the direction of the stable.But knowing and helping were different things.If the French came back, if they searched, if they found evidence that her father had sheltered an English spy ...
She and her parents could lose everything.The estate, the land, their home.They could arrest the esteemed Herr von Ostenfeld.
No.She had to deal with this alone.
The night air was cool against her face as she crossed the yard, the pail heavy in her hands.The stable door creaked softly as she slipped inside and stopped to listen.As before, Jacob’s small room was open and she could hear his snores after a day’s hard work.Tiptoeing past, Lise hurried along the stalls, now occupied by an extra two horses.
Her hand was on the ladder when she heard the faint rustle of hay.Then Jonathan’s head poked over the top.Wordlessly, she lifted the pail with two hands and he reached down to claim it.She could turn and leave.She ought to.
With her skirts over her arm, she managed to climb the ladder.When she reached the top, Jonathan lit a lamp.It must have been his own, something he carried with him on his travels.With no windows in the loft, she supposed it was safe to do so.
“Thank you,” was all he said once she was kneeling in the straw in front of where he sat.His face was a mask of light and shadows.
“You must be ravenous,” she said.
“I am, but I wasn’t thanking you for the food, no matter how welcome.”
She stared at his firm mouth, knowing what it felt like when pressed upon her own.“I understand,” she said.
“I’m surprised to see you,” he added.“It couldn’t have been an easy homecoming.”
Lise nearly laughed at the understatement.“I am very much in trouble.That is certain.This may be the only time you see me out of the house until I’m an old —” She stopped herself.
After all, he wouldn’t be around to see her one way or the other.And soon, she would be a married woman, living elsewhere.
“I’m sorry you’re in trouble on my account,” he said.“Believe me when I tell you I never meant to be so careless with your safety.”
She nodded.“I should leave and let you eat.”
“Yes, you should leave,” he echoed.“You’ve done far more than anyone ought to do.”
She ought to go at once.She should climb down the ladder and return to the house and never come out here alone with him again.Instead, she crawled toward him over the straw.
His hands were on her shoulders, immediately dragging her against him.When their mouths met, it was with a desperation that burned away her thoughts, shredded her fears, left nothing but the sensation of his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, her fingers clutching at his shirt.
His kiss transported her to a dim passageway at the London Tavern.Her body felt instantly liquid, and she returned the kiss as if the world were ending.As if this might be the last time.One of his hands slid along her waist, hers found the hard muscle of his shoulder, then his back.She pressed closer, even though there wasn’t a breath of space between them.
He tilted his head, and she parted her lips, letting his tongue slide between them.Welcoming the wicked wet heat.The deepening kiss lit an inferno in her blood.She wanted so much more.She wanted everything he’d given her in that dark corridor.Her body ached for him simply to brush his fingers across the sensitive place between her legs.Lise shuddered at the thought.
Jonathan ended the kiss abruptly, and she stifled a cry of frustration and sadness.Still, they remained a long moment with their foreheads touching gently, as they both gulped for air.She wanted to stay in his embrace, on the verge of begging this English nobleman to ruin her in whatever fashion he wished.
But maybe it was her turn to pleasure him.
Her fingers found the buttons of his fall, worked them open with the maddening slowness of unfamiliarity while he simply stared down at her hand.Not speaking, not stopping her.But when at last her hand was on his bare flesh, he groaned, even as she started to explore his long, firm shaft, the likes of which she’d never seen before, except upon a stallion.
Jonathan fell back into the hay, another groan wrested from him as she let her other hand reach lower to touch his soft seed sacks.Cooler than the rest of his skin, pliable, with what felt like marbles moving just under the surface.How interesting.Enlightening.Downright strange.
He squeezed his eyes shut, giving Lise leave to watch his handsome face, fascinated by the way pleasure transformed him.The tightness at the corners of his mouth, the flush spreading across his cheekbones, the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
She explored him with the same careful attention she brought to everything, learning the shape and weight of him, the way his breath caught when she tightened her grip, the bead of moisture at the tip that she spread with her thumb.
“Show me,” she whispered.
