Erienne’s heart skipped a beat. This was it. He was going to kiss her. “You can make it up to me.”
“How?”
She pressed a tiny bit of parchment into his hand, burying her nose in her shawl to hide the blush burning her cheeks.
Kiss me, the note read.
He lifted his gaze to look at her with love shining in his eyes, then he lowered his head toward hers, and Erienne lifted her arms to wrap around his neck. The moment his lips brushed hers, a jolt of heat rocked through her and settled between her legs.
As though he sensed her inner reaction, he pulled her tight against his hard body, and Erienne moaned. Her arms tightened around his neck and she clung to him while his tongue slid between her lips to explore her mouth. She hadn’t thought a kiss could be so invasive—or that she’d enjoy the invasion so much. Then his mouth slanted across hers and the kiss turned into something else entirely. Pure waves of lust streaked through her body as Collin kissed her again and again. One of his rough hands tenderly cupped her cheek, while the other held her snugly against him, somehow aligning every inch of their bodies though he was so tall and she so small. And she followed every movement he made, every restless shift, as if they were dancing.
When he sank to his knees in the cool grass, he took her with him, so tightly entangled were their bodies. And when the world tilted and she felt the soft, fragrant ground beneath her, she didn’t think, couldn’t think, because Collin was atop her, his weight welcome and warm. They kissed again and again, starved for each other after so many years of wanting—and then the laughter came, born of pure happiness. They rolled in the grass, laughing and clutching each other, lust melding into joy, until finally Collin lifted off her and flopped onto his side to stare at her.
“I wish I didn’t have to leave you again.” He was panting as he pulled a twig out of her coiffure and tossed it away.
“I wish you never had to leave again.” Erienne traced the line of his brow with one trembling finger, her bliss fading with the thought of being parted from him.
Collin pulled her against his chest and rested his chin atop her head. They lay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, for as long as they dared. Dusk had begun to fall by the time Erienne murmured, “I’d better get back.”
She saw him three more times during those two weeks. Theirs were always stolen moments they had to eke out around duty and family, but looking back, she recognized their last encounter was a sign of things to come.
“Mother says my debut is the most important thing I’ll ever do, and I cannot let up on my studies lest I fail to find a decent husband. Can you imagine?” Erienne didn’t know why she’d brought up her debut. It was at least two years off. She supposed she wanted to see how Collin would react to the notion that she was to be put on the marriage mart.
His dark brows lowered. “Whom do your parents wish you to marry?”
She’d been so nonchalant that day, waving her hand in the air. Words had tripped off her tongue so easily, as if they had no meaning. “Someone of theQuality,of course.” She’d sneered the word ‘Quality.’ None of that had ever mattered to her. She’d known she would marry Collin since she’d been a girl. She didn’t give a whit what her parents thought was best for her.
“Of course,” Collin said, but a brief flash of hurt highlighted his fine features.
“Collin?” They were lounging in the grass by the tree again. She turned toward him. “You know I don’t care about any of that, don’t you? My debut and all the rest of it.”
“You should care, Erienne,” he replied solemnly.
“But I don’t. I never have. I love you.” She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. He’d returned the kiss, passionately. They were going to be together forever.
“You love me too, don’t you?” she asked after the kiss ended, just needing to be reassured, to hear it again.
“Of course I do, Air.”
“And we’re going to marry one day, you and I.”
His only response had been to pull her closer into his arms and squeeze her tight.
* * *
They continuedtheir code-filled correspondence over the next two years. Erienne resumed her lessons with her governess, and as her eighteenth birthday approached, she wrote Collin about the preparations for her going to court to make her debut. Mother, of course, had approved of those letters because she saw it as Erienne letting poor Collin Hunt know that she intended to marry someone of the Quality, as she should. But in the code within the letters, she’d continued to write things such as,I love you, Collin. I miss you, Collin. I cannot wait to see you again.
Collin had written back with news of his training and deployments and even his first promotion, one that failed to impress Erienne’s parents. “He’s still a Hunt,” Mother had said, turning up her nose as if she smelled something disagreeable.
As her debut approached, Erienne noticed that Collin’s letters arrived less often. She told herself he was preoccupied with his assignments, and she herself was terribly busy doing a hundred silly, unimportant things, like picking out the trim for her ball gown and choosing feathers for her hair for the debut at the palace. She wrote of these things to Collin, while his letters dried up.
Finally, the summer after her eighteenth birthday, after she’d made her debut and spent the Season fending off offers from a lot of useless gentlemen who’d never known a hard day’s work, Collin wrote to tell her he was coming home again.
Elation unlike anything she’d ever felt had exploded in her chest. Now that she was of age, they could marry. It would take some convincing of her parents, of course, but Erienne was confident that together, she and Collin would make them see how deeply they loved each other, and how intent they were upon spending their lives together.
The first night after Collin’s return, Erienne found the little scrap of paper tucked into a knot outside her bedchamber window.Meet me at the sycamore tree. That afternoon after church, she gathered her skirts and ran there.
Collin was there, as always, but now twenty-one years old, and looking as handsome as ever. Her heart skipped a beat. This was it. Their future could begin. They would never be separated again. She ran into his arms and he spun her around like he had two years ago, only this time when he let her down into the grass, he immediately kissed her until her head spun, too.
