“Tessa?” he said softly. “Keep playing.”
She rolled her shoulders and returned both hands to the keyboard. She cleared her throat softly. “Bird excrement, yes,” she said, formally. “And it’s meant to make us all rich?”
He watched her, dazzled by her recovery. “If all goes well, it should be quite profitable. The scientists claim guano is the most potent fertilizer known to man. When we grind it up and sell it to farmers, English crops could increase a hundredfold. They say that guano fertilizer will change agriculture forever.”
“And you have found quite a lot of it? On your island?”
“The entire island is caked with it in fact. A veritable mountain of dried bird droppings, sixty feet to the sky. We need only chip away at it, put it in barrels, and bring it back to England to sell it.”
She nodded, playing more strenuously now, but she glanced at him. An invitation. She wanted the next kiss.
He swore under his breath. He glanced at the open door and then leaned in to do what they both wanted. This time, he kissed her square on the mouth. Long and firm and open. His free arm went around her. The notes of the pianoforte were reduced to a disconnected smattering of keys. He kissed her until neither of them could breathe.
“You will drive us both mad,” he whispered against her skin. She was breathing hard and leaning against him. Joseph whispered, “Play...”
She made a whimpering noise but her hand found the keys. She plucked out a few notes, then a cord. She rallied herself and added the other hand. She played on.
Joseph released her and gripped the bench with his hands.
“And this will take eight months?” Tessa said. Her voice shook. “You will be away for eight months to harvest the miracle fertilizer. While I... while I play the pianoforte alone?”
“It is my very great hope,” Joseph said, scooting the bench back from the instrument, “that you’ll be playing it alone.”
Tessa made a small yelp and tipped forward, but he caught her around the waist in the same deft movement. In the next second, she was on his lap, pivoted to face him. He plunked down his right arm on the keyboard, unleashing a garish tangle of notes.
Propping his forehead against hers, he rasped, “It will kill me to leave you for that long, Tessa, but the very soonest I may return is July. Possibly longer. Can you bear it?”
She shook her head violently. “No, I cannot,” she breathed. The movement rocked his arm against the keys, eliciting another terrible jumble of notes.
He kissed her then, hard and thorough, wrapping his arms around her and propping her on the keyboard with an un-musical plunk.
Tessa fell against him, kissing him back, winding her fingers into his hair and down his shoulders, clinging to him. Their mouths collided in a ravenous frenzy of lips and tongue and breath and heat.
“Come back to me,” she whimpered, turning her head to breathe.
“You could not keep me away,” he panted, seeking her mouth again.
They lost all notion of time, they lost all notion of everything but the sensation and the closeness and each other.
By some miracle, they heard footsteps when a footman strode down the corridor, and Tessa’s head shot up. Joseph stole one final kiss and then slid her back onto the bench and spun her to face the keys. He was standing behind her in the next moment, sliding the bench in place.
He gave her a gentle nudge on the lower back. “Play...” he reminded.
By the time the footman found his way into the music room with a tray of tea and cakes, Tessa was well into the second stanza of “The May Queen’s Farewell” and Joseph was calculating the days until his wedding and the night that would follow.
Chapter Five
“Come in,” Tessa called when Joseph knocked softly on the bedroom door.
“Tessa?” Joseph’s voice was gentle through the thick wood.
“Come in,” she repeated. She rose from the dressing table, hairbrush still in hand. Her heart began to drum.
The day of their wedding had come at last. The ceremony, a music-and-flower-filled two-hour affair, with clergy and a boys’ choir brought in from London, had been a testament to her mother’s speedy planning and her father’s money. The wedding feast that followed boasted enough food to nourish all of Surrey for a week.
But now the food and guests had come and gone. Darkness crept across the garden outside the cottage window in long, cold shadows. Tessa sat alone, waiting for her new husband.
She called his name, and there he was. The door creaked open and he filled the doorway. Her heart squeezed like a fist.
