A tentative twitch to his lips as if he were attempting a smile. “So when a . . . with your own touch, you do?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will touch you.”
I will touch you.
She had thought she knew what she was doing with him, here, in this bed.
She was going to pleasure him, allow him the use of her body. And in return, she would have kisses, his skin against hers, the privilege of watching him unravel, knowing she had done that.
She had thought she knew what she was doing with him.
She had been with Ned, after all. She was a woman of experience. But she wasn’t, not really, because she had never thought to ask for more, to demand more. She had thought that was the way of things between men and women. She had thought it was like the world. Women made sure men got what they needed.
She had thought she knew what she was doing.
She knew nothing.
Fourteen
The concubine had not come to her king an untouched maiden, but she would never speak of her past to him, no matter how he plied her with sweetmeats and jewels and by putting his tongue between her legs.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
Susannah’s face had been so open, so alive just a moment ago, but now it shuttered. All that thought and feeling disappeared. Her magic was gone, drained out of her by him, by something he had said or done.
She pulled away, got off of him.
She was leaving, she was going, bullets flew, cannons fired, men screamed. He couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t stop her, he couldn’t stop his heart.
His heart.
He didn’t want his heart if she didn’t have it. It belonged to her, with all its blood and scars. He wanted to rip it from his chest and shove it into her hands.
Her hands.
“Wait,” he got out.
She hadn’t gone anywhere, she was still in bed with him, here, in his bedchamber at Bledsoe Park. He had told her about his marriage, his sons and how they hated him. He had told her all of that, and she hadn’t left.
She had come to him, instead. And she was still here. With him.
“Wait, wait.”
The smell of blood and gunpowder faded, replaced by roses and her.
She was still here. She had waited. Her body quivered, inches from his. He was going to reach for her and keep her here.
With words, not arms.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”Wrong. Try again.“Did something happen?”
Those soft golden-brown eyes of hers blinked. “Yes. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re—” He should not be the one to tell her what she was doing, that she was making his dreams—only the good ones, the best ones—come true. “What did you think you were doing?”
“I had an idea I was showing you that I— Oh, Henry, that I cared for you.”
