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“You don’t toss and turn?”
“No.”
“Or wake up in the middle of the night?”
“Never.”
“How perfectly galling.”
John smiled and leaned down to kiss her. Her lips nudged upward against his and her arms went around his neck. He let his mouth drift over her face and touched his lips to the wet crescents of her lashes. In a moment he lowered to the floor, kneeling upright so their faces were level, and pulled her to the front edge of the chair.
She nestled against him, letting out a sigh that splintered at the edges. “I feel like a tumbledown with all the scaffolding ripped away,” she whispered.
Understanding what the admission cost her, John smoothed back her hair and kissed the little hollow beneath her ear. “I won’t let you fall,” he said.
Her head lifted. A corner of her mouth hitched upward. Her hands gripped the muscle of his shoulders and gave a slow shake as if testing a fence for sturdiness. He didn’t budge.
“Very durable,” she said. “Thank God. I need that.” Her voice turned rusty as she added, “I need you.”
John sought her lips again, exerting all his will to stay gentle, to offer comfort and reassurance. But she pulled him harder against her, demanding more, kissing him with a soft fire that destroyed any hope of self-discipline. In no time at all he was wildly aroused, his blood racing.
Somehow he managed to tear his mouth away long enough to say thickly, “Reina, if we don’t stop now, it will be difficult for me—”
“We’re not going to stop,” she said, rubbing her parted lips lightly along the side of his neck.
He drew in an unsettled breath. “We were just discussing your need for rest, cariad.”
“Yes. You have to tire me out first. It’s a new sleep remedy.” She tasted his neck with a catlike stroke of her tongue, the sensation going straight to his groin.
He was harder than he’d ever been in his life. Filled with a mixture of amusement and lust—an entirely new flavor of emotion—he considered their options. The floor . . . the library table . . . or a decidedly inhospitable chair. “Not here,” he said, rubbing his cheek against her satiny hair. “Do you want to go to your room or mine?”
Her little teeth caught at his earlobe. “My bed’s bigger,” she whispered.
He smiled, feeling sorry for all the men in the world who weren’t John Pembroke. “As the lady prefers,” he said, and pulled her up from the chair.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Weight of Snow
Snow falls on top of snow” is a Welsh saying, rooted in the understanding of hardship as a natural condition of life.
Even if misfortune descends in light layers, its weight accumulates. There’s a skill to carrying the burden—an ability to bend without breaking.
Every year in the upland hills of Wales, wild ash trees are covered with snowfall that snaps the limbs of nearby oak. But ash is a flexible, resilient species. Over time, its branches thicken, its roots sink deeper. Strength comes not from the absence of hardship but from learning how to endure it.
The burden of confronting William about the impending collapse of Farlow’s was almost intolerable to Reina. Only the memories of other burdens she’d carried, and other misfortunes she’d survived, allowed her to face this day without collapsing.
Just before dawn, John had left Westbrook House to deliver the evidence and the key to Ethan Ransom. The assistant commissioner had gone himself to obtain a warrant from a police magistrate. Soon, at nine o’clock sharp, officers from the criminal investigation department would arrive at Farlow’s main office to confiscate the bank records. If the bank’s insolvency were confirmed, William would be arrested, along with his chief accountant and managing director.
It had all been set in motion.
Although Reina felt outwardly calm during the drive to William’s house, a thrill of anxiety ran through her every few minutes, as if she’d been wired to an electric doorbell.
Leaning her cheek against John’s shoulder, she watched the scenery outside the carriage gradually change from a luxurious patchwork of houses, clubs, and hotels to the broad streets of Belgravia.
For a hundred years, Mayfair had reigned as the wealthiest and most fashionable quarter of London. But eventually its charms had been eclipsed by the aristocratic grandeur of Belgravia. There was no whimsy in Belgravia, no higgledy-piggledy lanes or tucked-away pockets of shops and art galleries. It was a grid of symmetry and classical proportions; streets lined with rows of white stucco terraces styled after Greek and Roman temples. Mount Olympus flattened into a neighborhood.
At this hour, the only visible activity consisted of footmen sweeping the front or polishing iron railings, or delivery boys heading to the service entrances. There was the baker’s boy, his large wicker basket filled with loaves wrapped in waxed paper . . . and the butcher’s boy with his bloodstained apron and his oilskin satchel full of beef joints and racks of lamb.
