Page 60 of To Seduce a Stranger

And he obliged. One nimble finger slipped between her legs, circling that most sensitive spot, then sliding easily into her core. When a second finger joined the first, he raised his head up to kiss her lips, swallowing her gasp—of surprise, not pain. She felt stretched, full, and this was only the beginning.

She moaned her loss when he drew his hands and his mouth away to shuck off his breeches and drawers. Longing to touch the skin he had bared, but suddenly shy, she contented herself with allowing her eyes to graze over him . . . his lean, muscled legs, his firm buttocks, his—oh. How—?

Tucking one finger beneath her chin, he lifted her gaze to his and broke the silence with one whispered word.

“Yes?”

Trying and failing to produce a sound, she could only nod. Yes. With one hand, she reached up to pull his mouth down to hers, letting him kiss away her worry. In another moment, he was easing her thighs apart, kneeling between them, and she could feel his sex at the entrance of her body. Instinctively, she exhaled as he entered her. She expected it to be over in one hard, quick thrust—and painful, despite his promise.

But he moved now with exquisite care, easing them together with tenderness that made her feel strangely like weeping. It was too much, too much. And, oh, so much more than the mere joining of bodies. Then he was right inside her, filling her, surrounding her. No pain at all. His arms trembled and his head came to rest against her shoulder. Spearing her fingers into his dark, wavy hair, she pressed herself against him, needing somehow to be closer still.

Slowly, he began to move, and her body caught the rhythm almost effortlessly, their hips meeting and retreating as the pace grew more frantic, their breathing more ragged. In that moment, it felt as though everything she had thought she was, everything she had thought she understood, was being cast out to make room for something new.

All at once, his head lifted, exposing his neck corded with strain. He pressed deeper and went still as his seed spilled from him on a groan, its heat branding her as his.

* * *

While he slept, Charlotte listened to the rain slow, then stop. Gradually the sky began to lighten—first gray, then white, then streaks of pink, hints of blue. The storm was over. The morning light showed her Edward’s face, stubbled with more than a day’s growth of dark beard, but peaceful. Did he always sleep so soundly?

“Je’taime,” she whispered as she swept a dark lock of hair away from his eyes. The words felt strange on her tongue. But they felt true, nonetheless—even if she could not expect to hear them spoken to her in reply. Perhaps, given the life he had led, those words were not part of his vocabulary. In any language.

At the first merry notes of the birds, she slipped out from beneath the warmth and weight of his arm, collected her shift, her dress, her hairpins. As she braided and coiled her hair, she caught herself humming Tessie’s song. But why should those sad notes be in her heart this morning? It felt somehow as if she had heard them recently, as if they hung on the air in this very room . . .

With a quiet gasp, she turned toward Edward’s sleeping form. He had been humming that song last night while he made tea. The sound of it had called her back from the edge of sleep.

It might have been a coincidence, of course. Perhaps everyone in Gloucestershire knew that old folk song. Perhaps mothers sang it to their babes in their cradles.

And went right on singing it when their children were gone.

What was it Mr. Markham had said? People thought she put on airs . . . Said she acted more high and mighty than the Countess of Beckley herself, God rest her soul.

The Countess of Beckley. The Countess. Tessie.

She thought of that horrible bloodstained room. The terrible crime of which Edward had accused his father.

And she thought of the pattern on the china. The silver. The scars. That poor woman hiding in the hermitage couldn’t possibly be . . .

But what if she were?

Hastily, Charlotte tugged on her stockings and shoes, though both were stiff with mud. She would go to Tessie, and say—what? It would be cruel indeed if her suspicions were wrong. But if she could convince Tessie to leave the hermitage, to come as far as the Rookery, they would see each other. And if Charlotte’s suspicions were right, they would recognize each other.

Hugging the surprise to herself, she slipped out the door with one backward glance at Edward, his sleeping form flung across the narrow mattress. If she hurried, she might be back before he awoke.

Just a few steps down the path, however, she met Mari, returning from the village, similarly rumpled and mud-stained and . . . smiling to herself.

“Good morning,” Charlotte called.

Mari started. “Good morning, Mrs. Cary.”

At the end of every branch, every blade of grass, raindrops turned into prisms at the touch of the rising sun. “That was quite a storm last night.”

“Was it?”

Tilting her head to the side, Charlotte studied the other woman’s expression. “You didn’t notice?”

“I—” Mari’s chin tipped, a little defiantly. “I think the walls of the pub must be very thick.”

“So, you stayed at the Rose and Raven all night.”