“I hate being brave,” she said, kissing him back. “I’m glad you’re here, Leo. Glad you didn’t come to harm during all those years of soldiering.”
“So am I.” Leo was also a little bit sorry for her late spouse, because the man had died without realizing what a lovely, passionate, special woman he’d been married to.
As a young man, Leo had been able to kiss endlessly, despite rampant desire clamoring for greater intimacies. Finally, finally, he need not exercise such heroic restraint with Marielle, nor she with him.
“Please take me to bed, Leo, or I’ll have my way with you here on this drafty floor.”
He scooped her up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and placed her on the mattress. “Door open or closed?”
The room would grow that much colder with the door closed.
“Closed. Petunia might barge in here at an ungodly hour, and the last thing—Leo, I want to see you.”
The cold became his ally, as he draped his dressing gown over the chest at the foot of the bed. His silk trousers went next, while Marielle sat up on the bed and watched him as a cat watches an oblivious sparrow.
“You were wounded,” she said, as Leo drew his shirt over his head. “More than once. Come here.” She traced a finger over the scar on his arm, then laid her palm over the mark the bullet had left on his shoulder. “I hate that you were injured.”
“I suffered far less than many others. Raphael would allow only competent surgeons to tend me, and he made sure I healed properly.”
“He’s that great beast of a man I saw in the common?”
“One and the same. Have you looked your fill?”
She frankly studied his erection. “One suspected you would not be overly burdened with modesty.”
“Are you pleased to have your conjectures confirmed?”
Marielle smiled, reminding him of the adventurous, determined girl she’d been. “Several of my conjectures about you have proved happily accurate. I’m trying to savor the moment.”
She was also delaying the removal of her own clothing. Leo made a circuit of the room, blowing out candles, banking the fire, and considering strategy.
“I’d make a request of you,” he said, when Marielle had passed him her night robe. Her nightgown could have served as a horse blanket, it was so voluminous.
“Now, you want to negotiate?”
“Negotiation is for mercantile endeavors, Marielle. I’m asking for your trust, as a man honestly communicates with his lover.”
“This sounds serious,” she said, rubbing her arms.
“If this is to be the only night I share with you, then I’d ask you to keep your impetuosity in check. Give me time, Marielle, to become reacquainted with you. You have been precious to me for most of my life. I don’t want to make love to your memory, I want to make love with you.”
“You were always like this,” she said, holding up the covers for him. “You could turn up serious and sweet at the most unpredictable times. I adored you for it.”
Past tense. Leo spooned himself around her, gathered her close, and set about turning the past tense into the present. He’d never been naked with Marielle before, never held her with only a thin silk nightgown between them.
For Christmas, he’d been given a chance to revisit a dream, and he intended to make the most of it, even if it broke his heart to let her go in the morning.
Why had Marielle asked Leo for this? A woman married for years knew exactly what transpired between the sheets. Her husband—or lover, if she was adventurous, which Marielle was not—spent a few minutes kissing her and fondling the parts he’d never touch under any other circumstances. Then he climbed over her, heaved and poked about for a bit, and came to a shuddering conclusion.
He’d finish by lying atop her, panting like an overtaxed hound while she stroked his hair and hoped the sheets wouldn’t become untidy, though they often did, which one would never mention.
Some of it was nice enough—the closeness and cuddling, if the man didn’t fall immediately asleep. Within two months of becoming a wife, though, Marielle had concluded that what fascinated most men, the forbidden ecstasy of intimate congress, was in truth rather tedious and none too dignified for the lady.
With Leo, she’d never worried about her dignity, never been bored by kissing and fondling. She’d loved every moment shared with him. The shared meal in the cozy private parlor had confirmed that they still had the gift of conversation with each other.
Even while she’d mentally castigated Leo for abandoning her, she’d always wondered if his lovemaking would have been more exciting than her marital experiences.
“You were my guilty secret,” she said, as Leo’s arms came around her in the bed. He was a good cuddler, damn him. Always had been. “I’ve wondered if I didn’t choose an unremarkable man for my husband, so I wouldn’t try to measure him against you.”
“Was he unremarkable?”
Marielle hadn’t given her marriage much thought, once the shock and sadness of burying a spouse too young had faded, and the mourning period observed.
“My father objected to you because you were merely gentry, but I see that you were attractive to me in part because your family did not come from great wealth and a lofty title.”
“Your feet would freeze the Thames. I’d forgotten that about you. You don’t care for titles now?”
“I don’t care for an indolent life, Leo. My husband got up in the morning and went for a hack in the park if the weather was fine. Then he joined me for breakfast and read the paper, then he went off to his club to read another paper, and smoke, or gossip about politics. His afternoons were spent at the tailor’s, Jackson’s, Tatts, browsing Hatchards… what was the point? This was the much-vaunted life of a gentleman, and what was the point of all that indolence?”
“You were bored.”
“Within an inch of my sanity. Your father was always busy, Leo. He knew every acre of his holdings, knew his mares by name, and consulted with every tenant regularly. You were frequently at his side, and shared his sense of responsibility. Would you mind rubbing my shoulders?”
“You promise not to fall asleep?”
“With you prodding me in the backside, I’m not likely to fall asleep.”
Leo was aroused, gloriously so, and yet, he didn’t seem compelled to do anything about it… yet. He’d asked Marielle not to rush him, and dashing through this encounter as if it were some silly tryst was the last thing she wanted.
He kneaded her shoulders slowly and firmly, as he had on many occasions, and tension flowed out of her. Leo was a toucher, affectionate by nature, and given to using his hands. He’d often whiled away an afternoon whittling beside her on a blanket while she’d read or embroidered.
“I’ve missed this,” he said, some moments later. “Missed being with you, touching you, hearing you argue against enslavement and war and manufactories.”
She’d been so young, with opinions about everything.
“I lost a baby.” The words were a surprise to Marielle even as she spoke them, but of course, she could tell Leo anything.
He wrapped her in a hug and kissed her shoulder. “Ellie, I’m sorry.”