“I wasn’t far along, not even showing, but I knew, Leo. I was different. It was spring, and I couldn’t stand the smell of flowers. I’d always loved flowers.”
“And now you wear the fragrance of spices.”
Well, yes. She hadn’t connected the miscarriage and discarding the perfumes she’d preferred as a debutante. Leo was good at that too—at putting puzzle pieces together.
God, she’d missed him. Marielle sat up and pulled her nightgown over her head. “Does this count as being impetuous?”
“It counts as being lovely and brave.”
She lay on her back, took Leo’s hand, and settled it over her breast. He’d loved her breasts, and thus she’d been pleased with them as well.
“Do you still like this?” he asked, leaning over and putting his mouth to her nipple.
She’d forgotten the sensations he could provoke—hot, needy, and lovely. Her reply was to arch into his touch, to pull his hair and sigh and wiggle, knowing he enjoyed her responses. She didn’t have to worry about what behavior suited a proper wife…
“Leo?”
“Hmm?”
“I know I’m not to rush you, but might I encourage you?”
“Ellie, if I were any more encouraged I’d risk making a mess of the sheets.”
So one did mention it. With Leo. “Bother the sheets, Leo Drake. It’s not as if I’ll send you back to your own bed at the first opportunity.”
He bit her, gently, delightfully. “But back to my own bed, I will go. Your reputation matters to me, Ellie.”
“My sanity matters to me, and if you don’t bestir yourself—”
He rose over her, and situated himself between her legs. “Did it ever occur to you, that when you scold me, that bestirs me in the most intimate sense?”
She’d scolded him frequently, long ago. For not combing his hair, for forgetting to scrape the mud off his boots, for bringing her flowers from his mama’s garden, for winking at her in church.
“You provoked me on purpose,” she said, wrapping her legs about his flanks. The feel of him was perfect, all male, all over. Warm, strong, healthy, and hers.
For now.
“We provoked each other,” he said, bracing himself on his forearms. “Kiss me, Ellie.”
He was a fiend, orchestrating a kiss that counterpointed slow, careful thrusts, a deft caress to her breasts, and an embrace of infinite tenderness. Marielle rubbed her breasts against his chest, sank her fingernails into his backside, and mourned for the years they’d lost.
This was not a polite marital accommodation, a duty, a vaguely bothersome if infrequent imposition.
This was lovemaking, and it was different. Marielle couldn’t maintain any perspective, any distance between the sensations swamping her and the emotions cresting higher moment by moment. She had missed Leo in every corner of her mind and every cranny of her soul, and all she wanted was to be close to him, and then closer still.
Leo had diabolical self-restraint, while Marielle was coming unraveled. She surrendered to a joy so wide, deep, and profound, that for an eternal moment, she was joined with him, one soul, one transcendently—shockingly—well pleasured soul.
When she could muster the will to move, she turned her head and kissed his chin. “Happy Christmas, Leo Drake.” Though the hour was probably late enough that Christmas had passed, and Boxing Day begun.
“Happy Christmas, Ellie my love.”
The old endearment made her heart ache. “Leo, my lover.”
He gave her sweet kisses, and then more pleasure, until Marielle lay beneath him, a dazed heap of satisfied, happy female. He withdrew and spent on her belly, and—her joy was complete—tidied up without leaving evidence of their passion on the sheets.
“Don’t go yet,” she murmured, cuddling up to his side.
He wrapped his arm around her, and swept her hair back in a slow, easy caress that turned her thoughts to moonbeams. She’d missed him more than she knew, and he’d been everything she’d longed for in a lover. Now her past, present, and future were all a hazy confusion, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
Marielle promised herself she’d sort it all out in the morning over a hearty breakfast shared with the man she loved.
Except in the morning, she rose to find that Leo had departed from the inn, without leaving her so much as a note.
CHAPTER 3
“What do you mean, the colonel has departed?” Marielle fired that question at the innkeeper’s wife, a stolid, round-faced lady with an incongruous sprig of mistletoe affixed to her lace cap.
“Not an hour past, milady,” the woman replied. “Perhaps he had Boxing Day errands?”
Boxing Day errands? Boxing Day errands? He’d said he had an appointment, not that he meant to disappear without a word.
“Did he leave a note, a letter, anything?” Marielle had dashed off a note to her solicitors before she’d even rung for a breakfast tray.
The innkeeper’s wife shot Petunia a look that suggested Marielle should have asked Father Christmas to deliver some common sense. Petunia busied herself poking at the sitting room’s fire, which had done little to take the chill off Marielle’s quarters.
“Colonel Drake didn’t leave any notes, milady. He paid his fare, then he and his manservant saddled their own horses, and went on their way.” Her tone suggested that notes passed between a lady and a single gentleman would not do at a proper establishment.
Marielle sank to the chair nearest the fire. Last night had been the best Christmas gift two people could share, and now Leo had hared off. He wouldn’t do that to her. As a young woman, she’d been cozened by her father’s machinations, but she knew better now.
Or did she? Leo had made her no promises and been at pains to inform her he’d caught the interest of another woman.
Could a man intent on marriage to another make love like that?
Both the proprietress and Petunia were sending Marielle nervous glances, and well they should.
“We’re leaving, Petunia. Mrs. Somerset, you will please prepare my bill. Your hospitality has been excellent, and I wish you Happy Christmas.”
The woman withdrew on a curtsey so hasty, the mistletoe on her cap flapped against her forehead.
“Are we off to Chelsea then?” Petunia asked, taking the last triangle of toast from the breakfast tray.
Chelsea, where Marielle had thought to begin the next phase of her life, with the cool logic of a woman who expected little from marriage, but still desperately longed for children.
“We’re going back to London, and from there, possibly onto the Continent.”
“Of course, milady.”
Something about the way Petunia munched her toast—loudly—suggested she had more to say.
“The colonel apparently wasn’t interested in anything permanent, Petunia. He was clear on that point.” Somewhat clear. Marielle had been too intent on sharing Christmas night with Leo to grasp any subtleties he’d been trying to convey. He’d mentioned attending to business, but his business might have been in the Hebrides for all the details he’d given her.
Petunia took the opposite chair and poured herself another cup of tea. “I gather the colonel was an old acquaintance?”