Days blurred seamlessly into each other at the cottage, bright mornings giving way to hazy, sun-filled afternoons, followed in turn by humid nights to begin the cycle again.
As August wore on Sophia’s skin became more golden, the sun chasing away the unhappy pallor left by imprisonment at Fenwick Manor and encouraging a smattering of freckles standing proud across her cheeks. The black tint had faded from her hair and once again it shone like burnished copper in the light, a flaming river that ran down Sophia’s back with an abandon she’d barely thought possible.
Nobody seeing her now would think she’d been born into luxury, her formerly porcelain face tanned and the bright gown on her back—a gift from Fell she’d blushed to receive and thanked him for far more than was necessary—more suited to a proud Roma woman than a lady. Even Mother herself might have hesitated before being able to identify her own daughter, changing as she was day by day from the unfortunate creature she had once been into something...else.
Sitting now on the front doorstep, her bare feet soaking in a puddle of sunshine, Sophia examined a callous on her palm with a curious mixture of dismay and satisfaction. The lovely white hands of which she’d once been so careful were more like those of a real maid now, a twist of fact mirroring the fiction she’d once hidden behind. The skin at the base of each finger was rougher, hardened by actual physical work—a house wouldn’t run itself, she’d realised, and it was with an absurd burst of pride she traced what felt a little like a medal.
Pampered, idle gentlewomen didn’t get anything as vulgar as calloused hands; but Sophia would never be one of those ever again, and as she felt the ruined softness it was a tangible reminder of how far she had strayed from her former existence—and how much further she could still strive, now her future might hold more than guilt and fear.
‘What do you say, Lash? How many fires will I need to build before my fingers look like Fell’s?’
The dog stretched out beside her on the bare earth thumped his tail without opening his eyes and Sophia absent-mindedly ran a hand through his dusty fur. Speaking of Fell reminded her how evasive he’d been about where he was going that afternoon, loping off up the lane out of Woodford with his usual long strides. In his absence Sophia had enough time to fetch more wood for the stove, sweep the kitchen and draw water from the pump—and still he hadn’t returned from his mystery errand, leaving her with little else to do but sit with her face turned towards the sun and the summer breeze gently stirring the Titian locks of her hair as she lost herself in thought.
For weeks now the secret she carried had sat inside her like a stone, a weight she couldn’t shift no matter how hard she tried. Her feelings for Fell remained as strong as ever, renewing themselves with each smile and touch of his hand until her arms felt as though they might snap from the strain of being so tightly prevented from reaching out and twining around his neck. Each night they spent together was as wonderful to her as the first, the perfect melding of their bodies in a rhythm they worked on with delight that couldn’t be faked. More than that: the tiniest thread of hope now wound its way through her thoughts to wonder if his appreciation for her might have grown beyond the physical.
Lash huffed a tortured sigh and turned over, momentarily breaking Sophia’s reverie to make her smile. Nothing could distract her for long, though, and within moments her mind was dragged back to the blacksmith who lingered in her dreams as well as her bed.
A few short weeks ago Sophia would have known without doubt she was the creator of her unhappy former life, but now she was no longer so sure. Fell’s belief in her had shaken the very foundations of the woman she’d always thought she was, a direct challenge to every cruel word Mother had instilled in her since she was a child. The desire to accept there might be a crumb of truth in Fell’s assertion that she wasn’t to blame for Papa’s death had gnawed at her ever since he had taken her cold hand and sent a flood of fire roaring beneath her skin, a recollection that even now made her shiver despite the glaring sun. Surely a man who lacked any tender feeling for her wouldn’t have said those words, or looked into her eyes with such unnamed emotion... It was enough to make her wonder and that wonder took advantage of her longing to make her ache for Fell both in his presence and when he was away. It was an itch impossible to scratch, a yearning like a starving man seeing a banquet just out of reach behind a pane of glass...
The sound of hooves clipping steadily along the lane behind the cottage made Sophia’s head snap round, heart immediately leaping to settle into a beat that would have shamed a hummingbird. It was nothing new for a rider to appear, wanting shoes, but each time it reminded Sophia of the nightmarish day Phillips had trotted into the yard as if he owned it and held her future on a knife edge. A wedding certificate safe in the top drawer of the sitting-room bureau had taken all Phillips’s power away should he ever return, but still the idea of Mother or Septimus discovering where she had fled made her blood run cool in her veins. Probably she’d live in fear of them for ever, the scars of Mother’s cruelty marking Sophia for life and nothing completely erasing the terror she might one day wake up to find herself back in the decadent prison of Fenwick Manor.
She was on her feet and halfway through the cottage door when she realised the identity of the man sitting easily astride the grey mare entering the yard, a sudden flash of heat in her chest registering his face before her brain caught up with her heart. Fell lounged in the saddle as if he’d been born to ride, one hand resting on the reins and the other laid nonchalantly on his broad thigh, and the curve of his lips at Sophia’s look of confusion did nothing to slow the racing of her pulse.
‘Good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon yourself.’ Sophia shaded her eyes with her hand as she squinted up at her smiling husband, noting that he looked uncommonly pleased with himself. ‘I see you’ve brought a friend home for dinner. Whose horse is this?’
‘Yours now. If you want her.’
‘Mine?’ Surprise made Sophia’s voice a little higher and Fell’s grin widened.
‘Yes. Well, mine, too, of course, but I imagine you’ll become her favourite. Bess feels more kinship with women, I fancy.’
The mare pushed her velvet nose into Sophia’s outstretched hand as if in agreement and delicately nibbled at her palm with soft lips. Her silvery flanks gleamed in the sunshine and her warm brown eyes gazed at Sophia so kindly her new mistress was taken with her at once.
‘I hadn’t realised you were in need of a horse.’
Seated high above her, Fell shrugged, the same old movement of muscular shoulders that always caught Sophia’s eye so effortlessly. ‘Not for myself, particularly. I was thinking more for you. I can walk any distance, but I’ll not be the man dragging his wife and children behind him when it would make more sense to have a cart, or for you to ride at the very least.’
Sophia nodded, feeling a familiar blush climb her neck and spread across her cheeks. It was the one that crept up any time Fell mentioned their future, the prospect of them as parents to little ones they would make together in nights when she would lie breathless in his arms. She would be a better mama than Mother had ever been, she had sworn fiercely to herself more than once; no child of hers would ever be made to feel worthless or bow its head beneath the weight of guilt it might not deserve—just as she now questioned her own sins, prompted by the man who leaned down to hold out his hand.
‘Up you come. See what you think of her movement.’
He beckoned her closer, ready to haul her up to sit before him on Bess’s broad back. Sophia hesitated, part of her wanting to grab on while another doubtfully took in the worn tack.
‘That isn’t a side saddle. I couldn’t possibly...’ She trailed off, thinking quickly. Riding astride with her skirts hitched up to show her ankles?
Only a lady ‘couldn’t possibly’ and I am no longer one of those. Mrs Barden can do anything and everything poor Miss Somerlock could not—and might even take pleasure in it.
Before any remnant of her prissy manners could complain Sophia thrust her feet back into her boots, grasped Fell’s fingers and the next moment there she was, attempting to find a comfortable position with a leg either side of the horse and her back warmed by the heat of Fell’s body pressed behind her. He sat tall and immovable and it struck Sophia as feeling like being in an armchair with such a broad chest to lean back against—but then he twitched the reins and she scrabbled to clutch the pommel for fear of falling, and Fell’s hand sliding around her waist to anchor her to the saddle overcame all other thought.
‘Ready?’
His voice so close to her ear lit a stack of kindling inside her to burst into flames, joining the smouldering of her spine held against the long length of Fell’s body. Seated so intimately it was as though they were connected by more than just proximity; Sophia felt her breathing change to match that of the man at her back, her chest rising and falling in symphony with the firm one planted so immovably behind her. For a fleeting moment it was hard for Sophia to tell exactly where she ended and Fell began, one moulded against the other so tightly nothing could have slipped between.
Without waiting for a reply Fell gently tapped Bess with his heels and she obligingly lengthened her stride into a brisk trot, carrying them out of the yard and down the lane that cut through Woodford like a dry river. Heads turned as they passed the squat houses and scattered shops, as always outright curiosity present in the eyes that followed the horse’s progress to make Sophia wish she’d thought to put on a bonnet. She just had time to spy Turner sloping out of the tavern as they rode by, his bruises faded now but his nose still a misshapen lump that did nothing to enhance his already unfortunate face. He stared after Fell with powerful loathing that made Sophia shudder, the malice in his expression so reminiscent of Mother’s contempt tiny hairs stood up on the back of her neck.
‘I don’t think Mr Turner has forgiven you yet.’
Even without twisting to look back at him Sophia could tell Fell’s brow would be furrowed with scorn as he snorted audibly into her hair. They’d left the village behind in a few of Bess’s easy footfalls, but Sophia doubted Fell would have troubled himself to look at the farmer even if he’d been standing beside him.
‘Don’t expect he ever will. He’ll think he’s the victim even though he tried to land the first blow. As far as I’m concerned I did him a favour—at least a flat nose makes his face interesting now instead of merely unpleasant.’
Sophia folded her lips into a straight line.
I wish I could disregard the man’s anger as easily as Fell has. I can’t help but worry he might try to repay us.
If life at Fenwick Manor had taught her anything it was to always expect an attack, the instinct to watch her back ingrained so deep it was like a brand on her soul. Fell didn’t seem worried, but perhaps he ought to be, if the intense hatred on the farmer’s face was any indication of the dark path of his thoughts.
Oblivious to the growing unease of his wife, Fell gently squeezed her waist, sending a thrill on a rapid course from his fingers to her sensitive nape.
‘What do you think of her? Will she do for you?’
Bullying her brain into considering something other than Fell’s hand against the thin material of her dress, Sophia nodded. The grey mare’s gait was smooth and she responded to the slightest direction, quite content to carry her riders out into the fields that ran alongside Savernake Forest. Her head bobbed up and down with the rhythm of her hoofbeats as she cantered over sun-bleached straw and stubble left over from harvesting, ears twitching with the fragrant breeze that moved around them. The same air lifted Sophia’s hair to drift about her shoulders, sunlit copper flying up for Fell to bat out of his face. He released the reins for a moment to gather the tresses in his fist and lay them to one side of Sophia’s neck, exposing the fragile skin between her shoulder blades that immediately prickled at the sensation of Fell’s laugh.
‘I ought to insist you tie it up if we’re going to ride like this. I’d rather not have a mouthful of hair for my supper.’
Unseen by the man at her back Sophia tightened her grip on the pommel, his laugh stirring what felt like feathers in her stomach in a tickle of pleasure. Out in the wide open fields, leaning back against the firm chest of her beloved with sunlight dappling her hands and a delicious scent in the air, a steady beat of happiness grew inside her like a flower coming into full bloom. There was nothing more she wanted in that moment than for it to last for ever, for Fell to be free of the sadness she so often heard in his voice and their heartbeats falling into step with each other without even trying. She could have stayed the rest of her life in that saddle with Fell’s hand on her waist and her skin rejoicing at his nearness—and the decision to tell him just that made itself abruptly, Sophia’s lips parting of their own volition to form the words she’d longed to speak.
Perhaps the moment is now. There might never be a better one.
It would take all her courage, but she should finally tell him her truth: that she loved him and had for longer than she could say, a steady beat deep within her as insistent and essential as her pulse. Whatever he might reply would be worth the wait; they were bound together now for the rest of their lives and how could it be wrong to tell him how happy the prospect made her, for the first time revelling in an existence that for so long had held only pain?
‘Fell. There’s something I wanted to tell you.’ She could hardly summon up the words, so stilted they were almost lost on the breeze. ‘It’s been on my mind for some time...’
He didn’t reply.
Too intent on something else to hear her, he brought Bess up short and Sophia twisted to follow his gaze to where an unusually patterned black and white horse stood hitched to a tree at the very edge of the forest.
‘Is something the matter?’
She peered up at him, heart still hammering and trying to decipher the set of his handsome features. He didn’t answer, instead saying nothing as a wry smile unfurled across his face.
‘What? What is it? Where are we going?’
Without a word he turned Bess’s head and spurred her into a canter once again, still not giving a satisfactory reply to Sophia’s growing confusion. It was only when she tugged insistently at his hand that he leaned down to speak into her ear, each breath dancing over the delicate shell to make her want to sigh out loud.
‘Into the forest, Mrs Barden. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
Before she could respond they were halfway across the field, Fell’s undecipherable smile still in place—and Sophia cloaked in disappointment so intense it was as though she’d been winded.
Ma’s dark hair was shot through with more silver than the last time he’d seen her, but there could be no mistaking the woman kneeling with her back to Fell as he and Sophia dismounted beneath the cover of the trees. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps, hands full of the wild herbs she was gathering and her face as guarded as ever like an animal ready to run, until she recognised her son and rose with a cry of delight, more like a girl in her happiness than a woman of fifty.
‘My boy!’
‘Hello, Ma.’
She came towards him with arms outstretched and their familiar comfort wrapped around him to hold him close. He towered above her, her head barely reaching below his chin, but for a moment he almost felt like a child—back in his mother’s embrace after months of separation and simply relieved to know she was safe.
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I recognised Camlo hitched at the forest edge and thought you must be somewhere close by. I’d know that piebald monster anywhere.’
Drawing back a little, she reached up to touch his stubbled cheek, inspecting his face and the mark left by Turner’s poker with the close scrutiny of a mother. ‘I thought I’d come to surprise you, but it seems you got there first. If I hadn’t stopped to pick...’
The rest of Ma’s sentence died in her mouth as a glance to the side revealed Sophia for the first time, hesitating beside a tree with hands clasped uncertainly in front of her and unwittingly showcasing her wedding ring as plain as day on her slender finger. Ma blinked at it, then at Sophia’s rosy face—and then at her son, who struggled to contain his amusement at the blank shock that made her look as though she’d been struck smartly over the head.
‘Ah. Yes. There have been a few changes since last we met.’
He held out a reassuring hand to Sophia, who rustled through the leaves strewn across the forest floor to take it. At once the usual flare of tamed lightning crackled the length of his arm to circle in his chest at the feeling of her skin on his, still so intense even after a month of marriage, but he set it aside to draw her closer and watch proudly as she sank into a graceful curtsy only a woman trained as a lady from birth could have managed.
‘Ma, I’d like you to meet Sophia—my wife.’
Essea’s dark brows drew together a fraction as she took in her daughter-in-law’s elegant greeting, although she found a smile for Sophia when her head came up again with shy unease.
‘Well! I can’t say I saw this coming, but what a wonderful surprise! It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Her tone was friendly enough, but with an unpleasant jolt Fell saw something in his mother’s black eyes that gave him pause. It wasn’t dislike, instead more akin to wariness he still recognised with disappointment.
It was that ladylike curtsy. Ma knows Sophia isn’t one of us.
For the first time he realised he wanted Ma to approve, a sensation he found he didn’t particularly enjoy. He’d been so carried away by his own feelings for Sophia he’d lost sight of how strange she must seem to others of his kind, refined and composed with manners unlike anything they were used to. Ma had noticed the gulf between them at once—but she would have to learn to live with it, Fell decided grimly as he saw how his wife’s hands shook a little with nerves he longed to chase away with kisses. Sophia had been treated so despicably by her own mother there was no way in hell he would allow her to feel unwanted by anyone else’s ever again—not even his own, their relationship complicated in its own unique way.
‘The pleasure is all mine, Miss... Mrs...’ Sophia hesitated, that ready blush springing up as she groped for the right way to address an unmarried woman whose son stood mere feet away as proof of her delicate position.
A shadow of Ma’s usual humour crept back into her eyes and she patted Sophia’s hand with straightforward ease. ‘Essea. Do just call me Essea. No need to stand on ceremony with me.’
The smallest smile touched Sophia’s lips to kindle warmth beneath Fell’s ribs. Perhaps Ma might take to her new daughter-in-law after all, her natural kindness winning against the caution he’d seen swim through her expression like a slow-moving fish. Ma was a maternal creature through and through, and he could only hope the two Barden women might—with a little luck—just be able to foster some kind of relationship both of them would come to cherish: the unloved lady yearning for a real mother and the Roma never blessed with a daughter of her own.
‘Will you come back to the cottage now? I dare say you must have some stories to tell after six months’ travel.’
Fell offered an arm to both women and each slipped a hand through the crook of an elbow, one balancing out the other so opposite in every respect. The only common thread between them was the man who escorted the unlikely pair back to their horses, watching as Ma leapt up into the saddle with the practised ease of a woman half her age. She was still handsome, her sepia skin a little richer than Fell’s tawny bronze, but the straight black brows and shape of the eyes the same for both, although once again—and unwanted as always—the subtle differences between them prompted thoughts of his unknown father Fell couldn’t dismiss. From whom had he inherited the square line of his jaw, so unlike Ma’s more rounded chin, and the hazel that glowed bright in one eye? The reminders of his uncertain identity flooded in, the niggle of tension Fell felt whenever Ma returned already beginning to creep beneath his skin.
Not this again. I’ve other more important things to occupy my mind, surely.
At his side Sophia cut a fleeting glance up at him and he attempted to curve his lips in reply, although they refused to stretch into anything more than a grimace. The same old feeling of inadequacy, the same old questions and doubts that had taunted him ever since he could remember reached for him again with icy fingers, attempting to pull him back below the surface of angst and wretched torment that called his name with Ma’s return. It was the usual pattern that followed her sporadic appearances: happiness to see her, but a renewal of the knowledge she was everything he was not, secure in her identity as Roma and armed with an unassailable sense of self. He didn’t want to walk that road yet again, wishing only to enjoy his mother’s company without the discontent that accompanied it.
But how can I? How can I know that peace when she will never reveal the secrets of my lineage?
Truth was, he couldn’t. The feeling of being only half-complete was something he would have to live with the rest of his life—until he and Sophia had a family of their own, a thought that helped tamp down the well of bitterness within him. With Sophia at his side perhaps this time things might be different, perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel he had travelled alone for so long.
I can only pray we might find our way together, Fell thought as he helped the wife he had come to love up on to Bess’s broad back and spurred the horse for home. For there’s no way I can turn from her now.
Fell stared unseeing at the dim ceiling of the bedchamber with both hands behind his head and a frown creasing his weathered brow. From somewhere to his right came Sophia’s quiet breathing and the warmth of her sleeping body, hardly curbed by a thin nightgown and untroubled by the blankets kicked once again to the end of the bed. On the other side of the closed door Lash’s gentle snores combined with the swish of trees dancing in a night breeze outside the curtained window, sounds of darkness that at one time Fell might have found soothing. But not tonight.
Why is Ma behaving so strangely?
The question repeated itself with irritating persistence, but still Fell was lost for an answer. For the whole of the afternoon and into the evening she’d watched Sophia out of the corner of her eye, quick to smile and make conversation, but always returning to that subtle scrutiny when she thought Sophia wasn’t looking. There was no malice in it, more as though she was trying to puzzle something out, but still Fell didn’t like it—or know for sure what it meant.
Surely she can’t dislike her. There’s nothing there to dislike...although I’ll admit that potentially I might be biased.
Sophia shifted slightly in her sleep and Fell cast her a glance through the gloom. She’d given him no cause for worry, at least, brewing endless pots of tea for Ma and making up a shake-down bed in the sitting room for their guest. In all respects Sophia had been a gracious hostess, if not an experienced one, and it was touching to see her efforts to make Ma feel welcome in their home. Her good heart shone through in every action, increasing the devotion she drew from her husband more and more each day without even knowing it.
It was a truth so bare and steadfast there was no point trying to deny it even to himself and Fell allowed it to roll over him like water off a duck’s back. The feelings he had tried to suppress for so long were ungovernable now, running riot inside him in a hurricane of helpless emotion, and even the lesson Charity’s rejection had taught him couldn’t force them back. Sophia ruled his soul as well as his home, reigning queen of both with only knowledge of the latter—although her unfeigned delight in the night-time and the gleam of the smile she showed him during the day made him wonder if, against all odds and his own good sense, the tiniest crack might be opening in the defences around the castle of her heart...
‘Must you think so loudly? I can hear the cogs turning.’
The sleepy voice from his right made Fell start and he looked across to meet Sophia’s bleary eye peering at him through the darkness. The moonlight struggling to fight through the curtain dimly illuminated her face, tanned in the sunshine, but by night bleached bone-white and ghostly beneath wild hair.
‘Not even you can hear thoughts.’
‘Perhaps not, but I can sense when something is on your mind. Such as at this very moment.’
She rolled over on to her side, nightgown bunching around her knees and drawing Fell’s attention even in the gloom. She had such long, slender legs and the dim awareness of them took him straight back to the day they met when he had gently washed dry blood from her ravaged skin. There would always be a scar there now, shining silver against her white shin, and one he suddenly ached to trace with warm fingers to make Sophia’s breath pause in her throat.
He cleared his own throat, never more relieved than at that moment that his wife couldn’t read minds.
‘Not much in particular. I was just thinking about Ma.’
The sound of hair against pillow showed Sophia nodded her head. ‘She certainly had some interesting tales about life on the road. To think she went all the way to Stratford and back! I don’t think I could have lasted a half-hour, let alone above six months of solitary travel.’
Still with his hands behind his head, Fell shrugged. ‘It’s the way she was raised and all she ever knew for the first eighteen years of her life. If she hadn’t met my father...’
He allowed the words to peter out, abruptly losing interest in his own train of thought. That path brought only shame, unhappiness and frustration with his stubborn mother, none of them things he wanted to experience while trying to sleep, but they came anyway, stealing over him like malevolent shadows to nest like lead weights. They were the same emotions that had clawed at him in Savernake Forest earlier that afternoon and in the darkness they somehow felt all the more powerful.
When he lapsed into silence Sophia waited a while, then ventured a quiet murmur.
‘Something troubles you. Please don’t deny it.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘It doesn’t seem like nothing.’
Fell sighed, cursing himself for his lapse of control. Sophia was far from the fool she believed herself to be—or had done once at least. Like an arrow shot true to its target she hit upon his feelings so accurately it was as though she had a spyhole into his thoughts.
‘Only foolishness on my part. It’s always a joy to see my mother, but when she returns it reminds me...’
‘Reminds you of what?’
Too late did Fell realise there was no way of turning back. Caught between Sophia’s gentle questioning and his own desire to bite his tongue on a confession he hesitated, unsure which path to tread. On another night he wouldn’t have wavered, able to deny the vulnerability his wife suspected...but with Ma sleeping comfortably in the sitting room, the living embodiment of his struggles with himself, his usual strength deserted him.
I can’t forget that Sophia was truthful with me about her own fears, either.
The memory of her wretchedly unhappy face the day she’d revealed her secret shame came back to needle him, a picture that made his jaw tighten. Despite her misgiving she had laid herself bare to his judgement so there might be no secrets between them and, in the quiet of the night, Fell knew he owed her that same respect.
I can’t lie. She should know the real man she married in all his forms—insecure boy included.
With his jaw still set, he muttered as well as he could manage.
‘Of everything I lack. Knowing who my father is, what it feels like to truly belong... I’ve always been the odd one out, never sure who I am or where I come from. I’d never tell Ma for fear of grieving her, but part of me has felt as though it was missing since the day I was born. She is whole, but I am only half—how am I to know myself when so much is in shadow?’
The muscles of his shoulders felt strained and Fell passed a hand over them, kneading the tension beneath the skin. Breaking the silence he’d imposed on himself for years might have relieved some of the stress held in the tightly knotted sinew, but as seconds passed without Sophia’s reply Fell wondered if his admission had been ill advised.
Perhaps that was the wrong course. The only other person I ever told of my true feelings was Charity and look what happened there.
Thoughts of the woman he’d loved before had no place in his marriage bed and he pushed them aside with sudden despair. Sophia’s wordless presence was a terrible thing, the moments spent waiting for her to speak stretching out into a bleak eternity she eventually broke with a whisper so sweet it could have broken Fell’s heart had it not already been safe in her keeping.
‘I think... I think perhaps you do belong now. Here. With me. I know it isn’t the path you might have dreamed of or even chosen if given another choice, but I certainly don’t think you’re the odd one out and I can’t imagine a husband kinder or more capable than you. You are yourself—no part in shadow, nor anything other than whole.’
Shielded by the darkness Fell lay still, one hand still locked on a shoulder, but suddenly curiously unable to feel a damn thing.
‘Is that how you see me? Truly?’
If Sophia’s voice had been faint before, now it was hardly there at all, the merest thread only someone listening very hard could have caught. ‘Of course. Couldn’t you tell? After all these weeks? I finally feel as though I have a home now and it’s you I have to thank.’
The mattress dipped as Sophia slid towards him and carefully, as though fearing she might be told to stop, slipped an arm across his chest. Cautious fingers found his cheek and stroked softly, lingering where the poker had torn his skin to trace the fresh scar with a tenderness that took Fell’s breath away.
‘So I will say thank you, Fell. It wasn’t some high-born lord who saved me or an heir with his father’s name. It was you—and you are enough.’
It was with ardour that made her gasp that Fell took Sophia in his arms then and kissed her, neither one of them quite prepared for the intensity that followed to leave both fighting for breath and unable to break the burning connection of their bodies. Fell relished every sigh, every flutter of Sophia’s lashes against his cheek as he bore down on her and felt himself overwhelmed by her softness, by her willingness to give herself to him with a passion he hadn’t known she possessed. She in turn traced the ridges of his muscles to places she had never dared before, whatever restraint she had been tied by abandoned to the velvet night. Her sharp breaths in his ear spurred his movements on until all rhythm disappeared and pure instinct reigned supreme, the sweat of two bodies mingling to dampen sheets tangled beneath.
Fell held Sophia closer, feeling the curved planes of her pressed against him so tightly not even a leaf could have slipped between. Her lips were parted and her eyes shut, pale skin gleaming dimly in the moonlight ghosted by a sheen of sweat. She smiled when he moved again, eyes still closed, but breath hitching at the feeling of his hands roaming her heated skin to settle somewhere no lady should allow a blacksmith to caress—but she wasn’t quite a lady any more, Fell thought with sudden blinding insight that almost—but not quite—made him pause in his exploration.
She’s changed because of me. Could it be I’ve changed, too—and perhaps for the better?
He said nothing as the thought made a home for itself in the forefront of his mind, a niggling distraction from the delightful way Sophia arched with each pass of his hands.
Could it be the truth? And Sophia’s view of me likewise?
It was a wonderful idea, surely too amazing to be real—but then Sophia took Fell’s face between both hands and kissed him so deeply he growled in the back of his throat and all other thoughts were chased away by the woman who had managed to bring him entirely under her spell.