Though her heart fluttered in her throat and her hands would not stop trembling, Beatrice was so fired by Master Isham’s faith in her that she left the solar almost eager to find Sebastian. As she searched for him, she tried to think of how she would open the conversation, but every opening she considered faltered and died. Until she saw him, she would not know what to say to him that would encourage him to hear her out.
Sebastian was nowhere she looked, not even the old tower, the last place she hunted. When she called his name, echoes answered her, her own voice whispering over and over again. She was not going to find him before it was time to go to the solar to dine. God willing, she would be able to make an arrangement to speak to him alone after the meal—she could do nothing else. In the meantime, she must go to her chamber and put the carcanet and pin in her jewel coffer for safekeeping.
And then, when she had given up the search, she found him. He was in her chamber, placing the coffer from Manners on the table in the corner, when she entered.
“You are here,” she said stupidly.
“So I am,” he replied. He put his hand on the casket. “I came to bring you this. It contains the jewels you wanted from Lord Manners.”
Whatever she had been expecting, however she had anticipated this conversation would unfold, she had not imagined this.
“I know what it contains. I do not want it,” she said, her hands tightening on the heron and the carcanet, sharp edges biting her palms.
He frowned. “My uncle rode to Norfolk to collect this for you. It is a little late to say you do not want it.”
She sighed and gathered the wits that had scattered on finding him. “I am glad he did so. But, Sebastian, we are married. Anything I possessed is now yours, including the things in that coffer. It does not matter if I want it or not.”
“I know what is mine. But my uncle retrieved those baubles for you, not me, and I did not expect you to be ungrateful.”
“I do not think your uncle found me ungrateful.”
“You spoke to my uncle?” He did not sound pleased.
“He wished to show me what he had brought. I did not know I was forbidden to speak to him.”
“You are not forbidden to speak to him,” he said impatiently. “Is that where you have been? I have been looking for you.”
“And I have been looking for you,” she said. She leaned against the door to close it, unwilling to set down the treasure in her hands. “I wished to speak to you.”
“Did you tell my uncle you did not wish for this casket? Did you throw his effort in his face?”
Apparently he was no longer angry about George Conyers. Now he was angry about Master Isham. “I did tell him how I felt about the casket and why. He was not displeased.” She stepped closer to him, hoping she might be able to read his face if she were nearer. “He said that if you gave him the jewels to invest for you, he could make you rich enough to return to Court and aid him. He wishes to increase your fortune.” She hesitated, wondering how far she must take the risk of speaking truthfully. “So do I.”
“I do not wish to go to Court.”
She looked down at her hands, curled in fists around her treasures. He would not dare go to Court if he believed she could not be trusted. “If it will ease your mind, I will stay with my parents while you are gone. If you ask it, they will keep me close so you will know I will not dishonor you.”
“I do not need that to know you will not dishonor me, Bea,” he said gruffly.
She lifted her head. “But after Sir George came—”
“He showed me the letter you wrote.” He cleared his throat. “John says you wrote it at your mother’s bidding.”
Her face warmed. “I did.”
“Did you not wish to write it?” he asked softly and as she had once before, she heard the pain in his voice.
The warmth in her face turned to heat as she took another step closer to him. “I wanted him to leave me in peace. He wrote before and I sent his letters back unopened. I thought if I did it often enough he would understand I wanted nothing more to do with him. My mother said he would not understand anything I did not tell him.” Believe me, Sebastian. Believe me because I speak the truth.
“I was angry when I found you with him the garden.”
The more she spoke frankly, the easier it grew. “It was wrong to meet him but I did not know what else to do. All I could think was you must not find out. I did not think you would believe I did not send for him.”
“I did not believe it until I saw the letter,” he said in the same soft voice he had once used to remind her that she had lain with George. He frowned when he had finished, his gaze turned inward.
“Then I must be grateful that he brought it with him. If he did not, you would still think I had sent for him.”
His frown deepened. “That is not true,” he said slowly. “I did not realize that until now.” His gaze sharpened as it met hers. She felt as if he could see into her soul, could see everything. “I always knew he was not here by your will or leave.”
Then you trusted me. She dared not say it aloud, lest he deny it, but her heart ached as she had once imagined saplings must ache as they burst into leaf. “Oh, Sebastian.”
“You said you wished to speak to me. Was it of this?” he asked.
“No,” she said. She was not ready to say she loved him, not yet. “It was for another matter.” He watched her intently, as if he saw nothing else. “Your uncle gave me something from the casket. I should like to keep them but if you wish to invest them...”
He relaxed as if he had expected her to say something else. “What are they, Bea?”
She stepped closer and held out her open hands, the carcanet and the heron on her palms. “Those.”
He stared at her hands without speaking. His throat moved as if he swallowed.
“Where did you get these?” he asked quietly.
“I asked Thomas to have them made for me.”
He stretched out a fingertip and touched the heron. “For Benbury?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Bea?”
And now it was easy to speak, easy to answer the plea she heard in his question. “Because they made me feel as if you were with me through all my troubles. It was foolishness, I know, but...But I did it nevertheless.” Every word she spoke lightened her heart, as if she shed a burden, piece by piece.
“I love you,” he said abruptly, still looking at the bright things in her palms. “I think I never stopped.”
For a moment, she thought she had misheard, but then he lifted his eyes. His heart was in their depths, unguarded. She wanted to speak, but words were gone; she hurt, but the ache was sweet.
“Do you think you can love me?” he asked softly.
She sighed and the tightness in her chest loosened. “I do, I already do,” she whispered. “That is why I wished to keep these things. So I would have something of you.”
He lifted both her precious talismans from her palms, laid them on the table, then took her hands, lifting them to kiss the places the jewels had lain. “You have all of me,” he said and put his arms around her, pulling her close.
She clung to him, a little dizzy and uncertain. “Do you mean it?”
“Let me show you.”
He bent and kissed her, his mouth wandering over her lips, cheeks, brows and throat, his fingertips following his mouth as if he was learning the taste and touch of her all over again. He lifted her hood from her hair and combed out her plaits with his fingers, caressing her ears and scalp and neck as he did so. He touched her as if he could not stop. When he had spread her hair across her shoulders he paused to look at her, his eyes blazing, before kissing her again, tightening his hold so she felt him all along her length. Between kisses, she murmured, “I cannot believe this is true.”
He stopped and looked down into her face. “Why?”
“You told your uncle you did not love me.”
Surprisingly, he reddened. “It was a lie, Bea. I said that because I did not know what else to do. Did he tell you?”
“I was outside your chamber. I heard you.”
He closed his eyes, his head dropping back. “Saints protect me,” he said. He raised his head to look at her. “Will you forgive me?”
“If you love me, I already have.”
“I do, I do.”
Heat built and his kisses grew fierce. And now it was she who could not stop touching him, shoulders, arms, throat and hair, all under her hands while he caressed and fondled her. She clung to him, whispering his name, pleading with him, pressing herself against him, their clothing a barrier she wanted to surmount. Need blinded her, the hunger to lie with him in love freely given and freely received gnawed her. As if he read her wishes, he bore her to the bed and lay with her upon it, mouth and hands everywhere.
“We must go to the solar to dine,” he said at one point, his mouth against her throat, his hand on her thigh, her belly, between.
“No,” she said. “I cannot, I cannot.”
“No, nor I.”
He got up and bolted the door, stripping off his shirt as he returned to the bed. The last thing he wanted now was an interruption and not simply because he wanted release. He did not want this to end; he wanted to go on touching her and tasting her until dark and beyond. It did not matter that they had the rest of their lives for this. He wanted to make love to her now, make love to her for the first time knowing that she loved him, for the first time without fearing that he loved her.
He unlaced her bodice for her and eased her out of it, revealing more Beatrice to caress and kiss and madden. Her skirts came next, dropping to the floor in a heap. Taking his lead, she unlaced his points and helped him out of his hose, laughing and kissing him as she did. When he was free of them, she reached down to caress him. He gasped at the pleasure and felt the thread of his control thinning.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Let me make it last.”
She grinned at him, shameless and glowing. The look moved him as much as her touch had and in much the same way. He grabbed her and threw her onto the bed, falling with her. She smothered her laughter—in truth she giggled, the sound sweet as rain—against his shoulder while her hands touched him, maddening him.
“I will not be able to wait,” he growled.
At that moment, someone scratched on the door and the latch rattled. “My lady, are you within? The door is bolted,” a maid’s voice said.
Beatrice stiffened beneath him. He looked down at her, into her eyes, where shame had begun to dim the laughter. He held his breath, willing her to send the girl away but only if she could do it with a clean heart. She must not feel regret for what they did; she had known too much of it. He kissed her forehead, hoping she knew he would follow her lead in this.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I am here, Nan. I have a headache and wish to be undisturbed.”
“Very well, my lady. Her grace the countess wished to know if you had seen my lord Benbury as well.”
“No, Nan. I could not find him.”
“Yes, my lady. Shall I return in an hour?”
“Three hours, Nan. I wish to sleep deeply.”
“Yes, my lady.”
She opened her eyes. Mischief and heat glinted in their depths while her hands began their wicked work once more. He moved against her to hear her gasp, touching her everywhere he had learned gave her delight. Her pleasure deepened his, became his; he kept teasing, caressing and easing back, caressing and easing back, to see how far they could both go before it was too much. Beatrice was shaking, panting, her hair darkened by damp and clinging to his skin and hers. They were wrapped in a web of curling golden hair. At last, too soon, he eased into her—and had to stop, gritting his teeth until he had brought himself under some kind of control. Then and only then did he begin to move, moving slowly, savoring all of it. Beatrice arched against him, open-mouthed and blind. “Sebastian,” she whispered, “please.”
“Hold on, hold on,” he said against her throat. “Not too fast.”
“Soon, Sebastian, please.”
“Soon, yes, but wait a little.”
“I cannot,” she gasped and then she clenched him as her climax overtook her.
It broke his control over himself. He drove into her as if he must give everything he had, everything he was, to her now, in this moment. She strained against him, sobbing; he sealed her mouth with his, to take her cries into himself. If he could have, he would have taken her whole body into himself. The pressure of his need built and built until at last it burst, white hot and shuddering. He gave himself over to it, thought gone, consumed by joy and fierce pleasure. When it subsided, he sank down against her, spent and at peace.
For a long time, they lay joined together. He lifted himself onto his elbows to relieve her of his weight and to look at her, softly smiling and sated. Fine tendrils along her hairline had wound into springy curls clinging to her skin; her mouth was swollen and red, tempting. He yielded to the temptation and kissed her and then eased from her, rolling onto his side and carrying her with him. He stroked her hair as he looked at the blue sky through her windows. She was warm and soft against him, turning her head to kiss his shoulders, little nibbling kisses that tickled.
“Is this what you meant when you said you wished us to live in harmony?” she asked suddenly, resting her chin on his chest.
This? He would not have been able to imagine this. “I was not so ambitious,” he said.
“Do you think we can live in harmony?”
“As the saints and angels do, in perfect accord?” he asked.
She grinned at him. “I am not so ambitious. No, I meant do you think we can make a good marriage from this moment?”
Her question was not idle, despite her grin. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “I think it for two reasons. The first is that we have learned the hard way that we must be truthful with one another. Think how our lives would have been if we had spoken frankly to one another five years ago, if I had asked you if you wanted me and you had said yes. I know I will speak my mind to you from this moment and I trust you will do the same.”
“I will.” His arms tightened. He did not want to think of what might have been—what he had was so sweet he could not repine. “And the second reason?”
“This moment, here. Having known this sweetness, I will not settle for less. I have learned that some risks are worth taking.”
He rolled so that she was beneath him again, her hair spread across the mattress. Her eyes shone up at him trustfully; he thought he could see into the depths of her soul, see everything. Perhaps he could. And if not, did he not now have a lifetime to learn her depths?
“So they are,” he said, “if the reward is great enough.”
THE END