Page 19 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
Denbigh watched her, and as he did, time slipped by. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes into who knew how long. So, when Alice lowered her palette and brush and reached up to rub the sore muscles of her neck, an hour or a lifetime could have passed.
The glow from the hearth and lit sconces bathed her mesmerizing features in a soft light.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she came and joined him at the foot of the bed. She plopped herself down gracelessly. And yet as her delicate form bounced slightly, it somehow exuded a grace with it, too.
Denbigh turned his head. There were so many questions he had, but one more important than any other. “What is she like?”
Denbigh possessed an overwhelming urge and need to know about this little human born of Alice, and in her image.
Alice didn’t pretend to misunderstand.
“She loves to be around people. And she is a master at charming all the staff, especially those in the kitchen. They insist on giving Laurel her favorite treats, even when she doesn’t want them.”
Denbigh hung on her every word, swallowing up each intimate detail she imparted like the gifts they were.
“Laurel loves to draw and paint,” Alice said. “and she has a special fondness for depicting animals.”
“Ahh,” he said with a lift of his head. “She a mix of her mama and her aunt.”
“Oh, she is all Elsbeth.” Alice laughed. “Laurel only inherited my love of art.”
He’d spent just a short time with Laurel, but even that’d been enough to realize she was just like her mama.
The happy color faded from her cheeks, and she looked down with somber eyes at her lap.
“You miss your family,” he murmured.
Alice managed a jerky nod. “Of course, I d-do,” she said huskily.
Studying her intently as he did, he easily caught the tear she dusted away with the pad of her thumb.
His heart broke and bled.
“Oh, Alice,” he groaned.
With that, he pulled her into his arms, and it was as though, in holding her, he freed her.
Alice curled herself into him, gripped the front of his shirt, climbed onto his lap, and sobbed. She cried big, noisy, deep, heaving gasps of air, sobbing what must surely be more than a lifetime’s worth of misery and loneliness.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight to keep from joining in, Denbigh buried his nose against the top of her head and clung as hard as he could. Maybe if he held her tighter, he’d stop from splintering apart. Her grief was his grief and threatened to upend him. She cried and cried and through it, he continued to hold her, conferring his warmth. Giving her the support she’d been so desperately in need of and would have once again, he vowed, until it appeared she’d cried the last of her tears. They faded into a watery hiccough.
Denbigh continued to hold her. He eased away some but retained his grip. All the while he held her, he lightly stroked the back of her head.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
His heart froze. It thumped and not in an uncomfortable way.
“I’ve missed my brother and my sister and my mother. I miss Caroline. I hate that I’ve never met their child or that our children do not know one another.”
He moved his lips against her temple and placed a gentle kiss there.
“Better?” he breathed.
Alice gave a wobbly nod. In his arms, she went still at the exact moment his body became granite.
The air crackled and simmered and sizzled around them, coming alive all at once with a new energy. A volatile one, throbbing with a whisper of desire and the forbidden.
His throat grew suddenly thick. And the reminder of their one almost embrace came to life in his memory. Not an almost embrace. It had been a kiss. He’d blocked it from his remembrances. He wanted to kiss her more than he ever had.
