Page 26 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
He gazed down into the beloved eyes, still adjusting to the new difference in perspective. Last time he was this close, he had not reached his full adult height. “You had cause, dearest heart.” The endearment he had always used came easily back to his tongue. “You are not to blame. Forgive me for giving up on reaching you with word of my survival? For not coming back to you as soon as I was free?”
“We shall forgive one another, then,” Sarah said. She looked down, pressing her lips between the teeth, that endearing little crease between her brows deepening.
“You can say to me anything you wish,” Nate prompted.
She met his eyes, then. “Can I? I do not know you now. You do not know me. We have both changed in seven years, Nate. How could we not? You call me ‘dearest heart’, but how can you love someone you do not know?”
It was a fair question. Nate frowned in his turn, trying to find the right words. “I know I admire what I have heard of you, Sarah. I know I want you—more, I think, than I did when we were wed, though my younger self would not have believed that possible. You have my respect and my desire, which is a good start, I think?”
* * *
Sarah had to acknowledge the point. In fairness, she should admit to her body’s response. It bothered and confused her. In seven years, she had convinced herself that her memory of their reaction to one another must be false; that she was, by nature, cold, for she had met many attractive men since she entered Society, and none of them moved her in the slightest.
She heated to melting point when she saw him on the other side of a room. Standing so close, her hands in his, it was taking all the discipline she had to keep from draping herself over him and demanding that he did something about the fire he had ignited.
Uncle James! They had been standing here almost embracing. What must her uncle think of her? But when she looked around for him, he was nowhere to be seen, and the door she had left open behind her was closed.
“Sarah,” Nate said, “I am willing to court you, to give you time to know me again. I was prepared to walk away, if that was your choice, though it would be like tearing my heart out all over again. But what of Elias?”
It is because of Elias that I must be sure. Sarah tried to pull her hands away, but he held on, firmly but gently. She couldn’t think of anything to say except, “You know.”
“I only found out about him this evening, when my father tossed the fact of his existence at me as an argument against you. He thinks you are covering up the sins of your sister, but as soon as I heard, I knew.” His fingers relaxed and his jaw firmed. “Did you not intend to tell me?”
This time, she did pull loose, and turned away to hide her flush. “I wanted time.” Time to find out if this new harder version of the boy she had loved would be kind; to find out if Nate could be trusted.
It seemed they were truly married, which increased the risk. As Sarah’s husband and Elias’s father, he had every legal right to take his son. She could trust her family to fight for her freedom if she found marriage to Nate unbearable, but in that case, she would lose Elias. She could not imagine Nate had become brutal enough that the courts of England would not find in his favour if they fought over custody.
She chanced a glance back at him, to see how angry he was, and was disarmed by his thoughtful nod. “You wanted to protect our son. I can respect that. I am not a danger to him, dearest heart, nor to you. I will give you the time you need to find that out.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. He used to do that when he was much younger, when he was deeply moved and concerned, and trying to hide it. “You have been looking for a husband this Season, they tell me. Were you looking for love? Or for a companionable marriage?”
Sarah noted the past tense but didn’t challenge it. He was right, of course. Her husband hunt was over. She gave Nate the truth. “I was seeking a father for Elias.”
Nate spread his hands. “Then let me show I can be what you both need,” he begged.
He was asking when he had the right to demand. That was in his favour. Hard as Sarah found it to trust anyone other than Charlotte, he deserved the chance he asked for. “Shall we start with a meeting in St James Park tomorrow? At the Chinese Bridge?” she asked. “Elias likes to feed the ducks.”
His smile lit his eyes and softened every line of his face. “I would like that. Shall I see if Libby and my sisters would like to join me? We should avoid a public show of our... connection. Just while Society is getting over my father’s mad start, and while you are deciding our future.”
He was right, and his willingness to avoid forcing her hand added another mark to his credit. “Tell Lady Lechton to bring bread,” she advised. “Shall we say noon?”
“Shall we say Fournier’s afterwards, for some of his little cakes?” Nate countered.
“I expect your sisters would enjoy that,” Sarah teased.
He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Have you lost your sweet tooth, then, dearest heart?”
She shook her head. “I am as bad as ever, I fear.”
His murmured, “One can hope,” was not meant to be heard, and he tried to cover by saying aloud, “Fournier’s, then.” The enterprising Marcel Fournier was a darling of the Polite World, and had recently opened a pastry shop to complement hisrestaurant.
“Until tomorrow.” Sarah gave in to the impulse to offer him her hands again, and this time he pulled her close and lowered his head, stopping when his lips were no more than an inch from hers. She waited a moment. He stayed where he was, the terrible man. Sarah raised herself that inch, her mouth tentative on his.
Odd. She thought she remembered his kisses. But she had forgotten the sweetness of it, the way his lips softened, the touch of his tongue asking her to open, the way he stroked into her mouth. With each moment, as the kiss deepened and his gentle persuasion became more insistent, more urgent, the memories flooded back.
That summer, they had discovered a hundred ways to kiss, a thousand. Different touches, different pressures, different positions. This, hand in hand, nothing but their mouths connected, was tame compared to some of their explorations, but there was nothing tame about the impact.
Cold? She could do with some cold. A dip in ice would not put out the conflagration.
