Page 95 of One Wicked Secret
Would she ever tire of these amorous games?
Would she ever tire of him?
Never. Not if they shared a thousand lifetimes.
They put the time to good use, asking after the Wright family in the dispensary and haberdashery. No one recalled Miss Cynthia Wright. No one knew Elsa’s grandparents either.
Despite searching the baptism records, the vicar couldfind no evidence of a child born to Josephine and Terence Parkes.
“It’s possible my mother was baptised in Oxford.”
“Yes, though I did find a record of another baptism.” The vicar held a thinner ledger in his hands, open at the month of August 1778. “Cynthia and Clarence Denby had their daughter baptised here on the 12th August. They named their child Diana.”
Again, it meant nothing.
Then slivers of an old conversation drifted into her mind.
If I had my way, I would have called you Diana, but Grandmama insisted I call you Elsa.
Had there been a falling out between friends?
Her grandmother had insisted she learn the art of axe throwing, stating a lady should never forget her heritage. Had she anticipated Elsa would have to fight for her life one day?
They thanked the vicar for his help, with Daniel offering a generous donation to the church funds, and returned to the comfort of their carriage.
Rather than stare at the countryside through the window, Elsa spent most of the journey to Harrow with her skirts bunched at her waist while straddling Daniel’s impressive thighs.
He instinctively knew what she wanted, what she needed.
To lose herself in him, not thoughts of why her grandparents had never mentioned Clarence and Cynthia Denby … or what shocking secret her mother had kept … or what was so significant about a marriage recorded in a church register … or why any of it should matter to her.
Desperate to quieten her mind, she kissed him with a fervour reserved for the women of Shadowmere, a ravenoushunger driving her to clasp his cheeks and anchor her mouth to his.
But this was not lust in its most wicked form. It was pure passion and a love that sang from the depths of her soul.
He gripped her hips as she rode him with enough force to chase away the ghosts. Each stroke sent a pulse of pleasure to her toes, but it was the intensity of her love for him that undid her completely.
She wanted to stay in this perfect moment, where nothing existed but the two of them—no past, no pain, no threats, no creeping fear that their days together were numbered.
“I could spend my life journeying from town to town,” he uttered, his throaty groans drowning out the noise in her mind, “having you every mile in between.”
His hands moved over her body with a frantic reverence, from her hips to her bottom, up her back, before plunging into her hair.
“I hope we never reach Harrow,” she panted.
“Perhaps we should watch for the milestone.”
“No. Don’t stop, Daniel.”
Never stop loving me.
Harrow on the Hill
Middlesex
After making enquiries, they found the Reverend Preston-Jones at home in a stone cottage with a thatched roof, tucked behind a line of hawthorn trees where the village gave way to open pasture.
Despite his ninety years, the reverend stood tall, his spine as straight as the trees beyond his garden. A shock of white hair framed a face lined with wisdom rather than weariness.
