Page 54 of A Night of Secret Surrender
‘Futile and impossible?’
Like here and now?
This thought made him falter, but he pushed it away and concentrated instead on the lingering want that burned inside him every time he touched her.
‘Why did you not run? Leave the city? Find safety when you had the chance after warning me?’
‘Have you ever wanted something so badly that it hurt to think about it?’
‘No.’
‘Then you are lucky.’
‘What was it you wanted?’
She smiled. ‘Make love to me, Summer, quietly and carefully and slowly. It will help me to forget.’
A single tear traced its way down her cheek from the corner of one eye and he wiped it away.
‘Please?’
This time when they came together it was different from anything that had come before. Sweeter. Slower. More real because she allowed him to see her shadows, crouched in the passion, hidden under lust.
Tonight she was not the dangerous Brigitte Guerin or the arrogant young Mademoiselle Celeste Fournier from Sussex or even the woman who had come to his bed that first night in Paris, hungry and demanding of body. Tonight in the darkness she was muted and mellow and deep and she was his in a way she had not been before.
Tonight he understood her pain because it was there in the kiss they shared. He also understood a sadness that was usually cloaked. He wished he might ask her of it, but knew that he would not.
Taking her in his arms, they watched each other as they made love, slowly and with a quiet gentleness that felt just right.
He didn’t hurry, but lingered in the moment, a deep contentment settling, for the gift of closeness and contentment was wrapped in an intimacy that was startling. Shay felt that he could see into her very soul just as she was probably seeing into his own.
They would turn for Nantes after they left the hills of this place and make for the coast. Celeste was right that his injury would prevent the longer journey to Spain. He would have to take his chances with the port of St Nazaire and hope that he could find a passage to England.
She would not follow him. He knew that as well.
His hands tightened across hers under the clearing sky, the stars bright in the oncoming darkness, and then he forgot to think altogether.
* * *
The port of Nantes was teeming with sailors and tradesmen and passengers. Fishermen were there, too, singing out their catch and hoping for buyers.
They’d come into the town yesterday after catching a barge down the Loire from Blois. It had been an easy journey compared to what had come before. They had slept together every night for almost three weeks under their new disguise of husband and wife. Shay could not remember a time in his life when he had felt so whole and happy.
Last night they had barely slept, holding each other in the darkness with a desperation that was indescribable.
‘Come with me, Celeste. To England.’
The small shake of her head had him turning.
‘Whatever secrets you keep are nothing to me. You will be safe there.’
He did not mention anything of love because he knew she would not want it.
‘One day you will be Viscount, Summer, and a lord. That is your destiny.’
‘Then come home with me and be my—’
* * *
