She’d landed in the muck pit, that’s how, a fitting analogy for her circumstances generally. The sturdy sides had kept the lumber from landing on her, and the contents of the pit had cushioned her fall.
Which would be funny in some metaphorical sense, except…
“If Gwen were laying my body out in the parlor now, Andrew, would you be relieved or sorrowing or both?”
He pushed away from the tub and paced across the room.
“I would be insane with grief and guilt,” he bit out, snatching a large towel off a pile on the clothespress. He came back to the tub as she rose from the water, opened the bath towel, draped it over his shoulder, and held out a hand to steady her as she stepped from the tub.
“Allow me,” he directed when she would have taken the dry cloth from him.
She allowed him to gently towel her body dry, then sit her down, back to him, on the sofa. He brushed her hair dry then dropped a nightgown over her head, working carefully to avoid movement of her throbbing shoulder. With equal attention to her comfort, he wrapped a night robe around her.
When Gwen brought up a very late luncheon tray, Andrew joined Astrid in a meal, making her a sandwich and cutting her apple into quarters, so all she had to do was eat one-handed.
He could not have been more attentive. Astrid considered planning an attack on her life every few weeks to keep him at her side and civil, but discarded the notion. As much as her shoulder hurt and her arm throbbed and her head ached, the hurt she saw in Andrew’s eyes was the far greater source of pain.
Fifteen
In the ensuing days, Astrid suffered no cramping, no bleeding, no signs of internal ill effects whatsoever, while the child continued to move and grow within her. She was stiff, sore, and scared, but above all, she was grateful her child yet lived.
About a week after she’d sustained her injuries, Astrid lay in bed, spooned with her husband. They had not made love since she’d been hurt, but in the intervening days, she’d seen the hungry look in Andrew’s eyes and been heartened by it. Maybe these injuries were a blessing in disguise. Maybe Andrew was resolving whatever doubts had been haunting him.
Though Dr. Johnson’s observation about second marriages being the triumph of hope over experience came to mind.
Andrew’s hand splayed across her belly, his touch familiar and comforting. “Somebody is up past bedtime tonight.”
“Lying down seems to provoke a time of moving about,” Astrid replied, drifting her fingers across the back of Andrew’s hand. “It has been thus for the past few weeks, and Felicity has written it was thus for her as well.”
And Gareth had loved to spend the time marveling at the child’s movement, but she didn’t voice that confidence to the man’s brother. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around Andrew’s and deliberately moved his hand up over her breast.
He kissed the nape of her neck on a sigh. “I am not a saint, Astrid. If we couple again… It changes nothing.”
Astrid wrestled herself onto her back, finding Andrew propped on one elbow, looking down at her gravely. His eyes by the dying light of the fire conveyed a wall of sadness banking a burning desire.
“I want to make love to my husband,” Astrid said, her voice surprisingly even given the desperation she felt.
Andrew brushed his fingers across her forehead, smoothing her hair back in one of the touches she loved best. “You are sure?”
“I am sure,” Astrid said, turning her face to the muscular plane of his chest. “Andrew, I miss you so.”
He closed his eyes, as if sustaining a blow, but he had spoken honestly: he wasn’t a saint, and the next thing Astrid felt was her husband’s mouth, open and tenderly ravenous against hers.
He shifted over her, enfolding her in his arms. “If I am careful, can you be comfortable on your back?”
“Don’t, for the love of God, be careful. Just love me, Andrew, please…”
He apparently couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t tell her what demons drove him, but he could offer tactile consolation, with his hands, with his mouth, with his hard male body. He offered his mouth, to cover hers when she cried out. He offered his hands, to arouse and soothe by turns. And he offered himself, thrusting into her eager heat with endless, determined patience.
But as passion built, and built some more, Andrew held himself just above her. This consideration drove Astrid mad and had her clutching at his back, his shoulders, his buttocks.
“Andrew, I can’t…” She levered herself up against him, interrupting his rhythm in a desperate search for the satisfaction of his intimate weight. “Please, Andrew… oh, God, please…”