Unforgivable(54)

He groaned as she bit him softly there, soothing the tiny sting with a damp, openmouthed kiss that drifted to his collarbone, then up again to his mouth. And then she was climbing onto his lap, straddling him, a thigh on either side of him, her already damp quim pressed against his aching cock.

She tilted his head back and kissed him greedily, just as she’d kissed him that night. His hands went helplessly to her hips, pulling her closer, and his hips bucked as his cock searched for a way to penetrate her. She moved over him maddeningly, exciting herself by rubbing against his hard length, the wetness of her slick against him. It was as gratifying as it was infuriating. He no longer doubted that she wanted him, and when her hands went diving down between their bodies to seize his cock, he let her be the one to guide him into her tightness.

He watched her take him in, her pretty face transfigured by desire. Brow damp, lips parted and cheeks flushed. He let her glide onto him, a small gasp escaping her as she hilted him in her.

“Ah, Rose,” he groaned. “Take it, then; take what you want.”

And she did, rising and falling on his cock, her eyes closed as she focused on her goal. He watched her, hungry for her need, holding himself back as she took and took and took, her muscles clenching on him rhythmically, milking him, binding him.

I’m just ploughing her, he told himself, trying to make it basic and easy. But it was impossible to fool his treacherous heart. It seemed to swell in him when she came, crying out her pleasure. It seemed to swell with a kind of cosmic gratitude because he was with her again. Eve. Rose. And then he was coming too, with her, their cries and groans mingling and echoing and dying away into the night.

They remained where they were for a long while in their strange embrace. He rested his head against her breast, trying to ignore the tangled emotions that threatened to overwhelm him: keen joy, helpless sorrow, bleak disillusionment.





Part Four

Winter

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 97





Chapter Fifteen

London, October 1814

Every morning when she woke up, Rose knew immediately that she was back in London. It was the noise. Stanhope House was in Mayfair and somewhat removed from the grimmer realities of life in the capital, but even here there were sounds that reminded her she was no longer in the countryside: the clatter of horses’ hooves on cobbles, the rumble of carriages, the quick step of servants sent on errands.

She noticed the absence of sounds too. Birdsong in particular. There were some pigeons on the square, but their citified cooings were nothing like the birds at home. She missed the reedy song of the skylarks and the peep-peep of the song thrushes. She missed home.

She sat up slowly in bed and considered carefully how she felt. Fine. That was the truth of it. She was four months gone now, and the worst of the sickness seemed to have passed. Her breasts, which had felt tender at the beginning, felt better now. She was lucky, the doctor said. “Some ladies suffer terribly,” he’d told her. “Be glad you are not one of them.”

As she arranged her pillows behind her, she glanced at the rumpled space to her right. Gil had lain there last night. For a while. He’d risen and left as soon as he thought her asleep. He came to her every night now. She hardly saw him during the day, but they came together in the quietest hours of the night. There was passion between them, and, more surprisingly, tenderness, though it did not find its expression in words. Only in the kisses of silent lips and the blind questing of hands in the darkness. There were times, during the night, when she thought about saying something; times when she thought her words might even reach him if she could only think what to say. I’m sorry? Can you forgive me? I want to forgive you. Can we begin again?

Impossible.

In the morning, it was difficult to believe he had ever been in her bed, except for the disturbed sheets. The man who came to her at night was very different from the one she saw after she had risen in the morning. He was so very withdrawn in the daytime. He always had somewhere to go or something to do that took him out of her orbit. He was, in fact, as absent as he had always been. During the day.

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of her morning chocolate.

“Good morning, m’lady.” Sarah smoothly entered the room, deposited the tray on her mistress’s lap and walked over to the window to open the curtains.

“Good morning.” Rose sipped the chocolate and lay back against her pillows.

“Which gown would you like to wear today, milady?”

“You choose.” Always the same answer these days. Sarah tutted disapprovingly and walked into the dressing room. She emerged after a few minutes with a primrose-yellow morning gown. Rose nodded uninterestedly.