Harder, faster, then he turned to stone, shuddered, and she dragged her nails into his skin. He froze, posed above her, for several hard breaths before collapsing atop her, his breathing wild indeed, erratic. Hers too.
When he finally rolled over and gathered her to him, his heart finding a slower pace to dream to, she yawned. Limbs heavy, heart light, with the break of day, finally sleep came.
Then the bed shook.
They bolted upright with identical yelps, arms grasping for each other. Then they went still.
“Is that a cat?” Jackson asked, squinting into the darkness. “Oh, it’sthatcat. How the hell did she get in here?”
The gray tabby blinked at them from the foot of the bed.
Gwendolyn groaned. “Yes. The cat you sent after me. She seems to have adopted me. And I have no idea how she sneaks in anywhere. I gather she has demonic powers.”
The cat curled up in the space between their feet and went promptly to sleep. Its body made the soft shape of a heart.
“I asked one of the maids if it had a name and she said it did not,” Gwendolyn said, settling against Jackson’s chest.
He drew a line between her breasts with lazy fingers and kissed her temple. “Shall you name it?”
Naming it felt permanent, a bit like staying, like claiming ownership.
“I’ll think on it.”
He burrowed his face in her neck, and in a few soft, almost purring breaths, fell to sleep against her heart. It felt like she’d always thought home would feel—safe and free.
Eighteen
Gwendolyn lifted her nose into the air and breathed deeply. Salt. Water. Sun. A short ledge beneath her feet and a pebbled beach below that extended into an ocean that spread out into eternity. Above, a hot sun that warmed the cold day, but on the horizon a storm brewed. She liked the contrast of it, the sun warm on her skin and the clouds heavy over the sea. There was always a storm somewhere whether you lived through it presently or it remained to come. She could only tip her face up and enjoy the calm and warm moment.
The specter of an old castle wavered a bit down the beach, and she studied it for a moment. A pile of brittle-looking angles in sandy browns, a building that once would have been a proud guardian, strong and stout, but which had been reduced to a crumbling pile. She’d paint it as an old man with rocky sand for wispy hair. It looked older than Seastorm, not of the same era. Few of its walls still stood, and its roof had probably washed away ages ago. Its deteriorated state could likely be attributed to its position up against the sea. It would have been ravaged by the elements, not protected from them. A more useful castle for guarding England’s shores, and less likely to survive.
“Take my hand.” Standing below her, Jackson offered his arm for support as she joined him, pebbles poking up against the stout soles of her walking boots. A picnic basket swung over one arm, and his hair ruffled in the breeze.She wanted to ruffle it further.
They had work to do, though.
“Lunch first,” she asked, “or the ruins?”
He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at the time, then he glanced up at the sky. A charade, all of it, overexaggerated attempts to persuade her he actually considered her question when the predatory look in his eyes suggested he’d already made up his mind. “Hmm. Spread a blanket upon the beach and feed you strawberries? Or take you into a dark corner of some precarious pile of ruins and spread you on some fallen boulder? But what should I feed you there? Hmm.”
“Why does every option have to do with spreading me atop something?”
He pulled her closer to his strong frame with their linked arms. “Because that is exactly where my imagination goes to. With no effort at all, mind you.”
She chuckled. “Let me not tempt your poor feeble imagination and instead reframe the options.Workfirst orsustenance?”
He leaned close and breathed against her ear. “What I wish to do to you is both work and sustenance—work of the body and sustenance of the soul.”
By Jove, she wanted to roll her eyes at that, but she couldn’t when it made her heart leap against her ribs, made her grin like a madwoman.
But she would have to, wouldn’t she? They stood on this beach because they intended to look for clues, though they were unlikely to find them. With luck, the clues would lead, eventually, to the discovery of the manuscript, and the discovery of the manuscript meant… the end. Of her work with Lord Eaden, of her days with Jackson. That’s what she’d intended. But now she rather thought… not.
She’d always thought each revelation she made to Jackson would push him further away. The exact opposite appeared to be happening. Discomposed her, excited her, made a shambles of her plans.
She snuck her hand out of his grasp and twisted it behind her back. “I think I need to move about a bit. No laying me out and pinning me, Mr. Cavendish. The ruins first. I’m itching to sketch them.”
He sighed, long and dramatic and suffering, but followed her, boots kicking pebbles up behind and before him. And when he spoke, she heard the grin that shaped his words. “Just as good. I enjoy watching you work, working with you. Your brain suits me as well as your body.”
Well, that worked to warm her more than even the sun. She smiled as brightly as that star and only just kept herself from saying that she liked his brain too.
