“Then why did you not return to England?”
She shook her head and shrugged awkwardly.
He frowned. “Your father wasn’t able to get you out of France?”
“He didn’t try.”
“Not even after the war started?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
How many times had she asked herself the same question? It had been a hollow, aching void inside her, all through her girlhood and beyond. “I don’t know,” she told him. “He never explained.” And she’d never asked. She couldn’t bear to hear the answer she knew he would give: that she was only a girl and he neither needed nor wanted a daughter. She’d heard him say it to her mother once.
Both arms tightened around her. She leaned into him, soaking up the care and the warmth and the . . . comfort.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t regret my years with Grand-mère, and I love the children and I love being part of a family again. I just wish . . .” That it had been different, that Papa had loved her, that she’d had her come-out . . . That he hadn’t lost his fortune. Too many wishes. All pointless.
The candle guttered and went out in a smoky hiss. Taking it as a sign, she gently disengaged herself from his embrace. “Time for bed, I think—to sleep, I mean. I have a lot to do in the morning.”
“You always have a lot to do.”
She shrugged. “Being busy is better than being bored.” Or starving. Being bored was a rich person’s ailment.
He didn’t move. She could just make out his silhouette in the dimness, could smell the clean freshness of his shaving soap and the deep masculine muskiness underneath.
He bent and kissed her lightly on the forehead, the way she kissed the children, a kind of blessing more than a kiss.
“Good night, Mr. Rider,” she whispered in an echo of the children’s good nights.
He cupped her cheek in his palm and stared down at her for the longest time, his expression lost in the darkness.
She waited, breathless.
The night smelled of beeswax and clean, damp straw, of soap and of man. One man. This man. The scent of his skin was part of her. Yes, she was playing with fire, but oh, how she wanted it, ached for it.
“I didn’t intend this to happen,” he murmured as if to himself and touched his lips to her mouth.
It was the lightest of caresses, a mere brush of skin across exquisitely sensitized skin. A prelude. It shivered softly through her like the sound of a violin on a still, dark night.
She was poised on a precipice of need. Wanting more.
His mouth brushed hers again, once, twice, teasing her lips apart, tasting her. Tantalizing. He nibbled on her upper lip, and it was heaven. He touched his tongue to hers and a thread of fire ran swiftly, delicately through her and she gasped, and breathed in his breath.
He kissed her again and ran the tip of his tongue over the roof of her mouth and a curl of hot pleasure tightened deep within her.
She speared her fingers into his hair and wriggled closer, moving against the hard warmth of his body, glorying in the hot, spice-salt taste of him, returning each caress instinctively, blindly, and wanting more . . . more.
“No.” He broke the kiss and pushed her gently away. His breath was ragged, coming in great gasps, as if he’d been running.
She was mute, unable to think, dizzy with pleasure and need. And loss.
He slid from the bed, still panting. “Good night, Miss Woodford. Sweet dreams.” And then he was nothing but a shadow lost in the darkness. She heard him climb into the bed on the floor.
The fire was almost dead now, nothing but ashes.
Sweet dreams?
