No past or future, only now.
‘We have time to—’
She stopped him. With her fingers across his lips. Pressed hard.
‘No.’ Her other hand unbuttoned his shirt and came inside, the warmth beguiling. Yesterday he had flicked her nipples with his forefinger and she had liked it. Today she did the same to him, measuring his heartbeat as it quickened.
‘Tonight is by my bidding.’
The slate-grey darkened, the last light from a dying sun slanting through a gap in the curtains and reaching the skin on his chest where she had peeled away clothing.
‘Like the daughters of Achelous?’
‘The sirens?’ She laughed. ‘Dangerous and beautiful?’ He knew the old legends of Greece and the names of the gods. For a second she wondered just exactly who he was, this man dressed in clothes that had seen better days, but when she kneeled to undo his trousers she forgot about such intrigue entirely.
He was her husband and he was ready for her, sprung hard against lust, nothing hidden. A gift offered without payment or coercion. Or hurt. Legal. Sanctioned. Authorised.
She laid her fingers around his shaft and brought it to her tongue, licking the ridges and the smoothness, finding the essence; and when he swore roundly she brought him in deeper.
* * *
Hell, Nathaniel thought, his world spinning in a way it never had before, the sweet feel of yearning drumming in his ears. Wild curls hid Sandrine from him, trails in gold and red, her slender shoulders bent in concentration to all that she gave. He knew she wanted control, but in another moment his restraint would break and he had to give her back more than just his own relief.
Guiding her face away from swollen flesh, he lifted her chin and she stood. He had no clothes on and she was fully dressed, small webs of repaired fabric standing out against the light. Placing his mouth across hers, he slanted the kiss, his fingers running across the fine lines of her throat and bringing her closer.
‘Love me, Sandrine.’ Whispered. Gentle. Allowing more than simple lust.
‘I do.’
She was so light as he lifted her, a shadow of a woman, but tall with it. He brought her to the bed and sat her down, and when her hands went to the buttons at her shirt he stopped her.
‘My turn.’
She did not argue.
Five buttons and one missing. Beneath the cotton was sheer lawn and lace, repaired like the rest of her clothes, but of a quality that told him of a life led before. The pad of his finger lingered on the stitching, complex, intricate, the sort of thing his mother might have worn had she lived.
The straps were thin and of satin and he slid them across her shoulders so that the chemise drooped and her breasts were there, peaked and perfect. He cupped his hand around one feeling its form, admiring the curve of skin and the unexpected smattering of freckles.
The tip-tilt of her nose as she looked at him made him smile. A girl who was the most beautiful woman in the world. The narrowness of her waist, the slender length of her arms, the elegance of neck.
This was Sandrine.
A goddess lost into the wilderness and now refound.
He traced his initials into the cream of her skin, NL, and she looked up in puzzlement.
‘Once I was someone else,’ he explained.
‘And I was, too,’ she responded, the rightness of their coupling underwritten by truth. ‘But now all I want to be is loved well.’
He lifted her onto his knees, slipping off her trousers and socks and boots so that she sat naked and waiting. He liked how she did not hold her legs together tightly or stiffen as his fingers came between them, exploring.
‘Is this well enough?’ he asked as he found the core of her in the hard nub of need. ‘Is this what you want?’ he added as he began to move faster and faster, the rhythm changing just as he thought she was about to come apart.
Wet for him and swollen. He could feel the throb inside and the heat.
And when she nodded he simply placed her upon his cock and drove in, the finesse transformed to something much stronger and more basic. It was not knowledge that brought them together now, but an ancient magic with no rational thought, and he cried out as her body clenched about his, taking all that he offered and more.
He took her again in the night and once in the morning when the first rays of sunshine woke them. He had not slept with a woman for so many hours in his life, his more normal caution and vigilance taking him from a bed well before they asked for more than he might want to give. But with Sandrine they spooned together in the cold and lonely hours and when they awoke their bodies called, the quick burst of need and the slow sating after relief.
Once on waking he found her looking at him, as though she wanted to remember every piece of who he was.
‘Stay with me for ever.’ The words were out before he knew them to be and she placed his hand upon her heart in answer.
‘Here. You will always be here.’
‘Do you promise?’
Nodding, she simply rolled over on top of him and all that had been magical before began again.
* * *
Cassandra awoke with tears running down her cheeks and the cold London morning bearing down. No longer in France. No longer in the place of dreams and promises, the steam bath above Bagnères-de-Bigorre and the curtained room in Saint Estelle.
Avalon. The vaulted ceilings and the shining marbled Gothic arches.
A noise made her turn, and James was at her doorway, a teddy bear held in one hand so that his furry legs dragged along the floor.
‘Mummy.’
‘I am here, darling.’ She pulled back the sheet and waited until he came inside, tucking the warmth about him when he was settled. His small roundness pressed into her, the smell of slumber upon him.
‘I dreamed we were in France.’ His pale grey eyes watched her, dark hair standing on end from sleep.
‘Once we were, my love. Once it was just you and I there and I knew from the very second I saw you that I should love you for ever.’
He giggled. ‘You always say that.’
‘And I always mean it.’
‘Nigel said his daddy still lives in France. But I said mine was dead.’
The worm of dread turned. ‘Well, you have so many others who love you, sweetheart. Mummy. Maureen. Anne. Granddad. Rodney. The cook. Nigel’s mummy.’
‘But a daddy is special. Nigel said that they were.’
Lord Nathaniel Lindsay. More than special. She would have to tell him, she knew that she would, but not yet. Not while Jamie was still hers to love and hold like this, the secrets of the past hidden in a corner where they were unable to escape and ruin everything.
And if Nathaniel took their son away...?
She shook her head and, drawing her fingers up into the shape of a spider, began to recite a children’s ditty, liking the laughter that followed.
‘Chris Hanley said what?’
Nat tried to curb the panic in his voice as Stephen answered.
‘He