His eyes were closed, his jaw working side to side. “God, that makes me happy, Tessa.”
But he didn’t look happy.
And she certainly wasn’t. Her tears soaked his shirt as he held her close.
At some point, whispers became kisses, and kisses become frantic, desperate touches, and bodies didn’t need clothes in the summer heat. Cravat and jacket, waistcoat and stays, shirt and trousers, shift and smalls—all littered around the rock as they clung to one another behind it.
He spread her gown out like a blanket and laid her atop it.
Above them—the spindly tree branches, the whispering leaves, the endless blue sky tinted yellow by bright sunlight. And Remmy, his eyes just as blue, just as unfathomable. Wind shushed across the lake, ripping Tessa’s hair, doing nothing for her heated, sweat-slicked skin. He slipped into her, holding her gaze, and she dug her nails into his back, needing him closer, closer.
Never as close as she desired, as she needed. And each rocking second seemed to move them farther apart from one another.
When she came, she dragged his head down for a long and desperate kiss, and he let her drink from him as he thrust faster.
When he came, spilling his seed on the grass beside their bodies, a drop of something wet landed on her cheek. A bead of sweat? Or a tear? His eyes were pressed firmly closed, his jaw hard as the rock that hid them. As hard as her heart must be, too.
Chapter Eighteen
Eight days later
Every time her father looked at Tessa, he forgot the words of his sermon, grinned, then scrambled to find his place again. Except for the disruption, it was the same one he did this time of year ever since she could remember. Everything the same, including the gash in the pew where she sat with her mother and sister. Same pew, same seat, same mark, same sermon. She’d even donned one of her old gowns because her new ones seemed too bright for church as a rector’s daughter. It hadn’t fit her then, and it fit her even worse now.
Not merely the gown. All of it.
But every night since returning to the rectory, Verity had climbed in bed with her and hugged her tight, and that kept her from crying. So did her father’s grin and flawed sermon. They were both glad to have her back.
And her mother… she had unpacked the attic, returned everything to Tessa’s old room with a tight nod and a swift wipe of her hands on her apron.
“Welcome home,” she’d said, then ducked her head and mumbled, “I’m glad you’re back.”
After six years of silence, it felt like a benediction.
And if she wasn’t happy now, shewouldbe.
She dug her thumb into the old gash, chipping her nail on a thick splinter.
Verity kept turning around, glancing over her shoulder, and when Tessa followed her line of sight, she found Aria and Daphne sitting in the back of the church. No brothers present.
And when her father finished, and everyone began to file out, Verity burst out, louder than the murmuring congregation, “Can I walk with Aria today, Mother? Please?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But she’s right there and I’m right here, and it would make me particularly happy, and you know I’m always better behaved when I’m happy.”
Daphne caught Tessa’s eye and nodded toward the exit.
Tessa couldn’t follow. The crowd was too thick and too slow, and her sister and mother argued all the way to the back of the sanctuary.
“I do not care if you are happy, Verity, as long as you aregood. Do you understand?”
Happy. Good. Happy. Good.
Tessa had made her mother happy by being good.
Which had made Remmy so unhappy it physically hurt to think of his expression the last time she’d seen him.
I’m notthatgood.A punch to a very startled face, which madeherhappy any time she thought of it, despite the fact she had been startlingly unhappy in the last week since that particular incident.
