Celia dressed andwashed and brushed her hair, bubbles fizzing up and down her skin and sparkling into her lungs. She had dared and she had asked and Peter was coming back, he was coming to her, and he was the only man Celia had ever wanted.
She paused as her fingers began to braid. Men like hair loose, didn’t they? She had heard that somewhere. It was certainly in the paintings of heathen seductions. She wasn’t sure if Peter had meant to take her hair down, that night he kissed her, or it had just escaped, but the memory of his hands made her shiver. She put down her brush and shook out her hair—already popping up into unruly curls—staring at her reflection in the mirror. Celia had begun putting up her hair when she hemmed up her mother’s dresses and began doing her father’s work.
Even with her hair loose, she did not look like a girl any longer. She looked like a woman—a wife.
Celia smiled. She tossed her night cap on the dressing table, letting her hair be as wild as it wanted, and slithered between the sheets. She glanced at the clock—Peter had been longer than a quarter hour, and thought about being worried, but she smiled and picked up her novel, settling into the pillows.
She trusted him, and he had said he would come.
She turned a page, and another, before Peter came back, his mouth tucked in firmly. He locked the door behind himself, banked the fire, and blew out the candles, all without speaking. He didn’t appear to notice her hair. Celia snuggled down under the covers, smiling to herself, because she understood him now a little bit. The chatter and the jokes and the graceful confidence—that was the drawing room Peter. This dour character was the trying-his-best Peter. The real Peter? Well, she was going to keep going until she found that one, too. The Peter who was allowed to have hopes and fears, who was allowed to love in some way beyond standing shoulder to shoulder with fists and guns cocked.
“I’m waiting for you,” Celia murmured into the dark.
“I am here,” Peter answered, stiffly. His weight bent the mattress as he sat on the foot of the bed.
Not just tonight, Celia did not say. I will keep waiting, as long as it takes.
He shuffled among the blankets, then the warmth of his body slid next to Celia’s and everything changed. The smell, the breathing, the rhythm of him—nothing like Marianne. He was her husband, and he cared about her, and he even desired her, at least a little bit. He had shown her that much last night, and the way he had stood close to her, brushed his thumb against her fingers—it had given her confidence, even before he kissed her. And Celia might not know much about men, but he had told her something with those kisses. She smiled and shivered, so blissful that she was not sure she could contain her own feelings. She liked his kisses now as much as she had always liked his smile.
Peter reached out, tucking a hand under her shoulder, and Celia giggled as their arms tangled but she nestled close and he held her snugly. She didn’t know what he wanted tonight, and she didn’t really care. Maybe he wished to take his husbandly rights, but perhaps he was locked in doing-his-best Peter and would stare grimly over her head all night long, ensuring that her room was not besieged. Celia had her head tucked in the corner of his shoulder, she was breathing him in, she could feel the vibrant warmth of his skin through his night shirt, and he had promised to stay. She was happy with anything from here on out.
They breathed in and out, their heartbeats settling into a rhythm. Peter’s shoulder softened, the cord where he was holding his neck stiffly. He shifted, letting her weight settle into him, and then his hand found her hair. He stroked long and slow, twirled it through his fingers, brushed it off her cheek. Wove his fingers into her hair until he cradled her head.
The painters had been right. He liked it. Celia smiled into his collarbone.
“I wouldn’t mind accepting those kisses, if they’re still on offer,” Peter said, his voice just enough of a question so she could say no.
Celia lifted her face to his. Tonight, she was all yes.
Peter kissed her. His mouth was open and warm and firm, and Celia didn’t know anything about kissing except what he had shown her, but she thought—just maybe—this was wanting. Wanting her.
She kissed him back as best she could imagine, because she knew she wanted him. She wanted him with all the fierce determination of a girl who has lost the people she loves but clings to the love she has left; all the fiery passion of a woman who has walked through hopelessness and kept on walking. She flattened her hand against his chest, then cupped his cheek, then tangled her own fingers in his hair. He made a soft noise and kissed down her jaw, her temple, across her forehead and the soft hollow beneath her eyebrows. She hadn’t expected that, the press of his mouth on her delicate skin, and she gasped.
“All right?” He spoke against her temple, smoothing back her hair.
“Very all right.” That didn’t make sense, so Celia wound her arm around his waist. He was slim and firm, so different from touching him through his jacket.
“That’s a dozen places, do you think?” Peter kissed the tip of her ear, and pulled back. His breath was just slightly ragged, his arm across her waist tense.
Celia understood that Peter was defensive and scared and probably still not telling her the whole truth about his life. But Clarence had been right about one thing; Celia was good at loving. She loved Rose through the prickliness that Rose used to protect her secrets; she loved Henrietta who was not sweet at all; she loved Marianne through tantrums and rain and mud and pissing in a hayfield. Celia loved Charlotte and Lord Francis, and she saw her flaws but loved her Aunt Thompson still. Celia loved her baby brothers to their graves and beyond, she loved her father even when he drifted away from her, she loved her mother who had faded into scraps of memory and she loved Bridget and JC and everyone who allowed her close. Celia was so good at loving that she loved even her brother, even though she had told him to go with God. Sometimes love means saying goodbye.
And Celia loved her husband. She loved Peter like watercolor blooming on the page, like honey in her tea, like afternoon light over perfect green hills.
All that tumbled out of her in a burst of laughter, and she leaned forward. Her mouth bumped his jaw, found the soft dip under his lip, felt him smile.
“Maybe two dozen,” she murmured, “but you promised me a hundred.”
“A thousand,” he answered, and he traced kisses across her chin, her throat. He rolled her into the pillows and nuzzled against her collarbones, her hair, the hollow under her ear. He hesitated another moment, and took her earlobe into his mouth, and something wild and unexpected shot through Celia. Her hands tightened around his shoulders, he pressed into her—but it was a comfort, not an oppression.
Celia smiled into his hair. Through all Peter’s wild ideas and shifting moods, he was precise. She asked for a thousand kisses, and he wouldn’t change his offer to less. That had some sort of symbolism for their marriage, but Celia was too blurry and happy to figure it out. Her marriage. Her husband. Hers.
“May I?” he asked, his fingers brushing the buttons at her throat.
Celia nodded, but a wave of uncertainty knocked into her. She pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder.
Peter unfastened her top button, then the second. He brushed her collarbones with gentle fingers, and Celia worried if this was the moment when a man became overcome with lust. She didn’t know about this part.
“Celia.” He kissed her hair, his hand still. “We’re just playing. The game is whatever you want and I want, both of us.”
