“I understand. Waiting will be hard, but Idounderstand. I do not wish to do anything that might jeopardize your plans.”
He’d been thinking of her own safety as much as the plans themselves, but he didn’t say it. She knew it too.
There seemed little else to say now. He’d realized this morning, holding her as she slept, that this afternoon might well be the last opportunity to see her alone. If everything went to plan, she’d be gone in just a couple of days’ time, from Paris and from his life.
And there was absolutely no point in wishing it otherwise.
Nathaniel looked extremely weary. As far as she knew, he’d only slept a couple of hours early this morning, if that. The light now suggested late afternoon. Whatever else he needed to do today—and later tonight at Cercle des Étrangers—he also needed rest.
She touched his face. “Will you lie down? You are tired.”
“Aye.” But he didn’t move. He set his thumb beside her mouth to trace its outside corner.
Her first impression of him in Dover, the trait that had initially caught her eye despite its contradiction, was his inherent stillness. And she’d thought then that he was a man who had known little peace and so must needs carve it out for himself where he could.
“Lie down with me,” she whispered.Let me give you this much.
His hand slipped from her face to her collarbone, tracing the line of it. “Yes,” he said quietly.
She had loosened her gown’s laces before lying down. She wriggled free of it along with her shift as she watched him undress. He wore more than clothing; his coat contained a pistol, and when he removed his waistcoat, a knife sheath lay between his shoulder blades. Another knife came from his boot. None of it frightened her, although it might have done, early on, had she seen him so armed. As he no doubt was, during the struggle on rue Montmartre. Now it was only a tangible reminder that he’d stood between her and danger more than once this past week.
Too, she knew now that deep within him, hidden away from the world, was a man capable of breath-stealing tenderness. It did something queer to her stomach that she should be privy to such knowledge.
He stripped off his shirt. Lamplight had been more than kind to him during their nighttime encounters, but in daylight he quite stole her breath. He was allover muscle, although none of itoverdeveloped or out of proportion to his lean frame: definition on his arms, a tautness over ribs flattening out above the high waist of his trousers.
Quiet strength, so neatly describing his character as well.
His hands moved to the fastening of his trousers, but he hesitated, his gaze settling on her face. “I was careless with you the other night.”
So he’d thought of it now too. “I did not conceive during my marriage. Not even once. You may at least remove your trousers without issue,” she added, wry, when he remained standing.
His mouth lifted on one corner before he looked to the work of his hands. When he’d stepped out of the trousers, he came to her. His weight settled heavily in the cradle of her body when she opened her arms to him. He laid his head between her breasts.
He was...home,for this moment. She wouldn’t think about what it meant, her mind suggesting such a word. She ran fingers gently through his hair.
He pushed up onto his elbows after several quiet minutes. His hands bracketed her face, but he made no move to kiss her. “I’ll not risk you again. No matter how slight the consequences. It was wrong of me to do so the other night.”
She touched his jaw. Ran a thumb across his upper lip. Tried to fix the shape of it in her mind. After Tuesday night, if all went as planned, they would never see one another again.
“If you have need of me once you’re back in England, Quinn will know how to reach me. It might take some time, but if you’ve—” He didn’t finish the sentence.
If she’d conceived, he meant.
She did not wish to think about it right now, either way. She wanted only to give him comfort, if she could, for a short time. It was within her power to give that. That much she knew.
And she wanted this for herself too. “So don’t risk me again.We did not think of it the other night, either of us, but you have as much self-possession as anyone I’ve known.”
“Maybe.” His mouth quirked. “I prided myself on it, anyway. Until you.”
“I trust you to be more careful this time.” She stretched upwards enough to close the difference between their faces. She did not have far to reach, or perhaps he was already coming down to her.
“You shouldn’t trust me.” But he kissed her, deeply.
“I shouldn’t trust you?” She asked long minutes later, after she’d caught her breath. “I disagree. My life has been in your hands all this week.”
“You can trust me with your life, aye,” he said drily. “But in this?—”
She opened herself to him, winding her legs about his. “In this too.”
