Page 33 of The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance

“Does this hurt?” she asked, her fingers hesitating near his ear.

“No.”

“You were scowling.”

“Was I? Forgive me.” He made an effort not to sound as if her gentle ministrations were rattling him to his core. “You may proceed.”

She leaned closer, trailing her fingers along the ridge of his ear. “It was more than one saber cut,” she observed with a furrowed brow. “This one.” She traced slowly from his ear to the edge of his jaw, her fingers stopping at his shirt collar to rest against his throat. “And then this one.” She brought her hand back to his eye and followed the thick scar all the way down to the side of his mouth. “Which was first?”

“The one on my face. The one that took my ear and nearly cut my throat came afterward.”

“Who did it? Was it the same soldier?”

“A renegade sepoy. Yes. I believe so. Mercifully, I was stunned after the first blow and scarcely felt the second.”

“You were on your horse?”

No longer content to trace his scars with her fingertips, Miss Stafford brought her whole hand to lay alongside his cheek. It reminded him, rather painfully, of the way she had caressed his face that last night in the Mainwaring’s garden. It was a memory he had lived on for three long years. A memory which paled in comparison to reality.

“I was.”

“Where did it happen?

“At the Siege of Jhansi in ‘58.”

She moved the pad of her thumb against the right corner of his mouth. “Can you feel this?” she asked softly.

He swallowed hard. “Yes.”

She stroked her thumb over the edge of his top lip. “And this?”

“Sylvia…”

“How dear you were to me,” she murmured.

A deep tremor went through Sebastian’s body. He bowed his head, eyes closing as he drank in her words like a man too long deprived of water.

“I am going to kiss you now,” she told him. There was a distinct quaver in her voice. “Just here.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to the scar on his cheekbone.

Sebastian exhaled a shuddering breath.

“And here,” she whispered, kissing the corner of his blind eye. “And here, too, I think.” Her lips brushed the ragged edge of his ear.

He had been as still as a statue while she touched him, but as she feathered kisses back down the scar on his cheek, guiding him closer with a gentle pressure of her hand, the last thread of Sebastian’s control snapped. With a low groan, he brought his arm around her waist, sunk the fingers of his free hand into her hair, and turned his mouth to capture hers.

It was a fierce, demanding kiss, filled with three years of bitter longing. Sylvia’s lips gave way to it, parting beneath his. And then she melted into him, one hand still pressed to his cheek, the other coming to rest on his bare neck, her fingers twining in the dark hair at his nape.

He kissed her and kissed her. Exploring the voluptuous curve of her lips and tasting the soft, inner recesses of her mouth. The scarred edge of his own mouth was not entirely cooperative. He knew she must feel the awkwardness of it as his lips moved over hers. But if she did, she gave no indication. Instead, she was open and warm and pliant, offering him all of her sweetness. And God help him, he took it. All of it. Kissing her until he could not think a single coherent thought. Until he could scarcely breathe for wanting her.

She made no attempts to discourage his ardor, but she soothed him with her touch, meeting the searching heat of his mouth with soft, caressing kisses of her own. Kisses that told him that there was no need to rush. That she was his. That she had always been his.

“Sylvia,” he said hoarsely when they at last paused for breath. “Forgive me. I never intended…”

She smoothed her hand along the hard line of his jaw. “It’s all right.”

He turned his face into her touch. “My God, I fear I must be dreaming.”

“Have you dreamed of me?” she wondered.