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The rest of the house was asleep at last. The grey stone walls looking cold and bleak against the murky April darkness. They had not returned from the Prestons’ until an hour ago, and, exhausted, everyone had drifted immediately to bed—except for Madeline.
She had paced her bedroom, trying to analyse her feelings for Dominic, worrying if she was doing the right thing meeting him, telling herself it was pure folly to make herself vulnerable to him again, and battling to subdue the delicious clamour of anticipation she had not allowed herself to feel in years.
They had stayed away from each other for the rest of the evening, she sticking closely to Perry and Dominic to the lovely Diane. But that didn’t mean they weren’t excruciatingly aware of each other every second. Wherever she looked she seemed to find the fierce glitter of his eyes on her, keeping her senses heightened, and reminding her of her promise.
The turf was hard beneath the horse’s hoofs, pounding out an even beat as they galloped across the open countryside. A low ground mist enveloped everything in a soft skirt of billowing white. She was making for the river, and the closer she got the thicker the mist became, until by the time she entered the wood it swirled in and out of the tall trees, leaving its silvery cobweb patterns on the low growing shrubs. She let Minty pick her own way through the dry undergrowth, unable to see the way herself through the mist, taking it slowly, trusting the horse to take her where she wanted to go.
She saw Dominic’s black mount as she came to the edge of the clearing and urged Minty carefully forwards. A hand came out from nowhere, grasping the reins and making Madeline gasp in fright. ‘It’s OK,’ Dominic’s deep quiet voice soothed her. ‘Let me lead you,’ he said from somewhere inside the swirling mist.
He tethered the horse next to his own, then reached up to help her dismount, his hands firm about her waist, pulling her against him before lowering her booted feet slowly to the ground.
‘I wondered if you would come,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I worried that you might change your mind.’
‘I said I would,’ was all she said, and he nodded, accepting what added up to a small rebuke. For all her faults, Madeline had nev
er gone back on her word once given.
Dominic stepped back from her, and the mist closed in between them. Startled by how quickly it had blotted him from her view, she put out a hand in search of him.
‘Not the ideal morning for this.’ She heard him laugh softly. ‘Still…’ Her hand was taken and she felt herself being drawn towards him until she could see his face again. He was smiling, mouth crooked. ‘One can’t be too choosy in this country,’ he mocked.
‘A typical April,’ she smiled, tensely joining him in the small joke.
‘Thick mists and heavy ground frost,’ he sighed as he pulled her gently beneath the warm crook of his arm. ‘Not Boston, hmm?’
‘No,’ Madeline agreed. ‘Not Boston.’
‘Come on.’ He hugged her closer, leading her to the big black bulk which was the old boathouse, having to lean his full weight against the creaky old door to get it to open.
His smile when he turned it on her was full of rueful whimsy. ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ he drawled, offering her a mocking bow. ‘Please step this way, ma’am.’
‘Oh!’ She gasped in surprise as she stepped inside and saw the light from a flickering oil lamp hanging from the old oak rafters, lighting the thick red blanket spread out on the boarded floor. On top stood a bottle and two fluted wine glasses. ‘Charming,’ she complimented, pulling off her warm woollen gloves and shoving them into the pockets of her thick sheepskin coat. ‘Champagne?’ she quizzed, wrinkling her nose at him enquiringly.
‘Breakfast,’ he improvised. ‘Here…’ Taking her arm again, he led her over to the blanket and invited her to sit down using the boathouse wall to lean against, then joined her, groaning ruefully as his sparse behind made contact with the hard floor. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this!’ he complained.
‘But not for drinking champagne on a cold and frosty morning?’
‘Oh, never too old for that, I hope.’ He reached for the bottle.
The cork popped, and Madeline made a mad grab for the glasses, laughing as she held them quickly beneath the frothing wine. In minutes they were sitting huddled into their warm coats with the boathouse wall against their backs and their shoulders rubbing against each other as they drank.
‘Like old times,’ Dominic murmured after a while.
Madeline turned wide eyes on him; they looked larger than life because she had a black woollen hat pulled closely around her ears. ‘We never actually did this before,’ she said.
‘Well…’ He gave a small shrug, his smile warm and teasing. ‘Almost like old times, then,’ he amended. ‘Remember the time we punted up the river and got ourselves tangled in a salmon poacher’s net?’
‘My,’ Madeline recalled, ‘but you were angry that day.’ She remembered the way he had almost overturned the boat as he yanked the poacher’s net out of the river.
‘My, but I was,’ he mocked the loose accent.
She glanced quickly at him to see if he was deriding her, then dissolved into soft laughter at his teasing expression. ‘Don’t be cheeky!’ she scolded, then gasped when she found herself pulled across his lap, their faces very close, the teasing gone, to be replaced by something far more disturbing.
Her soft sigh fanned his face, and his did the same to hers. Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifted his glass to her lips, and Madeline drank, the bubbles fizzing on her tongue. Without having to be prompted, she offered him her glass and watched, with breathless fascination, him sip and slowly swallow.
Their eyes remained locked on one another as silently they fed each other wine, nerves beginning to tingle while they told each other things they dared not put into words. Overhead, the flickering flame from the oil lamp played across his lean features, his satin-black hair, his eyes, not hooded but lazily engrossed, his lips, wet with wine and wearing the sensual softness of a man anticipating what was to come. She smiled gently at him, and struggled to pull her hand out from where it was trapped between their warm bodies so that she could dip her finger in the champagne then stroke it across his mouth, the finger trembling as his lips trembled. Then he caught the finger in his mouth, and sucked it delicately. Her stomach turned over and secreted a warm, stinging heat to her loins. Solemnly, Dominic returned the gesture, slowly circling her parted lips with champagne before allowing her to take it into her mouth.
Her eyelids lowered, the sensation of that smooth-textured pad against her tongue holding her languid with pleasure. Then he was taking the glass from her hand, and placing them both aside, and still they remained like that, Dominic leaning against the boathouse wall, Madeline cradled on his lap, their faces close enough to read every expression on the other.
