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He sat back on his heels and closed his eyes. ‘For two intelligent people, we very nearly got this completely wrong, didn’t we?’
‘It isn’t a language I am used to,’ she confessed, freeing one hand so she could reach forwards and touch his face. ‘I have no understanding of the grammar, or the vocabulary. We must learn it together.’ He turned his cheek into her palm and smiled, opening his eyes so his lashes tickled the sensitive skin.
‘What, the language of emotions? I think something almost got lost in translation. Let me try in English. Nell, I love you. I don’t know how long I loved you, because I’ve never been in love and I didn’t realise why I felt like I did, but I realised when we were on that hilltop overlooking the chateau. When I said I would never marry, it was because I believed I could not have you, not because of any other woman. I want to marry you and live with you and have children with you.’
‘And we will travel together?’ It was very difficult to speak with her heart so full, but somehow she managed it, her hand stroking the strong lines of the face she had once thought was only passably handsome. ‘I am not being left at home, children or no children.’
‘Nell, I thought I couldn’t have you, that I’d lost you—how could I contemplate ever leaving you behind? I will place the orders for our caravan of carriages at once—I was drawing it, too, so I have both sets.’
‘So that is where my sketches went. Theo, I have been looking everywhere for those. I was the woman in all of the pictures, you see.’
‘Oh, Nell.’ He gathered her in against his heart and rocked her gently. His body felt hard and safe and yet so gentle. ‘When can we get married?’
‘I don’t…’ She managed to twist round so she could look up into his face. ‘Will your family want a big wedding? Uncle Augustus will want to marry us, won’t he? In the cathedral.’ Her heart sank. It would all take months.
‘That will take too much time, I want to get started on that family immediately.’ Theo stood up, bringing her up with him. ‘Sit on the bed, Nell, I can’t think while I’m holding you.’ He paced across the room, then flipped open a map and stared down at it. ‘I’ve got to take that damn Chalice back to England. I’ll leave tomorrow. You get Eva to send you down to Avignon with a maid and some outriders. Break the news to Aunt Louisa and interview the English vicar down there—there’s sure to be an Anglican church. I’ll come right back. In a month we’ll be wed, no longer, I promise you.’ He paused, frowning. ‘You know, I can’t help but wonder if she meant this to happen. She’s been mighty careless about throwing us together.’
‘Theo.’
‘Yes, my love?’ He looked up at her, his hands flat either side of the map.
‘Am I dreaming?’
‘Not unless I’m having the same dream, too. Nell, I’ve never had anyone to share emotions with. Ideas, yes, fun, yes. But not feelings, not the deep ones. And I don’t think you have either. We nearly got this wrong because we tried to protect ourselves against being hurt, took what the other said literally, without listening to the truth underneath. I’m going to try very hard not to do that any more.’
‘Mmm. I think we should say what we think and what we feel, honestly. Don’t you?’ He nodded. ‘Good, I am glad you agree, because what I want most of all, now, is to go to bed with you and for you not to have to be careful, just to make me yours.’
Theo just looked at her, his eyes hooded, as though his own desires were banked down behind the heavy lids. ‘Are you certain? You don’t want to wait until our wedding night?’
‘No, but if you do—’
Suddenly Theo grinned, the first broad smile she had seen for what seemed like days. ‘Nell, we can sit here all night being carefully polite over this or I can do what I have been wanting to do ever since I k
nelt on that river bank, plaiting your hair.’
‘Really? Oh, I knew I felt something, sensed something, even then.’ He came and caught her in his arms and it felt right, here in their lonely eyrie, high on the battlements of the great castle.
‘In my fantasies I didn’t dream I’d be undoing this frightful garment,’ Theo observed. ‘There go the buttons, never mind, you won’t be needing it again.’ The old gown slid from his hands and he stopped talking, his mouth curving into an incredulous smile. ‘Nell Ravenhurst, you bad girl—not a stitch on under your gown!’
It was impossible to feel shy in the face of his obvious delight. ‘I was in a hurry, I wanted to be near you,’ she murmured, reaching for his shirt. ‘And now I want to be nearer still.’
She had thought she knew what to expect and the thrill of his caresses and the fire in his kisses was the same, yet deeper, more intense. But her heart was pounding and something inside her made her breath come fast as she clung to his shoulders while his mouth roamed over her hot skin.
‘Are you frightened?’ He looked up and she wondered what he had seen in her expression.
‘Yes. A little,’ she admitted. ‘I know it will hurt, it isn’t that, it is just…’
‘Just such a big step? I know, my love, I’ll be as slow as I can.’
‘No,’ Elinor protested, ‘not slow. Theo, love me now.’
His weight as he came over her was wonderful, powerful, yet he took such care to lift it from her. She ran her hands over his biceps, feeling the muscles taut as they took his weight on his elbows. Her legs parted to cradle him and she sighed at how perfectly they seemed to fit together, how open her body was to him as he moved against her, slowly nudging while her untutored body began to open for him, his eyes holding hers, a smile in them that promised so much, promised his love.
It did not seem possible that he really could fit, she thought hazily, trying to think of nothing but those eyes, that love, while her body struggled against itself to tense up and deny him. ‘Theo, I don’t think—’
‘Exactly,’ he murmured. ‘For once in your life, don’t think, Nell, just trust me, let me in.’ He shifted his position slightly, his hand slipping between them to touch the aching core of her and she sobbed, arched to meet the sweetly familiar torment and he surged strongly into her, carrying away the sudden stab of pain with the intensity of it.
‘I love you,’ she managed to gasp before all she could do was to surrender to the rhythm he was setting, carrying her with him, making her cry out, over and over as he moved within her, filling her perfectly, perfectly at one with her.
