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thought of Annabelle and the children she would never have with Giles.
‘Sweetheart.’ Giles pulled her into his arms, kissing away the tears. ‘Please don’t cry. Please. I am sorry I cannot be what you want me to be.’
She turned her head, blindly seeking his mouth, tasted her own tears, salt on his lips. ‘Love me again, Giles. Now and every night while we are both here.’ He went so still she caught herself with a pang of guilt. ‘I’m sorry, that is selfish, isn’t it?’ She searched his face, looking for the truth she had learned to read in his eyes. ‘It isn’t fair to expect you not to make love fully.’
‘I would want to be with you even if all I could do was kiss your fingertips,’ Giles said, his voice husky. ‘You gave me so much pleasure last night, Isobel. But I have no right to let you risk everything by coming to your chamber again.’
‘If that is all we have, just the time we are both here, then surely we can take that, make memories from it to last for ever? We will not be found out, not if we are careful as we were last night.’ It was Sunday, so perhaps it made what she was asking even more sinful. But how could loving a man like this be a sin?
‘Memories?’ He held her away from him, studying her face, and then he smiled. It was a little lopsided, but perhaps that was simply because of the stitches in his cheek. ‘Yes. We will make one of those memories here and now and use that little chamber one last time for the purpose for which it was intended.’
There was a rug thrown over the chair at the desk he had been using to write his notes. Giles spread it over the frame and ropes that were all that remained of the daybed in the painted chamber and while he closed the battered shutters Isobel shed her riding habit, pulled off her boots and was standing, shivering slightly in her chemise and stockings, when he turned.
‘Goose bumps,’ she apologised, rubbing her hands over her chilled upper arms.
‘I’ll warm them away. Don’t take any more off, it is too cold.’ He wrapped his greatcoat around her, then eased her on to the bed before stripping to the skin.
Isobel lay cocooned in the Giles-smelling warmth of the big coat and feasted her eyes on him. He would be embarrassed if she told him how beautiful his body was, she guessed, and besides, many other women had told him that, she was sure. Instead she wriggled her arms free to hold them out to him. ‘Giles, come into the warm.’
‘I am warm.’ He wrapped her up snugly again, then parted the bottom of the coat so he could take her feet in his hands, stroking and caressing them through her stockings, teasing and warming and arousing as he worked his way up. Then he flipped the coat back over her lower legs and proceeded to kiss and lick and nibble her knees until Isobel was torn between laughter and desperation.
‘Giles!’
‘Impatience will be punished.’ He covered her knees, then shifting up the bed, left precisely the part she wanted him to touch shrouded. He pushed up her chemise to lick his way over the slight swell of her belly, into her navel, up between her breasts without once touching the curve of them, the hard nipples that ached for his touch.
Only when he reached her chin and she was whimpering with desire and delicious frustration did he lie on the bed beside her, lower his mouth to hers and kiss her with languorous slowness while his hands caressed her, edging her to the brink, then pulling back, building the pleasure until Isobel thought every nerve must be visible as they quivered under the skin, then leaving her again teetering on the edge of the abyss.
‘Oh, you wretch,’ she sobbed, her fingers tight on the hard muscle of his shoulders as she arched, seeking his touch. ‘You torturer.’
‘Touch me,’ Giles said, bringing her hand to clasp around him. ‘Take me with you.’ Then he held nothing back, his body at her mercy, his hands demanding, demanding, until Isobel lost all sense of what was her and what was Giles and surrendered to the mindless oblivion of pleasure.
She came to herself to find him slumped across her, relaxed into sleep. ‘Giles?’
‘Mmm.’ His lids fluttered, the dark lashes tickling her cheek, then he was still again.
Isobel tugged the greatcoat more securely over them, curled her arms around him and lay, cheek to cheek, thinking. Nothing lasted for ever. She had him now and for a few days and precious nights even though she did not have his words of love. She would not waste those moments by anticipating the inevitable parting; she would live them and revel in them and then do her best to live without him. I will not pine. I will find some purpose, some joy in life. I will not allow something so precious to destroy me. In the distance thunder rumbled.
An hour later they approached the house from different directions, Giles from the western drive, Isobel retracing her route, bringing Firefly across the wide sweep of gravel before the house to the stables. They met, as if by chance, outside the stable arch.
‘Mr Harker! Good morning.’ Isobel let the groom help her dismount and waited while Giles swung down from the grey. The sound of bustling activity made her look through into the inner yard where the back of a chaise was just visible.
‘Visitors,’ Giles observed. ‘Have you had a pleasant ride, Lady Isobel?’
‘Very stimulating, thank you. But I fear it is about to rain.’ She caught up the long skirt of her habit and walked with him across to the front door. Benson opened it as they approached and Isobel stepped into the hall to find the callers had only just been admitted. A grey-haired man of medium height with a commanding nose turned at the sound of their entrance, leaning heavily on a stick. Beside him a thin lady in an exquisitely fashionable bonnet started forwards.
‘Isobel, my darling! What good news! We had to come at once even if it did mean travelling on a Sunday.’
She stopped dead on the threshold. ‘Mama. Papa.’ Her mother caught her in her arms as Isobel felt the room begin to spin. There was a crash of thunder and behind her the footman slammed the door closed on the downpour. No escape.
‘Darling! Are you ill? You have gone so pale—sit down immediately.’
‘I…I am all right. It was just the shock of seeing you, Mama. Thank you, Mr Harker.’
Giles slid a hall chair behind her knees and Isobel sat down with an undignified thump. ‘Lord Bythorn, Lady Bythorn.’ He bowed and stepped away towards the foot of the steps.
‘Wait—you are Harker?’
‘My lord.’ Giles turned. His face had gone pale and the bruises stood out in painful contrast.
