AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, it is no longer a police matter. His remains have been returned to his family.” Inspector Harris took another mouthful of brandy and set down his glass. “And I must get back to mine. Good night, Tizsas.”
“Compliments of the season to your family,” Dragan returned, accompanying him to the front door.
Griz sat down by the fire, mulling over the news with both relief and puzzlement. No one had killed Sebastian Cartaret. He had suffered from heart disease, and a sudden attack had carried him off. If he had made any sounds of pain, Griz had not heard them. And it would have made no difference if she had. She could not have saved him. No one could.
“But what in the world was he doinghere?” she said aloud.
“Attending his last assignation, I suspect,” Dragan replied, wandering into the room and throwing himself into the chair beside her. He reached for her hand, which she gave willingly.
“Because he knew he was going to die soon? Only I don’t suppose he guessed it would be quitethatsoon, or he wouldn’t have caused a potential scandal by expiring at the front door of his lady love. As he imagined,” Griz added hastily.
Dragan caught her gaze. “Did you think I would suspect you?”
“Of forming such a liaison in the month you were gone? Funnily enough, it did cross my mind. Probably because it seemed to cross the inspector’s. And yet, as soon as I saw you, I knew it would never enter your head.”
His fingers caressed her wrist, making her shiver. “Did you? And yet you fell in love with me very quickly.”
“You areyou.” She searched his face. “Then ithascrossed your mind?”
He shook his head. “Your greeting alone told me all I wanted or needed to know. You still love me.”
“And you still love me, even though I am beginning to look like a whale and have been grumpy and tearful.”
He drew their joined hands to her belly and rested them there, lightly. “It is selfish of me, I know, but I like that you shed tears when I leave. I love all my time with you. And this little creature, whoever they turn out to be, is another adventure together. I will make mistakes, with you, with the child, but there will never be a lack of love.”
She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “I never want us, either of us, to end alone outside a stranger’s door in the dark, with only a flower to remind us of love.”
“One of us must die first and leave the other alone. But not yet, Griz. Not yet.” His sudden kiss was tender, releasing the tears to trickle beneath her spectacles and down her cheeks.
She drew back far enough to take off her glasses and wipe her face surreptitiously on his shoulder. “Do you think that is why he came here? The memory of a dead love?”
“Then who brought him the pink rose? But I can’t think of them now. I can only think of you. Will you come to bed with me, Griz?”
“Yes, please.”
They rose hand in hand and doused the lamps, leaving only the one candle to light their way to bed. Grizelda’s heart drummed. Every nerve was aware of him as never before. A month was, by far, the longest parting they had endured since they had met, and it made him both strange and achingly familiar. Her skin tingled beneath the idle caress of his thumb on her wrist. She had never known such intense excitement before, not even on their first night together. But then, of course, she had not really understood what physical love entailed, what varied and breathless pleasures of the flesh were possible, how beautiful and inventive a man’s body could be.
Now she had several months’ experience of Dragan’s relentless yet tender passion, and her desire grew hot and heavy, making it difficult to breathe. He left her to tend the bedchamber fire while she lit the bedside lamp and blew out her candle.
When she turned, his coat and waistcoat were already flung higgledy-piggledy on the floor, and he was tugging off his tie and collar as he advanced upon her as if he could no longer bear not to be touching her. And yet, the hands that seized her were gentle, loosening the hooks of her gown. Only his lips on hers were urgent, demanding.
“Oh, Dragan, I have missed you,” she whispered into his mouth.
“Then come to bed and let me show how much I have missed you…”
It began with slow, intimate caresses, almost like a relearning. Without words, she knew they both wanted to savor this loving. And yet, once begun, urgency took over, wild, quick, and utterly blissful.
And afterward, as they lay sated in each other’s arms, she smiled and murmured against his shoulder, “God rest us merry…”
