by Meghan Sloan
His skin, so close to her own. The feel of his lips, moving on hers. The dart of his tongue, as he opened her lips wider, seeking entry. As if he was going to devour her, with the force of his passion.
He tilted her back, kissing her thirstily. She clung to him, whimpering in her throat. Wild sensations coursed through her. She felt like she was turning to molten lava beneath his hands. As if she would suddenly become a pool of hot liquid.
His hands found her breast, kneading hungrily. She groaned with wild abandon, as the sensations intensified.
She had died and gone to heaven. She was sure of it. For how else was such sweetness possible?
“You are mine,” he whispered, against her mouth. “For eternity.”
Chapter 14
Alice put her hands on the keys of the pianoforte, her forehead creased in concentration. She always had difficulty with this part of the song. Behind her, her pianoforte tutor, Mr. Barnard, made a theatrical sigh of impatience.
“No, no, no,” he rapped, his hands coming down on the keyboard. “Your fingers are too clunky, Miss Sinclair! I have told you that they have to be light at this section.” He raised one hand in the air, making a swift slicing motion. “As light as a feather, wafting on the breeze!”
Alice nodded. She was in no mood for a pianoforte lesson. She simply couldn’t stop thinking about Silas, that was the problem. Her love for him seemed to bleed through everything she did now, to the point that she could barely concentrate on anything.
He seemed to follow her as she went about her daily routine, and he was still with her when she went out, to the shops, or to socialise. Ever since the house party at Hill Lodge, four weeks earlier it had been like this. Her mother claimed that she was in a daze, her father that she was threatening to become more absent-minded than him. Charlotte claimed – quite rightly – that she was lovesick.
“Could we possibly have a five-minute break?” she asked the music tutor, entreatingly. “I think I just need some fresh air.”
“Bah,” said the man, his eyes flashing with impatience. “If you must, but I am paid by the hour, Miss Sinclair. Your mother will not be pleased if she does not get her money’s worth, I am sure.”
“My mother shall understand,” said Alice, quickly rising. “Just a short walk around the garden. I shall be back presently.”
Once in the garden she felt like she could breathe again. It was bitterly cold. Snow was swirling like a dervish around the garden, but she ploughed through it determinedly, wrapping her cloak tighter around her. It was the darkest days of the season. Christmas and New Year had come and gone. The snowflakes seemed to sizzle on her hot skin.
Lovesick, Charlotte had called it. And indeed, it felt like a sickness. It had invaded her body, making her weak and almost feverish with desire. She could not stop thinking about the night of the costume ball, when he had kissed her with such passion, replaying it over and over in her mind. And she was thirsty for more of his touch.
But she had been unable to have it. He and his family had gone to London for the Christmas season, to stay with family, and she had not seen him since Hill Lodge. But he had written her three letters. Ardent letters, where he professed his love again, and his desire to hold her in his arms once more. He told her he was counting the days until he was back in Bath and could see her again. He didn’t know their exact arrival date, but she knew it was close. He thought it might be this week.
She stamped around the garden in a fever of desire, thinking about the letters. She had pored over them until they were so well-worn they looked old and creased, as if they had been written years ago instead of days. At night, she placed them in a special painted box, which she left on her bedside table. In the morning when she woke, the first thing she did was open the box and spread the letters out, reading them anew, drinking in the words like a thirsty man parched for water.
She shivered slightly in the snow. It was agony as much as it was ecstasy. She had never realised the blinding power of romantic love. She had dreamed of it and coveted it, but she had never known it. It was not a tame and gentle thing in the least. Rather, it was like a force of nature. Starkly elemental.
And he seemed to feel the same way about her. Little Alice Sinclair, who never said boo to a goose. He had brought out something deep within her, that she had never even known was there. He had recognised something in her that she had not seen in herself.
She was born again through him.
Her reverie was interrupted by a loud thumping on the glass on the back door. She turned around to see her mother’s livid face. Mrs. Sinclair pulled the door open, staring at her as if she was mad.
“Alice, what on earth are you doing?” she screeched, into the wind. “Get inside the house this instant, before you catch your death of cold! I swear you have started to lose your wits entirely since you returned from that house party!” She paused. “And Charlotte has just arrived, as well. She says that she needs to speak with you urgently.”
***
Mama insisted that she warm herself at the fire for five minutes before she was finally allowed to be alone with Charlotte. Mr. Barnard was sent away, looking peeved. Mama promised that she would pay him for the full hour as she pushed him out the door.
Charlotte looked solemn, almost grim. When her mother had finally – blessedly – left them in the parlour, with tea, Alice turned to her.
“Dearest,” she said. “You look so pale. What is it?”
Charlotte sighed heavily. “I simply do not know how to tell you this, Alice,” she said, biting her lip. “So I am simply going to come out and say it.”
Alice felt the blood drain from her face. “What? Are you not well?”
“I am fine.” She sighed again. “I was on Milsom Street, attending a dressmaker’s appointment, when I overheard two ladies speaking in the other dressing room. What they said shocked me so much that I immediately left my fitting and came straight here. It seems that Marina St. George has returned to her family home.”
Alice felt her head start to violently spin. She staggered, gripping the top of the chair in front of her. Charlotte immediately sprang up, putting her arm around her, guiding her into the chair.
“I will pour you tea,” said Charlotte in a shaky voice, picking up the tea pot. “I know that I have shocked you, but I thought it best you heard it from me than anyone else.”
Alice nodded vaguely. “Of course,” she said in a faint voice. “You were right to come to me straight away with such news.”
As Charlotte poured the tea, Alice’s mind whirred fiercely. How could this be? She had been missing, presumed dead, for more than six months. How could she have suddenly re-appeared at her family home, as if she was just returning from a walk? None of it made any sense.
It couldn’t be happening. And yet, it was.
Charlotte handed her the tea. “Sip it, and I shall tell you as much as I know.”
Alice complied, sipping the hot, sweet tea, feeling the liquid calming her slightly.
“Apparently, she arrived at her family home late last night,” said Charlotte slowly. “She was disoriented, with her hair and dress askew. When they asked her where she had been – what had happened to her – she claimed she had no memory of it. She kept saying that she went to sleep, then woke up to find herself walking in the dark, and slowly found her way home.”
“What?” Alice hissed, almost dropping her teacup. “She claims that she remembers nothing of six whole months of her life?”
Charlotte pursed her lips. “That is what she claims. The doctor was called for, of course, and pronounced her distressed and suffering from memory loss, but otherwise in good health. He could not see evidence of a head wound that might cause such a thing, but he did say that severe distress can cause it as well. That sometimes, when someone has been through something terribly bad, the mind copes with it by losing all memory of it.”
Charlotte kept talking, but Alice could barely hear her. Her heart was sinking like a st
one. She knew what this meant, for everyone. And while she was glad that Marina St. George was safe and well – or as well as she could be, in the circumstances – and re-united with her suffering family, she knew that it did not bode well for her engagement to Silas.
How could it? He had been heartbroken over Marina. He had loved her dearly. And now she was back, as if from the dead, and their newfound love was going to shatter into a million pieces as soon as he heard the news.
A single tear ran down her cheek.
“Oh, my dear,” said Charlotte, rushing to her side, and taking her hand. “All shall be well…”
Alice wiped the tear away. “I do not wish to appear an unkind person,” she said in a trembling voice. “I am glad that she is alive, and with her family again. I do not wish it any different.” She sighed heavily. “But it is as if a firework has been set loose, is it not? Nothing can be as it was, between Silas and I.”
“You do not know that,” said Charlotte fiercely. “He loves you as much as you love him, and I am not just saying that to humour you, Alice. I watched you together at Hill Lodge. We all did. Nicholas remarked on it, saying that you made a great couple, and it was the happiest he had seen his friend in an awfully long time.”
Alice stared at her friend. She wanted to believe her with her whole heart. What she wouldn’t give to know that Silas’s love for her was so deep that it could withstand this assault to it.
“Yes, we are in love,” she said in a tremulous voice. “He told me that he loves me. But he loved her before me, Charlotte. He was deeply in love with her, and he told me he thought he could never let that love go. I fear that it shall be rekindled again now, and I shall be left by the wayside…”
Charlotte sighed, looking pained. “My dear, you must speak to him, as soon as possible. That is all I can advise. If you can talk about it, together, then I am sure that you can get through this…”
Alice nodded, but her heart was still as heavy as a rock.
“Of course,” she said, not believing a word. “Thank you, Charlotte. You are such a very dear friend to me.”
***
Later, after Charlotte had left, Alice retreated to her room, lying down on her bed. Slowly, she took out the letters Silas had written to her, holding them against her heart. She didn’t need to read them again. She had committed every word to memory.
She stared at the wall, feeling as desolate as she had ever felt in her life. Only two short hours ago she had been wandering around the garden in a daze of desire and love, dreaming of the moment when they could be together again. Everything had been as it should be. She had been confident in his love for her, certain that they could overcome all obstacles together. That their love was strong enough to endure anything.
Was it strong enough to endure the return of his much-loved former fiancée?
She had fallen in love with him so quickly. And he had slowly grown to love her as well. She had seen the torment in him as he had wrestled with his feelings for Marina, trying to put them behind him. He had seemed to finally have done it, at long last. The future was theirs for the taking. It had seemed so close she could almost grasp it.
And now, it might be lying in ashes around them.
Hot tears slid down her cheeks. How could she compete with the spectacular Marina St. George? It had been hard enough competing with the woman’s ghost. But now, she was flesh and blood again. She was living and would resume her life in Bath. A constant presence.
And he was slipping away from her, already. She knew it, deep within her heart.
Chapter 15
Silas stared through the window of the drawing room, watching the snow swirl from the sky in endless streams. The sky beyond was a pale, wan blue. Few people were out on the street, in this weather, and those that were scurried like rodents, heads bent, intent on getting to shelter as soon as possible. A single black carriage rolled along, looking to his mind like a funeral hearse.
They had returned from London late the previous night. And this morning they had awoken to the startling news that Marina was supposedly returned to her family and was at this very moment ensconced in their townhouse, only five streets away. He had not been able to eat all day. All he could do was stand at this window, staring out, trying to make sense of it all.
He had not expected the day to go this way. He had been expecting that he would be calling on Alice. It was the first thing that he planned to do upon his return to Bath. He had been unable to stop dreaming about her and was so enflamed with desire, he had written three letters to her in the short space of time they had been apart.
He closed his eyes in pure agony. Alice. He pictured her in front of him, her golden red hair falling freely down her back, as it had on the night he had first kissed her. On the night he had sworn that she would be his for eternity. He had meant it. He meant it still. He was wildly in love with her, and she had healed him, at long last. He wanted to step into a future with her, after all the pain of the past. He had thought that it was finally behind him.
But now Marina was alive. She was in the same town.
What on earth was he going to do?
He was in utter torment. One part of him wanted to rush to Marina, to assure himself that she was indeed there and alive. That she was well. She had been missing for more than six months, and no one knew what she had endured in that time. He still cared for her. He would always care for her. Apart from anything else, it would be the right thing to do. They had once meant so much to each other.
But another equally strong part wanted to rush to Alice. To comfort her, as she surely needed. She would have heard the news by now – everyone in Bath had heard the story of the miraculous return of Marina St. George. The whole town was abuzz with it. Marina was like Lazarus, returned from the dead. Alice must be upset and wondering what this sudden unexpected twist of events meant for their newly declared love.
Even more than that, he wanted her to comfort him. He wanted to lie his head down in her lap and just close his eyes and feel her soft hands upon his face. To be near her and talk about this miraculous circumstance. The return of his missing fiancée, after so long.
But all he was doing was staring through the window, unable to do either.
The door opened. He turned around. It was his mother walking alongside a maid who was carrying a tea tray.
“Come, Silas,” she said, sitting down near the fire. “You must eat and drink. We can talk.”
He sighed, letting the curtain fall. He didn’t feel like doing any of it. But he knew that he probably should try. It wouldn’t be good to fall ill because of this. He needed his strength, for what surely lay ahead.
Mrs. Wilmington was already pouring the tea as he sat down and she handed him a cup.
“It is shocking,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I cannot make head nor tail of any of it.”
Silas grimaced. “That is an understatement.” He paused, sipping his tea. “At least she is alive. That is the most important thing.”
“Of course,” said his mother through tight lips. “But the circumstances of her return are as strange as the circumstances of her disappearance. I cannot fathom it.”
Silas nodded. He couldn’t fathom any of it either. All he had been told – all that anyone knew – was that she had suddenly returned to the family home, claiming that she had no memory of what had happened to her. That the whole last seven months of her life were gone from her, erased from her mind like chalk off a board.
Mrs. Wilmington passed him a plate piled high with sandwiches and scones. “Take it. Please eat something.” She paused, her bottom lip trembling. “To think the distress that girl has caused and is still causing. It is most vexing. My poor son…”
Silas sighed. “Please, do not distress yourself on my account, Mother. I am just in shock, that is all, and wondering what is the first thing that I should do…”