April Moon

by Merline Lovelace

  “Ogre or not, you cannot carry me,” she said, raising her chin in challenge. “At least you couldn’t when you were simply Harry instead of an ogre. I’m too tall.”

  Harry held the lantern up beneath his chin so the light flared upward to distort his features into something quite ogre-ish indeed. “Don’t you cross me, Princess Sophie,” he roared. “You cannot escape!”

  “I should like to see you try to stop me,” she said, laughing, and before he could stop her she’d wriggled free of his arm and bolted up the narrow stairway in the corner. With Harry close behind her, she bunched her skirts high around her knees to keep from tripping and hurried up the narrow, twisting stairs, making her way by the jiggling light from Harry’s lantern. By the time she reached the top, she was breathless from excitement and from laughter, and she hopped forward off the top step, determined to outrun Harry.

  And then she gasped with shock, so stunned she nearly toppled backward down the stairs.

  “There—there’s someone in there!” she cried as Harry caught her in his arms. “At the top of the stairs!”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” said Harry, cradling her to his chest, trying to calm her. “That’s just old Nolly.”

  “Nolly?” Instantly suspicious even as her heart still pounded with surprise, she pushed back from his chest to study his face. “Who’s Nolly?”

  “Here, I’ll make proper introductions.” He drew her back up the stairs, holding the lantern high before them. “Miss Potts, this is Corporal Nolly. Nolly, Miss Potts.”

  Here the windows weren’t shuttered, and by the moonlight that streamed through them Sophie now could see the foolishness that had so frightened her: a suit of mismatched armor, propped up to stand guard at the top of the stairs.

  “Grandfather swore that helmet belonged to one of Cromwell’s men that was killed on this very land,” continued Harry, shifting his voice now to one of a campfire storyteller’s hushed whisper. “His head with this helmet was sliced clear from his shoulders, and now poor Nolly’s ghost is supposed to haunt Hartshall, looking for his lost head.”

  “Oh, butter and beans.” Now disgusted with her earlier fear, Sophie slipped free of Harry’s embrace and marched up to the armor and removed the helmet that served as the head and peered inside. “This isn’t nearly old enough for one of Cromwell’s foot soldiers. See how this nosepiece has been patched on, here? It’s a common fakery, pure and simple, no matter what your grandfather swore.”

  Harry sighed dramatically—which at least was better than having him laugh out loud—and went into the first bedchamber, using the flame from the lantern to light the wood piled waiting in the fireplace.

  “Poor Nolly,” he said sadly, pulling off his coat as he knelt at the hearth. “To be dismissed as mere common fakery!”

  “What else do you expect from me, Harry?” she asked defensively, the helmet still tucked beneath her arm as she followed him. An enormous old-fashioned bed with bulbous carved posts and cut-velvet hangings nearly filled the bedchamber, but at least the rest of Nolly stayed behind them near the stairs. “A good governess recognizes true history from false, and as for ghosts—”

  “Oh, I know, Sophie, I know it all,” he said with the same resignation. He kept his back to her, the white linen of his shirt beneath his waistcoat pulling taut over his broad shoulders as he prodded the fire to life. “You don’t believe in fate and you don’t believe in ghosts and you—”

  “I believe in you,” she said softly, so softly she wasn’t sure at first he heard her over the racket of his fire-making. “I believe in you, Harry, and always have.”

  “I suppose that’s a good thing,” he said, still concentrating on the fire, or at least pretending to be. “Especially since you won’t find many others who share that opinion.”

  “You don’t need them,” she said loyally, hugging the helmet in lieu of him. “Or their opinions.”

  He stood, dusting the soot from his hands, and at last turned to face her. His expression was guarded, all teasing gone, and even in the moonlight she could see how closely his eyes were watching her, closely enough to make her blush. She could already feel the warmth rising from the new fire, or maybe it was simply the heat that came from Harry himself.

  “Do you mean to say that you’re all I should need?” he asked. “Are you willing to take that much responsibility for me, Sophie?”

  “Perhaps.” She swallowed her nervousness in a quick gulp. Answering a question like this one made her feel almost painfully vulnerable. But she’d always lived by the truth, hadn’t she? Why should she hesitate now, with Harry, of all people in the world? “No, yes. That is, yes, Harry. I would. Yes.”

  “You’re speaking the truth,” he said, marveling, not doubting. “You’d never do otherwise, would you, Sophie?”

  “Never.” She swallowed again, as if the inexplicable lump in her throat were something tangible, real, instead of a single small word—love—that she couldn’t make herself say. He was so handsome, so familiar, that it nearly made her eyes tear to look at him. Yet she would look, and she would remember, storing away this night’s memory for always. “But if you knew I didn’t believe in fate or ghosts, then you’d know I do believe in truth. No great mystery, that.”

  He nodded, and laughed, an odd, strangled sort of laugh that didn’t sound like Harry’s at all. “Damnation, I’ve forgotten our supper in the stable with the horses.”

  “What of it?” She took a step toward him, across the bare floor criss-crossed with diamond-shaped shadows, moonlight through the leaded windows. “I’d forgotten the supper, too.”

  He reached out to her, his fingers sliding down the tousled length of her hair. “You make me forget everything, Sophie.”

  She smiled, blinking back the tears in her lashes that she’d no reason to shed. “You make me forget, Harry, but you make me remember, too.”

  “Then I say we forget and remember together, Sophie,” he said, his voice rough with longing and uncertainty. “But first you must surrender poor old Nolly’s head.”

  She wanted to laugh, not only because what he’d said was silly, but also to lighten the mood that had become so deadly serious between them. She wanted to laugh or think of something more amusing to say, but couldn’t, not now. Instead she let him take the helmet from her, hoping he wouldn’t notice the damp patches her nervous hands had left on the battered metal, and then she clasped those same nervous hands firmly before her, as if to keep them from mischief.

  “Why, Miss Potts,” he said as he gently settled his hands around her waist. “You feel as if you’re carved from wood.”

  Her hands twisted, still clasped even as he drew her closer. “I know you believe I am the bravest woman you’ve ever known,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “But oh, Harry, at this moment I feel like the most cowardly female in all Creation!”

  He slipped his hand beneath her chin and turned her face up toward his, so she couldn’t look away. She loved how she could see the little lines fanned from the corners of his eyes when his face was so close to hers, how she could still make out the boyish scatter of freckles across the bridge of his nose—fainter, but still there.

  “Damnation, Sophie,” he said gruffly, “Why should you ever be frightened of me, your old Harry? We’ve known one another forever.”

  “I know that.” Finally she did force a smile, albeit a wavery, quavery, sorry excuse for a smile that wasn’t a fraction of what Harry deserved. “But that’s likely why I am this way now. Because it is you, I want everything about this—this night to be right.”

  “Dear, sweet Sophie,” he murmured. Carefully he prised apart her clasped hands and placed them on his chest. Instinctively her fingers spread apart, the better to feel the heat of his skin through the soft, fine linen, and the slight springiness of the dark hair that curled across his chest. “Here now, listen to how fast my own infernal heart is thumping. Doesn’t that make you feel better, knowing we’re in these sorry strai
ts together?”

  “What makes me feel better, Harry, is just you,” she said, her voice husky and her hands still pressed against the hard wall of his chest as she arched up to kiss him. She was done with talking that only made her long for what she couldn’t have; better, far better, to relish and cherish what was hers for tonight, and not waste another moment in regret.

  Instantly he accepted what she offered, his mouth hungrily meeting hers, turning the exact degree to part her lips and sink deep within. His hands tightened around her waist, pulling her hips against his in a promise of more to come. But she’d never have enough of his touch or taste, of the way the heat of his mouth seared her own. The rough stubble of his beard against her skin reminded her of how much of the night had already passed, and with a new urgency, she slid her hands higher along his chest, searching blindly for the knot of his neckcloth.

  Her fingers fumbled at first, then solved the puzzle, and with a flourish she slowly pulled it from around his throat, letting the linen slide across his skin like a caress. Next she unfastened the two buttons at his collar and eased it open, trailing her lips from his mouth along his beard-shadowed jaw to the salty hollow at the base of his throat. She remembered how sensitive a spot that was for him, and she purposefully made her kisses teasing and featherlight until he groaned, his hands moving restlessly up and down her back.

  “Ah, Sophie, you haven’t forgotten a thing, have you?” he said hoarsely. “But what in blazes has happened to saucing the goose as well as the gander?”

  “Is the gander complaining?” She chuckled deep in her throat, her old confidence returning. She reached around his waist and slowly tugged his shirttails free of the back of his breeches, slipping her hands beneath the billowing linen to reach the man inside. “Doesn’t he realize how much this goose has missed him?”

  “Here now, enough,” he said as he caught her wrists and brought her hands contritely forward. “What this old gander wants to know is why you’ve still so damned covered up.”

  “No reason,” she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. She liked seeing him so disheveled, his shirt open over his chest and trailing out un-tucked beneath the hem of his silk waistcoat, and altogether looking less like a fine gentleman—or even a fine highwayman—and more like the old Harry.

  “No reason not to change that, then.” One by one by one, he began to unfasten the long row of worked buttons closing the front of her spencer, frowning a bit as he concentrated. Unable to wait, she began unbuttoning them from the bottom hem, until their hands met and bumped at the last button over her breasts.

  He paused and cocked one brow suggestively. “Yours?” he asked. “Or mine?”

  “Yours,” she said, the word coming out in a breathy rush of anticipation, and with no mistake as to his other meaning, either. Swiftly she moved her hands aside, scarcely daring to breathe as he worked to free the last button. The button gave way, and with a little grunt of satisfaction, Harry peeled back the spencer from her shoulders and arms and let it drop to the floor behind her.

  “A start,” he said, deftly turning her around so her back faced him. He swept her hair aside over her shoulder, and began to undo the buttons along the back of her bodice and the tapes that tied the high waist beneath her breasts. He was more adept than he used to be, the buttonholes practically slipping open for him, and she didn’t want to consider where he’d acquired such useful experience. He’d sworn the numbers of lovers attributed to him were exaggerated, but as he peeled her plain woolen gown back from her shoulders and kissed the now-bare nape of her neck, she couldn’t help but feel the uneasy presence of those other women.

  “Harry,” she said, hugging the front of her gown close over her breasts as she turned back to face him. “Harry, please recall that I’m twenty-seven now, and—and that I’m not the same as I was before, and I—I wish you not to be disappointed.”

  “Hell, Sophie.” He stared at her, incredulous. “Nearly the first damned words you said to me were that I’d changed. What kind of idiot would I be to expect otherwise with you?”

  “You’ll still be a handsome rascal when you’re a hundred.” She pulled the gown up a little higher, miserably wishing she could better explain. “But with women it’s generally different, isn’t it? Beauty and youth are always so bound together, and once a woman—”

  “Sophie, look at me,” he said, taking her by the shoulders, his hands heated on her bare skin. “Every other woman I have ever met has had to take her measure beside you, and not one—not one—has even come close to being as ridiculously beautiful as you are to me now.”

  “Then show me, Harry,” she whispered, letting her gown drop and slipping her arms around his shoulders instead. “Just—just show me.”

  She did not have to ask him again, or, as she realized later, she likely hadn’t had to ask him even that once. Now when he worked to free her from her gown, she helped him, yanking her arms free of the narrow sleeves and shoving the skirts down into a puddle around her ankles. Next came her corset, the laces snapping through the eyelets until she stood, breathless and ready, in only her shift and stockings.

  Then it was his turn, kicking off his boots and tearing away at the buttons of his waistcoat and the fall on his trousers as she kissed him still, on each and every new place of him that was revealed. Finally he pulled his shirt over his head: surely, thought Sophie, not even the devil himself could stand before her in the moonlight any more proudly than Harry, her Harry, in his own glorious skin.

  But before she could truly admire him he was kissing her again, kissing her hard and without any of his earlier gentlemanly finesse or teasing. She was glad of it, too, for now she wanted him with an urgency that was almost desperation, and a need that had had ten years to build to this fever pitch.

  Now when they kissed, she felt light-headed with desire, her whole being focussed only on him. He backed her toward the bed and tumbled her onto the cut-velvet coverlet, and as she sank down deeply into the mattress she pulled him with her, the bed’s old rope springs creaking beneath them. In one swift sweep of his hands, her shift was gone over her head and away, and at last there was nothing at all to keep them apart, the weight of his body settling familiarly onto hers.

  No wonder she turned his name into a sigh of pure joy. She could not get enough of the feel of his heated skin against hers, and as their kisses grew more feverish still, her hands moved restlessly over his shoulders, the long curve of his back and the taut muscles of his buttocks, relearning this marvelous male body. His hand closed over the soft flesh of her breast, teasing the nipple into a tight crest of longing that radiated through her blood, making her want more, want him.

  Her body felt heavy with desire, and when his hand slid lower, to stroke her gently between her legs, she knew he found her already wet and ready for him. Panting, she touched him, hard and velvety hot. She shuddered and shifted beneath him, parting her legs farther to welcome him within. One agonizing moment while her heart raced with anticipation, and then he was buried deep within her, the one place she knew in her heart he belonged.

  She gasped as he began to move, arching to meet his thrusts and curling her legs over his back to guide him deeper. Earlier, by the bridge, he’d promised it wouldn’t be the same, but better, and he’d been right. As the tension spiraled and the pleasure built within her, she cried out again, clinging to him as he took her with him to the bright flashing joy of release.

  Neither spoke afterward, their limbs still intimately tangled and their bodies glazed with sweat. Now Sophie could feel the tears trickling down her cheek to puddle in her hair, but she didn’t dry them, and neither did he. Gently she smoothed his damp hair back from his brow, relishing the tenderness she could show with so small a gesture. She didn’t regret what they’d done, and she’d never wish it undone. But what, she wondered wistfully, what would happen when that devilish full moon finally set, and the cockerels crowed with a new day?

  With a groan he finally pushed up
from her, resting on his elbows to gaze down. “My sweet, beautiful Sophie,” he said gruffly, tracing the trail of a tear with his finger. “Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”

  She shook her head, and sniffed back her tears. “No, it was quite—quite the opposite of hurting, Harry. It was…perfection.” She forced herself to smile, wanting to take the seriousness from his expression. “If you’d been a true highwayman, you know, you would have told me to stand and deliver, or rather, to lie and deliver.”

  But he didn’t smile back, and the seriousness in his eyes only seemed to grow more solemn and purposeful.

  “No, Sophie,” he said at last. “What I should have told you, being me, was that I love you, that I always have and I always will.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I LOVE YOU…

  “Hush, Harry,” said Sophie quickly, sadly, scarcely waiting for him to finish before she put her fingertips over his lips to stop the words. “Please. Don’t spoil this by saying things you don’t mean.”

  “But I do mean it, Sophie,” he protested, gently moving her fingers aside. “Damnation, I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

  Her eyes were enormous as she stared up at him, and as he watched another fat tear slipped from the corner of her eye down her cheek even as she smiled. “Ah, Harry,” she whispered. “It’s another of your dares, isn’t it? You’re daring me to say I love you back, aren’t you?”

  “No.” The word came out hard and brittle, and abruptly he rolled away from her onto his back, staring up at the canopy overhead. She wouldn’t understand—how could she?—but he didn’t want to explain. “I don’t dare anyone to do anything, Sophie, not now.”

  She sniffed again and pulled the coverlet around her as she sat up beside him, her tears forgotten now that she had a problem to solve.

  “What kind of nonsense is this, Harry?” she asked softly. “You live for dares, for challenges, and you always have. What else has this entire night been but you daring me, and the other way around?”