by J. K. Coi
As much as he found himself somewhat disillusioned by the outcome of this, their first meeting, her smile took him aback. She really was a devastatingly beautiful woman. He couldn’t blame his father for having fallen for her charms.
“Tomorrow we’ll get everything straightened away,” she finished.
“That will be fine,” he said with a sigh. It didn’t matter what bed he laid his head on tonight, only that he was home at last. “We’ll speak again on the morrow.”
“Yes, and it’s so nice that you have come to visit. I am overjoyed to finally meet my new stepson.” She rose, bringing her hands together in front of her with a firm clap. “How long do you expect it will be before the war calls for your return and we are deprived of your presence?”
“I was injured near the end of my tour, so I’ve now been relieved of duty. At a propitious time, as it seems the efforts of our forces have succeeded in turning the tide of the war. I have it on good authority that all our soldiers will soon be able to return home. It means that I can devote my full attention to the management of my father’s properties.”
She paused. “How wonderful to hear.”
Chapter Four
Graham retired to the blue room and changed out of his wet and dirty uniform into civilian clothing. He cleaned up with the basin water left on the dresser, but didn’t bother to unpack his belongings, hoping to move them into his own room on the morrow.
Now that he’d taken his leave of Lillian and her bountiful charms, it was easier to breathe. There was something not quite right about the woman’s story of a whirlwind romance and his father’s subsequent decline into despondency and death. Something that nagged at him, although he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Obviously she had believed him dead, which may be the reason why she seemed to have taken so many liberties with the estate. She’d assumed much in her role as the Earl’s new wife—and now his grieving widow—but in good conscience he couldn’t automatically assume her motivations were selfish.
He’d sensed her anxiousness, but that may have been worry. After all, she didn’t know Graham from Adam and couldn’t know that he wasn’t the type to throw her out on her ear when he came home to find that he’d inherited the roof over her head. His father would have wanted his widow to be taken care of properly and Graham would honor the Earl’s memory by making certain of it.
Still, he knew nothing about her. Not where she came from nor the position she’d held before marrying the Earl of Kent. Maybe none of that mattered, but his nagging feeling wouldn’t go away.
So much to process. His father gone so suddenly, leaving behind a wife and stepson Graham knew absolutely nothing about. And Anna…
Anna.
He rubbed at the ache in his arm. Could it be that she was lost to him? That she had fallen in love with someone else? He’d tried to postpone that particular crushing blow a little bit longer, but he had to accept that he may have returned home too late. Anna hadn’t waited for him, she’d given up on him. On them.
What else was she supposed to do? You were gone three years. How was she supposed to wait when she didn’t know if you’d even come back?
That last night three years ago, when both of them sneaked out of their fathers’ houses to meet at the lake and say goodbye, he’d allowed fear and doubt to shake his composure.
He’d known he couldn’t ask her to wait. He couldn’t ask her to think of him or miss him. He’d only meant to wish her well. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, hadn’t meant to touch her, to come away with her scent permanently fused with his, her image burned into his brain—but he had, and it changed everything for him.
He didn’t know how hard it would have been to leave before that kiss, because there was no before anymore. Only after. Leaving Annabelle after that night had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Although coming home again was proving to be almost as difficult.
Pacing the length of the room wasn’t helping to ease his turbulent mood. He should lie down and sleep, but sleep didn’t come easily for him any longer. Sleep was a torture he tried to avoid. Besides, there was much to do tomorrow and his brain was racing too fast to allow him any rest.
If only his father were here. What the hell happened? The man had been healthy as a horse. It sounded like he died of a broken heart after hearing news of his son’s death. Was that even possible? Could someone die of something so insubstantial as a broken heart?
The silence was oppressive, making Graham strain for any sound. But that only forced him to realize that the sound he was listening for—of his father’s boots on the stairs—would not be heard again.
No, he wouldn’t sleep tonight. Not in this room. And not with all these jumbled thoughts tumbling around in his brain. His arm hurt like the dickens. He needed air, had to get out into the fresh air.
Tugging on his boots, he pulled a jacket over his white lawn shirt before making his way out to the hall and down the stairs.
The house was quieter than he could remember it ever being. When he was a child, it had always bustled with movement even late in the evening. When Graham’s mother was still alive, his parents would gather in the library after he was put to bed. His mother would sit at the piano or the two of them would play cards or read by the fire. He’d often slipped by his nanny and back down the stairs to peek through the door and watch them until his mother caught him eavesdropping. But that was okay because she’d beckon him forward to sit on her lap while his father took down the book of fairy tales and read aloud until Graham fell asleep.
He walked past the library. That wasn’t his destination tonight. He could have used a snifter of whiskey to soften his melancholy, but he couldn’t bear to see what the new Lady Gray had done to the room. How she’d stripped it of all his youthful memories and turned into a soulless, gaudy chamber that he wouldn’t even recognize.
On his way through the kitchens, he grabbed an apple from the basket on the table and bit into it with a satisfying, granular crunch and a rush of tart juices. At least this room hadn’t changed, but he supposed kitchens in every household were much the same. Heavy with the scent of yeast as dough sat to rise on the countertop, smoke wisping up from the glowing coals in the hearth, and the aromatic mixture of herbs picked from the garden now hanging in gently tied bunches from the low rafters to dry.
As he stepped outside he realized it was later than he’d first thought and a chill had settled into the night. The rain had stopped hours ago now, but moisture still hung heavy in the air and a thick mist floated just above the ground, obscuring the soft greenery and the little path that meandered all the way to the lake.
He peered through the darkness but there wasn’t much to see. The formerly glorious gardens of Hill House were all overgrown, except for a small section to the left near the wall of the house where a rose bush had been planted. The roses were glorious. Large, deep red flowers that stood open even at this time of night, with thick, sharp thorns that wouldn’t hesitate to draw blood from whomever attempted to violate its greenery.
He kept going, all the way to the edge of the lake. There he stopped, taking a deep breath. The path branched off here. If he continued along it, it would take him to the family burial site where generations of his ancestors had been put to rest. He assumed the most recent Earl of Kent would be there too.
With his face to the black sky, Graham asked for the strength to take those last few steps and say goodbye to his father.
He didn’t move. Instead, he rubbed his hands over his forehead, trying to wipe away some of the tension, but it didn’t work. He blinked. The moon peeked between the thick clouds, its white glow reflecting off the crystal stillness of the lake. He’d always appreciated the solitude of this spot, but tonight there was no easing his frayed emotions.
The tinderbox was in his hand again. He didn’t remember pulling it out of his pocket, but welcomed the distraction that buffing it out would give him. Suddenly it was less a distraction and more a d
ark and oily compulsion crawling down his throat and stinging his insides. He tugged the hem of his shirt out of his trousers to rub the thin metal.
Furiously, he rubbed and rubbed. It wouldn’t come clean enough. The rust and dirt of too many years was caked on there and refused to be sloughed away. Even when he spit on it and rubbed some more.
Finally, when it was as clean and shiny as Graham could get it—which was still dull and unimpressive—he held the tinderbox up to the moon’s light and tried once more to read the engraving.
He who makes wishes of the damned must accept the consequences of releasing them.
“Ha,” he muttered. Wishes. If only he could wish for his father back, or… “I wish Anna were here.” He needed to see her again. She was the only one he could really talk to, the only thing that felt right in his world right now.
The tinderbox was suddenly warm. Very warm. Hot, in fact. So hot that he dropped it into the reeds growing along the edge of the lake before it could burn him.
He jumped forward to catch it again before it rolled right into the water and was lost to him. Yet when he reclaimed it at the last moment with a sigh of relief, the metal was already cool to the touch, as if he’d only imagined the abrupt rise in its surface temperature.
Well, of course he’d imagined it. Maybe it was warmer than usual because of his ardent attempt to wipe the thing clean, but there was no reason for it to be as hot as it had seemed.
His head ached suddenly. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple.
“Graham?”
Her softly spoken call must have startled him. As he spun around, she saw him slip something into the pocket of his trousers.
“Anna?” He blinked. “Is it really you?”
He rushed toward her, gaping down at her “Good lord, Anna. What are you doing here at this time of night, and dressed like that?”
She shook her head, feeling dazed. She glanced down and was only more confused. She was dressed in her white nightdress, hair falling over one shoulder in the same loose braid she’d done it up in before bed earlier that evening. “You know…I’m not quite certain,” she admitted.
How did she get here, on the foot-worn path coming out of the woods?
She looked over her shoulder. The canopy of forest shading the path gave it a spooky, closed-in feeling during the day. At night…
She shivered. Had she actually walked all the way here in the dark? The route started at the break in the trees behind her family’s cottage close to the village and ended here at Hill House. It would have been a good half hour journey.
“You’re going to freeze out here, darling.” Graham was right, there was a definite chill in the air.
He pulled off his jacket and stepped forward, drawing it over her shoulders. It dwarfed her but she didn’t care. She hunched into it with a shiver and looked down at her bare feet, cushioned by the cold, wet grass.
As confused as she was by everything else, when Graham’s arms came around her, it felt completely right. There were things they needed to discuss but all that could wait. Now all she wanted—all she needed—was to feel his heart beating against her cheek, proving that he was alive and well.
“I don’t recall making the trip through the woods to get here. In fact, the last thing I remember, I crawled into bed for the night. I suppose I must have been sleepwalking.” She looked up at him and frowned. “Isn’t that strange, though? I can’t remember ever sleepwalking before.” Maybe because he’d been on her mind when she went to bed she’d instinctively sought him out in sleep?
“Strange indeed,” he agreed, then smiled. “Perhaps you heard me wishing that you were here.”
She smiled back, chest tight with too many emotions. He spread his hands open over the small of her back and she ached, wanting him to touch her all over.
“You feel so good, Anna. I don’t know what brought you here, but it must be magic,” he whispered. “It feels like the answer to my prayers.”
It still worried her that she couldn’t remember how she got here, but when he talked to her in that deep voice, rough with desire, she felt special and sexy. Alive and warm in places she hadn’t since the last night she’d met him here and he’d awakened feelings she couldn’t have imagined before then.
“It’s selfish of me to ask, but…stay with me awhile,” he urged.
The night was turning colder. She really shouldn’t be alone with him even though she wanted to stay. So badly. “I don’t know. I—”
“I’d like just one moment to pretend that my homecoming hasn’t been shrouded in misery and death. One moment I shall be able to remember fondly, alone with the woman I dreamt of so often while I was away.”
“Oh, Graham.” She pressed her hand to his chest. He shouldn’t be saying such things. She was already too vulnerable. Just seeing him today and realizing he was alive when her broken heart had spent months mourning him, felt like a jolt of electricity to her chest. Painful and stirring at the same time.
“For months I wavered between hating myself for kissing you that night and hating myself for not finishing what we started.” He clutched her closer and buried his face in her hair.
She breathed him in. He’d changed. His scent was different than she remembered and there were lines in his face that hadn’t been there before. His hands were calloused and dry. His body rock hard as he held her close.
But most of all she noticed the change in his eyes, shadowed and tired. She wondered about the scars he carried on his body and on his soul, but in the end it was still Graham come home to her. Still the man she loved, no matter how much he’d changed.
“Why didn’t you?” she whispered.
“I couldn’t do that to you and then up and leave. I couldn’t do that to our friendship.”
“I wanted you to. For goodness sake, I was practically naked in your lap here on the ground. You understood it wasn’t out of simple friendship, right?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and let the images she’d hoarded for three years rush forward. Images of the two of them in this very spot, caressed by moonlight as they said goodbye to each other. First with a kiss, and then, as they both admitted their ardent feelings, with harder kisses, longer kisses, deeper kisses. With desperate touches to quickly exposed skin, and harsh breathing that echoed in the night.
He slipped the jacket from her shoulders, spread it over the ground and urged her to follow him down. “Here, get your feet off the dewy grass.” It also allowed him to cradle her in his embrace. They sat back to front with his arms around her.
“I knew,” he finally said. “And that’s the only thing that kept me honorable. You offered me your heart and body, knowing I would turn from you afterward and maybe not come back. How could I repay such a gift by doing so?” She looked back at him. His lips turned up in a rueful grin. “Not that I didn’t regret it at least once a day, every day since then.”
Tears stung her eyes even as she chuckled. “I dreamed about you and I looked forward to every one of your letters. When they stopped coming and then I heard that you had died…something inside me cracked apart and died too. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but Lady Grey—” She bit her lip.
“I didn’t stop sending you letters, Anna. I’m sorry they didn’t reach you, but—”
“Oh, Graham. It was horrible. We all thought you were dead, and then your father…” She paused and faced forward. She didn’t want him to see her face when she made her next admission. “I was destroyed, and I didn’t think I could ever pledge myself to another man. If I couldn’t be with you, then I didn’t want to be with anyone. But Charles…well, despite my reservations about his mother, he’s been a good friend to me.”
His body stiffened behind her. She twisted around to face him again. “Are you marrying him then?” His expression was tight and cool, but something much like regret flickered in his face.
“No,” she whispered, raising her hand to his cheek. “I’m not marrying him. He hasn’t asked me yet, but
even if he did, I couldn’t marry him. Not now.”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers, gazing into her eyes. After a long moment, she turned back around. Together, they gazed up into the sky. A break in the clouds revealed stars sparkling like scattered gems on black velvet. It should have been enough to sit here like this with him and just enjoy the fact that he was home and alive.
But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
She twisted around to face him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Graham, I missed you so much. Kiss me.”
Chapter Five
The thin linen of her prim nightdress was no barrier. Through it her nipples were tight and peaked, and he could see the silhouette of her tempting, curvy figure before she pressed herself flush against him.
He cleared his throat. As much as he yearned to seize her for himself, he had to be honest—with both of them—even knowing it could mean she would choose the other man in the end.
“Anna, I haven’t told you the truth. While I was away, I… It was a war, yes, but I did things… I’m not the same man I was. As much as I don’t want to give you up, I’m not certain I can make you happy. Maybe this Charles person is better for you. What if I can’t be—?”
“Shh. You’re alive. You’re home.” She smiled. “We’ll figure the rest out as we go.”
He nodded. “We can have this night together at least.” It felt as if he was trying to convince himself. “It’s as if the fates have given it to us, a moment out of time.”
“Yes,” she said, leaning into him with her head tilted back on his shoulder. “Let’s have tonight for each other and let tomorrow come in its own time.”
His restraint shattered. He slid his open palms up the length of her spine and then back down each side to her hips, grazing the soft curves of her breasts along the way.