“To what end? I’ll be gone soon enough and you need not be reminded of my managing ways,” he joked.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t presume you will not be missed. While I may not have always appreciated your methods, I did always know that you were trying to do what was best for me, even if we disagreed on what that was. There’s something to be said, Branson, for having someone in your life, maddening as they may be, who will always be there to look after you. Regardless of what you may think, I am not blind to how much you sacrificed over the years to watch over me—to keep me safe even from myself. Had it not been for that, you might have married and had a family of your own.”
“I would not have,” he answered evenly. “That was never in the cards for me.”
“Why not?” Sarah asked. A part of her was glad that he had not, that there was no one else in his life. It was selfish and it shamed her but the truth of it was undeniable.
“Because there was only ever one woman to whom I could envision tying myself to forever… and my affections were not returned.”
Sarah ignored the ache in her chest that resulted at his words. “I cannot believe that any woman would be so foolish!”
His answering smile was more sardonic than mirthful. “I’ve often lamented that very fact myself.”
There was something in his tone or, perhaps, it was her own wishful thinking that made her pause. Could he possibly be speaking of her? After all this time, was it possible that Branson’s feelings for her were not what she had always believed them to be?
A gust of wind kicked up outside, sending heavy, ice-laden branches to scrape against the side of the house even as the door to the entryway blew open and the snow billowed in. Branson quickly closed the door, barring it tightly to prevent such an occurrence from happening again. When he returned, with the help of her now-empty glass, Sarah had been able to muster enough of her courage to say the words.
“I don’t want you to leave, Branson.”
“I cannot stay, Sarah. Not anymore.”
“Am I that foolish woman, Branson? The one who didn’t return your affections?” Would he answer truthfully? More importantly, was she prepared for the humiliation if he said no or the weight of expectation if he said yes?
He ought to tell her no, to deny it. But he’d never actually lied to Sarah before and he found himself reluctant to do so now. Instead, he replied firmly, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter! It matters to me. Tell me, Branson,” she implored.
“Yes, Sarah. Yes. My feelings have always been more for you than was proper, certainly more than I had any right to… I’ve no expectation where you are concerned. I never have.”
“Perhaps you should have,” she replied evenly. “Do you really mean to just leave after all this time? I don’t know what to do without you in my life!”
“But I’m not in your life, Sarah. I never have been… not really.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded.
“I was never anything more to you than an inconvenience… a nosy trustee who interfered with your wishes. But now your son is returned. The estates are his to manage. The finances are his to manage. You’re no longer putting yourself in the path of harm by seeking out every charlatan in all of Europe to find him—like so many old soldiers, I have outlived my usefulness. There is no place for me here anymore.” He detested the note of self-pity he heard in his voice, but that didn’t change the truth of the sentiment. What was left for him there?
“That isn’t true, Branson, my life has not been my own. For more than two decades, I devoted every minute of every day to thinking about my son, wondering at his fate, if he had lived or died, if I might see him again—it consumed me to the exclusion of all else.” She had risen now and faced the fire rather than him, as if the confessions she made were an embarrassment to her somehow instead of a credit.
Branson was only too well aware of how she had so tirelessly sought Benedict’s return, how much of her energy and daily life had been devoted to that search. There had been times when he’d feared for her sanity, but also for her life as she worked to the point of exhaustion, writing letter after letter to anyone whom she had even the slightest connection to that might assist her in the search. Detectives, mystics, criminals—no stone had been left unturned by her even when his late brother, her miserable excuse of a husband, had given the boy up for dead. He didn’t interrupt her or offer assurances that he was aware of her efforts. Instead, he just waited for her to continue. Waiting for her seemed to have become his natural state.
She glanced back at him once more, staring over her shoulder in a manner that was far more beguiling than she could possibly realize. “But now he is back, returned to me as you said. And while I am eternally grateful for that, I find myself at very loose ends. He doesn’t need mothering, he doesn’t need me to take care of him or spend every moment of every day with him. The truth of the matter is, we are both existing in this world without the purpose to which we have become accustomed. I am no longer the mother to a small boy and I don’t know how to be a mother to a grown man with a wife of his own. So what do we do now, Branson? Two people whose lives have been intertwined and purposes crossed for so very long? The things that pushed us together and pulled us apart have all been put to bed, it seems.”
“Sarah—I can’t be your distraction. I can’t be the thing you focus on now just to fill your days.”
She frowned. “Is that what you think? If you believe that I would offer myself to you just to spare us both the boredom of our current existence—”
“But you haven’t offered yourself to me, Sarah.”
At that, she turned to face him. He could see her trembling, the uncertainty clear in her expression. Yet, despite that, when she spoke, there was no hesitation. “Then allow me to be perfectly clear, Branson. We are here, alone together—and I am offering myself to you, freely and without reservation.”
Branson stepped forward, closing the distance between them. He touched her face lightly, his fingertips brushing the delicate, satiny skin along her jaw. “Is this pity for me, Sarah?”
“Why would I pity you? I could ask the same… your brother’s widow, abused by him, driven near mad with grief for her missing child. Do you pity me, Branson?”
“No. But I do want you. And I have for so long… but be warned, Sarah. If I have you once, I’ll not let you go.”
The blanket that had been draped about her shoulders slipped free, falling onto the chair she’d recently occupied. She made no move to catch it, but stood there before him, proud and possibly defiant. “Then have me.”
He stood there for a moment, savoring the rush of anticipation, the fulfillment of thousands of fantasies and the fruition of a hope he’d never even dared to whisper. The light from the fire played over her skin and the folds of her chemise where it brushed the curves and hollows of her figure. Sliding his hand from her jaw beneath the thick braid of her blonde hair, he leaned in and did the thing he had dreamed of for most of his life. He finally tasted the sweetness of her lips and felt the pillowy softness of them, pliant beneath his own.
Chapter Six
It had been so long since she had been kissed. Longer still since she’d been kissed by someone whose touch she desired. But those young men who had kissed her behind potted palms at balls, or during stolen moments while walking in a garden, they had been boys. Branson was anything but. She felt the scrape of his whiskers on her skin, the strength of his hand where he cupped the back of her head. He tasted of brandy and something far headier. It was only the faintest of touches, the slightest pressure of his mouth moving on hers, but that touch held a promise of so much more. Controlled, slow, seductive, measured—she found herself leaning into him, eager for him to take things further, to unleash the passion she sensed in him, the passion that she yearned for herself.
When his lips moved from hers, coasting along her jawline until he reached the tender spot just beneath her ear,
Sarah shivered. “You don’t have to seduce me, Branson. I’ve made it perfectly clear I’m quite willing already.”
“This isn’t about seduction… it isn’t your consent I’m after, Sarah. It’s your pleasure. The greater the anticipation, the greater the fulfillment.”
It wasn’t something she had any real experience with. The only man she’d ever been with was her husband and her pleasure had certainly never been a priority for him. There had been moments, of course, when she’d found some pleasure in his arms, some thrill, but those had faded over time after all of his other cruelties. But she didn’t want to think of James. She didn’t want to let his ghost tarnish a moment that she wanted to treasure forever.
As his lips began to coast once more over her skin, the gentleness of his kisses juxtaposed by the rasp of his whiskers over that tender flesh, Sarah closed her eyes and gave herself up to that moment. He wanted to seduce her and she wanted desperately to be seduced, to give herself to him not just physically, but in every way that she could. It meant doing something she was unaccustomed to—surrendering any semblance of control. She was out of her depth, far more inexperienced in the ways of physical love than a widow ought to have been. For the first time, she would willingly place her trust with a man.
Every touch was a wonder. It was all pleasure and heat and the escalation of anticipation until she could scarcely breathe. When he finally settled into the chair with her draped across his lap, she was near senseless with it. His kisses were infinitely more potent than any of the brandy she had consumed. Possibly more so than the totality of brandy she’d ever consumed.
“Hurry,” she urged him. “It’ll be daybreak before you’ve even removed your clothes!”
“Would that be so terrible?” he asked, pressing kisses along her collarbone even as the weight of his hand settled on her thigh, his thumb drawing slow circles along the crest of her hip. “I can think of worse ways to spend a night than kissing every inch of you.”
“Then perhaps we can come back to that later?”
He looked at her then. “Why the impatience, Sarah?”
“It’s been so long, Branson. The more time I have to think, the more self-conscious I become. I’m not a girl anymore, and my body does not look like it once did.”
He smiled. “If you’re thinking at all, then I am clearly failing badly. As for how you might look, it will be perfect… because it is you. At eighteen or eighty, you will always be the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld.”
Sarah couldn’t speak. His words had been so sincere, so heartfelt, and in that moment, despite the fact that she was a woman of forty-eight, she felt like a girl again. He had made her feel that way.
No longer content to simply be a passive recipient, Sarah placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him fully. She poured herself into that kiss. Two decades of loneliness, of longing, of all the girlish dreams that had lain dormant for years—trampled under the weight of her often cruel husband’s treatment of her—that’s what she gave to him in that moment. And heaven help her, he took it greedily, kissing her back with a hunger and longing as ferocious as her own.
It was as if floodgates had opened and neither could hold back their desire from that moment forward. She tugged at his shirt until he shed it entirely. When she fumbled with the fall front of his breeches, he brushed her hands away and made quick work of it himself. Clad in only her transparent chemise, even that small layer of protection was stripped from her. But by that point, she no longer cared. Instead, she craved the feeling of his skin against hers. The hardness of his chest covered in crisp, dark hair pressed against the sensitive skin of her breasts, teasing nipples that already ached with the intensity of her desire for him.
When he broke their kiss and dropped his head to her breasts, she threaded her fingers through his hair and held him to her as he teased the hardened peaks. Every sweep of his tongue and pull of his lips coaxed soft moans and cries from her. Those sounds, the sharp crackling of the fire and their ragged breathing were the only sounds. Even the wind outside had halted its howling and blanket of snow and ice had created a hush, as if the two of them were the entirety of the world.
One of his hands coasted along her thigh, the muscles there trembling in his wake. When he touched her intimately, his fingers stroking so skillfully over the tender folds of her sex, Sarah’s head fell back. Her back arched on a shattered moan and she pressed herself against him more fully, eager for his touch and so much more.
“Christ, you are so much more than I dreamed,” he whispered.
Before Sarah could even think to ask what he meant, he drew her up slightly, shifted her weight until she straddled his thighs. She could feel the hardness of his arousal pressing against her intimately. Then he was pressing inside her, parting her flesh and joining them in the most primal of ways. It was more than bliss. It was something she hadn’t the wits or the will to name. But it felt right to her, as if she were finally complete and whole again.
Branson clenched his jaw and prayed for control, for some ability to hold his own passions at bay long enough to bring her pleasure. She was exquisite—her responsiveness, the openness with which she accepted his passion and revealed her own. And God help him, every valley and hollow, every curve of her figure was perfection. It shouldn’t have been possible for her to surpass the fantasies that had tormented him for decades and yet she had.
As she sank onto him slowly, her flesh yielding to his, he grasped her hips. His fingers dug into the softness there, and then he flexed his hips, driving deeper inside her until he saw stars and she cried out, a beautiful, broken sound that burned itself into his mind. Every thrust and retreat, every gentle rocking of their bodies together, brought them higher and closer to that precipice. As she shuddered against him, her thighs and belly quivering, he dipped his head to her breasts once more, teasing each pebbled nipple in turn until she simply shattered around him. The fluttering of her body as her release rushed through her was impossible for him to deny, and it was only seconds until his own followed.
Locking his arms about her, he held her close, pressed a kiss to the silken skin above her beating heart and wondered how he’d thought to leave her side, even for a moment.
As his breathing gradually returned to normal, and hers as well, neither of them spoke. Words were superfluous things in that moment. It seemed as if they’d finally cleared the air between them, easing the tension that had existed for so long.
Her hands came up, stroking over his shoulders in an easy, affectionate gesture. It was, strangely, just as intimate as what they’d shared only moments before. He’d dreamed of her like that, but he’d never dared to hope.
Chapter Seven
Sarah awoke alone in their makeshift bed on the library floor. Sitting up, she looked around for him, her gaze finally settling upon Branson as he stood staring out the window. Wearing only his breeches, his hair disheveled and his skin painted gold by the firelight, he was simply breathtaking.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s midnight… Christmas Eve is upon us.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Did I wake you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I simply awoke and realized that you weren’t beside me. What are you looking at?”
“Come,” he urged, and turned to hold his hand out to her.
Sarah rose, keeping one of the coverlets draped about her in an attempt to shield her modesty. Thought she freely acknowledged it was a bit late to feign maidenly sensibilities. She limped only slightly as she made her way toward him. Her ankle had apparently not been turned as badly as they had first thought.
When she neared the window, she could see the moon high in the sky, bright and clear. The whole world beyond that window was white, but the bits of ice trapped within the snow glinted like crystals in firelight. It was breathtakingly beautiful and hushed in the way that only a fresh snowfall can be.
“The storm has passed,” he said. “When Mr. Pace arr
ives in the morning with the sleigh, we can make for Midford and likely be there by luncheon. You’ll get your Christmas with Benedict.”
“And you?” she asked. “Will you stay for Christmas?”
He pulled her close so that she stood before him at the window, her back pressed to his chest as they stared out into the night. His arms were draped lightly about her and it felt beyond perfect.
“Where would I go, Sarah, when everything I have ever desired is right here?”
“Why did you never say anything? Really… be honest,” she said.
“Because you were not ready to hear it,” he answered evenly. “And I never wanted to question why you were with me. I was entrusted with your care, Sarah, and we so often butted heads in regards to what was best for you. And I don’t say this to belittle you. Not in the least. But in the beginning, you were very nearly mad with your grief and it required a far firmer hand than it did later on to be certain that you were not being taken advantage of. I didn’t think you would ever forgive me for that.”
A year earlier, she’d have agreed with him. It would have been unforgivable to her then. But having Benedict returned had allowed her to heal, allowed her rational and logical mind to finally take control of the emotional side of her that had been firmly in charge since his abduction. “I won’t deny it,” she replied. “And for what it’s worth, I’m rather glad we waited until I became more myself. I couldn’t have been with you then the way that I am now. I felt guilt for every bit of joy I had in my life, as if I should deprive myself of even the most simple pleasures because I didn’t know whether or not my child was enjoying them as well.”
He chucked softly. “And was tonight a simple pleasure?”
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