NINETEEN
Matthias watched as Cecily’s laughter died, her expression shuttering before his eyes.
His retiring nature wanted him to recant, to permit her to avoid touching him altogether. But she had asked to see his missing elbow last week. He knew that she didn’t find him physically repulsive. And his instincts, the ones that understood the healing pattern of a wounded animal, urged him on.
She was ready to push herself further.
He ignored the selfish part of him that ached to hold her for himself—as a man who openly adored and cherished her. The same selfish part that whispered, if Matthias wanted her for himself, how was he any different than her late husband? Both of them demanded contact she was loath to give.
Yet, Matthias’s sole wish was to comfort and strengthen her. He continued to hold her gaze, keeping his expression calm and unbothered. A look that said he would be content with whatever she decided . . . because he would be. He would leave the room this instant if she asked.
As ever, Cecily appeared every inch the proper housekeeper in a serviceable, though worn, maroon gown; chestnut hair pinned into a chignon at her nape.
She wore no earbobs or other adornments, aside from the plain gold of a wedding band on her left ring finger.
But a pearly pink washed her cheeks, and the wan window light reflected in her blue eyes, setting them to sparkle like sapphires.
“Very well,” she nodded on a slow inhale. “A hug, then.”
“There’s a brave lass.” He buried his hand in his trouser pocket.
“Perhaps. I might petrify into a terrified statue at any moment,” she said on a harsh laugh.
“A terrified statue is a start. A terrified marble Athena, perchance . . . fierce and unyielding. As ever, I will permit you to guide us. I won’t lift my arms or move until you direct me.” He noted the frozen hesitation in her gaze. “You are in control, Cecily. I assure you.”
His words caused a visible relaxing of her spine. With a lift of her chin, she stepped close to him. Her hand rose, hovering between her collarbone and his chest for a long second before she placed it gently on his shoulder. The other hand soon followed, pressing softly on his opposite shoulder.
Matt ordered himself to breathe, but the petal-weight of her touch seared his bones and ignited flames along his skin.
He tried not to stare, but his wayward heart insisted on studying every inch of her face .
. . counting those same freckles on her cheeks—dear and familiar now—gazing at the swell of her lips.
How would it feel to kiss her? He had never known the touch of a woman’s mouth. But he wondered relentlessly. Who knew if Cecily would ever be healed enough to accept such contact, but the hunger for it hummed in Matt’s veins.
Someday, he promised himself. Someday, he would experience a woman’s touch in earnest. A woman who wanted him in the way he wanted her.
But . . . how he desperately wished it to be this woman.
As she predicted, Cecily stood frozen, palms on his shoulders, gaze locked on his throat. Matt fought to keep his breathing even, but it was hard going, as his heart pounded and his limbs—both the whole and half-formed—begged to return her embrace.
“Can you place your hand on my waist?” she whispered. “Lightly.”
With care, he pulled his hand from his pocket and placed it against the dip of her waist. The touch sent a jolt through his body.
Cecily likely had no idea that this experience was similarly monumental for himself. That he felt sparks and light and euphoria to the same degree that she felt uncertainty and anxiety.
She swallowed.
“All good?” he murmured.
“Yes.” A blink.
“You can breathe, you know.”
“Yes. Breathing.” Another blink. “I hear it’s the rage in London this Season.”
“All the fashionable ladies are doing it. Swallowing, too.”
She inhaled, her eyes darting to his face. “You are the truest of friends, Matthias.”
Friends.
How he longed to be more.
“Thank you.” A beat. “My friends claim my hugs are of a superior quality.”
Her lips twitched.
They both knew she was nearly his only friend.
“May I?” She inched a step forward, head tilting as if she would lay it on his chest.
“Of course. Embrace me exactly as you wish.”
Nodding, she closed the space between them, until the soft swell of her bosom brushed his ribs and the smell of her—soap and faint violets—enveloped him.
Her hands dropped from his shoulders to rest on his waist. Tentatively, she laid her ear against his sternum.
She didn’t relax into him or tighten her grip on his sides, but she did give over a modicum of her weight. The tiniest smidgen of trust.
Matt closed his eyes, praying she couldn’t feel the trembling in his limbs.
“Your heart beats so fast,” she whispered.
Hah! Every organ of his body was hellbent on betraying him.
“Yes. It’s not every day I receive a hug from a friend. My heart finds the occasion momentous.”
She hummed in agreement.
They stood for a long minute, hands on each other’s waists, counting heartbeats.
“Could you hold me a tad more firmly?” she murmured.
His body reacted like a loosed spring, left arm flexing and clasping her to him. His right arm came to rest against her ribs, holding her as much as it could. Never had he wished so desperately for two hands.
Sensation overwhelmed him. The press of her lithe body. The soft give of her hair on his lips. The wild pounding of his pulse. His vision blackened at the edges.
He had to take several breaths to clear his head before realizing the obvious:
Cecily had gone frighteningly still in his arms.
Matt instantly released her, stepping back. Every warm emotion fled as surely as water swirling down a drain. A chill zipped down his spine.
Her hands flew to encircle her upper arms, fingers trembling, eyes staring forward, unseeing.
“Cecily,” he said, voice quiet.
He had to repeat her name before she lifted her head to look at him. Her pale lips and pinched mouth all but shouted her terror.
Not for the first time, Matt wanted to exhume and revive George Miller just to kill him again—only more slowly this time, inflicting more agony.
“You are doing well, lass,” Matt said. “You took a small step toward healing. Be proud.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “How c-can s-something so s-simple conjure such fearsome memories? ’Tis m-merely a hug.”
The words emerged as a lament.
“Traumatic past events can continue to feel real.” He shoved his hand back into his pocket and leaned against the side of a leather armchair. “That’s why you are challenging yourself. Acclimation, remember? Exposing yourself to the fear and memories to lessen their potency.”
She tilted her head upward, no doubt attempting to drain her tears.
He longed to comfort her with this body—to embrace her completely, with all his strength, anything to take on her pain as his own. Matt used his voice instead.
“A few years back, I had a gelding, Odin, who had a deathly fear of flying insects. He had accidentally stomped on a wasp’s nest and ended up badly stung.
For nearly a year afterward, he would buck and kick every time a butterfly, gnat, or housefly came within a yard.
Even dust in the air agitated him. The memory of being stung was too harrowing.
Gray suggested that we put the poor animal down, as he suffered so in his terror. ”
As Matt spoke, he noted Cecily’s body relax. She wiped her tears with a handkerchief.
“How did you c-cure Odin?”
Her question sent a bolt of affection through him. “You are so sure I cured him, are you?”
“Matthias Kinsey, you would never do away with an animal if there was even a glimmer of hope of saving them.”
He allowed himself a faint smile at the asperity in her tone. She was resilient, this woman. Terror one minute, rallying the next.
“Spoken like a true friend,” he said. “I did not, in fact, listen to Gray. Instead, I took Odin out every day, riding him straight toward flying insects. When he would shy or begin to panic, I redirected his attention away from the thing that frightened him.” Just as my story is distracting you now, Matt didn’t add.
“I would push him into a gallop and run him ragged. Eventually, little by little, his fear retreated until Odin felt at ease in the world once more.”
Cecily dabbed at her cheeks again. “So you’re saying I need to hug you again?”
“I do offer myself as a willing male body.”
“And will you tell stories to distract me while hugging?”
Ah. As ever, nothing slid past her. “If you would like.”
She nodded and looked away.
Silence hung.
Eventually, she took in a shuddering breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I may have failed in my efforts here today, but—”
“Nonsense. You did not fail.”
Another deep breath. “Perhaps not. At the very least, however, we brought into focus the enormity of the mountain I must climb.”
He said nothing, as she was correct. Though he very much liked hearing the two of them referenced as a we.
“What do you recommend from here?” she asked on a sniffle.
“Continued exposure.” He rubbed at his chest where her head had lain. “In my experience, it’s the only way. For both of us.”
This brave woman took in a stuttering lungful of air and straightened her spine. “Very well, then. Tomorrow. We will practice.”
Cecily woke the next morning with a renewed sense of purpose.
Yes, she had faltered the instant that kind, gentle Matthias had tightened his arms around her—a blind, instinctual panic overtaking every muscle and freezing her in place.
But before his embrace had recalled another man’s punishing fist . . . the moment had been magical. The soothing rumble of Matthias’s voice and steady thump of his heart.
Her soul craved that connection.
She would be damned if she let George Miller take something so warm, so perfect and safe, from her. And from the grave, no less.