Chapter 13
Matthew awoke very early the next morning, before the sun had even crested the parish fence.
They had spent much of the night talking, eating their chicken on the bed like it was a picnic blanket and exchanging little anecdotes and opinions.
They had realized in short order that their conversations prior to the wedding had been limited to mostly superficial topics bordering the weather and the state of Rosalind’s leg, rather than the meat of what it took to truly know another person.
Perhaps he ought to have realized that before he’d taken his shirt off and put her hands on his chest, but alas, what was done was done.
And he could not stop thinking about it. So he rolled as quietly as he could to the floor, tugged on the nearest cassock, and crept out of his own bedroom like a thief in the night to go pace around the garden for a bit in the hopes that the morning air would restore his sanity.
He could, he told himself, reflect upon all the new things he’d learned about his wife rather than the way her fingertips had felt over his heart.
Yes, that would be the decent thing to do.
He could picture her on that knoll outside Aberdeen with her telescope instead of stumbling over this rock, and that one, and cursing under his breath as he remembered rubbing more of the warm salve into her thigh last night before he’d blown out the lantern.
She had felt how different it was that second time.
He knew it. He had heard the way her breath had gone soft and trilling like a hummingbird as he pushed and stroked away her hurt.
He could have taken just a bit more of that heated-up, slick potion if he’d had a mind to and gone just a little bit farther in …
He coughed, shaking his head and looking directly into the sliver of the sun that was peeking up over the fence until his eyes burned, and then turned on his heel toward the fig tree.
Had he been thinking about her like this before? Before everything had happened? When he was just sweet on her?
Had he been half crazed with desire and thinking unholy thoughts about sliding his hands between her thighs back then?
He didn’t think so.
He wasn’t sure.
But he could have sworn his fascination had been a pure, adoring thing, not this hungry, desperate, lecherous need that kept sparking to life every time he so much as glanced the crest of one of those wooden buttons on the slit that ran up the side of that muslin nightgown.
He groaned and sank onto the bench, digging his fingers into his hair.
He could remember how her mouth tasted now. It wasn’t just fantasy anymore. There was enough knowledge to be truly, deeply dangerous. He knew he liked the flavor of her, the weight of her body in his arms, the shape of her hidden flesh filling his palms and bulging between his fingers.
This was not speculation. It was knowledge.
He gave a humorless laugh and peered up at the fat, nearly ripe figs hanging from the tree.
Forbidden knowledge.
“Matthew?” came her voice, as if summoned from the lust singing through his skin.
He looked up to find her there in that salmon-pink dressing gown, barefoot in the grass, her hair wild around her shoulders as she blinked at him from a few feet away.
The sunrise was glowing against her skin, illuminating every golden fiber of her exposed flesh and dappling against the covered bits, dancing across it like illuminated temptation.
“Rosalind,” he answered, ragged.
“I awoke and you were gone,” she said, almost apologetic. “I wondered where you were. I can go back inside if you wish to be alone.”
“Don’t go,” he said, knowing he sounded desperate. He scooted to the side. “Sit with me.”
She gave him a small smile, just the corners of her lips ticking upward, and she padded forward, the dew flecking against her bare ankles as she sank into the bench next to him. She glanced down at her feet, speckled with soil and bits of grass, and gave an embarrassed little shrug.
“I haven’t unpacked any slippers yet,” she said. “I promise I will wash my feet when we get back inside.”
“I will do it,” he said before he could think. “I will wash your feet, Rosalind.”
She gave a shocked little giggle, shifting so that she was sitting only on her good leg, the bad one propped up against him with the give of her soft flesh. “You don’t have to do that.”
“How is your leg?” he asked softly, his hand reaching out to touch the edge of her thigh where it was resting against his. The bruise was underneath them, he knew, but if he did not touch her, he thought he might die. “Did the ointment help?”
“I did not notice it the instant I woke, so, yes, I suppose it did,” she said softly, looking down at his hand and where it sat but not commenting upon it or otherwise moving out of his grasp.
The heat in his belly spread at the lack of protest, his touch inching a little further over the curve of her leg, enjoying the feel of it, even reveling a little in how naughty it looked to see this shapely leg covered in nothing but thin muslin and gauzy chiffon, draped over his cassock like this and openly being stroked by his hand in the sunlight.
He resisted the urge to glance over at the parish gate, to ensure that no one passed by and ruined this moment. Perhaps he resisted looking because the whole of the Royal Arms could march past right now and he wasn’t sure he would care.
He slid his fingers higher and swallowed a groan at the delicate little hitch that her breath gave. He wondered what he could get away with here in the garden at this early hour, with nothing but the shade of this tree to protect them from view.
He wondered what she would let him do to this sweet little body if it felt good enough. He wondered what she might think if he pulled her leg a little higher and let her feel how badly he desired her.
He dragged his eyes up along the curves of her body, his eyes drinking in all the places he would like to touch, to linger in, to taste.
He leaned forward, brushing his nose against hers, his lips just short of claiming her own with his hand still gently stroking along the soft pattern of her thigh.
“I would desperately like to kiss you again,” he said against her mouth. “May I?”
“You really do like hearing me say yes, don’t you?” she whispered back, sounding half choked with the effort of speaking. Her hands came up, her fingernails stroking along the hair behind his ears. “Yes. Of course, yes.”
He grinned, pushing into the kiss immediately, letting her hold on to him in this way, running her delicate fingers through his hair as his body thrummed with relief at finally satisfying the persistent craving that had been simmering inside him since that first taste of her, right before their vows.
Why hadn’t he spent the entire night kissing her? he wondered. Why had he used his tongue to speak when he could have been putting it in her mouth?
He made a little sound at the thought of it, testing it with a tilt of his head and a gentle, teasing probe against the seam of her lips.
Whether she opened in a gasp or out of curiosity, he was not sure, but he took the opportunity, tasting deeper, his hand sliding farther up that lovely leg, anchoring against the crux of her hip.
It didn’t take long for her to return the exploration, to lean into the experience and taste him back. She dug her fingers between his curls, shifting closer, putting her own leg deeper into his lap. She tested the motion of her tongue against his, gasping and whimpering into his mouth.
It was both killing him and saving his life, somehow, and he forced himself to pull away before it became entirely too much to bear, his breath coming heavy and hard, aching against his ribs.
His lips were sore and slick and his eyelids were heavy, coming apart reluctantly as he instructed himself to behold her, to look at this woman who undid him so.
She was pink-faced and wide-eyed, her bottom lip pulled fully into her mouth, staring back at him. She blinked, her golden lashes flashing in the sun, and gave the faintest little curve of her lips, as though she were a bit embarrassed at how much she’d enjoyed what they’d just done.
It only broke him a little bit further.
He took a deep, steadying breath as her hands slid from his hair and fell primly into her lap, folding over each other.
“That was very nice,” she said shyly. “Lovely.”
“Was it?” he asked, watching her closely. “There is so much more. I want to show you so much more, Rosalind.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice gone breathy and hesitant.
He gave her half a smile, his heart still thundering and his loins still aching, and sighed, stroking just the tips of his fingers, the very ends of his trimmed fingernails, along the top of her thigh.
He gestured up at the fruit dangling above their heads with his other hand. “Do you like figs, Rosalind?”
“Figs?” she asked, blinking a few times and then looking up at them curiously. “Yes. They are very sweet.”
“Very,” he agreed, still touching her, ever so lightly. “Do you know how to tell when they are ready to pluck?”
She shook her head, bringing her attention back down to him with one quick, flicking glance at the way he was touching her leg. “I don’t.”
“When they are ripe,” he said softly, leaning closer to her, “filled with thick, sweet juice, they start to split open, right at the bottom.”
“Oh?” she whispered.
He nodded, pulling her leg farther up into his lap, parting it from the other one. “They come apart at the seams,” he said, “they leak sweet nectar, too, like they are begging to be eaten.”
She stared at him, her breathing gone shallow and rapid. For a moment she said nothing at all, and then, without looking up again, she asked, “And are they ready? Are they ready yet?”
He shook his head. “Soon,” he said. “Very soon. But not just yet.”
Her chest heaved, her throat flexing. “Are you certain, Matthew? Are you very certain?”
He resisted the urge to groan. “It’s always tempting to taste them before they’re ready,” he told her. “But patience is a virtue.”
“And I suppose,” she said, licking her lips, “that you are very virtuous indeed?”
He smiled then, his teeth flashing in the early-morning light. “I try,” he said. “But none of us are ever completely free of sin.”