Chapter Five
Oxford’s tower still held yesterday’s warmth, the flue humming behind the stone like a secret kept well. Theresa had been waiting since the hour he was expected, and now dawn had arrived. Palms flat to the sill, breath fogging the narrow pane, she spotted him.
John.
He stepped down from the carriage, all muscle and clean lines, dark coat pulling over his shoulders, short blond curls catching damp light.
A small valise in one hand, a brown-paper parcel tied with a string in the other.
Sweet, sweet John. The sight hit her low, the way music strikes when it finds the right note.
He paused as if he felt her look. She drew back too quickly, heart stuttering, then paced the short width of their tower love nest, reaching the hidden door before his tread found the landing.
“You took your time.” She aimed for a crisp delivery and nearly managed it.
He smiled like a man who’d run to make the meeting. “I had to stay for an important tea party.”
“A tea party?”
“My sisters.” He set the parcel on the narrow table. “Three and a half. More opinionated than the patronesses at Almack’s.”
The word knocked against her ribs. Almack’s. Ballrooms, titles, and heirs. Not for girls who swept a library. “Your family must wish you to marry soon,” she said lightly. “An heir and all that.”
“Yes. It’s been mentioned.” He gently caught her hands before she could pull back and would not let go. “I talked with them while I was there.”
The words pressed into her chest like a warning. Here it comes. He will do what men like him do—tidy his life, tidy me out of it. Shame burned hot and sharp. A Hofst?tter in hiding, and I dare to want him.
“I told them I’d like to bring you home.”
She blinked, the floor tilting under her. “What?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “They know I love you.” His voice steadied, iron wrapped in velvet. “That I mean to marry you.”
The world cracked open.
Oh, John. If he knew whose daughter she was.
The confession bloomed inside her like wildfire, terror and joy tangling so tightly she could barely breathe. He loved her. He meant to keep her. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t dare believe it. And yet—
She kissed him before the thought matured.
His hands closed around her waist, anchoring her to the moment, to the impossible truth of him. No prince in Vienna’s ballrooms had ever looked at her this way.
This was John. Her John.
And he loved her.
“Open them,” he murmured against her lips, nodding to the paper and string. “Before I lose my nerve and eat the lot.”
“You? Steal from me?” She untied the string anyway, and the scent of cream and vanilla rose like a promise. “Tell me about home.”
He tugged off his gloves. “I trip over small shoes. The twins line up dolls for tea, and Lily patrols like a chaperone.”
“Lily?”
“Our dog.” He drifted close enough to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. “Golden. Officially a retriever, unofficially the governess. Wears ribbons. Disapproves of crumbs. Certain she’s the head of the family.”
Theresa couldn’t help but smile. “And your brother?”
“Seven. Solemn as a judge until marbles appear—then he cheats like a politician.” His eyes warmed. “My big sister is actually my aunt, Deena. She’s training as a nurse at Cloverdale. Brave in ways I’m still learning.”
“I like hearing their names.” Her knuckles brushed his lapel before she could stop the impulse. “It makes them real.”
“They’ll like you,” he said quietly as if hoping it would make it truer.
Hope flickered and, just as quickly, retreated. She split a cream puff and handed him the larger half—then, because she craved the look he got when she misbehaved, drew her fingertip through the cream and lifted it to her mouth, slowly. His breath caught. Power, small and bright, thrummed in her.
“Cruel,” he said, hoarse.
“Deserved.” But her smile wavered as the future pressed its thumb on them. She steadied herself with mischief. “Who put the gold in your teeth?”
His hand rose to his jaw. “My… father.” The air changed. Doors closed. “I had a sweet tooth when I was a boy.”
“Just that?” she asked. Not a demand—an opening.
He stepped around it. The little knot of fear and sadness in her chest returned, and she folded it small, the way she always did when she had no choice. We both have rooms that we will not show. Aloud, she said softly, “Then we match. Two sweet teeth.”
Light returned to his eyes like sunrise. He kissed her for it—warm, grateful—and the kiss unraveled her. His hands slid to her waist, sure and careful, the way he always touched her—as if reverence and hunger could live in the same palm.
“You sit with taxes and enclosures,” she teased, tugging his cravat loose, “and pretend to be grave. But you’re distracted.”
“By you,” he said simply, mouth at her jaw.
Heat slipped under her skin in a clean, fast line. She should have pulled away. Guard yourself. He leaves after graduation. Instead, she let him undo the buttons at his throat, let her breath hitch when the fine linen parted, and the heat of him met the chill air.
“I want to hear you scream my name again,” he whispered.
“What if I make you scream mine?” she returned, startled by her own boldness.
Then they were laughing into each other’s mouths, tugging a path through coat and bodice and linen, not hurried, only inevitable. The tower’s stones kept their counsel; the narrow window poured a pale wash over their skin.
She pressed against his shoulder, and he went down onto their quilt of mismatched blankets.
“Stay,” he said, voice rough. “With me. In this. In all of it.”
She answered with touch, not talk. She drew a thin line of cream over his sternum—cool, indecent, perfect—and bent to follow it with her mouth.
“Theresa,” he groaned. He broke on a sound she felt all through her, a helpless thing that turned her bones to heat.
Triumph and tenderness braided inside her. She set her palm over his heart to be certain it still beat hard for her. He surged up, caught her mouth in a steadier kiss—the kind that tethered rather than devoured—and guided her into the long, slow unwrapping they knew by heart.
“Tell me your truths,” she whispered, wanting the anchor of his people inside the heat.
He gave them freely: the tea parties, the solemn brother, Deena’s fearless hands, Lily’s ribbons. Every detail hammered her hope into a more dangerous shape.
He touched her cheek, reverent. “I told them you’re the future I want.”
Don’t say yes. Don’t say yes until you can be honest. She kissed the warning shut and shifted over him.
“Then listen,” she breathed, and took him into her, the slow, sure slide seating her on something close to joy. The breath left her in a sound she didn’t try to catch.
He fit his hands to her hips and let her set the pace—care threaded through heat—meeting her exactly where she needed, again and again, until the tower seemed to lean closer to hear.
“Say it,” he murmured in her ear, voice rough. She wasn’t sure if he meant John, or I love you, or the future neither of them dared name.
She gave him something that gave all three, whispered into his skin like a vow she couldn’t take back.
The world collapsed to breath and muscle, to the rhythm of him driving deep inside her, every thrust setting her nerves alight. Her body arched into his, desperate and yielding as the catches in her throat turned into raw, unguarded cries she could no longer silence.
His heat filled her, relentless, each stroke dragging her higher, until she thought her bones might shatter under the wonder of it.
She clung to him with a ferocity that matched his own, nails biting into his back, legs locking tighter to hold him where she needed him most. Every movement offered exquisite torment, pleasure tearing through her in waves, too much and not enough, until all she could do was gasp his name like it was the only word she’d ever known.
He held nothing back except the very last edge—pulling, always pulling at the brink, because he was careful, because he respected what she had not yet given him in words.
But tonight, she wanted all of him.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped, clutching at his shoulders, nails digging crescents into his skin. “Not this time.”
His body went taut, trembling against restraint. “Theresa—the risk—”
Her legs locked higher around him, defiance blazing through desire. “Then risk it,” she whispered, fierce and broken in the same breath. Even if she could never truly be his, she wanted all of him now.
He groaned her name, raw, helpless, and thrust deeper, abandoning the careful boundary he had always held. A sound tore out of him—half cry, half surrender. She would keep that noise in her chest forever, the moment that made her feel she had branded him as much as he had her.
Pleasure climbed sharp and terrifying, shattering behind her eyes. She clung to him, drowning and saved all at once.
“John,” she cried.
He shuddered violently under her, holding himself until she broke apart, then giving in with a sound that was almost a growl. He spilled into her, full and unstoppable, as if he had finally chosen her over every shadow, every warning.
After, he kissed her slowly, reverently, sealing promises neither of them had spoken.
When the world returned to size, she lay melted against him, her breath easing, his palm stroking lazy paths along her spine. Forbidden futures bloomed with every sweep of his hand.
“You’ll come with me then?” He sounded certain even in exhaustion. “Back to London. To Stonefield. To… everything.”
Say yes. The word hovered like light on her tongue, but shame and secrets pinned it down. “Ask me again when you graduate, if you don’t change your mind.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat to soften the refusal.
“Never. And I’ll ask you every day until then.”
She smiled, small and aching. They shared another cream puff with shaky fingers, sugar grit on their palms, dawn paling at the window.
“I’ll take you home next time.” John’s breath came warm against her hair. “In April. You’ll meet them all. They’ll love you.”
April. The word struck like a bell inside her chest. She had overheard the whispers among the students—Vienna, a delegation, Hofst?tter. If she went to London, she would be safe in his house, in his family’s embrace. Safe, as long as the truth never broke through.
Her heart lurched, her hand tightening in his. Oh, John… if you only knew.
When he finally rose, she caught his hand and refused to let go.
Their fingers threaded tight, palm to palm, skin hot from all they had shared.
It felt like surrender, like defiance, like giving him everything she had.
She pressed her face to the curve of his shoulder, letting the world shrink to this one touch.
She didn’t allow herself to think about tomorrow, about what might happen when he learnt her father’s name.
Think only of this—the man you love, the man who believes you his, if only for now.