Chapter 26 #2
I pulled my hand away from his arm and placed it on the perfect skin of his cheek.
“David, I saw your chest. At least some of it. They’re everywhere.
If you don’t want me to touch them, I’ll understand.
But I’m telling you as your wife, I think you should reconsider.
” He swallowed, and slowly, the sorrow in his face shifted, sloughing away some of his pain until I saw young David again.
Not young, as he’d been when we’d first met, but young as I’d first seen him a month ago, striding toward me in the oak tree, dashing and handsome with curiosity and wonder in his eyes.
I cradled his hand once again and lowered my head to the crook of his bare arm until my mouth hovered over that first scar.
I looked up at him through my lashes, and after three long, slow breaths, he nodded.
I pressed my lips to the spot, and in my hopeful, pathetic way, I prayed my touch might heal a part of him.
At first, every muscle in his arm was tight, but after a moment, the tightness softened. With a slow, steadying breath, he placed a hand on my cheek, then dropped it and lifted his sleeve as high as it would go, letting me into a part of his world he’d shown no one else.
There were three more marks on his inner arm, and when I turned to inspect the outside, I found several more. Some were so faint I could barely make them out, and others left recesses in their wake.
“Oh, David.” I couldn’t help the strangled use of his name at the sight of them.
I traced each mark with my fingers first, then lowered my mouth to them one by one. His arm trembled at times under my touch, but he never pulled away. When I was certain I’d tended to all of them, I dared a glance up at him.
His eyes were soft and full of wonder. “Are you real?” he asked, echoing those first words he’d murmured to me on the path to the cottage.
I laughed softly. “I think so.”
He lifted his other arm expectantly toward me, and with a smile, I undid the buttons on that cuff as well. I resumed my ministrations by first tracing his scars with my fingers.
I pressed my thumb against one and raised his arm to my lips. David put his hand on my shoulder, and I immediately stopped. Had I gone too far? Patience wasn’t my best virtue. But if it took months for him to allow me to see all his scars, I would wait for him. He’d waited eight years for me.
When I looked up at him, it wasn’t fear or pain I saw in his eyes. It was something else entirely, something that made me think I would not be waiting months to see the rest of his scars. Slowly, his hand went from my shoulder to the cravat I’d tried to loosen earlier.
“Four years ago, I decided I would never marry,” his voice had the timbre of a man starting a long story.
With a few deft pulls, he slid his cravat from his neck, and the top of his shirt fell open.
There were no circles exposed in the perfect v of skin that came into view.
His father must have been careful to hide his burns in places no one but the servants would see.
“Up until that point, I’d always known it would be incredibly selfish of me to bring a woman I cared for into this family, but for some reason, I held on to hope that a miracle would make it possible.
” His hand moved to his buttons, and he undid one, then another, never taking his eyes off mine as his scars came into view.
There were multitudes, some of them blending into each other and warping the skin around them.
“When I told you vanity and pride were the reasons I never wanted to share my life with a woman, that was true. I didn’t want to show anyone what my father had done to me.
” He undid another button. “I don’t think it is a coincidence my father scarred me so severely.
There are other ways to cause pain. But this,” he touched one of the deeper scars, “would keep me from ever opening myself up to love, would stop me from bearing children who would carry his name, even long after he was gone.”
The rage I’d felt in Julia’s room reared its ugly head again, threatening to overcome me, but I pushed it down.
David wasn’t telling me this story to solidify my disgust for his father.
He was telling me something else entirely.
I reached for a scar that sat just above his heart and rested my hand on it.
Beneath all the damage his father had inflicted upon him beat a heart, strong and steady.
David lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my wrist. “His plan might have worked if I hadn’t fallen in love with you before I knew what vanity was.”
“You were too young to know what love was then,” I said. Because if I didn’t, I might always wonder.
“No, I wasn’t. As real as my feelings are now, they were real then.
I was just at an age where love doesn’t usually last. Men tend to fall out of love or in love with someone else in time.
I never did. And it wasn’t because I was isolated here.
I’ve been to London. I know some of the daughters of other gentlemen in the county.
No one has ever touched my heart like you did then, and no one has ever come close to owning it like you do now.
If you’ll have me, Anna, I will always be yours. ”
My eyes slid from where he was tenderly holding my wrist back up to his face. He’d asked me only a moment ago if I was real, and I was starting to wonder it myself. David loved me. He always had. All the pain in the world couldn’t burrow a hole in the happiness those words seared into my soul.
“I’m going to kiss every single one of them,” I said. “His plan will be thwarted, easily and with all my heart.”
He placed his hand below my jaw and drew my mouth to his for a kiss so deep I lost myself in it. When he lifted his lips away from mine, I still felt the pull of him, as if my body could not be separated from his and live.
He slid his mouth to my ear. “For the first time ever”—his voice was a rumble in the dim light of the room—“I don’t mind how many scars I have.” He slid a finger down my cheek, then grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head.
White marks covered his chest and stomach, but I barely noticed them. Not when David was looking at me like he was. He lifted my chin between his thumb and forefinger and held my gaze. “You may get tired of hearing this over the course of our long and illustrious marriage, but you were right.”
I was still adjusting to the fact that David was mere inches away from me while his shirt now lay on the floor. “I was?” I struggled to know exactly why he was talking, let alone what on earth I could have been right about.
He nodded. “You asked me to reconsider, and I have.” I blinked hard, willing my brain to follow his train of thought. My eyes went to his, and I finally understood. His smile was deep but not filled with hints of laughter—it was filled with promises of something else altogether. “Touch them all.”
I swallowed shakily, and then, with his permission completely granted, I put both of my hands on his chest. I took my time, sliding my fingers down his torso, around his waist and up his back. None of his skin was smooth, but the way he shivered under my touch was flawless.
I chose a scar just below his collarbone to kiss first, loving the way his skin trembled under my touch.
I worked in a slow and organized pattern, knowing I needed to keep my promise.
I had to be careful in the dim light, using not only my eyes but my fingers and mouth to make certain I discovered each one and tended to them with utmost care.
David wasn’t as concerned about my precision or my plan, however, because the moment I reached a spot in the middle of his chest, he interrupted me by bending from his sitting position, putting an arm underneath my knees, and lifting me onto his legs.
His arms wrapped around my waist and tightened.
He mumbled something low that might have been my name, but it was so muffled against my cheek I wasn’t certain.
And then his mouth was on mine again, kissing me, hungry and deep.
I was lost, my careful considerations scattered like stars across the sky. I fell into him, saving my exactness for another day.