Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was but three hours later, but three hours was all it took. The introductions were made, the future father and son had embraced, and explanations were given. Where lovers are involved, of course, explanations can be brief or detailed, but as long as they end correctly, everyone is happy.
And of course, he was. Pierre tightened his grip on the hand of the woman he loved, body and soul, and she laughed as he stumbled once more on a stone.
“I am starting to think that you are only holding onto my hand because you are afeared of falling!” She giggled. “You must learn to walk on stones, Pierre.”
They were walking along the beach as the sun set: any chance to be alone together, despite his new father-in-law’s kindness.
“These stones, they move too much,” Pierre said nonchalantly. “It is easier for me to cling to you, ma cherie, and I think I will do that for the rest of my days.”
He saw the joy that his words gave her in the brightening of her eye and the pink of her cheek, and it stirred something in him that he had never experienced before meeting Helena: a sort of protectiveness that was intermingled with fierce longing, and a desperation to keep her safe.
And to take off every single piece of clothing that she had on.
Pierre swallowed. Perhaps he should be ignoring that particular instinct.
She stopped, and rather than attempt to go on without her steadying arm, Pierre stopped alongside her. They looked out at the sunshine together, and Pierre sighed.
“You know,” he whispered, “I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life watching the sun go down with you.”
Helena laughed, and it made his heart sing to hear her so happy. “We only have forty-two more sunsets until we can watch one as husband and wife.”
“Husband and wife.” Pierre tried out the phrase on his own tongue. “I quite like that idea. I suppose there is no chance that it could be twenty-two more sunsets – or two?”
She laughed again, turning to face him as the glowing embers of the sun made her earrings sparkle. “Eager, are we?”
Pierre clasped her to him, and kissed her. He had intended it to be a light, brushing kiss, but any opportunity to lose himself in her was one to be taken, and it was a full minute before he released her.
“Very eager,” he said in a jagged voice. “Perhaps we should inspect the boat – we never did earlier, you know.”
He saw the passion, the desire in her eyes, and he tried not to lose all control over his body.
“You know that we cannot,” she whispered, “even if – despite my own wishes. My Father is expecting us back at any moment.”
Pierre groaned, but released her from his grasp, keeping a hold on her hand as they turned and started to walk back the way they had come along the beach.
They had not walked another ten yards when Helena pointed at something out in the ocean. “What is that?”
Pierre glanced over, but could see nothing. “What?”
“That,” repeated Helena, “there, just below the horizon.”
No matter how hard he strained, he could see nothing, and said so. “There is nothing there that I can see.”
Helena had stopped walking now and was squinting out to sea. “It looks…it looks like a woman.”
“In the ocean?” Pierre said hastily, now looking himself and shading his eyes in an attempt to see more clearly.
Helena tilted her head, and then shook it. “It must just be a trick of the light; it does that sometimes, when the sun is setting. It is simply not possible to have a woman out there.”
They continued walking when a thought came into Pierre’s head, and he laughed. Helena smiled enquiringly, and he shook his head.
“I was just thinking,” he said with a smile, “that I must be careful. If it was a man in the water, I must hope that he is not shipwrecked – or my dear Helena may fall in love with him!”
They laughed together, and Pierre was almost relieved to hear her giggles. Though he had jested, it was a relief to see just how ridiculous she found that idea.
“Come here,” she said softly.
Pierre gave himself up to her tantalising kiss, and almost groaned audibly when it ended.
“Now you listen to me, Pierre d'épilucon,” Helena said quietly, resting her forehead on his own as he looked down at her.
Their hands were intertwined, and he could feel the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed heavily.
“All you need to know is this: my shipwrecked suitor is standing right before me, and in forty-two days, I will be his wife.”
Wondering who is in the water? Discover the next Ravishing Regencies boxset 4-6 here…