21. A Gift, a Kiss, Betrayal #2
“I really am grateful.” She fidgeted with one fingertip of her glove. “I had quite forgotten the shop what with everything else.” That helped her identify a note: guilt. The shop was her life, her purpose. It was who she was. It was Lady Guinevere.
But living in Mayfair, teaching the ladies, sleeping every night with the duke, she’d begun to feel more like the Duchess of Braxton than Lady Guinevere.
She woke up every morning eager first to see what pleasures Bran’s body could give her, then wind her way down to the conservatory to work in peace until Bran slipped in to ask her some question or escort her somewhere.
Dinner together in the pale yellow cast of evening candlelight, then back to bed, where her husband exhausted himself to please her.
The plain truth—she was pleased. With him. With this quieter, purposeful life. She’d found a little heaven outside her shop and found a little hidden corner of herself, too, one she’d buried long ago with her love, her first husband, her hopes.
Bran cleared his throat. “You do not have to remain in London if you do not want to. You can go anywhere, be anyone. I’m only trying to make up for my wrongs.”
In the shadows, he seemed almost to disappear, to become a part of the night, and that made her heart ache.
She liked him solid and gruff and so close she could touch him any time she wanted.
In all her years alone, there had been no one to touch.
No hugs from the cook or housekeeper. Only Tommy had dared, furtively and sparsely before he’d died, and she’d married Handsford, and he hadn’t wanted to touch her either.
He’d patted her head or hand and left her to read his books.
And when she’d cried at night, she’d done so into the embrace of her own arms.
Lady Guinevere—she’d been alone, too, even with a shop brimming with employees and customers. She couldn’t touch them, and they couldn’t touch her, and her personal guard—well she knew better. So she’d folded herself into her own arms again and again and told herself it was better that way.
Now she knew better, knew not being touched was a kind of little death.
Bran’s touch was a miracle, her first gulp of air after existence at the bottom of a touchless, soundless sea.
She moved across the gulf of space between them, lifted her skirts and straddled Bran, laying her head on his shoulder as his arms came around her, making her feel small and safe.
This—having the right to touch, to be touched, over and over again, knowing that if she reached out, Bran would always reach out too, save her, pleasure her, challenge her, tease her…
It was too much emotion all at once. She couldn’t limit it or shape it or ignore it, couldn’t tame it or even name it. Didn’t want to. Not yet.
So she lifted her head and cupped his face.
And she kissed him.
He tightened his hands on her—claiming, branding, lovely forever touches she wanted to keep. Then, like a starving man, he kissed her back, and the ferocity of his want, the deepness of it, set her body aflame.
His hand was beneath her skirts, gripping her thigh just above the dagger she strapped there, climbing higher, finding the pulse between her legs and caressing it into a frenzy.
She dropped her head back, the pleasure rocking through her like pain, but he caught her head with his other hand and returned her mouth to his.
She felt empty without him, and she fumbled at his fall, tearing at the buttons, grasping for his shaft as it sprang free.
Then she lifted and slid down on top of him.
He gripped her hair at her nape and moaned her name against her lips.
Light flashed in and out of the coach as they rode along a row of streetlamps.
His face flickered golden in the light, pale in the shadows, and his visage flashed back and forth—Braxton, Bran, Braxton Bran. Two men. The same man. Light and dark, glowing and hidden, a leader and a shadow.
His eyes golden then green but always begging for something she couldn’t give him.
“I know you cannot forgive me,” he rasped, still holding her tight as she rode him, his face taut with pleasure, “but let me be with you anyway. I’ll kill Braxton.
” They passed a fairy orb, and Braxton flashed onto his face.
“I’ll free you. You can do whatever you want, only let me follow you. ”
She could do that. She could. They would solve the curse and please the queen, and she would be free. She could do anything with that freedom.
Even, in that fantasy place where death and curses couldn’t reach, love.
They slipped out of the light and into the shadows, and Bran appeared again. She set her forehead to his as her climax ripped through her, then he lost control, too, and screamed her name, held her tight as their hearts beat so quickly, she couldn’t count them.
The streetlamps outside the carriage had disappeared, drenching them in darkness. But darkness had a solid form now, a familiar one. It had a name, too.
“Bran,” she whispered, the single syllable full of longing.
She can’t have done it again. Foolish heart, why had it ruined everything again?
He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her neck, everywhere he could reach, and she cried, hoping he could not see, knowing he could because he kissed her tears, too.
A gunshot ripped them apart. The horses cried out.
The coach shook, and Bran hid her from the window with his body as he looked out into the night.
Their coachman demanded, his voice echoing across the empty streets, “Who goes there?”
Laughter from the shadows beyond the door. “Give us the duchess, and we’ll let you go.”
Bran growled and leapt into the darkness.