Chapter 17
After Kerr coaxed two more expressions of love from Andromena’s responsive body, sleep claimed her. He did not ask for release, nor did he demand or expect it. He was hard as hell and wanted it badly, but the minute she let out her first soft snore, he couldn’t bring himself to wake her.
With everything that had come to pass this day: their clash at the Aragon ball, her solitary flight from London in the middle of the night, and the moment she’d nearly shot him, the last thing she needed was him, stinking of horse and sweat, making love to her.
For the first time in his debauched life, Kerr didn’t put his pleasure first. Her pleasure—learning her body, discovering what she yearned for, and coaxing her to voice it—was all that drove him.
No. When he made love to her for the first time, it would be as his wife, Lady Andromena Hollis, Viscountess Kerr.
His days as a scoundrel went up in flame at the thought of having her bound to him: in name, body, and in every way, there was for a man and woman to join.
That idea sent even more blood rushing to his cock.
Breathing heavily, Kerr squeezed his eyes shut.
He stroked himself, thinking of her and the sounds she made at the moment she reached her peak.
I love you, Edgar…
The memory of her utterance pushed him over the edge. With a sharp breath, he found his release over the side of the bed. With a wry shake of his head, he looked around. Snatching a small folded kerchief from the nightstand, he wiped himself clean before tossing the rag aside.
Fisted himself to completion like some green lad was a first for him.
That was the power of love, after all. It turned proud men weak and kings into beggars. But he did not feel either weak nor meek; he felt greater than he ever had, filled with a sharp clarity because of her.
While Andromena rested, Kerr returned to her side, and, with his head propped on his hand, he watched her for hours.
The spirited beauty slept with the same wild energy she lived her life. She flung her graceful arms and supple limbs all over the bed and over him. She pivoted until her toes nearly touched the headboard. Her restless body stretched as if even in rest, she could not be contained.
Unlike the bright of day, when her bell-like voice and laugh rang clear, at rest her ramblings came so breathy and low he had to lean in to hear her; as they did now. “…bow…for…”
Kerr stroked the delicate expanse of her back… “What was that you said, love? Bow…fur?”
Little creases popped up on her brow. She whisper-sighed several more times and flipped onto her back.
Kerr played the same game he had since he first heard her incoherent rambling in her sleep. He would never grow tired of it. He could never grow tired of any of her bewitching quirks.
“…for…bow…”
“I have it. You are saying bower and forest.” Kerr kissed those delicate frown lines. “Shame on me. With your love of the heath, that should have been my first guess.” Kerr placed his lips next to her ear. “I will have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
In her soft slumber, a quiet sigh brushed the stillness.
Kerr touched the tiny uptilt of her nose. “Do you like the sound of that, love?”
A peaceful smile caressed her mouth.
The rest of his life…
Dropping a hand over the flat of his stomach, he directed his gaze at the canopy overhead.
Someone had attached strings to the oak spindles and hung small pictures from them.
In his mind, he saw Andromena stretched on tiptoes, alone in the pride of her work.
The shadowing and detail revealed hints of the artist the little girl would become—and she had.
Kerr wanted to climb back in time and shower her tender ears with the adulation she deserved.
His eyes snagged on a sketch Andromena had done of her cousin Captain McQuoid’s vessel.
He hadn’t ever thought about ‘the rest of his life’. Why should he, when his future haunted his mind?
Lads grew up. They inherited. They became their fathers.
For those reasons, Kerr hadn’t wanted to confront the future, and successfully avoided doing just that.
After university, he joined the navy. When war ended, there were more opportunities seaside. The ocean became his home, and the other lost souls, without families or ties to land, became his family.
He’d continued sailing—as if he could distance himself from a doomed fate. A fate that wasn’t even an absolute certainty.
Fear kept him away.
All the lost years with his mother and Greyhold’s father—a good man, who’d treated Kerr as his own. And Kerr’s father.
Kerr spent his life hating, fearing, and feeling embarrassed by his father.
Fear was justifiable; any child experiencing those violent outbursts would shrink—and he had.
Any man facing the same fate as the late viscount would have done the same.
But there was no room for Kerr’s other emotions: shame, annoyance, and disgust.
“…Your father was sick. The sick deserve compassion….”
A vice squeezed tight around his heart.
Andromena stretched her slender arms, high above her head. “Mmm.”
“You were right about that, too, love,” he said thickly. He once thought himself worldly and wise, but this woman knew better, quietly exposing his ignorance and opening his eyes to what genuinely mattered.
The late viscount had deserved compassion.
If it hadn’t been for Andromena, Kerr would have never made that discovery. She had given him a future, and the greatest gift; she would share it with him.
A plaintive whimpering sent a shiver through him.
Andromena whipped her head toward him. “Mm. Noo.”
“Shh.” Kerr gently drew her slender frame against his side. His body responded as it did whenever she was near, but desire was second in this moment. She was first. “What are nightmares, love?” I’ll vanquish them and your foes.
Her breathing gradually evened, and Kerr remained close to her until he was certain she had fallen into a still sleep.
Only then did he get to his feet.
When he’d arrived last evening, finding Andromena had been his only goal; now, he did a sweep for provisions. The cottage held little, but what it did possess had clearly been chosen for necessity rather than comfort.
Kerr surveyed the kitchen, taking in the telling details: a wooden tub positioned alongside the hearth, and next to it, a counter holding an iron kettle and a single porcelain cup.
Heading over to the grate, he dropped to his haunches and held his palm near the pile of ash.
Unease stirred. Someone had been here. Regretfully, he put a greater sense of urgency into leaving.
After he coaxed those same embers to life, Kerr added wood, and set the kettle over the flames.
While it heated, Kerr took the buckets outside to fill them at the pond Andromena reverently spoke of.
Only after he returned from the stables, carrying her sack, did he find her, awake—and precisely where he wanted her. As Kerr drank in the sight of her, a fresh wave of hunger assailed him.
She haphazardly clutched the sheet to her chest, but it slid down to reveal the full creamy expanse of her breast. A bashful smile hovered about her mouth, bruised and swollen from his kiss.
“Good morning, Edgar.”
He took a steadying breath in. “Morning, love. Though it’s probably nearer afternoon.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Is it?”
“No. I was teasing.”
“I love when you tease me.” Another one of those enchanting smiles that knocked him upside down danced about her lips.
Something softened in his chest. “I’ll be sure to do it more.”
Her gaze moved from him to the tub, and then back again. “You did this for me?”
He could have handed her the Regent Diamond for that one sleepy, wondering breath. “It is a bath.” Kerr’s gaze locked with hers. “I will fetch you the sun that you so love.”
A tremulous smile brushed her lips. “Oh, Edgar. I don’t want anything from you. I want you.”
Andromena abandoned her coverlet.
His mouth went dry. A fresh jolt of lust hammered through him.
Bare and as beautiful as a goddess he had likened her to.
She rose in all her regal glory and moved with the same fluid grace.
As she stepped into the tub, the hard peaks of her breasts begged his attention—and he gave them their due.
His mouth dry, he followed her steps all the way.
After her bath—which Kerr watched with a throbbing cockstand—he dried every drop of water from her glistening skin.
He toweled her limbs. When finished, he gathered up the chemise and gown he found in one of the wardrobes and dressed her.
Never had he performed the role of lady’s maid.
That role had always been beneath him. The women he bedded, he conquered.
Not Andromena. This ebullient siren had seized him. He would give her his lungs if she asked.
For the first time in his grown life, he felt unsteady. Maybe that is why he grabbed her sack too fast, and wrong—he took it upside down. The contents tumbled out, hitting the floor with metallic clings and clattering.
Kerr stared in dumb disbelief at the treasures strewn about. This did not make sense. “How did…?”
He lifted his gaze to Andromena’s to see if she could make sense of it.
A chill went through him.
“Why do you have these?” his voice sounded weird to his own ears.
She mustn’t have heard him, because Kerr was forced to repeat himself. “Andromena?”
Pale as death, Andromena clutched at her throat.
He swiped the Greek honeybee necklace, the inspiration of her sketch that they had bonded over. Him, investigating and her cataloging. “What the hell is this?” When she still didn’t speak, he shook the piece furiously at her—ancient history be damned.
“The honeybee pen—”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” he thundered. Andromena pressed her hands over her face and cried out.
Her sorrow cut square through his heart that beat for her.
He had his answer. She took them.
Kerr’s arm fell to his side—but why?
“Andromena.”
Her eyes welled.
Curse her tears!
His chest burned.