Clara turned to him again. “What will we do now?”
“I’ve made arrangements for us to leave tomorrow afternoon. I’ve sent word to a cousin who lives near Brixham. We can lodge with him for a few days. I’ve also directed Alexander’s solicitor to look into matters again, especially pertaining to the debts your father has incurred. Perhaps we might still come to an agreement with Fairfax.”
As much as he wanted to believe his own statement, the words rang hollow.
“He’s poisoned my son against me,” Clara said.
“What?”
“My father.” Her jaw tightened, a pulse thudding along the delicate column of her neck. “He must have said something to Andrew about my being responsible for Richard’s death. It’s the only explanation I can think of as to why Andrew doesn’t want to be near me.”
Before Sebastian could respond, Andrew approached, his gaze darting to Clara. Wariness flashed in his blue eyes. He paused uncertainly near Sebastian. Though Clara smiled at the boy, Sebastian felt her close in on herself, felt a strain arcing between mother and son. She stepped away from them.
“I’ll…I’ll leave you both to your sport, then. Tea will be ready in an hour, if you’d care to join me.”
“Of course.” Sebastian watched her return to the house, her steps measured and stiff.
Andrew tugged on his sleeve and held up the balloon. Sebastian took it, wanting again that feeling of blithe freedom to conquer his foreboding.
“Let’s try it again, shall we?”
C
lara sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the blanket over Andrew’s legs. He held an open book on his lap, his chestnut hair falling in a swath across his forehead as he examined an illustration of a knight on horseback. Clara curled her fingers into a fist, suppressing the urge to reach out and stroke the lock of hair back.
“Do you still like the King Arthur tales?” she asked, desperate for any topic that would reconnect her with her son. “I remember we read them often when we were at Manley Park.”
Andrew nodded and turned a page. Clara placed a tentative hand on his leg, and experienced a rush of relief when he didn’t pull away from her touch.
“Andrew.”
He glanced up.
“Whatever…” Her voice tangled into a knot. She took a breath. “Whatever your grandfather has said about me, it’s not true. Do you understand?”
Andrew returned his attention to the book. Clara’s hand tightened on the bedcovers.
“I never wanted your father to be hurt. I never wanted to leave you. And I certainly never wanted to give you up to the custody of your grandfather. Will you please believe me?”
He didn’t look at her, but gave a nod so slight that Clara might have missed it had she not been gazing at him so intently. She patted his leg and stood. A small reassurance was better than none at all. She bent to kiss his forehead and whisper good night, then returned to her own bedchamber down the corridor.
While she was glad to her bones that Sebastian and Andrew had developed a quick and strong friendship, Clara could not dispel her pervasive sorrow that Andrew had become so unreachable to her.
She stripped out of her clothes and washed, then unpinned her hair and brushed out the tangles. She crawled into bed with a book of poetry. The words dipped and swam before her unfocused eyes.
Weary, she set the book aside. She hadn’t slept well since the confrontation with Fairfax, her thoughts a confusion of memories and fear. Now a vast, black void had opened inside her heart. The lamp on her bedside table flickered, shadows twisting across the ceiling.
The fear that had lived inside her for so long, the despair she had believed would vanish like a puff of smoke the instant she held Andrew in her arms again…it was still there. Slithering into her blood, coiling in the pit of her belly.
Would she never be free of it? And now that Sebastian was inextricably tangled in their circumstances…God alone knew what the future held.
She pushed the covers aside and tugged on her dressing gown, then padded down the corridor to his room. She knocked and pushed the door open when he bade her enter.
He sat beside the fire, still clothed in trousers and a white linen shirt, his long legs stretched out before him. A tingle swept down Clara’s spine at the sight of him—the reddish glow burnishing his dark hair, the V of skin revealed by the unfastened buttons of his shirt, the rough whiskers covering his jaw.
“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.
“Yes.” His gaze moved over her, a long slow sweep like the glide of his fingertips. “You’ve disturbed me since I first saw you carrying Millicent’s head.”
Clara smiled faintly at the memory. She approached him with caution, but there was nothing forbidding in his expression. She lowered herself into the chair across from him, glancing at the paper he held. The penmanship was scrawled, uneven.
“Is that to your brother’s solicitor?” she asked.
“Yes.” Sebastian set the paper and pen on a small table. “He’ll likely feel obliged to explain the situation to Alexander, but my hope is that things will be settled by then.”
Clara hoped so too, though she had no idea how. Perhaps a different solicitor could offer a solution. She nibbled on her thumbnail and stared at the leaping flames of the fire.
“Will you not dissolve our marriage?” she asked, her voice steady but quiet. She could not bring herself to utter the words
divorce me
.
“No.” Sebastian’s hand curled into the material of his trousers. “I told you when we first agreed to wed that I would not tolerate even the possibility of separation.”
“But surely that would be less troublesome for you than having to contend with our current situation.”
“No. There will not be another divorce in my family.”
Clara kept her attention on the fire. All that had occurred in the past week had forged a question at the back of her mind, one she had struggled to ignore because she was afraid of Sebastian’s answer. Yet now she forced herself to voice it.
“Do you regret it, then?” she asked. “Agreeing to my proposal? I fear the cost to you has been far greater than you anticipated.”
He didn’t deny it.
Her heart tightened. She felt his gaze on her, but could not face him.
“No,” he said. “I do not regret our marriage.”
She looked at him. A deep and abiding love swelled beneath her heart. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling as if her body could not contain all she felt for him.
“I’m so sorry for what I did,” she whispered. “Please know it wasn’t because I don’t love you. I have loved you for years.” She rose, hesitant, and went to lower herself into his lap, willing him not to reject her.
He didn’t. She tucked herself against him. The heat of his long, muscular body eased the tension from her, like steam smoothing wrinkles from a swath of silk. He lifted his left hand to touch her neck, resting his fingertips in the hollow of her collarbone. Warmth brewed in his eyes behind a shield of guardedness.
“I am no longer the man you once loved,” he said.
“Yes, you are.” She spread her hand over his chest. “People don’t transform completely into someone different. We change, yes, but we remain the same at our very core. You lost the use of your hand, Sebastian. You didn’t lose your talent or your kindness. You didn’t lose your love of life.”
“If that is true”—he tucked his hand beneath her chin and turned her face to his—“what about you?”
“Me?”
“Are you also the same as you once were? During those Wakefield House days when you were happy and filled with hope?”
A warm glow filled Clara’s chest as she looked into her husband’s beautiful dark eyes. “With you, yes,” she whispered. “I am.”
She imagined then what it might have been like had they met under different circumstances. If she had somehow already come to terms with her father and been living at Wakefield House with Andrew. She could have come to Sebastian free of desperate, calculated motives, compelled only by her love for him.
“I never meant for it to come to this,” she said.
“You meant to have Andrew again. That’s what it came to.”
“Will you forgive me for the price we paid?”
“Yes.”
The word flowered beneath Clara’s heart, though its brightness did not diminish her unease. He would forgive her because he was a good man who tried not to think ill of others, but he would not forget the fact that she had gone against his wishes. He would not forget that she had revealed his secrets to his father.
Her chest hurt. She pressed her forehead to his neck and closed her eyes. Sebastian cupped her chin and urged her to lift her head, his fingers strong and warm. How she loved his hands. The strong, gentle hands that had captivated her from the first moment he touched her. Their lips met in a gentle kiss before he curved her legs around him and rose, holding her against him as he moved to the bed.
The mattress dipped as he lowered her onto it and stretched out beside her, skimming his palm across the expanse of her shift. She reached for his right hand and brought it to her lips, brushing her mouth across the bent angle of his little finger. His eyes burned in the flare of the candlelight, his dark hair sweeping across his forehead as he moved closer.
Clara turned to him, an ache of longing swelling through her, and lifted her arms to allow him to divest her of her dressing gown and pull the shift over her head. She fumbled to remove his trousers, welcoming the shock of arousal that conquered her ever-present fear, like water crashing endlessly over a jagged stone.
He lowered his head to kiss her. Hard, his tongue sweeping into her mouth in a hot caress that tore a moan from her throat. Her head fell back, her mouth opening and body yielding to him all over again. He nipped at her lower lip with his teeth, the slight twinge vibrating across her skin. His tongue tangled with hers, slid over the surface of her teeth, his lips demanding a response that she could give only to him.
Soon, too soon, he lifted his head. He stared at her, then placed his hand between her breasts. Her heartbeat thundered against his palm. His fingers trembled. He leaned in close again, his breath hot against her ear.
“Touch me,” he whispered.
Clara’s breath caught as she grasped his smooth, hard shaft. He pulsed against her hand, driving her arousal higher. His breath burned against her neck. He palmed her breasts, watched the peaks harden beneath his touch, then smoothed his warm hands over her belly to the apex of her thighs.
He moved lower, his body taut, coiled tight. Clara’s heart began to pound slow and hard, her lips parting on an indrawn breath as he pushed his hands between her legs and spread her open. She fisted the bed linens in her hands, pushing aside the instinctive urge to close herself. She had long passed the point of being able to hide. She would forever be stripped bare for him, only him.
Her hips twitched upward. He rose to his knees and pushed his trousers to the floor. Lust pitched and rolled through her, and she arched herself toward him in silent entreaty.
He positioned himself at the entrance to her body and thrust into her once, heavy and fast. She gasped, lifting her arms to wrap them around his shoulders, stroking one hand through his thick hair. He lowered himself on top of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and locking their bodies together. Slowly, he increased the pace of his plunging, the slick glide filling her repeatedly, and Clara came apart like a bursting star, her hands gripping his back and her body undulating with trembles.
He grasped her right wrist, pinning her hand against the bed. He thrust again, and again, before spilling into her with a low groan that shuddered through her blood. For a moment, he was still.
Breathless, Clara opened her eyes. He was watching her, a sheen of sweat on his face and neck, the carnal satisfaction fading from his expression. She stroked a hand over his jaw, her gaze tracing the sharp planes of his cheekbones that sloped down to his beautiful mouth. His thick-lashed eyes, the color of burned honey in the firelight, gleamed with warmth.
I love him
. She knew that to the depths of her being. A braid of fear and pleasure spiraled through her. She stroked his lower lip with her thumb.
Over the past weeks, she had overcome her fear and plunged forward with reckless and daring steps to ensure Andrew’s return to her. She had proposed marriage, conceived a calculated agreement, tried to bargain with her father, lied to her husband, plotted the abduction of her son. Yet it had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to tell Sebastian she loved him.
“What’s so amusing?” Sebastian asked.
Clara realized she was smiling. She’d had no idea that loving him could be both the most daunting and exhilarating thing of all. “I love you.”
Wary hope flashed in his eyes. Before he could respond, Clara shook her head to forestall him.
“I was so frightened after Richard died,” she said, her gaze on his mouth as she continued stroking his lower lip, “and then when my father made his accusations and forced me leave Andrew. For the past year, I’ve lived with fear as my sole companion. And yet I’ve realized that the only times I
haven’t
been afraid, I’ve been with you.”
For a long, stretched moment he just looked at her, then he took her hand in his. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. And you’re the only one who has ever challenged my own courage.”
“Because I know who you are. I know what you are capable of. I do still love the man you once were, Sebastian. I’ve loved that man for years. He’s the brilliant, charming musician who showed everyone, including me, how to find pleasure in life.”
She lifted herself onto her elbow, sliding her hand down his neck to his bare chest. “But the man you are now, the man I love with everything I am, is the man I
know
. I know the shadows and light that color your heart because I feel them too. You are the man who has proven that goodness and hope still exist, even in the face of despair. You are the man I love.”
A shuddering breath escaped him. Clara’s heart thumped hard in the wake of her admission, fear of his rejection rising to the surface. But no. Confirming what she had always believed about him, Sebastian turned to brush his lips across her forehead, down the slope of her cheek to her lips.
And then he kissed her, locking their mouths together in an affirmation of their inseverable union.
Two movements linked together. Sebastian studied the sheet of music and tightened his hand around the pencil. Starting with the woodwinds, then the full orchestra building into a crescendo in preparation for the piano’s entry. A stack of fourths. E, A, D, G. Blue, white, yellow, brown. He scribbled the notes and played them with his left hand.
Anticipation flared in his blood. Caution, too, for he didn’t quite dare to believe that a one-handed piano part would be any good, much less please an audience. His right hand had always been dominant, its dexterity concealing whatever imperfections lay within the composition. Focusing on his left hand required a perfection of musical balances and dynamic gradations, allowing no room for inadequacy.
He played the notes again. The dark orange bass of the orchestra resounded through his mind. Then the cadenza. He wrote another measure, trying to make his way a few more steps to the end, gritting his teeth when his hand faltered and the pencil dropped to the floor.
Before he could bend to retrieve it, Clara stepped forward. Sebastian straightened, not having known she was in the room. Apprehension tightened his spine.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.