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Tears pricked at her eyes. It was her turn to look away. “Tomorrow. This is going to hurt tomorrow, Henry.”

With his other hand he cupped her face, his thumb brushing her eyelashes. “I know,” he said. “You and I—it seems the world conspires against us, doesn’t it?”

Caroline scoffed. “An understatement if there ever was one.”

She looked up and met his gaze. He was still grinning, and that gaze—it was as full as she felt.

“I’ve waited for you,” he whispered. “And even if we were only together for a little while, it was worth every minute of the twelve years I waited.”

The lump in her throat was so enormous she could hardly breathe. “I’ve waited too, Henry.”

Again his grin smoothed into seriousness. “Promise me, Caroline, that you won’t wait anymore. That tomorrow you’ll start over.”

A beat. “But tonight?”

He dug his hand into the hair at the base of her skull. He looked down at her for a long moment, his pale eye swirling with emotion. “Tonight I want to be with you, Caroline. If you’ll have me.”

Tears burned against her closed eyelids. Tears of relief. “Yes,” she breathed.

And then Henry was curling his body around hers, pressing her back to the wall as his mouth came down on hers. His arm propped on the wall beside her head, he kissed her hard and well and sure. He surrounded her, his body, his scent, and she drank deeply, wrapping her hands around the nape of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair as she pulled him closer, closer; he was never close enough. Desire flooded her every vein and sinew, pulsing between her legs and in her chest. She wanted him, badly.

By now she knew his kiss, and he knew hers, and Caroline thought she could stand here, just like this, for hours, days even, and be kissed by Henry Beaton Lake. He took her bottom lip between his teeth, guiding her mouth against his own by holding her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She untied the ribbon of his queue, releasing his hair to fall over his shoulders and down his back. His unfashionably long, pale red hair. She’d miss it.

But she wouldn’t think about that now. If she had learned nothing else, Caroline understood that the bad—that tomorrow—would come anyway, whether or not she thought about it today, protected herself from it.

And so she wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t think at all; she would know, and touch, and lose herself in Henry, and this moment.

“Not here,” he whispered, trailing his lips down her throat. “Where can we go?”

“The folly, in the garden,” she said. “We’ve just got to get over the gate.”

Henry made quick work of that, hoisting Caroline up on his shoulders so she might climb to the other side. He followed, landing soundlessly on his feet.

She took his hand as she led him into the gardens.

*   *   *

P
eonies and wisteria perfumed the air; a bright moon shone down upon the garden folly, still and silent, its curious windows gleaming silver one way, blue another.

Caroline drew open the doors and led Henry inside. It smelled of wax, recently lit tapers; William must have come out earlier that evening to take some air. The light from the moon illuminated the folly just enough, outlining the wrinkled edges of the pillows in downy halos. It streamed through the high windows and caught the chiseled planes of Henry’s face.

He was looking at her, intently, intensely, so much so that she looked away. Her eyes burned with tears. Why was she crying? It made no sense. She didn’t want to cry, not here, not now, on their last night together.

He wiped away her tears with his thumbs, murmuring, “It’s all right, Caroline, it’s all right,” in her ear.

The murmur turned into a kiss. Henry held her by her face, she held on to him by his wrists, his lips setting fire to her skin.

They kissed for a long time, until Caroline’s lips were raw, and her desire soaring.

Her hands dove between the lapels of his coat, urging it over his shoulders. He took off her cloak; he trailed a hand down the back of her gown, unhooking each button slowly, carefully, her heart screaming to be released.

He undressed her like this: slowly, savoring every bit of lace, each embroidered eyelet.

But she—she undressed him quickly. He laughed at her impatience, and nicked her naked shoulder with his teeth.

Henry held her against him when they were at last done with one another’s clothes, his fingers trailing down the skin of her back as he kissed her collarbones and neck.

Head thrown back, Caroline allowed him to toss her onto the mountain of pillows, a small laugh of surprise escaping her lips. The pillows felt at once foreign and impossibly soft against her naked body; she sank into them, the heaviness of
her limbs a vibrant counterpoint to the liquid desire running just beneath her skin.

Henry fell onto his knees before her. He put his hands on her and parted her legs; his hair gleamed white in the light from the windows as it dipped between her thighs.

The breath caught in her throat as his hands slid up the inside of her thighs and his mouth met with her sex. A slow kiss, perfect, one that had her crying out, the muscles in her legs burning, tightening.

One kiss, and she was already on the edge, already gritting her teeth and closing her eyes and clenching the pillows in her hands.

Another kiss, and she came apart.

It was so immediate, it happened so quickly, Caroline felt as if she were flying. The fiery pulses overtook her,
poundpoundpound
, filling her heart and her ears, her hands tugging at Henry’s hair.

He was climbing over her, even as she gasped for air. He placed his forearms on either side of her head, brushing back the hair from her eyes. His belly pressed against hers, he was pushing her legs wider with his hips.

Henry took her moans of pleasure in his mouth, his lips wild now, and impatient.

She was still coming when he entered her. She couldn’t tell if the pain was good pain or bad, the intensity of it all. It had been so long—years—since she’d been with a man. Henry went slowly, kissing her as he slid inside her. The pain dissolved as he sank to the root, then vanished altogether. Pleasure, only pleasure now, and so very much of it.

He reached back and wrapped her trembling legs about his buttocks, thrusting deeply. The hardened points of his hips scraped against her belly; he was taking her nipples in his mouth, first one, then the other and back again.

Caroline closed her eyes, and surrendered.

She met him thrust for thrust, her body as eager to know as his. Oh, God, this was as lovely as she remembered. Better, now, because they knew each other, knew their bodies.

Henry moved onto his side, taking her with him. His thrusts became slower, luxurious. She could tell he was holding back. He didn’t want this to end.

She would not think about the end.

His hands moved over every inch of her skin, her sides and her back and the backs of her thighs. Caroline could not get enough of his enormous shoulders, the way his muscles moved beneath her touch.

Henry was on his knees now, keeping Caroline on her side as he pressed her legs together and drew them up by her chest, entering her this way. It felt different. It felt wonderful.

He had her breast in one hand; with the other he was touching the tip of her sex, urging her toward completion once more. She yielded to his touch, yielded to the rising wave when it hit her at last. She closed her eyes against the fullness she felt, the sense of wholeness.

Henry’s movements grew more urgent, and then he was pulling out of her, covering himself with his hand. Caroline watched his face tense, his eye squeezing shut. His lips were gathered in a white line; he breathed in short, hot spurts through his nose.

How different from last time—the first time—this care he took. How foolish they’d been then, and young, and lost in each other. Not that she wasn’t lost now.

She reached up and took his face in her hand. His eye opened. It was narrow with satiation, the green of his iris burning gold in the darkness. It was overwhelming, the intensity of being looked at like this, knowing she was the spark that had lit this man on fire.

Inside her chest her heart felt swollen, and strangely quiet. As if, in this moment, the eye of the storm, it was content.

Henry ducked his head, pressing a kiss into her palm, and then he fell onto his back and reached for his shirt, tidying himself up.

When he was done he propped himself up on his elbow, guiding Caroline onto her back beside him. He ran his fingers in slow, lazy circles across her belly. The tenderness of his gesture made her heart swell.

“Elizabeth,” she said. “I named our daughter Elizabeth.”

She watched the working of his throat as he swallowed. “After Gloriana?”

“Yes.” Caroline took his wandering hand in her own and
held it against her skin. “It was the red hair—I’d like to think she would’ve been a feisty one, like you, and the queen.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, trying out the word. “It’s lovely.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you like it. When I was pregnant, I would visit Kew often—it was the only time Osbourne and I stayed in London—and I thought often about Queen Elizabeth, and Dudley, and you and me.”

He met her eyes. His somehow managed to be soft and hard all at once. Hard, as if he was struggling to hold something in. Soft, as if that something was a great sadness that threatened to overwhelm the levee inside him.

Caroline smiled, brushing her nose against his chest. She inhaled, closing her eyes. This scent—his scent, male, skin, soap—God, how she would miss it.

As if reading her thoughts, Henry pulled her to him, surrounding her with his warmth. She melted against his skin, burrowing into the place between his arm and torso, his hand splayed across the small of her back, protectively.

Together they were still.

She didn’t fall asleep, not exactly. Instead she floated in the comfortable darkness behind her closed lids. Time could pass slowly, quickly, not at all; she was in Henry’s arms, that was all she knew, and in those minutes, that was all she needed.

Forty-two

“I
don’t want to go,” Henry whispered, sometime later.

“Stay, just a little longer,” Caroline replied, her breath a warm rush against his skin.

He pulled her closer. How many hours did they have left? he wondered. These moments—they would be the ones he’d remember, when he was back in Paris, alone.

Henry supposed he should be grateful he had new memories, memories of caresses, things said and done. Leaving her the first time had been excruciating. Leaving her again—God, but he couldn’t breathe.

At last the darkness burned to gray. He hadn’t slept; Caroline had been equally restless until she finally fell asleep some time ago, her breathing deep and even.

The good-bye would be too much to bear, and awkward besides. What could he say to her, that he hadn’t already said? She never told him she loved him—had never spoken it aloud, anyway—and he did not wish to force a confession, or pester her once more with his own. Would they embrace, meet eyes, murmur wishes of luck and fortune and peace?

It would be a lie. There would be no peace for either of them; they both knew that.

Carefully he untangled her limbs from his own, and settled her comfortably in a nest of embroidered pillows. He tucked her gown about her torso and legs—wouldn’t do to have Mr. McCartney discover her naked as the day she was born—and smoothed the hair from her face. His fingers lingered on her cheeks, indulging one last time in the softness of her skin.

She was so beautiful.

His hand fell. He slipped off the edge of the sofa.

With a wince, Henry pulled his breeches over his hips. Despite drinking deeply of Caroline’s body, it seemed his own lusted for more; he was hard as a rock, his erection straining painfully against the fall of his breeches as he worked to button them.

He ducked into his shirt, waistcoat, boots—damn it, why were his hands shaking?

He made for the door. The sun was rising now, burning away the gray. At the threshold, he paused, glancing one last time over his shoulder. The light caught on Caroline’s dark eyelashes; a stab of longing left him breathless.

He had to leave. They couldn’t be together. Had the twelve years he’d spent away from her taught him nothing? Caroline deserved better than the violent, peripatetic life he’d chosen. She craved solitude, and stability, above all else.

Henry had to leave.

One foot in front of the other
.

He gritted his teeth and did as his will bade him, heart clenching as he stalked across the grounds. He glanced at the gardens as he passed.

The peonies Henry and Caroline planted together were in full bloom, the dusky pink flowers so heavy, their stems bowed out onto the path.

Henry looked away, the flowers’ earthy scent filling his head, and made for the street.

Forty-three