“You can even think to ask? My shoulder is fine, I believe, but as I am floating a small distance above this bed, I will have to let you know when I am reunited with it.”
“You are pleased?” he asked, lacing his fingers with hers. “This is what you wanted?”
“This is what I needed,” she said softly as he began to move in her again carefully. “This is what I sorely, sorely needed.”
“Anna… When you leave tomorrow…?”
“Yes?” She closed her eyes, making it harder to read her. He laid his cheek against hers and closed his fingers around hers, needing as much contact as he could have.
“When you leave tomorrow and I am not there, this will be part of it,” he said, turning his face to kiss her cheek then resting his cheek against hers again.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I will be thinking of you,” he said, “and you will be thinking of me and of this pleasure we shared. It’s…good is the only word I can find. Joyous, lovely, beautiful, somehow, even if it can’t be more than it is. I wanted you to know how I feel.”
“Oh, you.” Anna curled up to his chest tears flowing. “Gayle Tristan Montmorency Windham. Shame on you; you have made me cry with your poetry.”
He kissed her tears away this time and made her forget her sorrows—almost—with his loving, until she was crying out her pleasure again and again. He let himself join her the last time, his own climax exploding through him, leaving him floating that same small distance above the bed, until sleep began to steal his awareness.
He tended to their ablutions then stood gazing down at Anna where she dozed naked on her left side. It was time to go, he knew, but still, dawn was hours away.
“Don’t go.” Anna opened her eyes and met his gaze. “We will be parted for a long time, Westhaven. Let us remain joined just a little while longer.”
He nodded and climbed into bed, spooning himself around her back and tucking an arm around her waist. This night’s work was pure, selfish folly, but he’d treasure the memory, and he hoped she would, as well.
He made love to her one more time—sweetly, slowly, just before dawn, and then he was gone.
Anna slept late the next morning and considered it a mercy, as the earl had told her he was off to Willow Bend for the day. Val and Dev had ridden out, and so she had breakfast to herself. Her shoulder was itchy, and it took her longer to pack than she’d thought it would, but before long, she was being summoned for luncheon on the back patio.
“You look healthy,” Dev said. “If I did not know you were sporting the remains of a bullet wound, I would think you in the pink.”
“Thank you.” Anna smiled. “I slept well last night.” For the first time in weeks, she truly had.
“Well”—Val sat down and reached for the iced lemonade pitcher—“I did not sleep well. We need another thunderstorm.”
“I wonder.” Anna’s eyes met Val’s. “Does Morgan still dread the thunderstorms?”
“She does,” he replied, sitting back. “She figured out that the day your parents died, when she was trapped in the buggy accident, it stormed the entire afternoon. Her associations are still quite troubling, but her ears don’t physically hurt.” Dev and Anna exchanged a look of surprise, but Val was tucking into his steak.
Dev turned his attention back to his plate. “Anna, are you ready to remove to the ducal mansion?”
“As ready as I’ll be,” Anna replied, her steak suddenly losing its appeal.
“Would you like me to cut that for you?” Dev asked, nodding at the meat on her plate. “I’ve pulled a shoulder now and then or landed funny from a frisky horse, and I know the oddest things can be uncomfortable.”
“I just haven’t entirely regained my appetite,” Anna lied, eyeing the steak dubiously. “And I find I am tired, so perhaps you gentleman will excuse me while I catch a nap before we go?”
She was gone before they were on their feet, leaving Dev and Val both frowning.
“We offered to assist him in any way,” Dev said, picking up his glass. “I think this goes beyond even fraternal devotion.”
“He’s doing what he thinks is right,” Val responded. “I have had quite enough of my front-row seat, Dev. Tragedy has never been my cup of tea.”
“Nor farce mine.”
She didn’t see him for a week.
The time was spent dozing, trying on the new dresses that had arrived from the dressmaker’s, getting to know the duke’s daughters, and being reunited with her grandmother. That worthy dame was in much better form than Anna would have guessed, much to her relief.
“It took a good year,” Grandmama reported, “but the effects of my apoplexy greatly diminished after that. Still, it did not serve to let Helmsley know I was so much better. He wasn’t one to let me off the estate, but I was able to correspond, as you know.”
“Thank God for loyal innkeepers.”
“And thank God for young earls,” Grandmother said. “That traveling coach was the grandest thing, Anna. So when can I meet your young man?”
“He isn’t my young man.” Anna shook her head, rose, and found something fascinating to stare at out the window. “He was my employer, and he is a gentleman, so he and his brothers came to my aid.”
“Fine-looking fellow,” Grandmama remarked innocently.
“You’ve met him?”
“Morgan and I ran into him and his younger brother when she took me to the park yesterday. Couple of handsome devils. In my day, bucks like that would have been brought to heel.”
“This isn’t your day”—Anna smiled—“but as you are widowed, you shouldn’t feel compelled to exercise restraint on my behalf.”
“Your dear grandfather gave me permission to remarry, you know.” Grandmother peered at a tray of sweets as she spoke. “At the time, I told him I could never love another, and I won’t—not in the way I loved him.”
“But?” Anna turned curious eyes on her grandmother and waited.
“But he knew me better than I know myself. Life is short, Anna James, but it can be long and short at the same time if you’re lonely. I think that was part of your brother’s problem.”
“What do you mean?” Anna asked, not wanting to point out the premature use of the past tense.
“He was too alone up there in Yorkshire.” Grandmother bit into a chocolate. “The only boy, then being raised by an old man, too isolated. There’s a reason boys are sent off to school at a young age. Put all those barbarians together, and they somehow civilize each other.”
“Westhaven wasn’t sent to school until he was fourteen,” Anna said. “He is quite civilized, as are his brothers.”
“Civilized, handsome, well heeled, titled.” Grandmother looked up from the tray of sweets. “What on earth is not to like?”
Anna crossed the room. “What if I said I did like him, and he and I were to settle here, two hundred miles from you and Rosecroft? When would you see your great-grandbabies? When would you make this journey again, as we haven’t a ducal carriage for you to travel in?”
“My dear girl.” Her grandmother peered up at her. “Yorkshire is cold, bleak, and lonely much of the year. It is a foolish place to try to grow flowers, and were it not the family seat, your grandfather and I would have removed to Devon long ago. Now, have a sweet, as your disposition is in want of same.”
She picked out a little piece of marzipan shaped like a melon and smiled encouragingly at her granddaughter. Anna stared at the piece of candy, burst into tears, and ran from the room.
“Anna.” Westhaven took both her hands and bent to kiss her cheek. “How do you fare? You look well, if a bit tired.”