Page 59 of A Landscape of Love

“The first time I spoke to you, I thought you looked like a water sprite, or maybe a fairy queen,” he admitted, reaching up and touching a finger to her hair. “Do you remember? You were walking in the early hours of the morning, the mist swirling around you, your hair all undone. I’d seen nothing so lovely in my life as you. I never dreamed you could ever be mine. You were as beautiful and untouchable as the moon.”

Fidelia sighed wistfully at the romantic description, which she suspected was far from reality, but only nodded. “I remember, though those days seem strange to me now, like a terrible dream. Did you really think that of me? I’m sure I must have been a fright, for I cared nothing about the way I looked.”

Hart reached for the pins securing her hair. Carefully, he removed them, uncoiling the thick tresses that she had fastened into a bun at her nape. They slid free over her shoulders and Hart’s breath hitched as he ran his fingers through it.

“So soft,” he murmured. “And yes, I really thought it. I thought ‘there was a woman a fellow could lose his wits over,’ and so I have.”

Before she could speak again, he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her so tenderly tears sprang to her eyes at the perfection of the moment. Hart pulled back, gazing down at her and Fidelia blinked, holding onto him tightly.

“Make me yours, then,” she whispered. “Make it so no one can ever take me from you.”

He didn’t speak, though he clearly had no argument with her demand, for his hands went to the buttons on her gown, making swift work of undoing the bodice. Fidelia held her breath as he stripped the layers away, her dress and petticoats, the corset and her drawers. Though her cheeks blazed, she was not so much embarrassed as alight with nervous anticipation.

Hart knelt to undo the laces of her boots and carefully removed them, setting them aside. Then his warm hands returned to her ankles, smoothing up her calf, her knee, to her thighs.

“Such lovely legs you have. Long and shapely, with pretty ankles.” He leaned in a pressed a kiss to her knee, glancing up at her. “I’m a lucky fellow and no mistake.”

She smiled at him, daring to reach out and stroke his hair, running her fingers through it. Hart closed his eyes, looking like some great feral cat. She half expected him to give a deep-throated purr.

“That’s nice,” he murmured, burying his face in the softness of her belly. He inhaled and then glanced up at her. “Violets again. I can never smell that scent without thinking of you. Not that you’re ever far from my thoughts.”

Fidelia blinked back tears and Hart’s expression became serious. He hurried to his feet and took her in his arms. “Now then, what’s this? Why are you crying? Did I do something wrong? Tell me, love.”

“Oh, n-no, as if you could. You… You’re simply wonderful, but… Hart, is it wicked of me to feel happiness when I still don’t have my son with me?” she asked, for it seemed a dreadful thing for her to act as though she were the luckiest woman alive when her boy was missing still.

“Fidelia, my little love,” he said gently. “Your father took your son from you. If you’d had the choice, you would not have been parted from him. You have suffered the misery of that cruelty for five long years. Don’t let your father have this moment, too. Your son will be restored to you soon, I give you my word, and he will be the most loved and cherished boy in the world. I have every reason to believe he is safe and well, but even if I’m wrong, my first years in the workhouse were misery, and yet I have never allowed those memories to stop me from finding happiness, from appreciating all the wonderful things that happened to me when my parents took me in. We will help your son to the same realisation, just as mine did for me. There is no guilt in being happy, darling. Not for you, not today.”

“Hart,” she said helplessly, clinging to him. “Oh, I do love you.”

“Show me, then,” he said, lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the bed. Carefully, he pulled back the covers and set her down on the mattress.

Fidelia wiped her eyes and settled back upon the pillows, trying to steady her breathing. She watched in fascination as Hart made quick work of stripping off his own clothes. The display did not help calm her overwrought emotions.

Though her tears ceased, her pulse ratcheted up a notch as he tugged his shirt over his head, exposing a heavily muscled chest and powerful arms that spoke of a life of hard manual work. Dark hair dusted his forearms and chest and her attention snagged on the line that ran down his abdomen, beneath the waistband of his trousers.

Mouth dry with anticipation, Fidelia could only stare as he cast the last of his clothes in a heap and moved towards the bed. He tugged the covers aside and slid beneath them, reaching for her at once. Fidelia gasped as his bare skin met hers, for he burned far hotter than she and it was akin to embracing a silken furnace, albeit a hairy one.

“You’re freezing,” he said, giving a yelp as she slid her cold feet down the back of his calf. “Christ! You’re like a little block of ice,” he added, laughing as she snuggled closer, trying to absorb his heat and entranced by the feel of his muscular body coiling around hers.

It was such a wonderful sensation she wondered how any married persons ever got out of bed in the morning. Assuming they were married to a man like hers, at any rate.

“You’d best warm me up, then,” she said, running her hands down his broad back and relishing the feeling of hard muscle shifting beneath her palms.

“I suppose I better had, before you freeze me to the marrow,” he replied, taking her hands and pressing them to the mattress. “Let’s see, does this get your blood moving?” he asked, before ducking his head and taking her nipple into his mouth, just as he had promised her he would.

Fidelia sighed, her eyes falling closed as sensations flooded her, the pull of his mouth on her breast somehow tugging at another even more sensitive place. Her skin tingled, her blood fizzing in her veins as his hands moved over her, a languid mapping of every inch of skin, every curve and furrow. “Oh, yes, it does,” she admitted, dazed with pleasure as his lips moved over her.

He made a muffled sound of amusement but carried on without comment, trailing a path down her body, punctuated with kisses and little touches of his tongue that made her shiver even though a fire burned deep inside her now, fanned by every touch of his hands and mouth. Fidelia gasped as he moved lower still, pushing her thighs wide and nuzzling at the tender skin on the inside of her thighs. His tongue trailed up the silken valley beside her sex as his fingers trailed lazily through the thatch of golden curls and Fidelia thought she might faint from the pleasure of it. She had believed the act of love must have more to it than she had experienced, or else why would lovers take such risks to be with each other? Instinct had told her that things would be different with a man like Hart, a man who was as far from selfish as it was possible to get, but she had not appreciated how different it could be, how very wonderful.

“Is this all right?” he asked her, his breath fluttering over that intimate part of her, cool against her overheated skin.

She tried to speak but only managed an odd squeaking sound, so she nodded instead, just to be certain he understood. Hart chuckled and lowered his head once more and Fidelia wondered if she would ever be able to speak again as his fingers parted the soft folds and his mouth closed over forbidden place concealed within.

The next moments disappeared in a haze of pleasure. Fidelia gave herself over to sensuality, too overcome by the feel of his mouth and tongue to comprehend precisely what he did, only knowing she was beyond the world, sent to another dimension where there was nothing but the sensations shuddering through her body, making her writhe and moan with such shameless enjoyment she knew it would shock her to her bones if she ever regained her wits. Though she could have remained in such a glorious state of debauchery for the rest of the night, her body had other ideas, her breathing becoming erratic as a fierce gathering in her blood pulled her attention inward, narrowing to a single point of contact as Hart pleasured her relentlessly. Fidelia gasped, holding her breath as some crisis approached, beckoning her on, and then she was falling, falling through stars and glittering darkness as waves of delight crashed over her, taking her farther into the strange world she had been delivered to, until she washed ashore once more, gasping and beyond words, blinking up at the ceiling above her and a little surprised to discover she was still in Hart’s bedroom and not some foreign far off destination.

Hart shifted up the bed and leaned on one arm, looking down at her with a look of quiet satisfaction glinting in his eyes.

“Oh,” Fidelia managed, still too breathless to speak. “Oh… Oh, my… and… and in broad daylight, too!”