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“I know a child may come of it.” He raised his eyes to hers. “I want to be with you all the same.”

She searched his face. The fear in him had not vanished; she could feel it in the tautness of his shoulders and the shallow catch of his breath. He waited without drawing her nearer, giving her time to weigh his answer as carefully as she had asked the question. At last, she took her hand from his mouth and laid it against his cheek.

“Then let us both be certain that is what we choose.”

“It is,” he said, and kissed her palm. “It is.”

Then he kissed her mouth.

They left the bath together, streaming water across the floor. He caught up the towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, holding her inside it as he kissed her. Water ran from her hair down their bodies; the room smelled of soap, steam, and the banked fire. She laughed into his mouth and let the towel fall. He laid her down with her wet hair spread across the pillow and came down over her. His hands were warm, though they trembled slightly, and his damp hair brushed her cheek as he kissed her mouth, her throat, and the hollow of her shoulder, slowly, as if he had all afternoon and meant to use every hour of it. She arched up against him and pulled him closer. Everything they had learned of each other in six nights came back at once, and it was not enough. Her hands moved over his back and down, learning the shape of him with no shyness left. His breath broke; he shuddered and said her name against her breast. She wanted more. She told him so. He laughed against her skin, unsteadily, and gave her what she asked for, until she was restless and aching under his hands and caught his face and drew him up to her.

When at last he came over her, he braced himself on his forearms to keep his weight from her and searched her face. . A bead of sweat slipped from his temple; she brushed it away with her thumb. His eyes closed at the tenderness of the gesture.

“If it hurts…” he began.

“I will tell you.”

Desire darkened his eyes, and she knew her own held the same. She drew him down until their foreheads touched. “I trust you,” she whispered. He entered her slowly, pausing to read each change in her face. Lydia held the nape of his neck, keeping him close. Their bodies met, and a shiver passed through them both.

At first, it did hurt, a little. Lydia told him. Tristan went still at once and waited, his face close to hers, every muscle held taut with the effort not to move before she was ready. He kissed her eyelids, her cheek, her mouth, and murmured to her. She kept her eyes on his as the sharpness eased and her body softened around him. She marveled at the unfamiliar fullness of him inside her. She drew a shaking breath and pulled him closer; he searched her face once more before he moved.

Warmth spread through her, strange and deeper than she had expected. She felt an aching tightness low in her belly and the tantalizing friction of his chest against her breasts. She kept her eyes on Tristan’s face and watched the strain there give way to wonder. His palm rested against her cheek; she covered it with her own.

He followed the rhythm she set. Lydia stopped trying to think her way through it. The bed shifted beneath them; candlelight moved over his shoulder; his breath brushed her cheek. She said his name, and he answered with hers. She found herself gasping, the sensations becoming harder to resist and impossible to arrest. She tightened her thighs around him and clasped his shoulders, urging him to go faster. Nothing seemed to matter in that moment other than the weight of his body on hers, the feeling of him inside her, his breath mingling with her own. She felt a burning heat rise through her as pleasure gathered within her and broke through in waves she couldn’t control. She held him close and cried out against his shoulder. He followed a moment later, gasping against her skin.

Afterward he lay with his face in her neck and his whole weight on her, and she did not want him to move. She stroked his back. His heart pounded against her breast. After a long time he lifted his head, and his eyes were wet.

“I did not hurt you?”

“No.” She touched his face. “No. You did not hurt me.”

He kissed her and rolled to his side and gathered her against him, and they lay tangled in the damp sheets while the fire burned down and the afternoon light went gold and then gray on the ceiling. Outside, the workmen unloaded the sound timber for her shelves, and a cart went away down the drive.

Much later, Lydia woke to find him sitting up beside her. One candle still burned. He was watching her hand where it lay on the coverlet, his own resting near it, not touching. She raised her head, and he turned at once.

“Have I hurt you?” he asked again.

“No. There was a little discomfort at first, but you were very gentle.” She studied his face. The candlelight showed it drawn and white. “Are you frightened now?”

He turned to the candle. “A little.”

She understood. He was thinking of what might come of this afternoon, and of what the coming months might bring. He was standing in the corridor again. She sat up and took his face in her hands, as she had when he’d told her his story.

“Come back,” she said. “Come back here, to me.”

He lay down beside her. She put her head on his shoulder and her hand on his heart and refused to make a test of his fear. His fear wasn’t proof he regretted what they shared. She could not expect him to enter this life without remembering the other one.

“It was not a mistake,” she said.

His arm tightened around her. For a long moment he said nothing.

“No,” he said at last, quietly, into her hair. “It was not a mistake.”

She rested against him until the candle guttered. When he moved to put it out, she let him go. He came back in the dark and found her hand himself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mrs. Hale had set out her best cups before they arrived. Lydia recognized the effort in the mismatched saucers and the folded cloth spread over the bench. She sat where her hostess asked, away from Tristan, and accepted tea strong enough to suggest the kettle had waited a long time.