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‘I hope you’ve not shown these to any other man?’ he said, adding a purse-lipped expression.

‘Not even my husband . . . not that he’d be interested. These, Captain Blake, are called “French knickers” and they’re divine to wear.’

He nodded, impressed at the silk and lace contrivance that felt near weightless in his hands. ‘I could wish I had a pair of my own.’

Her joyous giggle made him feel as though his cares and responsibilities were drifting, lifting off his shoulders to be frozen in time by the chill in the room.

‘Your turn,’ she urged.

He grinned, enjoying the carefree attitude that Alex had adopted since entering the cottage. ‘How long have we got?’ he asked, peeling off his own clothes as fast as he could.

‘Charlotte’s gone for the whole weekend.’

‘So we can stay the night?’

She shook her head. ‘Only in our dreams. No, darling Harry, we can have a few hours before I will need to return.’ She fell suddenly silent as she regarded him pulling off his vest. ‘Oh,’ she murmured sadly. ‘You were hurt?’

He tossed aside his vest, his hair dislodged and unruly as he remembered the scars. Harry kicked off the remaining item of clothing. ‘Few left the battlefields unscathed.’

‘Let me kiss those wounds,’ she offered. He stood naked before her and enjoyed the rush of colour to her cheeks as she let her unabashed gaze roam over him. Her voice sounded raspy when she spoke again. ‘You are ridiculously handsome, Harry. I think I’ll have to insist you abandon your bathing outfit and swim as natural as the day you were born from now on.’

‘Only in your presence,’ he said, lowering himself onto the bed as she pulled away the coverlets to greet him. He felt skin on skin, warmth like no other, and an experience he’d been denied for longer than he would admit to Alex. ‘I don’t think we can take this as slow as I’d like to,’ he admitted breathlessly.

She giggled again and he rolled on top of her, feeling all of her long, slim frame beneath him. He found the wherewithal to pause on his elbows so that he could hungrily absorb the sight of her, stroking away the dark wisps of hair. ‘Wherever our lives go after today, I want you to know this man loves you more in this moment than he has loved anyone or perhaps ever will. When I’m with you I’m lost in your . . . your . . . sexiness.’ He saw tears well and kissed her eyes, tasting her salty emotion. ‘Don’t cry. You needed to hear it. You need to know that you are immensely lovable, desirable and uplifting to be around. Your husband may be intelligent and talented and wealthy, but he’s a fool to not rush home to your bed every night.’

She kissed him with such tenderness it felt like they were already in the depths of a farewell. He wished they might never have to leave this cottage, this room.

‘I did need to hear that,’ she whispered.

‘Now I’m going to keep a promise.’

‘Which one is that?’ She sounded perplexed.

‘The one about kissing every inch of you, and I think I shall start right here,’ he said, snuggling down beneath the sheets to provoke the delicious giggle he wished he could hear in his life until he had no more breath to share with the world.

19

They lay side by side in a comfortable silence, warm and linked: limbs entwined, fingers laced together, her hair lying across his neck, heads touching gently.

Alex wanted the sleepy silence to never end but the clock relentlessly ticked on as a sonorous reminder of how short-lived this romantic escape had to be. She didn’t want his skin to draw away from hers; she wanted to touch it daily with wonder because everything about his flesh contradicted Matthew’s, which was pale, hairless, freckled in places, more rounded, smoother, softer . . . Given a choice she preferred Harry’s scarred, leaner, tougher body with its broad planes and hard angles. She loved the hair on his arms and the taut hollow of his belly. She could trace a line around his muscles that stood out starkly against his far-too-leanly fleshed frame that needed nourishing and loving. Matthew smelled of soap, hair pomade and cologne. She couldn’t give a name to the flavour of Harry but she knew instinctively it was the scent of masculinity. For the first time in her life she knew what it was to be held down by strong arms, rolled over, ravished and adored by a man with big hands, who stared at her intently before kissing her, who poured emotion silently into those kisses. No words were necessary because his loving said all there was to say to her about how he felt in her presence. Harry had shown a hunger – almost savage – that was exciting for her. It was an experience she’d not once, in all the time of lying with Matthew, witnessed in his expression or shared in his arms.

And now all that pent-up passion and desire had subsided, they were still and content.

‘We’re like chocolate melting around one another,’ he murmured, and Alex smiled at the image. ‘Tempered, of course,’ he added.

‘I like that you paid attention.’

‘So, when does your chocolate empire begin?’

‘In a month or so. I’ve found a site in town. I just have to get some equipment imported. There’s some machinery in Switzerland I want but it’s a headache to get it to York.’

‘I’m sure I can help.’

‘Can you? How?’

He shook his head as if he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘What are you going to make first?’ he said instead.

‘Well, let me see,’ she said, turning within his embrace and planting a kiss on his chest. ‘I think I’ll do a small range of soft centres,’ she said, sounding thoughtful as though genuinely considering his question but unlacing her fingers to trace a line from the middle of his belly, then dipping beneath the sheet. She felt the response she hoped for. ‘And yes, indeed, perhaps an even bigger range of hard centres,’ she added.