Nothing in this world was fair or right.
Who had the power to be a judge over them for choosing to share a bed? No one. They were free to do as they wished.
The emotion that rushed through his body had him lifting a hand to embrace her neck. He wanted this as much as she did. The servants’ or Hillier’s interference be damned. He brought her mouth to his for a long moment.
When they walked upstairs, he led her by the hand as Ash followed them, looking at him with doubt.
If this was a wrong thing to do, then Harry was now cursed, but he would go to hell smiling.
‘Where?’ he asked on the landing.
‘There.’ She pointed to a door in the corner of the landing.
God, he had to ask. ‘Is it the room you share with Hillier?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It is my room, as the parlour is my room.’
He breathed out the disturbed sensations that began spinning in his blood on a frothing wave. He did not think he could have lain in the bed with her if Hillier had been there before him. Which was a stupid thought because when he’d slept with other women potentially hundreds of men had been in those beds before him.
He clasped the door handle, turned it and pushed the door open. She took over and led him into the room. It was another small room, like her parlour, and the bed was plain and narrow. Beyond that she had a dressing table, wardrobe and a set of drawers, and that was all. There were none of the fancy things like the jewellery boxes and ornaments he knew were in his sisters’ rooms.
She stood before him smiling proudly and they still held hands as Ash walked around the room sniffing at everything. Ash had known where the letter had come from just as Harry had.
Harry’s free hand lifted and stroked Charlie’s neck, then he kissed her.
She kissed him back as her hand pulled loose from his, then reached to release the buttons of his coat.
It was hurried and urgent when they came together; there were still pins in her hair and the dog lay on the floor beside the bed.
It was the first time they had done this in the way he might have done it with a whore, yet it still felt entirely different. The setting and the hours they’d spent together changed everything. And Charlie… Charlie was simply different—she felt different from every other woman in the world.
When he’d finished, he rolled on to his back, content, and his mind was peaceful as it had not been peaceful for more than a year. He closed his eyes and let that peacefulness enfold him.
Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed. Harry did not wake, even when the mattress dipped as she sat. He’d slept all afternoon.
She had risen and taken Ash out for a walk about the garden, before any of Mark’s servants returned, and since then she had been busy sealing her new friendship with Ash in the parlour, playing games. She’d taught the dog tricks for the benefit of some treats from their left-over luncheon; to bark when ordered and lift her paw for a shake and to roll over.
But now the others had returned and it was time for dinner and she had decided that she ought to come and wake him.
His arms rested on top of the sheets and he breathed steadily, his chest rising and falling. Her fingers stroked down his cheek.
Suddenly his eyes opened wide and he grasped her arm as he sat up. The grip hurt.
There was a moment like that and then his eyes looked at her face when he fully woke and he recognised her. Letting go of her he tumbled back on to the bed with a sigh, his arms lifting and his hands then pressing on to the top of his head.
She rubbed her aching wrist.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It is better not to wake me.’
‘But it is getting late, I thought you must be hungry.’
‘Lord. Yes. I am hungry. What time is it?’
‘Nearly seven.’
‘Really.’ He sat up again. ‘The servants—’
‘Have returned. But they have said nothing about your hat in the hall. Mark invites other women here, though, sometimes. That is why I have my own rooms, so I can stay out of his way when he wishes. So perhaps the servants do not care and why should I not have a man here, when he is entertained by other women?’
He smiled, but not widely, and his hand lifted, then the back of his fingers ran over her cheek. ‘Do you think we have taken a risk we should not have? Will you be in trouble? I suppose I should not have fallen asleep.’
‘You should have done, you were tired, and this is my house when Mark is away. I have the run of it and the say of it in Mark’s absence.’
A quiet sound that expressed amusement escaped his throat. ‘There is so much conviction in your voice that I shall let myself be convinced by you.’ He sat up and she stood, moving out of his way so he could get up. ‘You are right, I am hungry, but we will go out and eat at an inn. I am not inclined to ask the Colonel’s kitchen to cook for us.’
While they ate, in the inn he’d taken her to on the second day they had shared a bed, with Ash at their feet, she persuaded him to come back with her and remain for the night. This was what she wanted, to be with Captain Harry Marlow. She had delighted in his company at the seashore and she enjoyed being in a bed with him and yesterday and today she had appreciated his companionship. This was what she wanted.
When they returned to the house, she fetched one of Mark’s cigars, lit it herself as she did sometimes for Mark, and handed it to Harry. They shared it as she sat on Harry’s lap while they also shared a few glasses of Mark’s whiskey.
She asked Harry about the places he’d travelled to with the army and the things he’d seen of the world. He told her some horrible stories about the war and spoke of the men he’d sought to comfort as they’d suffered with their wounds and men he had seen fall upon, or carried from, battlefields. He also spoke of men who were his friends; men who had done miraculous things. Harry was a good man. Everything he said to her screamed of it. Then he told her about his horse, Obsidian. She could tell from his voice that he was fond of the horse and as kind to her as he was to Ash and as he had been to his men.
When he’d finished speaking, she said, ‘Would you introduce me to Obsidian one day. I’d like to meet her.’ Then she held his hand and stood up. ‘But let’s put Ash out into the garden now, for a moment, and then retire to bed.’
This was very different to the way she had lived for the last seven years with Mark. She had talked and laughed with Harry and now they walked upstairs for a second time holding hands, only this time it was her leading him. In her room she looked immediately at the brass buttons on his coat and began undoing them as Ash found a place on the rag rug beside her bed.
Harry let her take his coat off, smiling indulgently at her. Then she pushed his braces off his shoulders so she could pull his shirt up and over his head.
When he stripped his shirt off his arms, she began undoing her dress. He did not try to help, but instead sat on the bed and watched her as he pulled off his boots.
He seemed slightly intoxicated, but so was she and the taste of the cigar still filled her mouth. She felt naughty, as she had as a child when she’d sat on top of a hayrick chewing on a liquorice root, when she had run away and hidden when she was supposed to be in Sunday school.
She was hiding again, with Harry—she wanted to hide away with Harry forever.
When she remembered the days she had lain on hayricks, she always longed to go back in time, then she would never climb into Mark’s carriage and she would hide on a hayrick