Page 42

The morning light washed the color from Elfreda’s dreams. Her eyes fluttered open.

Sky, pale blue behind a lacework pattern of cloud.

She was on the tower roof, warm under a quilt she vaguely remembered Georgie pulling over her when she’d woken earlier, in darkness, shivering.

Georgie. She sat up. They stood at the parapet, wrapped in a sheet, gazing toward the horizon.

She was still wearing only her stockings and drawers. As quietly as she could, she crawled for her shift.

“Good morning.”

Georgie’s sleep-roughened voice stopped her midcrawl. She knelt, arms crossed over her breasts.

“Good morning.”

They’d turned, one fist holding the sheet closed at their throat. Their hair was tousled, lips hitched in a half smile. And their gaze. Their gaze pinned her, bright with the starlit remembrance of pleasures given and received.

A silvery tingle moved over her skin.

She felt more than naked, shockingly excited by the feel of her own breasts pushing against her inner arms, by the breeze teasing her bare skin, by the slight bite of her garters.

She didn’t move.

Georgie didn’t blink. The moment stretched, and at last, they gave themself a slight shake.

“Pardon my…You were about to…” They put their back to her.

She pulled her shift rapidly over her head.

“I can see the manor from here,” they remarked. “And the village. That’s the spire of All Souls.”

She went to stand beside them, leaning into an adjacent notch in the battlement. The meadows fanned below, green upon green, all gentle undulations to the southeast, higher hills blued by distance to the northwest.

She let her gaze snag on the church spire, and on Redmayne Manor, and then on the bluff, the light green of the treetops mixed with velvet shadows.

Georgie followed her gaze. “We’ll dig?”

She nodded, although the thought of digging didn’t summon visions of swords and amulets but rather the memory of their calluses scratching lightly on her nipples.

It should alarm her. But she was too well pleased, and warm at her core, for anything but complacency.

“Look,” they whispered in a changed voice. “The moon.”

There it was, still overhead, a near transparent crescent floating ethereally in the blue.

She regarded it, and realized they were regarding her.

She met their heavy-lidded eyes.

“It’s not quite morning, is it?” Their brows had a suggestive slant. “If the moon’s still up.”

“You’re claiming it’s still last night?” She tried to scoff, but her heart betrayed her, jumping up and down in her chest, undignified and eager.

“Something in between.” They shrugged, the sheet slipping down from their shoulder.

She swallowed. “And that means?”

Their eyes flashed. “Anything we want.”

The curve of their mouth was unholy.

But they only watched her, and she had the distinct impression that they were waiting, that they’d let the air thicken unbearably, make her pant with anticipation, and even then, they’d wait with that unhurried, nearly evil smile.

She reached for their fist, inserting her thumb, prying their fingers open.

They grinned wider as they let the sheet fall.

She stared, then shut her eyes, terrified by their beauty, by how badly she wanted to touch their skin, by the thought that she needed them to kiss her, now.

Those curls she’d touched last night between their thighs—they were orange as flame.

She felt their fingers graze her throat.

“Elf.” Their breath was hot against her lips.

“Kiss me,” she said.

Their open mouth moved on hers with torturous slowness.

She made an angry, needy sound, and they laughed with an unbridled delight that once would have made her bristle with its smugness.

But she was beyond caring. And she could feel their own need in the convulsive flex of their fingers on her jaw, could hear it in their laughter’s ragged edge.

She put her hand between their thighs.

They inhaled sharply. She didn’t move a muscle. They held her face an inch from theirs and peered at her.

She peered back.

“You really are a menace,” they murmured. “What to do with you?”

She shook her head, unable to speak, belly aching, thighs already flooded.

Slowly, they lowered their mouth until it brushed her ear.

“Don’t worry,” they whispered. “I have ideas.”

They bent their knees, wrapped their arms around her, just beneath her bottom, and lifted. She squealed, hugging their neck, her breasts very much in their face.

“You can’t see,” she gasped as they began to walk.

They mumbled happily. “Tell me if we’re going to fall off the tower.”

Fly. Fly, not fall. If she and Georgie went over the parapet like so, they would definitely fly.

A few moments later, they tripped on the pallet. She bumped down onto her heels then toppled backward, dragging them with her. Luckily, the quilts were thick. She thudded, painlessly, Georgie managing to slap their palms out in time to brace themself. They hovered over her.

“Whoops,” they breathed.

“Whoops,” she echoed, more sardonically.

“Do my pride a favor.” They gave her an overly beseeching look. “Forget that ever happened.”

“Never.” She taunted them.

They lowered down an inch, eyes narrowing.

“I’ll make you forget,” they promised.

“Unlikely.”

Their darkened gaze glittered a challenge. “I will make you forget everything.”

They pushed up, grinning, and crawled down her body. They shoved her shift up to her waist and knocked open her knees. Propping herself on her elbows, she intercepted their jubilant look as it sharpened with purpose.

“What are you—” she began but got no further.

They pressed forward and latched their mouth to the part of her already wet with desire for exactly that.

Her arms collapsed. Her head fell back onto the pillow.

Her knees splayed, legs going boneless. Their tongue turned more of her to liquid with each hot swipe.

This time, they didn’t thrust. Their fingers glided inside her, and their tongue glided too, stroking languidly.

It was the suction that made her babble and beg.

The hard pull of their mouth. She winched tighter, and relaxed, winched tighter, and relaxed, as they alternated tactics, obliterating her will, her memory, her mind.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded as they eased off, and they took pity on her, giving it all to her, all at once, and harder, the stroking and the suction constant now.

“Ah,” she cried. “Ah.”

Their calloused hand closed roughly on her breast. She broke apart, the rippling sensation of relief, of freedom, so profound and all-encompassing it felt like flight.

“Come closer,” she demanded, when she could speak, and as they obliged, mouth glistening, she kissed them once, and pushed under their arms, attempting to heave them up farther.

“What are you trying to do?” they asked, bemused.

She wasn’t exactly sure. “I want you…up here.”

Bemusement shifted. They were almost somber, nearly reverent, as they settled their knees above her head, slender thighs parted. They hovered. Her vision went fire bright.

“This belongs in a cathedral,” she whispered.

They laughed that ragged-edged laugh. “There’s no way any archbishop of Canterbury would ever agree.”

“I mean the color. It’s like stained glass. It’s like the fruit in Eve’s hand on the Great East Window at York Minster.”

She fondled them with her thumb.

“Elf.” Their voice was hoarse. “This is wickeder than I imagined.”

Exultation crashed through her.

“Should I…?” They sounded desperate.

She guided them down onto her mouth, and it was wicked, the most deliciously wicked thing she’d ever experienced, Georgie’s wet heat smothering her face, their urgent gasps, the way they pumped their hips helplessly, and then froze, as though struck by a bolt, while a tiny part of them pulsed and pulsed against her tongue.

Afterward, she was damp everywhere, sweaty and sated, and they joined her in making a sticky heap, tangling their legs with hers.

The two of them lazed in the sun. At some point, she fell asleep.

She came to consciousness parched and hungry as a ravens bear.

Georgie was at the parapet again, fully dressed, bent over a telescope.

Their hind end looked magnificent in breeches.

But the sunlight winking on the brass brought her eyes back to the telescope.

“Agnes isn’t supposed to leave that up here,” she said.

“Papa would—” She cut herself off. Yes, Papa would roar about his telescope, out of its case, exposed to the elements, and she knew what he would roar, and why rehearse it?

His voice was louder than hers in reality, but perhaps she could quiet that voice, at least in her own head.

“There’s some commotion on the green.” Georgie kept their eye to the eyepiece. “I can’t quite make it out.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.” She leaned back on her palms, straight-armed, legs stretched out, swishing her feet back and forth. “Remember, Twynham is invariably dull.”

“I’m offended.” They swiveled. “ Dull? ” They prowled to the edge of the pallet and loomed, hands on hips. “ Dull? ” They flung down beside her. “I’ll double my efforts.”

Smiling, she shook her head.

“Triple? Quadruple? My God, you’re demanding.

” They beamed at her, and their blatant enthusiasm gratified little vanities she hadn’t known she possessed and stoked her desire for little intimacies.

Heated looks. Coded words. Casual touches.

And now they were nuzzling her like a giant cat, silky waves of auburn tickling beneath her chin. She laughed.

This thing between them charged the air.

But it didn’t change the facts of village life.

“You said being here was like being stuck in amber.” She pushed their head away, and they sat back, obedient, adopting her same posture. “Like being a beetle stuck in amber,” she recalled. “And Twynham is still amber.”

They frowned. “I said beetle ? Not butterfly?”

She shot them a look.