Page 16 of Hearts at Home

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S he would be the death of him. ‘Something is digging into me,’ indeed. The girls he’d known in Italy, even the lovely maidens whose families guarded them zealously from the dishonour threatened by every male between 12 and 70, had known what men carried between their legs and the danger it presented when a man had no honour.

Raised in a family of gentlewomen, Charis was a complete innocent, which was both daunting and endearing. “I will show you,” he promised. “I will show you the other things when we are wed, Charis, and you will like them, I promise.”

“Better than kisses?” Charis asked.

Tenderness engulfed him at the doubt in her voice. “Yes, better than kisses. I swear it by our love and my honour.”

They cuddled and talked some more while her coat and gloves steamed in front of the fire, and Charis finished her coffee. She was more than willing to kiss and be kissed, but Eric kept their embraces gentle and almost chaste. Her innocence was all the armour she needed in his company. She had given him her trust, and he would defend her against all dangers, even himself.

“I must get back before Mother awakes,” she said at last.

“Give me a moment to dress, and I will escort you back.”

Charis shook her head. “It is only a short distance, Eric. I will be safe.”

Eric kissed her again. “Let me, Charis. I don’t want to part from you yet.”

He grabbed the first clothes he could find and hurried back downstairs to find Charis had donned her coat and gloves and was waiting by the door, one hand caressing Ugo’s neck.

Hand in hand, they crossed the ragged lawn and entered the trees, Ugo pacing beside Eric’s love.

“Was that Italian?” Charis asked. “The words you said when we...”

Eric peered under her hood. She was blushing again. “When we kissed? Yes. Italian has many beautiful names for lovers to call one another.”

He had to lean close to hear her soft request. “Will you teach me what they mean?”

He drew her into his arms and kissed her again, his desire for more subsumed by the even greater need to cherish her. “ Amore mio ,” he said, as they resumed walking, her hand tucked into his arm. “That means ‘my love’.”

“ Amore mio ,” she repeated. Was she practicing her Italian or calling him her love? He kissed her again, and she murmured the Italian phrase against his lips.

“ Dolcezza mia .” He helped her over the stile that marked the boundary between his estate and hers and then kissed her again. “My sweetheart.”

She squeezed his arm affectionately. “A translation per kiss, Eric? I trust you have many such phrases, dolcezza mia .”

Eric hurried his steps so he could kiss her again in the shadows behind the stables, out of sight of the early morning bustle. “A thousand, cara mia , maybe more.” If necessary, he would invent some.

“ Mia is my,” Charis deduced.

“My dear. My very dearest. I will miss you, and I will come to you in Bath, armed with your uncle’s consent.” Another kiss, and she met this one with the heat he’d begun to nurture in his study, so minutes passed and only the sound of the grooms talking on the other side of the wall gave him the strength to draw back. He rested his forehead on hers for a moment while he caught his breath.

“I love you, Charis,” he said when he could speak again. “Look for me in no more than a week.”

Charis lifted her head to examine the sky. “Weather permitting. Take no risks with cara mia .”

For that, Eric had to kiss her again, a gentle salute to each cheek and to her forehead, for he didn’t trust himself with her lips, already slightly swollen and rosy with his kisses. “Safe travels, Charis. Go now. Alla prosimmo .”

She looked up from her farewells to Ugo and raised her brows in question.

“Until next time,” he explained. “Soon, but it shall seem forever, my love.”

“Soon,” she repeated. She turned her head at a burst of laughter from the stables, then kissed him once more, a brief peck aimed at his cheek that he caught on his lips by the good fortune of turning his head. “Soon, Eric.”

One more pat for Ugo, and she was gone.