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CHAPTER FIVE

Everything around them stilled. Even the wafting willow seemed to stiffen, and the only sound was the occasional lap of water from the pond.

Elliot sat back like she had hit him. He raked a hand through his hair and wiped his palm across his mouth. That word. Love. He did not want to hear it. He’d come here to be a rogue, to be rid of his curiosity. Not to hear words like that.

‘No, Ava. You need to give your love a better man.’

‘It isn’t up to you.’ She sat up a little, and her voice carried that fire he adored in her. ‘You may control the world, but you cannot order my heart to obey any more than I can. Fighting how I feel is too hard. It’s easier to just love you.’

Ava stretched. Settled back down, tucked a hand beneath her head, and lay there watching him.

Decadent, pure, naked, and breathless, she was glorious in her unravelling.

A light sheen gleamed in the space between her breasts, her hair splayed out around her head, her thighs parted…

so completely exposed to him. She regarded him with a brazenness, like the Ava of old, but also, someone new.

He hadn’t expected this. And yet, when he dared to look her in the eye again, he found the same calm and gentleness she had always possessed. And as plain as the points of her nipples was the sunshine of her heart.

‘Elliot… This place is where I’ve been happiest. If I ever return, it will never be like this again. Be my first. Here and now. Give me that. Give me that to take away with me.’

So luscious. So debauched. He’d come here to seduce her, and now she was tempting him. He reached, then paused.

She widened her knees. ‘Please.’

Elliot stroked, then slid a finger inside of her. So wet from his tongue and her own crisis, and still she gasped at his touch. ‘Are you certain?’ he asked as he curled his finger.

‘Certain,’ she replied. She writhed, then groaned, and reached for him.

He should undress or at least remove his tie, but much more of this and he’d spend before he started.

All he could do was fumble with each trouser button until he could shove them down far enough to slip his hard cock free.

He crawled up her length, placing his hands around her perfect nakedness, kissed first one nipple, then the other, then tasted the length of her from her neck to her mouth.

Ava curved beneath him with another groan, and he pressed the tip of his cock against her wetness.

Rested his forehead against hers, and thrust inside her.

She let out a perfect cry against his ear—a small echo of pain, maybe, but mostly that same blissful song she had offered to the sky moments before.

Elliot held himself tight. She was so fragile, so fine, and he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.

She should never feel anything other than perfect joy and perfect care.

He pulled back and moved into her again.

She had closed her eyes, but with his thrust, she opened them, parting her lips in the most decadent O .

‘That feels too good,’ she whispered. ‘Too damn good.’

If he could capture this moment for eternity, he would.

He took her like he had a right to her, rocked in and out of her slickness, gathered up her every little groan and gasp, and more than that…

he felt what had been there forever. Her love for him was in every word, every touch, every whisper.

He felt it in the soft caress of her hand, in her widening thighs as she encouraged him deeper, in the murmur of his name.

And, greedily, he took it all. She tightened, clutched at his shoulders, then trembled beneath him, and he couldn’t decide if he was a god or a base cad or a rogue with no hope.

He pushed in deep, so deep that she cried out, and spent inside her.

They lay like that, breathing heavily and gasping, kissing their goodbyes.

At last, he rolled off and tucked himself away.

In an afternoon dream, he pulled Ava, beautiful, naked Ava, against his side.

He should feel guilt, but guilt for what?

They’d both wanted what they’d done. But he didn’t feel like he’d won a victory either.

And when Ava slunk off to gather her clothes, while he watched her dress through drowsy eyes, all he felt was loss.

The loss of her smell, her warmth. Of her.

‘I need to get back,’ she said, and smoothed her skirt. ‘Wait for me to reach the house before you follow?’

‘Ava… I… I…’ Elliot tried to find some words, but nothing he could say resembled the crushing ache in his chest.

‘Shh.’ She bent low and pecked his cheek. ‘I don’t need anything more.’ She slipped on her coat and, without looking back at him, pushed aside the willow vines. Then she was gone.

Next time he made love to her, he’d strip off his clothes and feel her hands against his skin. He’d pull her onto his lap as he entered her to feel her through all of him. Then he’d teach her how to ride him. He smirked to himself, only for the wicked thought to wither and die.

Ava would never betray her husband, no matter what she felt in her heart.

He watched the branches of the willow swaying in the breeze.

They cast their dappled shadows where, mere moments earlier, her shape had been.

The sun dipped lower and spilled gold and saffron light over the pond’s surface.

He should head back to the manor to change, but even alone, he could not bear the thought of moving on, of stepping into an Oakwood that she was leaving.

She might return, but if she did, she would not be Ava. She’d be Mrs Webb.

This was where she’d been happiest, both before her years of loss, and after.

And for all his spoils and escapades in London, it was where he had been happiest as well.

During those years when he’d been away at school, while he’d learnt how to throw a punch or send back a smart remark through the endless hazing—which usually earned him another walloping—he’d held Oakwood in his memory.

Not the centuries of history his family stomped over without a thought to lineage or heritage, but the smaller moments.

A bird hopping along a rail. A cloud drawing flourishes in the sky.

A drizzle that brought the ducks and swans to the edge of the pond.

And always, always, Ava.

When the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Elliot stood and picked up his coat. Smudged with her blood and his sweat, it reeked of their debauchery. He folded it over his arm and carried it limply by his side.

He crossed the grounds too slowly and, at the edge of the drive, followed the flight of a triangle of birds.

His feet weighed heavy as he trudged up the first couple of steps.

Just outside the threshold, he paused. Inside, his family stood scattered like a choreographed tableau.

His father by the curved balustrade, flanked by his stepmother wearing her formality like armour. And, a little way off from them, Viola.

‘Excuse me… are you heading inside?’

Elliot pivoted on the spot. A few steps below him stood a man with dark hair. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that glinted in the fading light.

‘Come in a costume, have you?’ The man gave him a nod and a painted smile. ‘I didn’t quite have the courage for one myself. Let me guess what you are…’

‘Just a vagabond.’ He held out his hand. ‘Elliot Turner.’

‘Horatio Webb.’ The man grasped Elliot’s palm.

Elliot stared at him through a dark rush of envy.

Webb… the man who was stealing Ava? The congestion in his chest churned into a storm.

He gripped the man’s palm tighter to hold him in place as he jerked him into the light.

Not old, not ugly… not garish or obtuse.

Elliot stared and stared, trying to find some fault with Mr Webb.

Then a sick surge of guilt twisted his envy into shame.

How could he wish Ava a future with a bore or a twit or an oaf?

She deserved to be cared for, to spend her days laughing as she enjoyed the small freedoms that made her so happy.

Mr Webb tried to retreat from the handshake, but Elliot hadn’t finished his inspection and held him in place.

Would this man treat her well? Did cruelty lurk in his eyes?

Elliot knew how an old-world facade could hide unspeakable callousness, but as he searched Mr Webb for a hint of malice, he found nothing of the sort.

Just a man dressed in a perfect top hat and impeccable coat-tails, his only flamboyance the green handkerchief that stuck out of his pocket.

‘Elliot!’ Viola leant out of the door, pressing his name through clenched teeth. ‘Isn’t it time you changed?’

Elliot released Mr Webb, who pulled back with a slight stagger.

He studied Elliot with a puzzled frown, then took a cautious step into the entrance hall.

Elliot waved him away with a huff. He ran his palm rough across his face, compressing his nose and scrunching his skin, but the physicality of the action did nothing to ground him.

Viola grasped him by the elbow in the next heartbeat. She tugged him inside and away from where his father and stepmother were greeting Mr Webb.

‘Where have you been?’ Viola asked. ‘You look like you’ve been ambushed in the woods.’

‘I was by the pond,’ Elliot murmured, bending around Viola to better see Mr Webb’s welcome.

How is the weather up north?

Pleasant enough. Considering.

Are you staying in the village?

‘You are meant to be in the ballroom supervising the waitstaff. Half of them were hired from out of town for the night. They don’t know the servants’ stairs from a barn ladder.’

‘I’ll head in shortly,’ he said, as he peered over her head. He tilted to better hear the conversation by the stairs.

We hear you know Ava?

We’ve met a few times. Demure young woman. Excellent manners.

Elliot ground his teeth so tight his jaw hurt. Manners . What about her spark? Her passion? Was he blind?