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CHAPTER FOUR

AWAKENING IN THE DARK

The moon had risen high enough to cast silver squares through the window when Beatrice shifted on the bed for the dozenth time.

"Not comfortable?" he asked into the darkness.

"About as comfortable as one can be sleeping in full dress," she replied dryly. "And you? How's the floor treating your war-hardened back?"

"Splendidly. Though I suspect I've discovered every loose stone in the foundation." He propped himself up on one elbow. She was able to make out his silhouette in the moonlight, impossibly close yet still beyond reach.

The tower held its breath around them, the moonlight painting silver patterns on the ancient stones as two people who had spent seven years orbiting each other finally began to understand the gravity that had always pulled them together.

She heard him move, the rustle of his clothing as he shifted closer to the bed. "When I was in Egypt," he continued softly, "I carried your published paper with me. The one about crop rotation and soil enrichment."

"What?" She sat up straighter. "How did you even?—"

"I subscribed to the Agricultural Journal." He unconsciously touched the inside pocket of his jacket, where he still carried the worn article, though he’d never dare tell her so. "While other officers read letters from their sweethearts, I read about your breeding theories."

"That's..."

"Pathetic?" A self-deprecating smile curved his lips.

"Unexpected," she corrected, a delicate yearning unfurling within her. "And did you find my principles on hardy winter wheat compelling reading on the battlefield?"

"More compelling than you know." His voice became serious again. "They reminded me that somewhere, someone was trying to make things better. It gave me hope."

He was observing her now, and Beatrice's breath caught at the raw intensity of his expression. "That's quite a lot to put on wheat experiments," she managed.

"Not the wheat. You…"

The air between them was charged, heavy with reeling emotions. "I'm not the same girl you mocked at the fair," she warned.

"I'm not the same foolish boy who didn't know what to do with something genuine when he saw it."

"No?" she inquired quietly. "What would you do now?"

The silence that followed was different – expectant, alive with possibility. In the silver light of the moon, seven years of hurt began to transform into tender reconciliation, the dangerous bloom of understanding and forgiveness taking root between them.

Beatrice lay in the narrow bed, her mind whirling. While she'd been using anger to forget him, he'd been carrying pieces of her across battlefields.

She studied his silhouette against the moonlit wall. Without her spectacles, his blurred form made it easier to examine her heart honestly. His mockery had cut so deeply precisely because his good opinion had mattered to her.

The last thing she registered before sleep claimed her was the quiet rustle of Ira moving closer and the comfort she found in his nearness.

Her heart was transforming, defences painstakingly erected now gently falling away.

For the first time in years, she allowed herself to imagine a future unburdened by their past – not because it hadn't mattered, but because their newfound understanding mattered more.

Beatrice woke to darkness and bitter cold, her teeth chattering despite her layers of clothing. The stone walls seemed to radiate frost, and her breath formed visible clouds in the air. How could Ira possibly sleep on that frigid floor?

She peered over the edge of the bed. He lay still, but a slight tremor in his shoulders betrayed his wakefulness. Stubborn man … suffering in silence .

"Ira?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Hmm?" He rolled to face her, confirming her suspicion.

"This is absurd. You'll catch your death down there." She shifted back on the narrow bed, making space. "Please... I'm freezing."

The silence stretched taut between them. "Beatrice," he rasped, his voice rough with an edge she'd never heard before. "Are you certain?"

"About not wanting to freeze to death? Quite certain." She tried for lightness, but her voice shook from the cold. "Please."

The bed creaked as he rose and carefully settled beside her.

Even through their clothes, she could feel the chill radiating from him.

She turned to face the wall, his looming presence making her shy and nervous.

Yet the promise of warmth proved too tempting, and she gradually shifted backward until her back met the solid wall of his chest.

"You're shaking," he rumbled low, hesitantly wrapping an arm around her and drawing her closer until his body cocooned hers. The weight of it, foreign and comforting, sent a cascade of sensation along her spine.

"So are you." She drew his arms tighter around her body, propriety forgotten in the face of bone-deep cold.

But as his warmth began to seep into her, cold ceased to be her primary concern.

Instead, she became acutely aware of other sensations – the solid strength of his chest against her back, how perfectly her form seemed to fit against his, his breath stirring loose strands of her hair.

His large hand swallowed hers and made her suddenly, viscerally aware of the difference in their bodies.

Each point of contact between them seemed to burn through the layers of clothing that separated them.

"Better?" he asked, his voice low near her ear, the warmth of his breath sending an involuntary shiver through her.

"Yes," she whispered, though her continued trembling had transformed into a far more perilous awareness. Her heart thundered so violently she was certain he must feel it, must know the effect his proximity was having on her usually ordered thoughts.

"Beatrice," he called her name in a culmination of unspoken longing. The single word carried the weight of everything they'd shared tonight.

She couldn't bear it any longer – the uncertainty, the wondering.

She rotated in his arms to face him. Their faces were mere inches apart in the darkness, close enough that she could distinguish the faint scar above his brow that hadn't been there before the war; close enough to see his dark eyes with naked wanting, with barely restrained desire that made heat pool low in her belly.

Almost without thinking, she raised her hand, fingertips hovering uncertain in the space between them.

His breath hitched but he remained still, neither retreating nor advancing.

Taking his stillness as permission, she gently brushed aside a lock of his hair, discovering the scar extended farther than she had realised, a silvery line that disappeared into his hairline – a badge of valour he never spoke of.

"I never knew," she whispered, her touch featherlight against the raised skin.

His hand caught hers, pressing a kiss firmly against her palm. "There are many things you don't yet know about me," he murmured, voice hoarse. "But I find myself wanting you to learn them all."

"Ira…" The words died on her lips, inadequate to express the storm raging within her.

His eyes dropped to her mouth and he brushed his thumb across her bottom lip, trailing fire in its wake.

His touch was tender and reverent, as though she were made of spun glass and moonlight. "We should sleep," he said softly.

But sleep seemed impossible now, a laughable suggestion. Not with her pulse racing wildly at every point where his body touched hers, her skin aflame wherever he caressed her. This was years of denial unravelling, leaving nothing but raw longing between them.

"What if I don't want to sleep?" she whispered, startling herself with her boldness. Years of propriety, of careful reserve – all abandoned in seven simple words.

For a moment that stretched into eternity, he remained perfectly still, his eyes searching hers in the dim light. She saw the battle raging within him – desire warring with honour, want clashing against restraint.

His only answer was to draw her closer with exquisite slowness.

When she didn't retreat, he pressed his forehead to hers, the simple intimacy of the gesture somehow more profound than any kiss.

They lay like that, breath mingling in the narrow space between them, bodies thrumming with awareness of what might be, balanced on the knife's edge between propriety and passion.

As the moon set and darkness deepened, the cold night wrapped around them like a blanket, protecting them from everything but each other.

Ira held Beatrice in the darkness, her form nestled against him with an unbearable rightness. The rose scent in her hair intoxicated him with each breath, clouding his reason as his blood thundered through his veins wherever she touched him.

She tilted her face upward, and even in the faint starlight, he could see her eyes studying him without her spectacles – that same piercing intelligence that had both intimidated and captivated him now focused entirely on him with devastating intensity.

With deliberate slowness, he brushed his lips across her fluttering eyelids, the bridge of her nose, then the high curve of her cheekbone where a flush had bloomed beneath her skin. When he reached the hollow beneath her ear, he heard her sharp intake of breath.

"Ira," she whispered, his name a plea on her lips.

He continued his careful exploration, mapping the contours of her face as though committing them to memory. The corner of her mouth trembled as he pressed his lips to her chin, then with aching tenderness, he claimed her mouth with his.