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Mary had no idea how many miles they had travelled but it seemed a considerable distance. Her bottom was sore from being bounced about on the seat of his curricle over rutted tracks. She ached in other places too after last night. They had stopped at a busy coaching inn for luncheon, but that was hours ago. So, when he said they would stop for the night, relief overrode every other emotion.

Tomorrow, her parents would discover her gone and follow. Her parents would be angry and heartbroken when they discovered that Mary had lied. John would be disappointed.

Andrew said it would take three or four more days to reach Gretna. He’d said he did not care if her father caught up with them, because what was done could not be undone, so they need not rush now.

She hoped Papa would find them. At least then her parents would be at her wedding. But she still believed this had been her only choice. Papa and John would not have let her marry Andrew unless he forced their hands.

On arrival, they had dinner in a parlour downstairs. As they climbed the stairs to their room. Andrew held her hand.

The soft light of a vibrant sunset flooded the small room. It gilded Andrew with gold.

‘You’re silent,’ Andrew said as he closed the bedroom door and turned the key in the lock. His eyes gleamed a dark honey colour. ‘What are you thinking? Tell.’

Ah. Why must tears come? They stung in her eyes. Her teeth caught her lip to stop them tumbling over but failed.

‘Mary? You are not regretting…’ His expression twisted as he caught her hand. He would have pulled her to him, but she pressed her other hand against his chest to stop him and wiped the tears away.

‘I am not regretting what we did. I am thinking of my parents. They will know I am not there tomorrow.’

His thumb brushed a stray tear from her cheek, as a bitter sigh escaped his lips. He turned away. ‘Must you think of them now? Why do you care? You left them behind.’ His voice was tinged with impatience and anger.

He picked up the decanter of wine on the table and poured some into a glass.

He did not understand because he was not close to his family. She did not try to explain. Her wounded emotions meant finding the words was too difficult. Instead, she walked to his back and hugged his waist. Her hands crossing over on his stomach, she squeezed him tightly for a moment.

His body was stiff; nothing in his stance yielded as she held him.

‘I would like Papa to walk me up the aisle, and Mama there too, that is all.’

A condescending sound left his throat as he turned, forcing her to let him go. ‘Your father might drag you away from the aisle.’

‘I should have tried to persuade them to accept you.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You would not have persuaded them.’

Mary opened her mouth to speak, but no words came as he sipped from the wine glass, his hard gaze telling her he did not want to discuss her parents’ point of view.

After he had drunk, he held the rim of the wine glass to her lips and tilted it. It felt like he was offering her a poison chalice as the devil in him grinned in the black hearts of his eyes.

After she sipped from the glass he put it down.

His hands held her hips as his lips pressed hard on hers. The kiss felt like a branding iron. When he broke the kiss, his hazel eyes were like treacle not honey, his pupils were so wide. Her bones were as weak as aspic.

‘I love you. You know that…’ His words did not sound like a statement, but a question.

‘I know.’ She believed him, but he did not understand how much it hurt her to hurt her family, and when she spoke of caring for her family it appeared as though she hurt him.

He’d said in his letter, the day she had met him in the summerhouse, he did not know love. He did not – but she would teach him. ‘I love you too.’

A guttural sound escaped his throat. ‘I like you calling me Andrew, no one else does.’ He kissed her, urgently. Her arms encircled his neck. Then she realised he was drawing up her dress.

She broke the kiss. His dark eyes stared at her.

Before she could speak, he threw her his rogue’s lilting smile. ‘Let me make love to you now, as we are, no foreplay, no procrastination.’

Her next breath faltered.

He moved her hand to the front of his trousers. ‘See how ready I am.’

She was not ready at all.

She tilted her head. ‘No.’

‘I am your husband in all but name.’

‘Which is why you should not ask it of me.’

He dropped her hand.

She thought he would turn away, instead he said, ‘Please, may I make love to you now? Because I love you and I need to feel how much you love me.’

It was the need in his voice, not his words, the voice of the Andrew she thought she was the only one who knew, that made her want this too. She answered physically, stepping forward and kissing him.

Yesterday, he had been tender. Tonight, he was wicked. But his wickedness made something lurch low in her stomach as her body recalled the feel of him inside her, while his hands pulled up her dress. It was as if she had touched a flame to tinder and ignited an inferno.

Within minutes, he freed himself from the restrictions of his clothing, lifted her feet from the floor, wrapped her legs about his waist and pushed into her. There was pain at first, and heat in flashes, as he pounded into her. Her arms clung about his neck as her head and back hit the bedchamber wall over and over.

‘Am I hurting you?’

The urgency in his voice caught at her heart. He was hurting her, but it was pleasure too. He loved her passionately, there was nothing wrong in that. ‘No,’ she lied.

His fingertips pressed hard into the flesh of her thighs as he held her up, the sounds escaping his throat like an animal’s growl.

She thought he would reach his conclusion before she was even close to it. Then. ‘Andrew!’

When the ecstasy of their union struck, it was in a rush that knocked her flying, the surge of it racing to her toes and fingertips. Before she had come down from her peak, he sighed heavily, his breath brushing her earlobe, and she felt him pulsing inside her, his conclusion reached too. Her body trembled as his stiffened.

After a moment, he lowered her legs. He smiled. His forehead rested against hers and his nose brushed hers tenderly. ‘I felt as desperate as this last night, but… well… it would have been wrong for your first time.’

The tone of his voice told her he needed her more than physically. She kissed him, just a press of lips to lips.

‘Say you love me,’ he said.

Mary smiled. There were so many seams in him for her to mine, she did not understand all of his motivations and behaviours, but she had a feeling his past, perhaps the family he hated talking about, had made him the man he was. ‘I love you.’

‘And I you, Mary.’ The husk in his voice seemed heavy with unspoken words.

She would make her parents understand. She would make them like him. If she saw the good in him, they must see it too – and they must understand that no one else would have been enough for her, no one else could love her with the passion and intensity he did.

* * *

Drew lay still and silent, watching Mary breathing. He could not sleep. She lay beside him, naked. But it was not only her body that was naked; it was also her heart. Her openness, and innocence, cleansed him. Even the air drawing into his lungs felt cleaner. She had washed away the stains the other women he’d taken to bed had left on his soul. She was as clean and white as snow, and now he lay beside her feeling as though he was too.

He wanted to hold her. He did not, because he did not want to wake her. The candle had burned to a stub, it would go out soon and he would no longer be able to see her. Her beauty was incomparable. That was because it was soul-deep.

He had left a first footprint on her snowy white soul. He hoped they would keep walking together until the very last footprint. He hoped he did not spoil her, ruin the beautiful parts of her. If the emotions he felt were love, then love was all-consuming and possessive.

Her dark eyelashes flickered against her pale skin as her eyes moved beneath her eyelids.

She cried when they came upstairs after dinner, because she missed her family. He had feared she would change her mind when it was too late, but then she kissed and made love to him with everything she had.

No other woman, in his experience, did that.

He was afraid when the storm came she might change her mind and learn to hate him. He was afraid she loved her family more than him…

Jealousy roared and extended its claws.

When her father caught up with them, Mary’s trial would follow.

Their first coupling tonight had been quick, evidence that she would respond to him. Their second, slow, as he tried to enchant her with his body – so that she might love him the most.

The candle flickered, then went out. He could no longer see her, but he could hear her breaths and feel them on his skin. Now he knew how good life could be with her, it would be unbearable to lose her.

She must marry him, there was no choice now. But he could not endure a heartless marriage. He wanted this sprouting seed of love to grow. Roses blooming on the briar inside his soul. She could give him that, teach him how to live like that. Life would become the two of them together against the world, he would be her defender and she his. That is what he wanted.

He had not prayed for years, but today… Please, Lord, let her lean towards me for comfort and protection. Let me be who she cries her tears for.

He wanted her now.

He needed her now.

He only had a few hours left to convince her to love him as much as he loved her.

His hand touched the satin-soft skin at her hip.

He wished to be inside her, to calm the fear in his head, and appease the possessiveness in his soul. He did not know how to be what she needed. He was terrified of failing her – of failing himself. Of her rejection. How could his love compare to the affection of her family?

She moved beneath his hand, rolling onto her back. His palm rested over her breast and he kissed her shoulder.

This was all he knew, he knew how to please her in a bed.

Please, God, let that be enough. Let my physical love wrap around her heart and form a wall that will hold against her father’s and brother’s defamations.