Page 28

T he arched ceilings made the bathing room feel vast, each drop of water echoing as if in a cave. The frosted window invited in a pale, weak moonlight, a poor substitute for Helene’s dusty panels. William dropped his head back at the bath’s rim, closing his eyes, wishing she were here—not perched in that cramped basin of hers, knees to chin, but stretched with him in this vast marble pool, where he could wash her hair, her skin, every delicate inch she offered.

My passion is what I am. I refuse to live half a life.

Farley's words replayed in his mind and he rubbed his chest but failed to soothe the ache. What if he broke free from the chains of social obligation, of expected behavior, of perceived scandal... Would he be bathing alone in the cold, preparing to attend a pointless society function while Helene awaited him? Would he see her only at night, like a fugitive?

Or would he make her his wife?

The thought struck him like a blow, and he shot from the bathing tub. Water sluiced down his chest as chilled air slapped his skin. Impossible. He was the 6th Duke of Albemarle, the heir to a tradition that had upheld the British monarchy since Charles II.

The writer was wrong. Unchecked emotion led to chaos and had the power to unravel a man’s control. Passion was not a man’s entire identity but what tore it apart.

William shoved his arms into his robe and strode to his room. The grandfather clock struck the eighth hour, the time he usually met Helene at the garret.

At 8:05, she would open the door, her soft humming a welcoming melody. By 8:15, he would still be wrapped in her arms, their embrace too intoxicating to break. At 8:20, they would tumble into bed, the world outside forgotten.

He tightened the robe around himself—a poor substitute for her touch. They had to maintain the boundaries. Helene understood.

Obligation demanded that he attend Almack’s. Lady Thornley would be appeased, and the ton would stop speculating about his constant absence.

William crossed to the desk. Beneath the Almack’s ticket and voucher lay Helene’s pictures. She had appeared in The Times again. Her novel take on ballet—dancing on her toes—drew throngs to the theater each night. His Sylph was everywhere. Once content to haunt his dreams, she had now spread her wings over every corner of his life.

An insidious energy surged through his legs.

Stop. Get dressed. Get out.

William glared at the knee breeches, the stiff white cravat, and the chapeau bras—the prescribed uniform for the assembly rooms. The clothes would chafe less if cast in iron. Why this now? William’s history with Almack’s was a string of unremarkable evenings. The price of his station. Still, the prospect of attending Almack’s tonight had the appeal of entering a coffin.

Those were his friends. His world. He would do his duty.

At William’s pointed look, Baines turned his back to give him privacy.

Reaching for his smalls, William paused.

Delicate stitching adorned the linen. He squinted—initials. Helene’s.

Was it not enough that she was in the papers, on bookstore windows, in every drawing room conversation, in his dreams—and now, in his underwear?

He had stood in the war chambers of Lisbon, crossed the marble halls of the Palais Bourbon, and walked the gilded corridors of Windsor—yet here he was, about to stick his legs into a pair of linen drawers embroidered with a ballerina’s initials.

His gaze slid to Baines, who studied his nails with the gravitas of a man avoiding execution.

William cleared his throat. “Baines, do you know how my smalls came to be embroidered with Miss Beaumont’s initials?”

The valet blushed, his composure slipping. “Is it not the haberdasher’s letters, my lord?”

William lifted a brow. “In pink?”

Baines tugged at his cravat and eyed William askance. “I went to Miss Beaumont this morning to give her the note, Your Grace. When she read that his lordship would not visit her tonight, the poor thing was forlorn.”

Forlorn? He stared at the H and B, tracing the uneven stitches. Did this mean she cared? After professing every night that she would not fall in love? His pulse quickened, and an urge gripped him to race to her apartment and see for himself.

“She was now?” William asked.

“She wanted to know if his lordship had other female friends. I told her not currently and not that I’ve known of.”

“And she?”

“She seemed distressed and asked if I could bring her a token from you.”

“And you did? Why?”

He didn’t doubt that Helene would demand something so outlandish, but Baines was his most trusted servant. He dealt with scores of tenants and servants seeking favors, but he seldom put anyone’s interest before William’s.

Baines shrugged. “Miss Beaumont makes His Grace happy, and asks nothing in return.”

William brought the cloth to his nose, searching for her scent. A whiff of rosemary sent him to her meadow, and a summer shower washed away philosophical questions and social duties. A chuckle escaped his chest. Trust his Helene and her pink stitches to free him from the iron coffin he had locked himself into. She was young, she was his. What else mattered, at least for this night?

William put on the smalls. “Get me a pair of trousers.”

“But, Your Grace, breeches are needed for Almack’s. Last week, the Duke of Yorkshire was sent back because he wore trousers.”

“Isn’t it wonderful, Baines, that we can depend on this country to uphold social strictures?”

A knowing smile lit up Baines’ aging face. “You are most ingenious, sir.”

Indeed, he was. Lady Thornley would be appeased. He would have tried to go, would he not? If they sent him away, it would not be his fault.

***

Helene wrapped her new cashmere shawl around her shoulders and leaned further into the window seat. Beyond the glass, London’s rooftops loomed, outlined by the foggy sky.

For the tenth time, she tried to focus on her book, but her attention kept wandering. Helene brushed the preserved lily across her nose and sighed. How pathetic it was. She should have gone with the girls to Vauxhall. Wasn’t she the most famous ballerina in London? Shouldn’t she be enjoying herself? Yet, instead of dancing under the fireworks, she felt like weeping under a blanket.

She blamed William—that repressed, impossible man. How easily he’d cast her aside—how thoroughly. If he wanted to keep his distance, fine. Perfect. She was perfectly content on her own. She had no craving to waltz with him at Almack’s. She certainly didn’t want to be accepted into his exclusive world. So what if she never saw him in court attire? She didn’t love him. And she was dazzlingly happy.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, landing on the lily’s brittle petals.

She was tucking it between the pages of her book when the latch clicked—and the door creaked open.

William crowded the entrance.

Helene took him in—his crisp black-and-white finery, the way a grin lit a path straight to his eyes. He had a boyish air about him, as if he'd done something wicked.

Her heart flapped its wings as if released from a cage. He came. Even after telling her he wouldn’t.

His gaze locked on her. She hastily dried her tears, conscious of her own dishevelment. No matter what, she would not let him see how his absence had affected her.

"I thought you were going to Almack’s. In case you are lost, the assembly rooms are on King’s Street.” Helene covered herself with the shawl and stared outside. “Please don’t say all roads lead back to me. Your message this morning suggested otherwise."

She heard his long exhale and braced herself for explanations about his social obligations. How Lady Thornley had demanded the Silent Sovereign’s presence and how the bloody country depended on his lofty shoulders.

He picked up her sewing basket. “Why did you choose pink?”

Why in Hades’ realm had she marked his unmentionables? Baines shouldn’t have complied with her.

Helene shrugged, her cheeks flaming. “The only one I got. I use it to sew my slippers. Knitting is not my forte.”

“Then why did you feel compelled to try your hand this morning?”

Helene traced the frost on the glass. “I figured if you bothered other ladies, they would see it and realize I don’t share very well, but then you never undress, do you? Unless you do it for them.”

The thought of him undressing for those aristocratic ladies was more painful than she could bear. Which was pathetic, really. When she didn’t care for him. Not in the least.

“There are no others,” he burst out.

Tilting his head, he loomed before her, his body giving off heat. Let him rave at her for being unreasonable. Then she would end this. Helene was done with the living. It was too hard. It hurt. The ballet was easier. La Sylphide’s heart didn’t ache while she waited for something beyond her reach. She would gladly end everything, and she wouldn’t miss him. Not at all. She clutched the shawl, her arms trembling.

He cradled her face. The warmth of his palms seeped into her cheeks. Helene hiccuped.

“I’m sorry.” His voice came out gravely, as if the excuse had been ripped from him.

The cashmere slipped from her shoulders. The promise of living in his eyes called to her, and she so wanted to live there…

But what of the pain? Helene picked up the shawl and shielded herself in the most expensive bauble her talent could buy. Shutting her eyes, she conjured Chopin’s nocturne and hummed, needing the cocoon of music.

His voice tried to intrude, but she hummed louder.

He grabbed her shoulders. “Stop trying to escape our reality.”

“No reality can cage me. I’ll flee whenever I want.”

He caressed her cheek. His mouth was so close, his breath brushing against her lips. She lost the music’s beat.

William tucked hair behind her ear. “Why didn’t you change from La Sylphide clothes?”

Because she had been so pathetically forlorn, she hadn’t mustered the effort.

Helene curled into the window seat. “Why doesn’t the sun come up at night, or rain doesn’t soar from the soil? You ask the most impossible questions.”

He knelt before her. Tenderly, he unlaced the ribbons and pulled away the silk slippers.

“Your toes are bleeding. Why put yourself through this?” He swept his hands over her arcs and massaged her insoles.

Helene stared at her feet as if they belonged to another woman. “When I climb on my toes, I give the illusion I’m flying.”

“I don’t understand.”

All those women… That’s why they came every night. “When people fly, they are free.”

He brushed his cheek against her calf, his stubble catching on her stockings and sending a shiver up her spine. “Are you free, Little One?”

“I used to be until—” Helene blurted and quickly averted her gaze. What was she saying?

William sat beside her and pulled her into his lap. Frowning, he caught her chin, turning her face back to his. “Until?”

“Until you.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Was that what you wanted to hear? Then rejoice. The Sylph of London was here, crying because you didn’t come to set her free.”

Wouldn’t he say anything? She had sworn to herself she wouldn’t fall in love, and now, here she was, trapped between her own vulnerability and his stoic facade.

“That wasn’t very exciting, was it?” Her voice wavered, and she slipped from his lap. “Opening my heart like that… You must regret coming here. Almacks’ women must be alluring, not this sylph with crumpled wings.”

The intensity of his stare stole her air. “Not exciting? Since I met you, I’ve had more excitement than a man has been built to endure. You’ve encroached on my daily life. Wherever I look, there you are. And even when I close my eyes, I dream—”

He stared at his fisted hands as if in pain.

Heart beating erratically, Helene shifted closer, her hand trembling as she interlaced their fingers. “What do you dream of?”

A shadow crossed his face, deepening the lines around his mouth. And then his expression changed. Helene was suddenly in the presence of the Duke of Albemarle, not William.

“Don’t ask me for the impossible.”

Her chest squeezed painfully. “Isn’t what this was from the start? Impossible?”

The duke glanced toward the door.

He didn’t return her love. The realization hit her like a blow, her heart aching as if it had been stripped of wings. Tears welled in her eyes, and she stood. She had to escape before the pain overwhelmed her.

He held her wrist, his fingers shackling her.

“Release me, please,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “From now on, I would rather you saw me only on stage. I cannot bear to receive you here when—It hurts too much—”

He tugged her until she was back in his lap and interlaced his arms around her, holding her close. She felt the thud of his heartbeats in her spine.

He buried his face in her hair, his breathing ruffling her neck. “If I could tell you what I dream of, Helene, in every night’s long hours, in all moods, invariably, without shame, without self-control, without propriety, still craving it even when exhausted, still looking for it even when it hurt me, still wishing for it even when the dream left me dissatisfied with my waking life—I would tell you it was you.”

Warmth flooded her chest, spreading through her limbs, reaching her soul. Her heart unfurled its wings and soared.

Helene looked up at him. So this was love—this overwhelming desire, this drenching thirst, this delicious ache. Before she could speak, he captured her mouth in a kiss. Helene lifted herself onto his lap, her fingers tangling in his hair as she tugged him closer and licked his lips. She needed him inside her, to be bare in his arms, to feel his skin sliding against hers.

Nothing should stay between them. No secrets, no hidden feelings, no clothing.

Panting, she broke away and tugged him to his feet. Holding his gaze, she reached for the buttons of his shirt. He stilled, his muscles coiled, as if tensing to spring. He would balk. He wouldn't share this part of himself with her. But how she craved it.

A carriage clattered. Outside, the city harked and hollered, chaotic as ever.

But here… Their breaths mingled, the sounds muffled, private.

Helene kissed her cheek. “Can you listen to this?”

His gaze searched hers, troubled.

“A flute, rising and falling, calling to us. It’s inviting us into this place, this bubble where there are no rules. Where everything is permitted.”

William’s chest rose in a deep breath. Then he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, followed by a second one, more resolute.

Pulse fluttering, she peeled off his neckcloth. Rising on her toes, she pressed a soft kiss to his throat, her lips lingering on his skin. With a deep breath, she turned her back to him, offering herself.

She felt his firm touch on her spine as he removed her wings.

Her turn.

Slipping her hands beneath his lapels, she pulled out his coat.

His turn.

He knelt before her, and his palms trailed a path of fire as they slid down her thighs, peeling her stockings.

Her turn.

Helene unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his torso for the first time. His muscles rippled underneath her palms, and she traced the dark hair sprinkled across his fair skin.

Sighing, she embraced him, pressing her ear to his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart, soaking in his warmth.

Helene stepped back, hands reaching out to pull the shirt down his shoulders. William held both her wrists. And his expression closed.

***

Helene stood before him, her arms resting by her sides, her breasts rising and falling with deep breaths. Her skin was translucent, the candlelight shimmering over her pearly powder. She was a vision of expectant vulnerability, her gaze brimming with tears and unspoken hopes.

Did she understand what she asked? The shield she wanted to remove was his last thread of control.

He told himself it wasn’t about the clothes. He was not made for this sort of intimacy. This baring of souls. They were indeed from different worlds. She, so comfortable in her skin, while he lived in a society that frowned upon a man who bared his own throat.

The dim room seemed to shrink, blurring the boundary between what he struggled to contain and what she longed to set free. His heart raced, and sweat broke across his skin like a soldier in enemy fire, unarmed, bracing for the blade.

“William, what is it?” Her singsong voice shattered his thoughts.

His gaze swept over the room and landed on La Sylphide’s wings.

William caught the pair. Tulle and silk bound by wire and thread made magical by the flickering candlelight. In the dreams, she tempted, and he watched. Though she escaped when dawn came, leaving him dissatisfied with his life, at least his identity remained unchanged.

He lifted the wings for her. “Dance for me.”

“I want to see you, touch you, I—”

“The overture. When La Sylphide dances for a sleeping James.”

Helene’s breath caught, her eyes widening.

Then her chin dropped, and she resembled a child who came for a treat and received instead a reprimand.

Other women might balk, start an endless discussion, or leave.

His Helene sighed.

“Very well.” She turned, offering him her back.

Exhaling, William looped the straps, first over her right arm and then her left. The wings settled between her shoulder blades as if they grew from her pearly skin. Nude, she was beautiful. Clothed in wings, she was his every erotic dream come alive.

His cock hardened, and he kissed the side of her neck, his arms itching to bring her closer, to taste her.

She waltzed away from him, suddenly playful. “James doesn’t kiss La Sylphide.”

William envied Vestris—the closeness of their dance.

“I hate it when you partner him. It’s too sensual—”

Her nose twitched. “I don’t experience my art as sexual.”

“Even when your limbs are wrapped around him?”

She tugged him to the chair—James’ throne. “My dance demands everything I have, focus, strength, balance. There is no space for arousal.”

She pushed both his shoulders, forcing him to sit.

With a mischievous smile lighting her eyes, she leaned over him. “It’s only erotic for those who watch.”

He snaked his arms around her, but she slipped away.

“I wish we had a piano… And a pianist,” she said.

“Do you need the beat to perform the steps?”

“I hear the music here,” she whispered, caressing his forehead, then drawing her hand down until it poised over his heart. “And I feel it here.”

His skin burned wherever she touched him.

“The piano would be for your benefit.”

He tried to kiss her, but she darted away. Impudent chit. William settled into the plush velvet, crossing his ankles.

She knelt by his side, like in La Sylphide’s opening scene. “James is sleeping at the beginning. Won’t you close your eyes?”

“Not even to blink.”

He had waited a lifetime for this moment. Let the world end—he would not look away.

After a breathless pause, she rose, lifting her leg high in attitude. The garret blurred into the background, leaving only the soft glow of candles illuminating their intimate stage. William leaned back, entranced.

Her arms extended like wings, and her toes kissed the floor as she glided before him.

She danced, a perfect echo of the sylph he had conjured in countless dreams. She danced, his pounding heart her only music. She danced, as if he were not there, as if he were a king.

But when she spotted him next, her eyes flashed, and she smiled mischievously, something she had never done on the stage. Her feet lowered from pointe, now rooted to the earth. Her hips swayed, head drawn back, lips parted.

Moonlight streamed through the milky windows, another guest in her performance, invited to light her curves.

She took his hand, her fingers cool against his heated skin, and pulled him to his feet.

“James doesn’t wake up yet,” William said, his voice husky.

She smiled, all impishness. “In my dance, he does.”

She was temptation itself—all long limbs and mischievous fire, brushing her fingertips along his arms, his chest, his neck. She whispered heat into his ear, let her thighs slide against his, rubbed her bare breasts against his shirt.

Every sound she made—every sigh, every teasing exhale—was a dagger in the gut of his control.

And then her hand grazed the bulge beneath his trousers. Just a feathering touch to his cock. There, then gone.

He shuddered. A feverish wave of lust broke over him, drowning thought, drowning breath.

With a ragged curse, William seized her by the waist and ground against her softness, so hard he could feel the slick heat of her arousal through the fabric. One hand slid down, greedy, seeking her entrance, desperate for relief.

“I don’t want to have sex with the Duke of Albemarle.”

Her voice was low, unsparing. “I wish to make love to William. My lover.”

His entire body went rigid.

“I’m the duke,” he said, but the words rang hollow. “Nothing more.”

They were facing each other, and they were not.

“As you wish, Your Grace,” she murmured.

Then, slowly, her fingers moved to his trousers.

One button. Then another. The placket parted. Cold air grazed his cock, and her touch followed—a tender brush across the tip. He gasped.

She turned her back to him and placed her hands on the chair, then she looked at him over her shoulder. “The Duke can have La Sylphide… but not Helene.”

Delicately, defiantly, the wings shimmered. Moonlight kissed the perfection of her back, her derriere, every curve illuminated by a silvery glow.

He pressed the head of his cock against her entrance, and her body welcomed him.

“Helene…”

He sank inside her with a groan, every inch stealing his breath.

She panted, her hands gripping the chair.

Flexing his knees, he pushed to the hilt, needing to feel all of her. Her inner muscles clutched around him, and he cursed again, pleasure punching through him with shocking force.

He grabbed her thighs and spread her wider, angling his hips to reach deeper. One hand held her steady, the other traced the line of her spine.

The wings trembled as she moaned, her body rolling back to meet him.

There was nothing gentle in him now. Only the desperate need to claim, to feel, to anchor himself in the only thing that felt real.

He sought their reflection in the mirror.

Helene’s wings peeked from her shoulders, trembling with each of his thrusts—fragile, fluttering things, like paper caught in a sudden gust.

And him?

Behind her, fully clothed, he looked like some brute—an unrepentant pagan claiming a fairy meant to remain untouched. A monolith of wool and want, his dark coat indistinguishable from the room’s darkness.

And still—he did not stop. He cupped her breasts from behind, squeezing the softness he hadn’t earned, and drove into her harder. Her slick skin met his clothed body, their sweat blooming into steam, and her moans spilled into the air, a symphony of surrender.

His thrusts turned savage, hips slamming into her with punishing force. The wings shuddered—a butterfly trying to stay aloft in a storm.

And still, he drove deeper. The wings flapped with each ram, as if she was trying to fly away from him.

No.

She would never leave. His teeth clenched as he slammed forward again, and one wing tore. The sound—fabric splitting—was louder than the roar inside his skull.

She whimpered. Softly. Brokenly. La Sylphide, crumpling beneath the brute who loved her. Guilt cracked through him like a whip.

He crushed her to his chest, panting against her neck. Her damp hair clung to his lips. Her heartbeat thudded against him.

What was he doing?

He needed more. More than the Silent Sovereign and the Sylph. More than a title. More than a role. He needed William and Helene, skin to skin, no masks, no illusions.

She stood before him, her breath ragged, a tide waiting to break. Waiting for him. Their eyes locked, their world narrowing to fit only two.

His hands shook as he reached for his shirt. The garment resisted, but he peeled it off. Free, his chest expanded with a deep breath, as if he was opening his wings for the first time.

William kicked away his trousers. The fabric rustled as it hit the floor.

Bare, he removed her wings and was finally ready to fly after her.

She was real—more than a sylph, more than a dream.

She was fire and flesh and form, and she was his.

He wasn’t sure who closed the space. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe something between them simply collapsed. He cupped her face, kissed her deeply, hungrily. Her hands roamed—over his shoulders, his arms, his nape—as if memorizing the real man under the coat.

They fell to the bed in a tangle of limbs and mouths, sliding against each other. Skin on skin—no velvet, no lace, no lie. They merged, curve and prominence, sinuous elevation, and overwhelming desire. They rolled across the mattress, the old iron frame protesting their urgency. He pressed his chest to hers, needing to feel her softness against his roughness, her curves against his edges.

Their legs entwined. His knees brushed her calves, and her thighs gripped his hips—a storm of limbs and gasping breaths.

William stretched out beneath her and pulled her atop him, anchoring her with wide hands and wide eyes. She straddled him, and with a grace only she possessed, she guided him inside.

Her head dropped back, and a moan slipped from her parted lips.

He clutched her hips, her thighs, everything he could reach.

It wasn’t enough.

He wanted to pull her into him. To inhale her, consume her, dissolve into her until nothing remained but their sweat and their breath and their pounding hearts.

She circled her legs around his waist and clamped them tight.

“Don’t let go,” he rasped.

She didn’t.

He kissed her with a fervor that bordered on desperation.

She bit his cheek, the seam of his jaw, her teeth grazing his skin, making him shiver. She licked him, the warmth of her tongue igniting a fire that spread from his neck down to his core. She moved her hips against him desperately, the friction driving him wild with lust. His muscles tensed, his grip on control slipping. He would keep control. He would restrain the urge. He willed his body to obey, every fiber of his being taut with the effort.

He would be… In. Control.

Her touch, her scent, the heat of her skin—everything conspired against him. His chest tightened as he fought the rising tide within him. She lowered her mouth to him. Her lips tasted like longing and fulfillment, making his head spin. William splayed his hands over her breasts and then lower, touching her entrance. Her blood boiled under his fingertips, her pulse racing as fast as his own. Her breaths came shallow and urgent, matching the frantic beat of his heart. He could feel his resolve crumbling, the beast clawing to be free.

Helene climaxed in a breathless sob, her body convulsing around him, her channel milking him with an intensity that pushed him to the edge. A scream tore from his chest as he allowed the beast to take over. His vision blurred with raw, unbridled need as he turned her over. He was in her in less than a heartbeat, driven by an unstoppable force. He thrust, he advanced, he surged, his rough cries rising to the roof. His hands gripped her hips with a desperation that bordered on pain, but he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. He licked her, bit her, the sharp tang of her skin driving him further into madness, and then kissed the hurt away, his lips gentle where his teeth had been fierce.

A flush spread across his skin, heat radiating from his chest and down his spine, and his movements took on a will apart from him. He lost himself, he found himself, he dissolved and solidified, he burst, and he became whole. He shouted, and he prayed, his breath ragged and uneven. He raged and loved, his heart pounding against hers. Nothing mattered but the softness of her skin, her warmth close to him, and the way they fit together perfectly, completely.

He thrust, he ground, he pounded. What was he doing? He didn’t know or care as long as it never stopped. This was freedom. This was what it meant to be alive. Raw, real, remarkable. Every nerve was alight, burning with the sensation of her, of them. He abandoned all rhythm, all metric, all rhyme, his thrusts becoming wild, desperate, uncontrolled. There was no gentleness, no delicacy, only lust, the primal need to possess, to claim her as his own.

Pleasure gripped his spine, and with a shout, he spent inside of her, filling her with his essence, the release like a giant wave crashing against the shore, leaving him trembling in its wake.

Everything in him quieted, and the storm within stilled.

His breathing slowed, his body relaxing against hers as he savored the lingering warmth, the afterglow of their shared passion, the sense of peace that only she could bring him.

He only was, around her, in her, he just… was.

***

William rolled away from her, staring at the ceiling, and Helene sprawled on her tummy, their breath shaking the rickety bed. Her body was warm, a light sheen of perspiration clinging to her skin, but her muscles had never been this relaxed, her limbs pleasantly heavy. The scent of lovemaking lingered in the air like the last notes of a love song.

Still panting, Helene propped her head over her bent arm and admired her lover, reveling in his glorious nakedness. William sprawled above the counterpane, one arm flung over his face, the other carelessly splayed over his stomach. He shared the same muscular build as Elgin’s Dionysus. Both radiated a quiet strength, even in godlike repose. While the marble god was flawless and smooth, William’s skin told a story. Softly, she traced the puckered scar beneath his left nipple and the small mark near his ribs. As she skimmed the ridges of his spine, his muscles rippled. Yet another difference. She doubted the statue would be ticklish.

A sprinkle of dark hair peppered his fair skin, flowing down his stomach and tapered torso like an estuary, the matting growing thicker until it reached the ocean of hair above his groin. Helene watched his semi-hard penis, and her sex tingled. It was here that statue and man differed the most. Where the Greeks showed modesty in their sculpture, William’s virility was bold and unmistakable.

Helene sighed, closing her eyes. This living was... intense. While in the theater, twists were expected and rehearsed in advance, in the living they caught one wondrously unaware. Who would say that she, after waking up as Viola in the first act of Twelfth Night —sad as a frog in the sand, lost in a strange land—would go to sleep as Rosalind in the final act of As You Like It , reunited with her love, happy as a swallow in summer.

A knock sounded at the door. “Miss Beaumont, is everything all right there?”

Helene sat, holding the sheets to her breast.

“Yes, Madam La Roux, all is splendid,” Helene shouted and glanced at William with a conspiratorial look.

“We heard some dreadful shouting coming from here.”

“Oh, you did? Are you sure?”

“Sounded like a donkey braying, only louder.”

“Oh, that!” Helene’s voice shook with mirth. “I was making a new voice exercise, that’s all. No need to worry.”

When the steps disappeared from the landing, Helene giggled, slumping back on the mattress, her body relaxing again. William laughed, too. He was a sight to behold, naked, his chest shaking with humor.

When the mirth faded, their fingers met, interlacing above the counterpane.

“You lost control.”

Helene spoke nonchalantly, as if William rampant had not changed the fabric of her being.

He took a deep breath, and his other hand, the one she was not holding, covered his face. “I know.”

Her lips twitched. “The Silent Sovereign brayed like a donkey.”

A groan. “I know.”

“You lost control, and the earth is still standing. Oh, did you hear that? I think it was an earthquake.”

“Don’t make fun of it.”

“I’m not,” she protested, laughing, deliriously happy. “I’m no longer making fun now. I promise. Look. See my face. I’m contrite.”

William leaned over her, studying her face. “You are not contrite. You are beautiful, and you are glowing and very kissable, but not contrite.” He kissed the tip of her nose and stretched, exhaling deeply. “And I would love to ravish you again, but my body won’t cooperate.”

They were silent, their fingers laced, and Helene tried to match the rhythm of her breathing with his.

He closed his hand around hers. “You said you wouldn’t fall in love.”

She had revealed that, too, hadn’t she? “I know.”

He leaned over her, suddenly serious, and touched the corner of her lip. “Are you afraid?”

Helene gazed at him from under her eyelashes. “Do you plan on hurting me?”

“I would rather cut my own arm.”

Smiling, Helene pulled the blanket over both of them and settled in her favorite place, above his chest, listening to the steady drum of his heart. “Then I’m not afraid.”