by Dayna Quince
Luna had never felt fullness like this before. Was this what it was to be claimed by a man? It didn't feel like she was giving her body to him.
It felt like she was taking.
She could feel sweat on his back as he moved, steadily thrusting, moving easily inside her now that passion had reclaimed her. She could see heaven on the horizon as she closed her eyes, and she hooked her ankles over his thighs and lifted her hips to him. With each of his thrusts, the force and friction sent her higher into the heavens of release.
Luna couldn't breathe. Her throat was dry with the rush of her breathing, and she felt like she was reaching for something she just couldn't touch.
Light exploded behind her eyelids, and all her muscles tensed at once, gripping and squeezing. She was falling, shattering into thousands of pieces like a firework, sparks of light slowly drifting back to the earth.
He moved faster over her, moaning her name, grunting with the effort and whispering sweet words that seemed so very far away. He stiffened and let out a low, primal groan. He held her tightly against him as his hips continued to move, but at a slower, more languid pace until he stopped altogether.
They lay like that for a moment, and then he rolled them to their sides and pulled the coverlet over them.
Luna opened her eyes as he brushed her hair from her face and kissed her lips once more.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I'm perfect,” she said, though her throat was raw and her mouth dry. She needed a cup of water.
He adjusted them, his body sliding from hers, but he kept her close to him, tucked into the hollow of his embrace as if to shelter her and protect her.
“You should try to sleep,” he said.
“It will be dawn soon. I should go back to my room,” she said, even though the last thing she wanted to do was leave his embrace.
“Not yet. Stay with me.”
Forever.
Luna didn't say the word aloud. She just nodded and closed her eyes, breathing deeply, his scent mixed with hers, and they both fell asleep.
Chapter 21
As the first rays of dawn pierced the room, Callen swiftly helped her dress, and saw Luna to her door before returning to his own room before the scullery maid arrived. He leapt into his bed and feigned sleep as she attended the fire and left. He managed to fall asleep again until later in the morning. He woke up, washed, dressed, and went down to breakfast.
Callen had to stop himself from going straight to Luna’s side. They hadn't spoken at all about what would happen next, but until he heard her agree to marry him, he wasn't going to push his luck. He tried to act as normal as possible, though he felt like he was walking around nude, the truth of last night, or rather this morning, plain for all to see.
As he filled a plate of food and sat down at the breakfast table, there was a curious buzz in the air, excitement over the party later today. He caught Luna's gaze multiple times, and they shared a secret smile, her cheeks blooming with color. But he didn't have a chance to actually speak with her.
She was surrounded by her sisters as they walked down to the Kirkland garden party, and Callen took the time to collect his thoughts and figure out what he would say to her when he next had the chance to get her alone. Even if last night had never happened, he still wanted to marry her, and he still intended to stay in England and see his brother leave.
His thoughts moved to his brother, who walked ahead of him, charming Miss Nicolette and Miss Odette for all the world to see as if he wasn't wearing a target on his back for Judge Blackwood.
Callen would have to convince his brother to leave in order to save his life. He saw Theo in a new light after his conversation with Luna last night. He wanted to reassure his brother he wasn't alone. He wasn't being abandoned.
This was just what they had to do to keep him safe.
He could start a new life, find himself a wife wherever he settled, and find his own happiness. Didn’t he want that?
Callen was in love, and his brother deserved the same. He wanted everyone he knew to feel like this, as if he could sprout wings and fly. Take to the sky like a great hawk, soaring high above clouds.
After a round of introductions to Lady Kirkland's guests, most of which he knew from the London scene, Callen was returning from the retiring room when he happened upon his brother standing near the Kirkland maze. Theo turned as he approached, and they both tensed, but Theo unexpectedly looked away, his expression contrite.
“I was hoping I might find a moment to talk to you,” Theo said.
Callen raised a brow. “About?”
“Well, our fight yesterday. It's not sitting well with me. You’re making all these decisions without me but including her in on them.”
Callen bristled. “This is just like you to get jealous of not being the center of everything.” But they couldn't stand here and talk, not about such a sensitive subject. Callen nodded for Theo to follow him out of the formal garden and toward the Kirkland stables. They found a bench along the path and Callen sat, the muscles in his side rather tight after last night.
“How can you be jealous of Luna?” he asked. “Aren’t you tired of this? Don't you want to do something different for a change? You can't keep living the same life, following the same path that is literally leading you to the hangman.”
Theo didn't sit. He shoved his hands in his waistcoat pockets and kicked a pebble on the dirt path.
“You keep saying that like you're so sure he can hang me. Is that what you want to happen?”
“Damn it, Theo, of course not. That's why I want you to leave. I want you to go find a better life for yourself. Clearly, England isn't serving you well. Find yourself a French girl to marry or some Italian soprano in Italy and settle down. Find something that makes you happy, that isn't gambling or booze or a chorus line of women.”
“Those things make me happy. And that's not what's killing me right now. It's the fact you want to be rid of me. You found Luna and that's great, really, it is. But now you're just going to toss me aside? Stick me on the boat and wish me well? Out with the old, in with the new?”
Callen glared at his brother. He rested his elbows on his knees. “You know that's not how it is. This is much bigger than that. I can't keep doing this with you. I can't. It nearly killed me. No matter what I try to do to help you, what I say, you're never going to listen to me. You don't want to, and I…”
“You love her. It's quite obvious to me. And you think I'm going to destroy that too. As I've destroyed my life. That's why you want to get rid of me. But I want to stay. I don't want a new life in some damned foreign country. I want a new life right here. If you can have it, why can't I?”
“Because no one's trying to hang me.”
“I can fix it,” Theo pleaded.
“How?” Callen asked with exasperation. “Are you going to fight Judge Blackwood in a duel? Maybe if you kill all three of them, Judge Blackwood, Kirby's cousin James, then it will all be over. Is that your solution?”
Theo cursed and turned his back to him. He ran a hand through his hair, took a fistful, and pulled on it before turning back to face Callen.
“I just want the chance to change. Take my swords, take my dueling pistols, leave me with the silk fan with which to defend myself, but don't make me leave, Callen, please. I may act like I hate you, and if I'm being honest most of the time I do. There are some things that happened between us that I just can't forget, and can't let them go, but I don't want to leave. You're my brother. You're my only family, and without you, there is no one left to put up with me. If you don't care about me, no one does. I want to stay here and…prove that I am good enough to stay. That I can change. That I'm worth loving, damn it. I can do something good.”
Callen didn't know where this was coming from, but it was the most emotional, meaningful speech he'd ever heard Theo say. Hell, he wanted to believe him.
“Is that really how you feel?”
“You don't believe me afte
r that bloody speech?” Theo asked, his voice breaking.
“I want to believe you,” Callen said, “but you've only showed me all the wrong sides. If you're turning over a new leaf or whatever you want to call it, it just might be too late. What do you expect me to do? I can't watch you die. I do care about you, but I also don't want to give up my own life for you. So what do I do to help you? I thought I was helping by getting you out of England and setting you up with money somewhere else, but you don't even want to do that? So how can I help you? How can I help you and not give up the one thing that I want?”
“Luna?”
Callen fisted his hands. “Yes. Luna.”
“Marry her and we’ll take her with us,” Theo said.
“What?” Callen’s stomach dropped to his feet. She'd already turned him down once, and he thought maybe she was just scared to leave her family, but they'd still be in England. Now Theo was suggesting he take her from England? She'd never see her family again, quite possibly, or at least not for some time. His thoughts moved too fast. He couldn't catch hold of them.
Theo put his hands on his waist. “She's not my favorite of the sisters. I don't like the way she talks to me, mostly because it's too honest, and she's right, which is rather annoying. But if it means you'll still come with me, then I say bring her along with us. We’ll have our own little family. We’ll set up a villa in Spain, grow oranges, and I'll be the best bloody uncle there ever was.”
Callen shook his head. “I can't ask her to leave England, to leave everything she's ever known behind.”
“I need you, Callen. So either we go or we stay. If I'm this close to death with your steady influence, I’d hate to see what I’ll be without you. You look like Father. It's the only thing I can stand about you. It's the only reason I keep coming back to you when I’ve reached the end of my own good sense. You even sound like him most of the time. And though I've never forgiven you for not bringing me home with you when they were ill to say goodbye, just looking at you makes me feel a little closer to him.”
Callen was speechless. He tried to understand what his brother meant, but he couldn't see it because he thought Theo looked like their father. Even though Callen knew he and his father rather looked alike, it was only in Theo that Callen saw his father's teasing smile and his expressive brow. Especially when Theo laughed, the sound was unmistakable. Theo wrote just like their mother, grand sweeping strokes, completely wasteful in the amount of space used up on paper, but Theo's notes, opening them and reading them, were like reading letters from his mother in school.
His throat grew tight and he swallowed.
“Really? Because I see so much of him in you and not in myself.”
Theo's jaw flexed and the muscle ticked as he swallowed hard and glanced away, his eyes a bit red.
They stayed like that for a moment, sitting in silence. Callen couldn’t take much more. There was too much to think about, and he needed a break. He just wanted to breathe, to enjoy the sunshine, and see Luna. He wished he could talk to her about all of this because she always had such good advice. She always saw straight to the heart of the matter.
“Enough of this,” he said. “We’ll figure it out but not today. Today, let's just enjoy ourselves and let it go.”
Theo nodded and Callen stood, and they walked back to the party.
“How is your wound?” Theo asked.
“It's fine,” Callen replied. “Your punches are soft.”
Theo snorted. “I pulled them for your sake, on account of you’re so old and feeble. You're an invalid.”
“I'm only thirteen months older than you, Theo. You're just as old as I am. And I could hear your knees pop as you got up, so worry about your own body. I'm fine.”
They were both chuckling as they reached the others, and Mr. Seyburn approached them, Luna by his side.
Her cheeks filled with color as she caught sight of Callen, and she bit her lip bashfully. But then she looked between them, and he could see the curiosity in her gaze.
“Are either of you up for a game of ninepins?” Mr. Seyburn asked.
Callen and Theo agreed, but Callen insisted that Luna be on his team, so they could soundly beat his brother. Theo was heartily up to the challenge.
Chapter 22
Luna moved down the stairs toward the breakfast parlor. She stopped on the landing and stretched her arms above her head and smiled. She was still a bit sore after last night with Callen, and she could barely remember the day.
She was so tired after leaving the Kirkland party earlier than she had expected. She returned to her room and slept, almost sleeping through dinner, if Nic hadn’t come to wake her.
This morning she felt refreshed and mostly recovered.
Last night she’d gone to Callen’s room to check on him at her usual time to change his bandage, and Theo had been there. Some of the tension between them was gone, and Luna didn't stay after changing his bandage. Instead, she let the two brothers talk since things between them, for the moment, were good. Luna didn't want to get between them again.
Callen had wanted her to stay, but she insisted because he needed his brother. Now that Luna knew the wounds that lay between them, she really wanted to encourage them to heal.
She walked into the breakfast parlor and piled her plate with capers and bacon, her stomach rumbling with hunger. She took her usual seat and began to eat with more gusto than she usual.
Luna had been so tired at dinner, she couldn’t remember eating much. She’d gone to her room to lie down almost immediately after she and her sisters had entered the drawing room.
Luna was already halfway through her plate of food, feeling like she ought to slow down to a more reasonable speed, when there was a commotion at the entrance to the breakfast parlor, and she looked up, stunned to see her father.
“Where is Bernadette?” he asked loudly, startling everyone.
“She’s not yet come down, it seems,” Georgie replied, standing to confront their father.
“That girl has run off I tell you.” He wagged his finger and pivoted to leave the room.
Luna abandoned her plate to follow her father. He was just outside interrogating Anne.
“Where is Bernadette? Lord Kirkland just informed me that she’s been compromised but refuses to marry the lad. I’ll not have it. I’ve sacrificed so much for all of you. Bernie will marry him. I will see to it!”
“She…” Anne paused, her face going pale. “I would assume she’s in the breakfast parlor with all my other sisters.”
“She is not,” Father cried.
Luna stood near, but as more people came to witness her father’s absurd behavior, she wanted to run away in embarrassment. The dowager duchess appeared, followed by Violet and Weirick, and approached her father with a smile intended to calm him.
Bernie was missing? She scanned the faces of her sisters, and sure enough, Bernie was not present. Sometimes it was hard to notice one of them was missing when they all stood together. Where could she be? Hopefully hiding somewhere where her father could not find her, but it rattled Luna all the same. Her sister was gone.
“Mr. Marsden, how lovely to see you this morning. I’ve been informed you were inquiring after Bernadette’s whereabouts?”
“I must take her to meet with Lord Kirkland and Mr. Rupert, her fiancé,” her father demanded. “We will depart for Scotland at once.”
Luna had to peer past the dowager to see. The sight of Roderick and Anne standing together, Roderick’s arm around Anne, stunned Luna.
“What’s this?” her father barked with alarming force. “Get your hands off my daughter!”
“Father, stop,” Anne commanded.
“What has been going on here?” Father asked.
“Anne and I will be getting married,” Roderick said. “You need not force Bernie to marry that spineless pup.”
Luna covered her mouth in shock. Anne and Roderick were getting married? Since when? How had she not known about this?
&n
bsp; Her father puffed his chest out. “My Anne, marry the likes of you? She can barely stand the sight of you.”
“That’s not true anymore, Papa,” Anne said. “I love him.”
Her father blustered, his jowls shaking, which usually meant he didn’t know what to say. “Such insolence!” He turned away, but Georgie blocked his path.
“Go home, Father,” Georgie ordered. “We’ll find Bernie, but she isn’t going to marry anyone she doesn’t wish to.”
He wagged his finger at her. “When I tell your mother of this, she will be quite distraught, and I’ll find Bernadette myself!” He marched away. Luna clung to the wall as he passed, half afraid he might single her out for some ridiculous scheme.
Roderick cleared his throat and addressed everyone. “Well, now you know. Anne and I are engaged. Now may we please continue to breakfast? I’m starving.”
Everyone seemed to scatter in different directions, and Luna just stood there, astounded and confused by everything she had witnessed. Some of her sisters went back into the breakfast parlor, and Luna found herself alone in the hall until Callen came out.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I can't believe Bernie is missing. Where could she go?”
“Let’s go somewhere else where we can talk.”
Luna nodded absently and followed him to the Queen’s drawing room that was at present empty. He peeked past the curtains open to the King’s Hall beyond, but it looked deserted. He waved her to sit and moved a chair close to sit in front of her.
“What could my father be thinking, trying to force Bernie to marry someone she hardly knows? That man will take her away from her family.”
“Don't worry. None of us will let that happen. In fact, I think I have a solution.”
