by Anne Calhoun
He looked at his watch, tried to figure out what he wanted to do. He’d just told her he loved her, and asked her to marry him, and gotten not a negative but no response, no fucking response at all, to either statement. His ego could use a break.
“Please,” she said quietly. “Daniel. Please stay.”
Apologetic, but not apologizing. Say hello to being in love with Tilda Davies. “Fine,” he said.
She squeezed his hand, then turned and nuzzled into his palm, pressing a kiss there, then to his wrist, all the while watching him with her gray eyes. He’d come here intent on a noontime quickie, and the events of the last ten minutes hadn’t changed that, just added layers of dangerous complexity to the near-constant heat simmering in his blood. Lust, love, and wounded masculine pride made for a potent aphrodisiac.
He stroked his fingertips along the fine skin covering her cheekbone. When he reached her hairline, he wound her curls around his fingers and held her for his mouth. Her lips parted under his almost immediately, and he could taste her emotions, relief and desire, as her tongue rubbed against his. He curled his fingers in the fabric of her skirt and drew it up as she backed him to the edge of the bed. When his knees hit the edge, he sat down hard. She went to work on his belt and zipper, freeing his cock through the opening in his boxers. He glanced at the drawer that held sex toys, lubricant, condoms, and a selection of books with cracked spines, Dorothy Sayers. Tilda read herself to sleep with Gaudy Night. She followed his gaze, then looked back at him, one black brow arched.
“Up to you,” he said. He’d just asked her to marry him. He didn’t give a damn about condoms.
Unsurprisingly, she tore a condom from the strip in her nightstand and rolled it down his shaft while he worked her panties down her thighs and off. With a knee on either side of his hips, she held her skirt at the tops of her thighs with one hand and braced herself on his shoulder with the other. He held his cock, and bit back a groan as she enveloped him in tight heat.
She wasn’t very wet yet, so he waited while her body adjusted to his. She bent her head until their foreheads touched, her fingers gripping his nape through his collar, tie. “Daniel,” she whispered.
He smoothed his hands up her hips, under her rucked-up skirt. “It’s better without the condom,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But this is good, right?”
Her curls tumbled in her eyes as she moved. Hell, yes, this was good. He leaned back on one hand and held his shirt and tie out of the way with the other so he could watch his cock disappear into her body with each slow stroke of her hips. She lifted her fingers to his mouth and watched him lick the tips, then circled them over her clit. Almost immediately the sex flush bloomed on her throat and cheeks. Black hair, gray eyes, pink cheeks, and her mouth swollen from kissing him. Each gliding stroke drew his orgasm up his shaft. He let her please them both, unabashedly focused on the way her fingers moved in slow, tight circles, and tried to be grateful for the deadening effect of the condom.
Her head dropped back. He leaned forward and closed his teeth on the tendon in her neck. She gasped, laughed, shuddered, and tipped her head down to kiss him. Her tongue in his mouth, her fingers brushing his abdomen, her sex slick and grasping around him, and a particular needy tone to her soft inhalations as her muscles tightened. He gripped her hip and thrust up into her, again, again, and then she unraveled, her lips soft and hot against his, her weight a sweet heat and pressure, just enough to send him over. He ground up into her as his release pulsed through him.
She kissed him, waiting out the aftershocks, then scooted off him and back into the bathroom. A quick cleanup, then she emerged. “I’ll put together a quick lunch,” she said, and went downstairs. He cleaned up, zipped up, and heard the fridge door opening and plates clattering against the granite countertops as he followed her. She’d brought out containers of hummus, cheese, crackers, sliced peppers, some deli meats, olives, and pita. He opened lids and found serving spoons and forks while she got them glasses of water. They sat at the counter and ate, watching the light dapple the trees in the back garden.
“Did you go into work today?” he asked finally.
“For a couple of hours. I was working on receipts from my trip, and between looking back at last month and counting days, realized I was late. I went to Duane Reade and bought the test, then came home. I’ll go back after lunch. You?”
“The case of the decade walked in off the street a couple of days ago,” he said. He didn’t usually talk about work, much less make it sound like he was on rooftops, fists on hips and chest thrust out, saving the world, but he needed to salvage something out of this. And, if it panned out, it was huge.
Her eyes widened. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “What’s it about?”
“Greed,” he said shortly. “In my line of work it’s always about greed. Sometimes the biggest problem people have is knowing when they have enough.” His voice trailed off and he looked at her over the hummus. “Do you know anyone looking to moonlight as a whistleblower?”
“Not I, said the little red hen,” Tilda said, her tone light. “I would have told you if someone had come to me asking to be connected with you and your professional capacity.”
“Good.”
“Your whistleblower is in good hands,” she said quietly.
Daniel wished she’d give him the same trust. He shrugged, and finished his lunch. She escorted him to the front door, and waited until he was on the pavement. “Yes.”
He turned back to face her. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you. If you still want to marry me, that is.”
He couldn’t read her now, which at least felt familiar. Tilda cycling through the emotional spectrum was beyond disconcerting, into unreal. “Of course I still want to marry you.”
“Even though I’m not pregnant.”
“Even though you’re not pregnant.”
“Even though I didn’t say yes right away.”
“Even though you didn’t say yes right away.”
“When?”
He looked at his watch, then at her. “What are you doing later today?”
She laughed.
“Don’t laugh. I know judges,” he said. “Do you want a big wedding?”
“I’d really prefer to elope,” she said.
This didn’t surprise him. “I’ll text you.”
It took him longer than he anticipated to get everything set up, but toward the end of the week he texted her.
Noon. Judge Power’s chambers at courthouse.
To Do
Get ring
Get license
Arrange judge
Get married
– NINE –
December, Winter Solstice
“You’re going into the shop today?” Daniel asked without turning away from the armoire, where he was messing about in a shoebox he’d brought with him when he moved into the town house the previous weekend. Suspecting the shoebox held her wedding ring, she turned her back on him to give him privacy.
“I am,” she said. She needed something to ground her. The days between Daniel proposing and their wedding day had passed in a blur not all that dissimilar from jet lag. She wasn’t quite sure where she was, or who she was, and kept getting lost in the neighborhood she’d lived and worked in since graduating from college.
She tossed her phone on the bed, toweled her hair into a wild mess, then ran her fingers through it. “I have two morning appointments with brides, a shipment arriving from Paris, and I need to go over some things with Penny before taking the weekend off.”
“Okay,” he said, then shoved something into his pocket. Definitely the ring. “You’re sure this is how you want to do this?”
She peered at him as she wriggled into her panties. “My mother is hardly going to drop everything and fly here for our wedding. N
an doesn’t travel. Given my history of relationships, my friends expect me to elope. The more important question is whether you want to elope. Your family is only an hour away.”
He closed the armoire door and buttoned his white shirt. He wore a gray suit with a deep red tie, a black belt, and wingtips. “After watching Angie get married, I have no interest in a big wedding.”
“Neither do I,” she said from the closet. She slid her arms into a long-sleeved wrap dress of garnet wool, tied the belt, then zipped up black leather boots. He snagged her on her way out the door to drop a kiss on her nape. The strength of his arm contrasted with the tender touch of his mouth sent a shiver down her spine.
“I’ll meet you at the courthouse. You know where it is?”
“Yes,” she said.
So she walked to the shop under a low, threatening gray sky, and worked. She helped customers, fielded email requests, sorted orders, talked to Edith about the upcoming show for Sheba. The day had an aura of unreality about it, humid air and a cold breeze that boded of a coming storm, mirroring the mix of secretive joy and utter terror inside her.
Married. The one thing she’d never thought she’d do. She didn’t put her own desires on her list, much less think about a wedding day, or a lifelong commitment. No wonder the gathering darkness of the winter solstice made her feel like she’d slipped down the rabbit hole.
Daniel got to the courthouse before she did. He was waiting on the other side of the metal detectors, making idle conversation with the officers on duty while his gaze never left hers. Her stomach flip-flopped when she looked at him. Was this love? She didn’t know, honestly wasn’t sure what she felt, only that it was powerful, deep, dangerous, and reciprocated.
“Hi,” he said, and gave her a quick kiss. “Judge Power’s chambers are upstairs.”
She held his hand on the way up the stairs, where Daniel walked into the secretary’s office. “Daniel Logan and Tilda Davies to see the judge,” he said.
Judge Power poked her head around the door. “Come in, Daniel,” she said, then introduced herself to Tilda. “Congratulations to you both. Did you bring witnesses?”
“No,” Daniel said, and withdrew what she assumed was the license from his jacket pocket.
“Mary, could we borrow you for a few minutes?” the judge asked.
The clerk appeared in the door with a takeout container of falafel in one hand and a fork in the other. There was some fussing over the license. Drawn to the thunderclouds, Tilda wandered over to the window and looked out at the sky.
“Hey,” he said gently.
She turned to face him and buried her face in his chest, the scent of his clothes so familiar. She felt so tall next to him, but at moments like this, their size difference became clear.
“Are you sure?” She didn’t look up at him, so he bent at the knees, clasped both her hands in his, and sought her eyes. “Tilda, are you sure? We don’t have to do this.”
She wasn’t sure. She’d said yes because she wanted him with a desperation that was equally familiar and frightening. But the alternative, saying no and eventually losing him, was equally familiar and frightening. She’d denied herself for so long. Deep down, she knew how it would end, but couldn’t refuse herself the here and now.
Her shoulders shuddered with her inhale, less so on the exhale. She turned their hands so his were palm up with hers palm down in his. Together they looked at her long, thin fingers, the nails trimmed and buffed to a high shine, bare of rings except for the gold band gleaming on her left thumb. The ring she’d chosen for him.
“Oh,” he said, almost helplessly.
“Yes,” she said. She looked up at him, and saw joy in his eyes. “I’m sure. Yes.”
When they turned back to the room, the judge was turning off her computer, and the clerk was finishing her falafel. Daniel dropped both of Tilda’s hands to guide her with a palm at the small of her back. They stood in front of the judge. Tilda held out a book with a white leather cover embossed with Book of Common Prayer in gold. “Use this, please,” she said. “The wedding rite is marked.”
Judge Power didn’t blink an eye, turned to the pages marked by the ribbon. Tilda clasped Daniel’s hands and faced him. When it came time to exchange rings, he pulled a pale blue box from his pocket, opened it, and pulled out a thin platinum band. No diamonds, no precious stones of any kind.
It was perfect. Exactly what she would have chosen for herself.
“Daniel, you have taken Matilda to be your wife. Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, to be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”
Without hesitation, he slid the band onto her left ring finger. “I do.”
She did the same with his ring, transferring the simple band of gold from her thumb to his ring finger, and smiled when his thumb worried at it. Neither of them wore rings. Wedding bands would take some getting used to.
“You may kiss the bride,” Judge Power said with a smile.
Daniel laid his fingers on Tilda’s jaw and kissed her, soft and sweet. Her hand rose to clasp his wrist and hold him close.
“Congratulations,” Mary said.
Handshakes all around, then Tilda picked up her bag and withdrew neatly wrapped gifts for Judge Power and Mary, boxes of notecards stamped with gold bumblebees. Judge Power seemed genuinely touched.
“Tilda, you forgot to sign the license,” Mary said. Without hesitation, Tilda uncapped her fountain pen and signed her name in a swirl of script. Matilda Elizabeth Agnes Davies.
“Your middle name is Agnes?” Daniel asked as they headed for the stairs to the main floor.
“One of my middle names is Agnes,” she said as she pulled on her coat and buttoned it.
“You’re one surprise after another.”
“It’s Nan’s name. Agnes Elizabeth. Mum’s name is Elizabeth Agnes Mary, for Nan and her sisters.”
“Who picked Matilda?” Daniel asked as he claimed two overnight bags from the officer staffing the metal detectors. “It’s quintessentially British, but now seems out of place given the family naming conventions.”
“Apparently, my father did,” she said. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, and surprised her then and there by kissing her in full view of everyone coming and going from the building.
They took a cab to LaGuardia and caught a flight to Charleston, South Carolina. On the plane she pulled her letter to Nan from her purse and added a few lines.
You’re the first to know that Daniel and I are married. We eloped today, just a quick ceremony in a judge’s chambers, and a short honeymoon. I’m still planning to come home after Christmas, and can’t wait for you to meet him.
It felt strange to put it on paper, make it real. She’d married Daniel, and was going on her honeymoon. She looked out the window as they followed the Atlantic coast south, the greens and blues welcome after New York’s autumn and the first gray sleet of winter. When they disembarked they picked up a rental car and drove into the heart of the old town. Tilda looked out the window with great interest as he parked in front of the John Rutledge House Inn as the sun was setting. A wide two-sided staircase led up to the main entryway of the three-story inn. Green-painted wrought iron scrollwork curved under her hand as they climbed the stairs, and framed the second-floor windows and balcony. “Oh, it’s warm,” she sighed.
“Not as warm as Miami or the Virgin Islands, but closer for a quick getaway,” he said. “I thought you might like the history. I tried to book us into the Belmond but they were full.”
“That’s all right. I’d prefer a quaint bed-and-breakfast over a luxury hotel any day.”
The host showed them to a tiny cottage tucked away at the back of the property. Enormous lilac bushes bracketed the path to the door. “You’re our only carriage ho
use guests,” she said as she opened the drapes overlooking the patio, dotted with wrought iron tables and chairs next to palm trees and magnolia trees. “Perfect for honeymooners. We’re expecting a storm tonight, but it should blow through by tomorrow morning. Let me know if you need anything, otherwise, we’ll see you at breakfast.”
After she left, Tilda walked right up to Daniel, who stood with his hands in his pockets in front of the marble fireplace. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. She peered up into his long face, saved from terminal gloominess by the intelligence and compassion that was as much a part of his bone structure as his cheekbones or jaw. The permanent furrow between his brows deepened a little as she looked up at him. “We have dinner reservations at seven, but I can cancel them if you want to stay in.”
“No,” she said, and surprised them both by kissing the slight dent in his chin. “I’ll just freshen up.”
She came out of the bathroom with her makeup touched up, a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth, and pulled a cashmere wrap out of her overnight bag.
The restaurant was exquisite, and only half full in the off-season. Their table overlooked the water. Tilda wore her wrap to ward off the chill, and kept up a steady stream of quiet conversation about the food, the view, the area, the business. Daniel watched her, his long fingers toying with the stem of his wineglass, his face slipping into the expression that frightened her, tender, curious, relentless.
“Tilda,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Are you nervous?”
Denial shaped her lips until he lifted one eyebrow. “Yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“It’s . . . we’re different. Commitments change things.”
He clearly tried to fight the smile, and lost. “They do,” he said.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“I don’t, either. We’ll figure it out together.”
She pulled her wrap more tightly around her shoulders, hunching in on herself against the fear bubbling inside her. Let me have this, she pleaded with herself. Let me have this, have him.
