Gayle Wilson - His Secret Duchess

She heard her own voice, crying out as the center released, and then Nick’s mouth was over hers, capturing the echo of the cry that had shattered the twilight stillness around them. His own release followed quickly, hot and powerful, roaring into the receptacle of her body like a torrent, shattering in its intensity. His body convulsed under her caressing hands. Once. Twice. And then was still. As still now as the clearing where they lay, still entwined. One.

Finally he moved, raising his chest away from hers on hard brown arms that trembled. He looked down into her face, which was touched with this great mystery», softened and exposed by what had happened.

“Mary,” he said again, the afternoon’s litany, and thinking that, she smiled at him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Her smile widened, blue eyes moving over the strong lines of his face. Beloved. This is my beloved. She watched her fingers touch his cheek, feeling, as she had felt before, the dear roughness. Too intimate and too private. Only hers.

“Oh, dear God, Mary, what have I done?” Nick said, his tone choked with despair.

“Hush.” She comforted him, her voice that of a mother whispering from the darkness of the storm’s rage to her frightened child. “It’s all right,” she promised. Her thumb moved against his lashes, which were gold tipped and darker at the root. Beautiful eyes. She had never really seen them before. Their color now was the same slate as the afternoon’s sky in winter. “I love you,” she said, and watched his face change again. Realigning. Finding the direction he had lost, the sure course of honor she had stolen from him.

“Where is your father?” he asked, and for a moment she couldn’t remember. Or think why he would want to know.

“With the dean. On visitation.”

“Will he be home tonight?”

“Not until Tuesday,” she said, thinking suddenly about her dear, frail papa. Of his unfailing gentleness with those who fell short of the grace so generously given. And thinking, finally, of the reality of what they had done.

“Come on,” Nick said, rising in one smoothly athletic movement and then reaching down to pull her to her feet.

Standing, she was embarrassed for the first time by their undress. She watched, unmoving, as he rearranged his garments, the action a matter of seconds. When he turned to her, the long fingers dealing competently with the last button on his shirt, his hands stilled at what was in her face.

“I have to go,” he said, trying to imagine what she must be feeling. “If I don’t, then I’ll be a deserter. It won’t matter that I’m Vail’s son. My regiment is going into combat, Mary. I have to go. I’ve been recommissioned.”

“I know,” she whispered, wondering why he was explaining. She had always understood he had to leave. That was why…

“Mary?” he said.

She would never see him like this again, she knew suddenly, the surety of her premonition so strong it took her breath. And so she let her eyes glory in him as he stood before her, young and strong and so beautiful. So alive. His hair disordered by their lovemaking, by her fingers. His tanned skin clean, its taste sweet and warm, salt-kissed under her tongue.

She closed her eyes, imprinting his image on her brain. To last forever. Nick. For one instant of time, he had belonged only to her, and she would cherish that in the dark future that lay ahead.

“Mary?” he said again, his tone questioning.

Her eyes opened, and she forced herself to smile at him. He crossed the small distance that separated them. He gently guided her hands through the openings in her chemise and then through the sleeves of the bodice of her gown, his fingers dealing with the intricacies of feminine dress with an ease that argued long familiarity. She wondered how many other women…and knew that it didn’t matter. Whatever they had been before, they were no longer. There was only now.

She stood and let him dress her as if she were a porcelain fashion doll. Or a child. It was not until his thumb had lifted to wipe away the tears that she even realized she was crying. She caught his hand, to lay the dampness of her cheek against its warmth.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, feeling her smile begin against his palm in response to that apology.

“I know,” she whispered.

“Is it very bad, my heart?”

“No,” she answered, looking up to comfort his concern. His eyes were too serious, worried, a crease forming between the golden brows. “It doesn’t hurt.” A lie, but there was no need to add to the burden she’d already given him to bear, a guilt he would carry with him onto some battlefield in a place whose name she wouldn’t even know.

“We have to go,” he urged again.

“I know.”

But when he led her from the clearing, the gelding following as placid as a shepherd’s dog, and lifted her onto the animal, careful of her discomfort, it was to take her to a destination she did not expect.

The stones of the ancient monastic chapel blended into the fall of night’s shadows, almost hidden from the road. This was the oldest part of the benefice, seldom used since the newer church, much closer to the village, had been commissioned by the old duke, Nick’s grandfather. Built as a penance for his many sins, some had said. This small chapel was peopled now only by the ghosts of those who had prayed beneath its roof through so many centuries.

She didn’t question when Nick lifted her off Comet’s back and, taking her hand, pulled her toward the wooden doors. They creaked protestingly when he pushed them open. The interior was darker than the outside twilight, and they were forced to wait for their eyes to adjust to its gloom.

There was a tall stained-glass window behind the chancel, and in the light filtering through its gemlike panes they were finally able to see the simple stone altar in the shadowed darkness. The faint scent of incense seemed to permeate the silence. Nick again took her hand, leading her across the nave toward the altar. It was only at the realization of his intent that she shrank back, struggling to free her hand from his determined hold.

“No,” she said, her recoil from the sanctity of this place instinctive. “Not here.” She could not come here, could not stand in this place with him, her body wet with their lovemaking.

“Yes, Mary. Here.”

Wondering, she shook her head. Nick held her eyes a moment, and then turned to face the figure depicted in the central light, below the flowing tracery of the window.

“Here,” he said again. His eyes still raised to the image in the window, he began to intone the familiar words, “I, Nicholas William Richard, take thee, Mary…”

His voice faltered, and his gaze came back to the tearstreaked beauty of her face, lifted almost reverently, not to the window, but to his.

“Elizabeth,” she whispered. His gaze rested on her features a long time, and then returned to the figure portrayed in the stained-glass window above their heads.

”…take thee, Mary Elizabeth, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…” The soft words faltered again. He was unable to remember the rest, and so he finished. “From this day forward. Forever more. Amen.”

He turned to her again, waiting, and fighting tears, she raised blind eyes to the jeweled lights of the window.

“I, Mary Elizabeth, take thee, Nicholas William Richard, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death us do part. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

“Amen,” Nick demanded. A talisman, perhaps, a charm to make the spell complete.

“Amen,” she echoed obediently.