Something Old Rebecca Connolly (ink ebook reader .TXT) 📖

he was covered in more dirt than she. But the scruff at his jaw, the untidy mass of his hair, the open neck of his coarse and stained linen, and the scuffed boots neatly encasing his legs all combined to give him an air of temptation and tantalization, the sort that would have attracted the attention of any female with eyes, no matter her age or marital state. A somehow attainable version of masculine impossibility that one would be willing to do all manner of things for and would be a chief culprit in preventing sleep from truly settling.

And he was hers. Suddenly, she wished her fan was at hand.

“Yes,” Thomas said simply, slowly ambling toward her, his eyes on hers, his smile slight and crooked. “I can. I am vastly attracted to the streaks of dirt on your apron and find your hair fetching when it is barely contained. It makes the task of removing those pins simpler, and yet I could be quite content with not removing them when you appear like this.”

Lily wanted to lower her eyes. Desperately. Wanted to look anywhere but at him, yet she could not do so. From the moment he’d started in her direction, her heart began to dance a jig that somehow pounded in both of her wrists, which set the basket in her hands to trembling against her knees.

Something he saw made Thomas laugh softly. “A wild Cornish maid upon the cliffs and moors… perfectly situated among sister wildflowers and worth twice the admiration.”

A wild lock of her hair danced across her brow, but Thomas got to it before she could, brushing it back to its proper place, then slowly twisting the lock around his finger, drawing Lily closer to him as he did so, her breathing almost painful now.

“And you look like the sort of man no respectable woman of sense would meet out in the garden alone,” Lily murmured, her voice hitching as Thomas slid an arm around her waist.

He tilted his head slightly, his smile deepening. “Will you call for a chaperone, then?”

“But any woman, respectable or no,” Lily went on, wishing she sounded more alluring and less affected, “would dearly wish for a moment alone in the garden with such a man. As long a moment as possible.”

“Would you?” He leaned down, brushing his mouth along her brow, her cheek, the tip of her nose, all without forming an actual kiss upon any of them.

“Theoretically,” Lily breathed, arching for what he was intentionally keeping from her. “Hypothetically. Potentially.”

Thomas chuckled low, his lips finding the corner of her own. “Is that all? Are you sure?”

Lily sighed, giving up the game and dropping her basket to the ground, clasping her hands behind her husband’s neck with a fierceness that startled her. “Unconditionally,” she ground out before surging to her toes and bringing her lips to his.

His other arm came around her fast and hard, pulling her against him and into him as though he’d been away for weeks rather than hours. The time apart had somehow stoked a hunger that rivaled that first night, found new depths of their longing, and a desperation to quench their ever-rising need.

“A letter for you, Mrs. Granger. Oh…”

Lily giggled against Thomas’s mouth before breaking off, burying her face into his shoulder as she shook with laughter. She felt Thomas laugh as well, pressing his lips to her hair and rubbing his hands up and down her back.

She exhaled slowly, the edges of laughter still lingering. “Yes, George?”

“I beg your pardon, madam. Sir. There’s just a letter here, and I…”

Peering around her husband, Lily smiled in as encouraging a manner as possible. “It’s quite all right. I’ll take it.”

Cheeks flaming red, George stepped forward and placed the letter in Lily’s open hand, not meeting her eyes. He nodded and left as quickly as he had arrived, disappearing into the house.

“Poor George,” Thomas said on a deep exhale. “How will he ever overcome seeing us in such an embrace?”

Lily looked up at him, squinting in speculation as she turned the letter over and slid her finger along the edges toward the wax seal. “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer he grow accustomed to the sight rather than overcome it.”

Had she not been in the process of opening a letter, her husband might have kissed her senseless, but thankfully, he settled for an expression that painted the scene vibrantly in her mind. The breaking of the seal on the letter made Lily jump in surprise, somehow forgetting that she had been doing so.

Swallowing, she scanned the lines, belatedly recognizing the hand as that of her sister, Rosalind. The more she read, the more her heart sank, her perfect heaven already slipping through her fingers.

“Rosalind and Captain Riverton are returning to England,” she told Thomas, unable to glance up from the letter to do so. “They will be in London by the tenth, and we are invited to a belated celebration of their marriage upon their return.”

There was no immediate response, and Lily reluctantly dragged her attention to him.

His smile was sad but present. “Then we had better make the most of our time here. But I have no intention of anything changing between us in London or in Hampshire or if we should travel to Essex. This is our life now, sweetheart. I’m sure of it.”

Lily beamed at him, reaching out for his hand. “So am I.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Lily? Lily, love, it’s time to go!”

The walls of Pendrizzick did not answer, and neither did his wife. Wherever she was.

Thomas sighed, not finding any satisfaction in the situation. Neither were keen on leaving Cornwall or Pendrizzick, not least of all because they would be returning to London. They had spoken about it together the night before as they had lay in bed, the comfort of the darkness allowing them to express their true feelings about it.

Lily had admitted her reluctance as well as her fears that going back to