Callie lay with him, cradled close, feeling his heated bare skin on hers, the mingled scents of what they had done. She felt numb with the impact of it, joyful and frightened and confused all at once. Her body still throbbed with the sensation of taking him into her, pain and delight mingled. He said nothing afterward, only holding her tight, his head buried against the nape of her neck. She could feel his deep breathing as he recovered himself. Her own heart was beating in her ears.

She had asked for him to do it. And now it was done. She bit her lip in the darkness. Shyness overcame her. She tried to shift away from him, but he made a low sound in his throat and caught her back. His arm came round her, stronger than she had realized, pulling her against his chest. He kissed her shoulder. He was all heat and maleness; she loved the feel of him, a great warm carnal shape enfolding her.

It was bewildering. To think of herself lying in bed with a man was too incredible. She could try to imagine herself as sultry Madame Malempré, but that fantasy had been besmirched by her encounter with Major Sturgeon. Her mind f litted through all her daydreams, pirates and naval officers and handsome alpine shepherds, finding nothing to light upon.

It was real. It was not a daydream, or even an adventure. It truly was herself, and him, in a bed, united as lovers, as husband and wife would be. She felt him fall asleep against her, his arm slipping slowly downward as his body relaxed. She would have stayed this way forever if she could, in this particular reality, this moment, this pose. It was almost better than all the passion that had come before, to lie beside him in perfect trust.

She closed her eyes. She twined her fingers with his and kissed them lightly. He made a sound in his chest, pulling her close again, but did not fully wake.

Fifteen

Fifteen

CALLIE SAT UP IN BED AND PEEKED OUT FROM THE closed curtains. Her nose was cold. The chill in the room surprised her. Buried under the counterpane and protected by the curtains, she had not realized how the temperature had fallen.

Her first thought was for her animals. They had arrived in Hereford last evening, before this cold snap, but she had been trapped at the Gerard and only received word of them through a complicated exchange of messages that traveled through several envoys, from Callie to Charles to Lilly to her herdsman to Lilly to Charles and back again to Callie. By the time she received her reply, it was so mangled by Lilly's ignorance of livestock jargon and garbled by Charles's imposition of cant that all she could make out was that she did possess cattle, they were some where in Hereford, and the whole countryside was in an uproar searching for Hubert.