7
Snowy Sunrise
Awareness came to Anne in a flash.
The very emptiness surrounding her told her she was alone. Had her loonish companion traipsed outside to again battle the fallen pile of logs?
At the thought of him, a gentle smile curved lips still swollen and sensitive from their many kisses.
The early-morning light was meager, just a faint hint surrounding the window edges. She let herself drift, not yet ready to stir, to relinquish the peaceful contentment flooding her body, the sensitive, satisfying ache weighing loins.
He must have placed her back on the chaise? For she was snug amongst the covers once again.
She remembered naught after falling asleep upon his chest, accomplished only once he’d startled awake after a few frightening moments of stillness, hugged her to his heart and breathed deeply, his sigh of repletion echoing her own.
Her last thoughts focused on the gentle way he brushed his strong hand over the still-trembling contours of her linen-covered back. Trembling no longer from cold but from the dazzling array of new sensations streaking through her. His broad palm stroked down again, this time his fingertips lingering lightly where his shirt ended and the naked curve of her thighs began…
Harlot!
Anne smiled. A slightly wicked, wholly wanton, drowsy smile to be sure.
After she’d been thoroughly kissed—and enjoyably, for the first time ever… After she’d experienced more physical pleasure than she’d expected…
Than you had a right to. Harlot!
Recriminations might come later. For now, her limbs—and areas between—felt entirely too satiated, too replete for her to care whether she’d behaved the strumpet or not.
You did!
Then good for her.
The next time she woke, the light permeating her eyelids confirmed the glorious night was no more. That their stolen time together had come to its conclusion. Blinking tired eyes, Anne rolled over on a silent sigh, disappointed to see the room empty of his presence.
With a slow stretch, stifled by the narrow chaise, she reached for her watch, dismayed to find the ribbon empty. Everything rushed back: the grief, the fear…
The sound of a hundred drip-drip-drips pattering from the rooftop—heralding the melting snow—interrupted the disturbing recollections. Brought forth, instead, wondrous ones from the last few hours.
With the door shut and no discernible sounds coming from beyond, she made quick work using the chamber pot, rinsing the sleep from her face—with the remaining snow melt—and reluctantly relinquished his shirt (though not before inhaling the scents lingering upon it an embarrassing number of times) in exchange for her grimy dress.
Oh heavens, Mama would have hysterics the moment she saw the state of Anne’s dress. Well, there was no help for it.
Fortunately Anne had let her hair grow longer than many her age, and it was a fairly easy matter to take the stringy, snow-dampened mass and coil the long strands into a knot at her nape.
The sun bursting in through the grubby window to streak across the floor fetched the surety that she needed to hasten her departure. Lest her mother fear highwaymen or brigands had made away with her eldest daughter and sent Anne’s father out with his hunting rifle.
The minute she opened the door and let herself outside, her ears—along with the rest of her—wished she’d maintained possession of her bonnet and cloak, had remembered to retrieve her gloves and reticule—hidden somewhere in last night’s clearing by the snow and storm. Forgotten in her concern over her task and then her encounter with her companion.
“Maryann!”
At the hail, she looked up to see Mr. Edwards striding toward her from a rough wooden building she hadn’t noticed the night before, out behind the cottage.
“You were not going to creep away without saying goodbye, were you?”
Though that had occurred to her, it had also saddened. “That was not my intention. I, um…used the chamber pot.”
He smiled. “That is what it’s there for.”
Never again would she take for granted her maid. Having a servant to clear away such things seemed of significant import at the moment. “Yes, but… But I wasn’t sure where…” You cannot even bring yourself to say “to empty it”?