James, too, began to run.
They collided on the landing. They tumbled into a heap, rolling over, skidding down several steps until James arrested their fall. And somehow Cordelia was underneath him, and she could feel the slamming race of his heartbeat, see the look in his eyes—bewilderment and hope and pain—even as he started to get up, to ask if she was all right.
She caught at the lapels of his jacket. “James,” she said. “Stay.”
He froze, looking down, his dark gold eyes searching her face. He was braced over her, but she could still feel the weight of his body against hers.
“I love you,” Cordelia said. She had never said it to him before, and she sensed somehow now was not the time for flowery phrases or shy deflections. He needed to know. “Asheghetam. I love you. I love you. Without you, I cannot breathe.”
Wild hope flashed across his face, chased by a wary disbelief. “Daisy, what—”
“Grace.” She felt him flinch, held on to him tightly. She had to keep him close, keep him from recoiling away from the truth. “She confessed to me. About the spell, the bracelet. James, why didn’t you tell me?”
As she had feared, the Mask covered his expression quickly. He still held her, arms under her, cradling her, cushioning the harsh angles of the stairs. But he was motionless. “I could not bear your pity. If you knew what had happened, you would have felt obligated to me. You are kind, Cordelia. But I did not want your kindness, not at the sacrifice of your true feelings.”
“My true feelings?” she said. “How could you know them? I have hidden them, all this time.” It was dark outside, and the lamps in the entrance hall burned low; in the dimness, the angles of James’s face appeared more acute. For the first time since she had fled the Silent City, Cordelia began to fear it would not be enough to tell him she loved him. He might withdraw regardless. She might lose him, no matter how fast she had run. “I have hidden them for years. All the years that I have loved you. I fell in love with you when you had the scalding fever, when we were both children, and I never stopped.”
“But you never said—”
“I thought you were in love with Grace,” she said. “I was too proud to tell you I loved you, when I thought you had given your heart to someone else. We have both been too proud, James. You feared I would pity you?” Her voice rose, incredulous. “Belial wove an enchantment, a band of silver and the darkest magic, to bind you. Most would have crumbled. You fought it. All this time you have been fighting a silent battle entirely alone, while nobody knew. You fought it and you broke it, snapped it in half, the most incredible thing. How could I ever pity that?”
She felt his chest rise and fall against hers with his quick breaths. He said, “I did not break that enchantment knowingly. Yes, I fought it, without knowing I was fighting. But what snapped that band was the force of what I felt for you.” He gathered up a handful of her tumbling hair, let the strands slip through his fingers. There was wonder in his eyes as he looked at her. “If it were not for you, my Daisy, I would have belonged to Belial long ago. For there is no one else in this world, my most beautiful, maddening, adorable wife, that I could ever have loved half as much as I have loved you. My heart beats for you,” he said. “Only ever you.”
Cordelia burst into tears. They were tears of relief, happiness, joy, even desire. There might not have been anything else she could have done that would have so thoroughly convinced him she meant what she said.
“Daisy—Daisy—” He began to kiss her, wildly—her bared throat, the tears on her cheeks, her collarbone, returning over and over to her mouth. She arched up against him, kissing back as hard as she could, as if the motion of her lips against his were words, as if she could speak to him through kisses.
She tugged his jacket off—he was wearing his pistol in a holster at his side, and it dug into her, but she didn’t much mind. She pulled at the buttons on his shirt, tearing it, kissing the bare skin at his throat, tasting the salt of his skin.
When she licked his throat, he groaned. “You have no idea how much I have wanted you,” he said. “Every moment of being married to you has been bliss and torture.” He dragged up her skirts, ran his hands up the sides of her legs, his fingertips skating over the silk of her stockings. “The things you did to me—when you came to me wanting help with your corset, on our wedding night—”
“I thought you were embarrassed,” she said, biting gently at his jaw. “I thought you wished I would go away.”
“I did want you to go away,” he murmured against her neck. His hands were behind her now, cleverly undoing the hooks at the back of her dress. “But only because my self-control was hanging on by the thinnest thread. I pictured myself lunging at you, you absolutely horrified by what I wanted to do to you—”
“I would not have been horrified,” Cordelia said, looking at him steadily. “I want you to do things to me. I want to do things to you.”
He made an inarticulate noise, as if she had shot him. “Cordelia,” he gasped raggedly. His hands grasped her hips; he rocked against her—and a moment later he was rising to his feet, sweeping her up into his arms. “I will not despoil you on the staircase,” he said, “though Effie has the night off, and believe me, I want to.”
“Why not?” she giggled. She had not imagined she could feel so happy, so light. He carried her up the steps. When he reached the door of her room, she wrapped her arms around his neck; he struggled with the doorknob for a moment—it was either jammed or locked—before muttering something that sounded a great deal like “Sod that” under his breath, taking out his pistol, and firing it at the lock.
The door blew open. Cordelia gasped with astonishment and laughter as James carried her over the threshold of her—their—bedroom, deposited her on the bed, and hurled the pistol into the corner of the room.
He crawled onto the bed after her, tearing at his clothes. She watched in fascination as his boots flew off, and then his shirt, and then he was lowering himself on top of her and kissing her hungrily, which allowed her to run her hands all over him. All over his bare skin, which was hot and smooth, all up and down his sides, and over the planes of his chest, which made him growl against her mouth and stirred a dark, hot feeling in her belly.
“Please,” she said, not really knowing what she was asking for, but James sat back, so he was straddling her, and looked down at her with eyes that seemed wildly golden, like a tiger’s.
“How much do you like this dress?” he asked. “Because I can take it off you slowly, or I can take it off you fast—”
“Fast,” she said, and caught her breath as he took hold of the fabric at her neckline and, with a quick movement, ripped it apart. It was not a matter of tearing something fragile, like a ribbon—the dress was of stout construction, with corseting and buttons and hooks, but James simply tore it open as if he were freeing her from a chrysalis. Cordelia was gasping and laughing as he ripped the skirt into two pieces and flung the whole mass of the dress aside, and then her laughter vanished as he looked down at her and his whole expression changed.
She knew she was nearly naked—she had a light cambric chemise on, which barely brushed the tops of her legs, and he could certainly see through the thin material. See the exact shape of her breasts, the precise curve of her hips and thighs. She fought the urge to put up her hands, to shield herself against his staring. Because he was staring. And he looked starving. It was the only word she could think of: he looked as if he wanted to pin her down and devour her.
He was braced over her on his hands. She reached up and encircled his upper arms, as much as she could, with her fingers. She could feel the tension in his muscles, stone-hard under her touch. He was holding himself back, she knew. This was their wedding night, terribly delayed, and he wanted what happened in books. Wanted her to give herself to him, wanted to take her, and though she did not know precisely what that meant, she wanted it too. She ached for him, but he was holding back for her, and it gave her the courage to say:
“James. Have you ever before—with Grace—?”
He looked puzzled for a moment; his face darkened. “No. We kissed. I never wanted anything beyond that. I suppose the bracelet kept me from noticing how strange that was. I thought perhaps that it was not in my nature to want.” He let his eyes roam over her, making her skin prickle. “That was wildly inaccurate.”