Chapter 15

15

Caroline awoke to the lingering scent of cedar and soap that clung to the sheets.

Julian’s scent.

A breeze sighed against the window, and she shivered, burrowing back into the safety of the blankets. As sleep’s grip receded, her mind pieced together fractured memories of the previous night. Strong arms around her. Gentle hands tending to her wounds. The glide of the sponge down her spine.

She reached across the mattress, seeking the solid warmth of his body. But her fingers met only cool sheets. Caroline’s eyes dragged open. The pillow beside her lay empty, the indent of his head still visible on the plush down.

He was gone.

Again.

Sitting up sent a bolt of pain down her side where she’d struck the hard cobblestones. Her ribs throbbed in time with her heart as she took stock of her aching muscles. But Julian’s diligent care had left the scrapes on her hands and knees cleaned as well as any doctor.

She flexed her fingers gingerly, remembering the tender meticulousness with which he’d bathed each small abrasion. The way those hands had cradled hers.

She could almost feel the heat of his palms sweeping down her skin.

Had she dreamed it all?

No – there, on the pillow, lay a folded piece of foolscap. Caroline’s heart missed a beat as she reached for it with trembling fingers. She traced the sharp slashes of ink, the shape of each letter in Julian’s decisive hand.

A coded note.

Like the lurid ones he used to slip her across crowded ballrooms during the early days of their marriage – what seemed like a lifetime ago. The ones that always left her flushed and dizzy with wanting, hands shaking as his scandalous propositions took shape – all the wicked things he wished to do to her. Things they would later act out in the dark intimacy of their bed.

Caroline’s face heated at the memories. Of sneaking away to decode them in some shadowed alcove, always biting her lip to contain her reactions. The way he would catch her eye over the dinner table, so proper to all outside observers.

Their secret game.

When I fuck you, it won’t be while you’re lying to me.

The answer to your question… When I look at you, I feel everything.

She understood now. Here was a bridge built of paper and ink – a reward for her confession.

With the reverence of a penitent at prayer, Caroline pushed aside the blankets and moved to the escritoire to withdraw her pen. She memorised each symbol before decoding his note one letter at a time, savouring the ritual. Her cheeks flamed as vivid fantasies unfurled across the page in his bold script. Clearly, Julian had been in rare form when he composed this coded missive.

Linnie,

You used to love it when I wrote these, so I hope you don’t mind if I renew our correspondence.

I wanted to perform every depraved act I could think of last night in the dark theatre box. But let me give you one fantasy now. You sitting primly beside me in that gorgeous blue gown, hands folded in your lap. I would sink to my knees before you in the concealing darkness. In my fantasies, your breath catches on a question –

What are you doing?

What if we’re seen?

But you keep silent, transfixed, as my hands slide your skirts up slowly. My palms glide over silk stockings until I reach those pretty garters snapped into place. Until I reach the silk barrier of your undergarments.

I imagine that catch in your breath as I slide your drawers down and put my hands on you at last, finding you wet with wanting. My fingers sink into you, and you have to bite your knuckles to keep quiet. As I lower my head between your thighs and press my mouth there, your hips shift eagerly. You make the smallest noise of shocked pleasure, but I squeeze your thigh in reminder –

We could be caught.

We could be seen.

Don’t you want me to keep going?

The lurid details seared her mind as clearly as if he whispered them aloud in her ear, his voice a devastating caress. Caroline clutched the letter as Julian’s fantasy ignited a liquid heat low in her core.

I’m ravenous, watching you writhe as I pleasure you with my fingers. Until I wonder whether you can remain quiet, or if you’ll break and give us away to any who might be listening. I pleasure you again and again – until you have to bite down on my fist to keep from crying out in ecstasy.

That pain-pleasure hardens my cock until I ache with wanting. Until I long to cast propriety and manners aside and pull you into my lap to see how quiet we can be when I fuck you.

But I’ll save that fantasy for another letter.

Yours always,

Julian

Caroline came back to herself slowly. Her skin still thrummed where phantom touches had ignited trails of fire. Nerves singing with remembered pleasure.

She stared at the letter, its ink smudged now from her too-tight grip. This coded olive branch couldn’t erase the yawning gulf of almost a decade between them – the wounds they’d inflicted on each other.

Caroline vividly recalled the bleak years of silence and separation after their marriage had fractured. The grief of his absence after Grace died. The anguish of losing their son and enduring the pain alone. And then, later, his return.

And she had pushed him away. Again and again. He’d kept coming back with flowers. His hand massaging her back as she lay in bed, unable to move in her anguish. And she had whispered poisonous words intended to shatter him.

Go away.

Stop coming back.

I hate you so much, I can’t stand the sight of you.

The thorns of that memory pierced deep. After months and months of those barbs, he’d stopped coming to her door. He’d retreated behind the infamous Hastings reserve, becoming more of a stranger with each passing year. Never seeing her again, just as she’d asked. They’d spun in remote orbits around each other since, neither daring to draw too close.

It was easier to pretend the other didn’t exist.

But his note was an offer of temporary amnesty. Trace the faintest line back to the man and woman they had once been before tragedy carved them hollow. Back when hope wasn’t a blade poised over an exposed heart.

She thought of Julian’s hands bathing her wounds. The solid anchor of his body curled around hers through the night.

And Caroline realised with dizzying clarity that she desperately wanted to meet him halfway.