Chapter 19

Nineteen

I t was the best night of not sleeping Oliver had ever had. They passed the hours talking and touching and kissing. At times, the kissing and touching took on an urgency and moved one or the other of them to climax—more often Henrietta than Oliver, since, after all, she was younger and he owed her all the pleasure she could demand from him. But, still, he was astonished by his own seemingly insatiable desire for her and her beauty.

The generosity of her loving spirit was matched in the generosity of her body. Her heavy, full breasts threatened to overflow his hands even as her oh-so sensitive dark-rose nipples hardened under his tongue. The heft of her tall, thick legs. Juicy, plump buttocks that made his mouth salivate. The velvety folds of skin and deep creases on her flanks. Her round belly curving down to her succulent quim.

And everything, everywhere, was all sweetly scented softness. All woman. His woman.

After he had found his fourth release of the night, she laughed. "You see? You're not an old man."

No, he wasn't. She made him young again. In fact, tonight he felt younger than he had ever felt in his actual youth.

Just before dawn, Henrietta sat up and wove her fingers through his.

"I want to show you something wonderful. Something I did. We must get out of bed and get dressed."

He obeyed her. He would always do anything she asked of him. Even though he thought they should never leave this bed and she should never again wear any clothes, existing always in a state of bare beauteousness.

He dressed and she put on her riding habit and he helped her, but he was so drunk on lust and affection, he did not think about what might happen next.

She took him out to the stables. One groom was already awake, checking on the horses.

"Will you get the saddle, Fenton? You know the one I mean." She winked.

"It's time to show your mister what you can do, eh?" The groom grinned.

It was a strange looking thing Fenton brought out from the harness room. Somewhat like a normal sidesaddle but with a horn, sticking out the side and curved downwards.

He watched the groom and Henrietta put it on Zephyr.

"What's the extra horn for?"

She raised her eyebrows. "You'll see. Get your own horse saddled."

Henrietta was on Zephyr and waiting for him in the muddy stable-yard when he came out on his own mount. The sky had turned rosy with the dawn, as rosy as Henrietta's skin after she had experienced the heights of pleasure. He knew that now, and it gave him a proud and proprietary warmth in the middle of his chest.

"Follow me." His wife tilted her head in the direction of the sunrise and turned her horse and rode out.

She led him to one of the fields he owned. A pasture, empty of sheep right now but full of tall, ungrazed grasses, wet with last night's rain. There were rough stone walls along the edges and a hedgerow Oliver had pleached himself running down the center. Henrietta turned Zephyr so she faced him.

"My saddle is for jumping."

"Jumping?"

"When a rider is astride and he jumps his horse, he squeezes his legs together and keeps his seat because of that squeeze. But in a sidesaddle, there's no purchase for a good squeeze because the lady's legs don't go around the horse. You saw the extra horn? That's for my left leg. I squeeze the regular horn with my right leg and my left leg comes up and squeezes into the extra horn, and I can stay on Zephyr even during a jump. Do you want to see?"

"No." He had a horrible feeling.

"I've done it hundreds of times this summer. Oh, please, Oliver, I'm dying to show you."

"Is it safe?"

"There's nothing that's perfectly safe. You know that. We've talked about that."

Yes, they had. Henrietta was apt to let Nathaniel do all kinds of dangerous things. Climb trees, wade into meres. Oliver would prefer to wrap Nathaniel in cotton batting and never let the boy out of his sight now that he had finally admitted to himself how much he loved his son.

But part of love was encouraging someone's best qualities. Like bravery. Oliver didn't want his son to be fearful. He wanted him to have some mettle, like Henrietta and Crispin and all the Staffords did. He had been forcing himself, slowly and painfully, to let Nathaniel have some risk in his life. To let his son have courage while Oliver tried to find his own.

Zephyr snorted and stamped impatiently, but Henrietta controlled him with the reins in one hand, patting his neck with the other.

"It's as safe as I could make it. And it's so exciting. Please let me show you."

She was his wife, and now he felt more protective of her bodily safety than ever. But he should not stifle her. He could not. He had vowed to give her what she wanted. She was a grown person of reason and sense, and she wanted this.

"Yes," he said. He got off his own horse and stood back.

Henrietta cantered Zephyr around the periphery of the field and then came galloping back towards Oliver and the hedgerow.

No. Stop. Turn back. He swallowed down his words and instead concentrated on his wife's fiercely exuberant face, her horse's indisputable strength and grace, how the two of them moved as one.

On the jump, Oliver held his breath, but Zephyr and Henrietta cleared the hedgerow easily. Together they were a creature in flight, soaring and triumphant, capable of astounding feats.

He ran to vault the stone wall since he knew this was the fastest way around the hedgerow. As he did so, he heard screams.

His heart simultaneously choked him and sank into his belly.

But Henrietta was still on Zephyr, bringing the horse into a canter and a slower loop back around the field. She was screaming in triumph.

He ran to her through the wet, tall grasses as she rode towards him.

"Did you see that?" she shouted. "That's the highest we've ever taken, and for a moment, I didn't think?—"

As she slowed Zephyr and Oliver came up beside them, he brought his arms up and gripped her waist. She didn't resist, taking her left foot out of its stirrup, putting her hands on his shoulders and sliding down.

"What's wrong? It went perfectly, didn't?—"

He seized her face in his hands and turned it up to his and kissed her. Deeply. He poured everything he had into the contact of his lips on hers. His desire. His despair that she might have injured herself, been lost to him. His love.

Yes. Love. He loved this woman with every particle of his being. More than he would have ever thought possible. No one had ever loved someone as much he loved her.

His teeth clashed with hers, their breaths melded, and he groaned his love into her mouth.

When the kiss ended, she stared up at him, her lips apart, her blue eyes wide with astonishment.

"You," he panted. "You are the most impossibly beautiful and wonderful woman I have ever known. And I've done everything wrong with you. I ignored you and then I ruined you and then I wed you and then I loved you and then I tried to give you a baby and then?.?.?.?I'm sorry."

"Say that again," she breathed.

"I'm sorry."

"No." She swallowed. "The part where you said you loved me."

"Love." He grabbed a fistful of her hair. "There is no love here without you. I don't have a son without you, do you understand? Do you think Nathaniel would love his father if you hadn't taught him about love? If you hadn't taught both of us?"

"You love me," she whispered and touched his cheek. Her fingertips glistened when she brought her hand away.

He was crying, he realized.

"Yes, yes, yes. I love you." He lifted his head toward the sky and shouted, "I love Henrietta Hartwell!"

She laughed. "And I love Oliver Hartwell."

He brought his eyes to hers. "You do?"

"So much."

"You?.?.?." he faltered. "You're so important. More than important. It's not enough?.?.?.?I have to tell you. I was wrong. You see, I thought you were my lodestar."

She tilted her head. "Lodestar?"

"A lodestar is?.?.?.?it's a heavenly body used for navigation. And I thought you were the thing by which I would steer the rest of my life. But I was wrong. You're not."

"I'm not?"

"No. You're all the stars, Henrietta. You're the sky, the sun, the moon, the ocean, the boat, the whole damn thing. You're everything. Everything."

In the pink-golden dawn, the kiss his wife gave back to him was everything, too.

It was her lust, her love, her life. It was her joy.

It was Henrietta, his everything.