a soft rhythm.
He had formed the thought, She needs me to make this happen… When Vera abruptly came at him like a female tempest battering herself against the Channel cliffs. She bucked, she rocked, she flailed, and quite thoroughly pounded him, until Oak was blasted free of his self-restraint and cast loose upon the gale.
The result was the most disorientingly thorough pleasure he’d ever known. He clung to Vera and she to him, fused by passion and wonder, then fused by the sheer inability to move.
And why would he want to move, when bliss itself defined him? Vera’s heart thumped against his as she sprawled on his chest. Her braid was an itchy rope against his neck, and his balls were humming, a peculiar novelty.
Vera moved enough to extricate her braid from between them. “I have no words.”
That was all right, then, if she had no words too. “Rest,” Oak said. “We’ve earned it.”
“Handkerchief,” she muttered, reaching to the nightstand.
Oak gave the nipple hovering above his mouth a friendly nip. “I did not do justice to your breasts. Remiss of me. I promise to remedy the oversight.”
He sounded and felt drunk. All out to sea on long overdue satisfaction and something else, something dangerously tender and unique to Vera.
She lifted her hips, and he slid free of her body, even that small, sweet friction causing a surfeit of sensation. She tucked his handkerchief between her legs—lucky handkerchief—then flopped to the mattress beside him.
“Come here, you.” He got an arm under her neck and drew her against his side.
Vera was soon breathing in a soft, relaxed rhythm, while Oak lay awake, the fog of pleasure gradually lifting to reveal a landscape as beautiful as it was unfamiliar. Tenderness toward Vera bathed him in light, while the mocking voice of common sense painted jagged peaks on the near horizon.
What fool had spoken to Vera of an intimate friendship? What fool had thought he could romp with this woman and go whistling off to London with his heart whole?
Oak drifted off to sleep, wrapped around his lover, not an answer in sight.
“Catherine is quite taken with Mr. Dorning,” Miss Diggory said. “That distraction aside, she continues to make progress with all of her subjects. She is particularly adept at mathematics and might benefit from time spent with Mr. Forester.”
Vera met with Miss Diggory once a week to discuss Catherine’s studies, though the reports had taken on a sameness.
“If Catherine is excelling so consistently, might she be in need of a more challenging curriculum?” Vera asked.
Miss Diggory poured herself another cup of tea, which was a bit presuming, though only a bit. “She’s at a difficult age, Mrs. Channing. The purpose of her studies now is to keep her from boredom, for a bored young lady finds trouble. She can read, write, and sketch. She has parlor French and some basic geography and natural science. Even those subjects aren’t the usual for a girl in her position, but she does well in them, so I continue to provide her material beyond what she needs.”
Who was Tamsin Diggory to say what a young woman in Catherine’s position needed? Richard Longacre had recommended Tamsin personally, and she was an agreeable addition to the household. That did not mean her judgment was flawless.
“I am contemplating sending Catherine off to school,” Vera said. “She has sufficient intellect to fare well academically in such a setting, and she’s—”
Miss Diggory was shaking her head. “I went off to school, Mrs. Channing, while—if I may be blunt—you apparently did not. That is the last experience you want to inflict on your step-daughter.”
“You are confident in this opinion. Why?”
“Because young girls left to their own devices are a petty, nasty lot. Catherine’s lack of breeding would be thrown in her face at every turn. Even the instructors would make passing references to it, and her life would be a misery. I saw this with my own eyes, time and time again. She belongs here, with you, with the neighbors who’ve known her since birth. Trust me on this.”
A month ago, Vera would have been glad to have such firm guidance. She’d had the benefit of Oak Dorning’s companionship, though, and last night she and he had become lovers. The person she’d always known herself to be would not have taken a lover, and yet, she had, and she was glad of it.
She’d risen from her bed and donned familiar half-mourning, but in her heart little of mourning remained.
Not today, anyway. “Catherine will