Just One Kiss (28 page)

“Anthony and I once delved into your family history a little,” Edward shrugged.  “Seems you great-great-grandfather was
something of a Parliamentarian. He was
rather vocal too before the Restoration.  I don’t think that went
over
too well with the
local Royalists.”

“It didn’t go
over
too
well with
your
family you mean?” Daphne poked her tongue out playfully.  She had heard stories when she was a little girl of some divide between the families.  Happily everything had been resolved when the daughter of the offending great-great-grandfather had married into the Royal family, catching herself a minor Royal to wed.

“Well, all history aside, shall we go?” Edward prompted.  He grinned.  “I don’t especially want Anthony to catch us in here when he’s tired of storming around the grounds.”

“Excellent point!” Daphne gasped.  She hesitated though, not especially wanting to dive into the pitch-blackness either. 

“Here,” Edward took her hand, “I think I remember it well enough to lead you.”

“In the dark?” Daphne squeaked.

“My lady!” Edward feigned a look of hurt.  “One would think you didn’t trust me!”

Daphne smiled sweetly, but she refrained from actually providing her husband with an answer – something that she saw him frown about.  He didn’t say anything about it however, merely tugged on her arm and led her into the dark space behind the tapestry.

It was extremely narrow in the passage, and very claustrophobic.  Daphne felt that Edward had to twist his body slightly to accommodate the broad width of his shoulders.  She clung to him tightly, unable to see anything as he led her slowly up a steep, uneven flight of stairs, brushing cobwebs out of the way as
they
walked.

“How much further is it?” she whispered, coughing slightly on the dry, dusty air and tripping over her feet as she stumbled after Edward.

“Not much,” he whispered back.  No sooner had he spoke than Daphne saw a crack of light coming down the passage from up ahead.
 
She sighed with relief and let Edward hurry her along.

They emerged in the master's room - what was now Anthony's room - from behind a similar tapestry to the one downstairs.

"I can't believe no one ever told me about this!" Daphne said, still in state of vague disbelief, and, if she was honest with herself, hurt.

She was annoyed with her brother for keeping such a delicious secret from her for so many years!
 
Not, she had to admit, that it would have done
her very much good, but still, i
t was the principle of the thing!

"Well, you know about it now," Edward shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable at finding himself in Anthony's chambers, and not just because her brother might barge in at any moment, Daphne suspected.
 
It did feel like an invasion of sorts.
 
"Come on," he said, tugging her hand again.
 
He'd never let go.

"How do you know where we're going?" Daphne mused, surprised when they were out in the corridor that Edward knew exactly the right twists and turns to take that would lead to her room.

Edward glanced over his shoulder and cast Daphne a sheepish
smile.  “You forget who it was that was with your brother when he was sneaking frogs and toads into your bed,” he said with a boyish grin, which earned him a swift smack on the arm from his wife, but she was giggling.

“Oh!  You wicked boy!” she laughed, just as they reached the door to her bedroom.  Edward opened it up and tugged her inside. 

“I’d much rather be a wicked man,” he purred, and then claimed her mouth in a kiss that demonstrated his desire.

And perhaps she too was a very wicked woman,
Daphne considered dimly, giving herself up to the skill of her husband’s lips, and teeth, and tongue,
because she wanted this, she was mad for him... 
Very little had been resolved between them, but her body still hungered after Edward.

“How wicked would you like me to be, Daff?” he murmured, cupping her bottom and dragging her flush against his body.

“Y-you were wicked yesterday,” she panted, as her own hands dragged heavily over his back.

“True, very true,” Edward said, and suddenly pulled back.  Daphne whimpered in protest, and then flushed when she
realize
d what she’d done.  “And you wanted more from me than that, that’s what you said?” he breathed raggedly.

Had she said that?
  Daphne couldn’t seem to remember.  It sounded like something she would have said when she was angry with Edward.  Only now she was achy and needy again, and it was so hard to think when he was touching her, sliding his fingers over parts of her body that no other man had ever had the right to feel.

“What do you want, Daff?” Edward whispered, his breath hot against her ear as he nuzzled at her neck.  “What do you want from me?” he pressed.

“Everything,” Daphne gasped, arching her neck back to give Edward access to the sensitive curve of her throat.  He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, not sparing an inch of her exposed skin from his tender ministrations, until she was wholly breathless and as weak as a kitten in his arms.

“I want to give you everything, Daphne,” he murmured, the words humming through her body.  “Everything.  It’s all yours,” he whispered, laying one last kiss against her swollen lips before pulling away. 

Chapter 29

Daphne gasped and tried to follow after him, but Edward had stood up straight, and his mouth was now beyond her reach.  She didn’t understand.  She could
feel
how badly he wanted her.

“Edward?” she mewled, coiling her fingers around his tie and attempting to drag him back down to her level.  He came - but only to dot a kiss on the end of her nose.

“You were going to show me your paintings,” he panted heavily, and Daphne could read the self-imposed restraint in his light eyes.

“Later?” she
breathed
,
her voice a sultry whisper.

“As much as I might want you right now-” Edward groaned, tilting his hips so she could feel
exactly
how much he wanted her “-and I really,
really
want you, Daff,” he grunted, as if there could be any mistake.  “We have a slight history of being caught out in situations like this.”

“No one will catch us,” she pressed, deciding that she no longer cared if Edward thought her completely wanton. 
She had already given him proof of that.
 

“Daphne!” he moaned, taking a step back, and holding her at arms length.  “Please don’t test me,” he begged, his voice cracking with desire of his own.  “I can’t risk it.”

“Yesterday you did!” she whimpered, feeling confused and rejected.

“Yesterday we were at our own house,” Edward argued, and Daphne tried to suppress the little thrill that tingled all the way through her body to the tips of her very fin
gers and toes.  “If someone had
caught us yesterday it wouldn’t have mattered-”

“Wouldn’t have mattered?” Daphne choked, but Edward carried on as though she hadn’t said a word.

“-but if we were caught here, your brother would kill me, Daff, or I’d be forced to kill him.”

Daphne gave a tiny nod of agreement and defeat.  “It’s not fair,” she muttered, not meaning for Edward to hear.  He did however.

“Then come home?” he growled.

“I can’t!” she cried, although she was no longer exactly sure
why
she couldn’t.  “Not yet,” was all that she could manage to whimper, as she stared up at Edward with imploring eyes.  How long was he going to wait and play these games, she wondered, panicking slightly?

Edward sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair as he shook his head.  “All right, Daff,” he murmured, the passion having drained from his voice.  “Whatever you want.”

Daphne winced.  She wanted
him!
  Every day that they were together, her guard slipped further. She tried to force
herself to recall the horrors of London, and the trauma of being on her own for six whole years while people gossiped behind her back.  Daphne made herself think of the friends she had lost, and the father she would never see again, but then she
looked at Edward, and thought about the parts of him
that she had only discovered these past few days in
Coventry.  The scars that he bore were just as de
ep, if not deeper, than hers.

“I want to be your friend,” Daphne blurted, before she had even thought about what she was saying.  She
realize
d though, that it was exactly the right
thing
to say, and it was precisely what she wanted- even if Edward was looking at her oddly.

“My friend?” he echoed.  Daphne nodded her head vigorously.  “Not my wife?” Edward asked, looking crestfallen.  Daphne smiled at him loving
ly
and then closed the distance between them, wrapping him up in a hug that was soft and tender.

“Of course that too!” she assured him ardently.  “But- but can’t I be both?” she asked, raising her eyes to his hopefully.  “Can’t I be your wife and your friend?” she whispered quietly, her smile growing when Edward began running the backs of his fingers over her cheek. 

He nodded slowly.  “I think I’d like that,” he mused thoughtfully, answering Daphne’s shy smile with a wide grin of his own.  He let the comfortable silence linger for a few minutes, but then said: “now then, about these paintings?”

“They’re really not very good,” Daphne was quick to tell him once again, to which Edward simply cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.  “I- I’m not even sure that I know where I put them…” she mumbled.  She was anxious about letting Edward see her little creations, especially when he had been to all of the places that she had imagined.

“I’m sure that you do,” he said gently, looking so wonderfully kind and interested that Daphne found herself nodding in response.  If she expected Edward to let her in, if she wanted him to let her befriend him, then she supposed that she needed to do the same too.

“You must promise not to laugh,” she made him swear, sounding so much like her younger, former self that Edward couldn’t help but crack a grin.  “Edward!” she scolded.

“I promise,” he assured her, doing his best to look solemn and serious.

“Good,” Daphne nodded, and then she turned and reached down under her bed for her
portfolio.

Half an hour later Edward was still perusing the paintings with Daphne, praising her talent and telling her about all the real places that he had seen during his time away.  Daphne was hungry to know everything and anything that he could tell her about all of the different countries in which he had been stationed.

“Was it wonderful?” she enthused.  “Seeing so many amazing things?”

Edward cast his mind back, to the fighting and the horrors, but there were scattered moments of peace, of calm, and those were what he selected to tell Daphne about.

“Sometimes,” he nodded, reclining on Daphne’s bed, where they had spread out some of her work to look at.  “Sometimes I used to long for home though,” he confessed, and then almost wished he hadn’t because a spark of hope flashed across Daphne’s face, although she quickly hid it, and he knew that she was wondering if it was
her
that he had longed for – it hadn’t been, but he had been a blind stupid fool then!

“Why?” she whispered.

Edward shrugged his shoulders, having difficulty finding the right words.  “Because it was familiar and safe.”