A Passion for Pleasure

chapter Twenty


Clara sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the blanket over Andrew’s legs. He held an open book on his lap, his chestnut hair falling in a swath across his forehead as he examined an illustration of a knight on horseback. Clara curled her fingers into a fist, suppressing the urge to reach out and stroke the lock of hair back.

“Do you still like the King Arthur tales?” she asked, desperate for any topic that would reconnect her with her son. “I remember we read them often when we were at Manley Park.”

Andrew nodded and turned a page. Clara placed a tentative hand on his leg, and experienced a rush of relief when he didn’t pull away from her touch.

“Andrew.”

He glanced up.

“Whatever…” Her voice tangled into a knot. She took a breath. “Whatever your grandfather has said about me, it’s not true. Do you understand?”

Andrew returned his attention to the book. Clara’s hand tightened on the bedcovers.

“I never wanted your father to be hurt. I never wanted to leave you. And I certainly never wanted to give you up to the custody of your grandfather. Will you please believe me?”

He didn’t look at her, but gave a nod so slight that Clara might have missed it had she not been gazing at him so intently. She patted his leg and stood. A small reassurance was better than none at all. She bent to kiss his forehead and whisper good night, then returned to her own bedchamber down the corridor.

While she was glad to her bones that Sebastian and Andrew had developed a quick and strong friendship, Clara could not dispel her pervasive sorrow that Andrew had become so unreachable to her.

She stripped out of her clothes and washed, then unpinned her hair and brushed out the tangles. She crawled into bed with a book of poetry. The words dipped and swam before her unfocused eyes.

Weary, she set the book aside. She hadn’t slept well since the confrontation with Fairfax, her thoughts a confusion of memories and fear. Now a vast, black void had opened inside her heart. The lamp on her bedside table flickered, shadows twisting across the ceiling.

The fear that had lived inside her for so long, the despair she had believed would vanish like a puff of smoke the instant she held Andrew in her arms again…it was still there. Slithering into her blood, coiling in the pit of her belly.

Would she never be free of it? And now that Sebastian was inextricably tangled in their circumstances…God alone knew what the future held.

She pushed the covers aside and tugged on her dressing gown, then padded down the corridor to his room. She knocked and pushed the door open when he bade her enter.

He sat beside the fire, still clothed in trousers and a white linen shirt, his long legs stretched out before him. A tingle swept down Clara’s spine at the sight of him—the reddish glow burnishing his dark hair, the V of skin revealed by the unfastened buttons of his shirt, the rough whiskers covering his jaw.

“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.

“Yes.” His gaze moved over her, a long slow sweep like the glide of his fingertips. “You’ve disturbed me since I first saw you carrying Millicent’s head.”

Clara smiled faintly at the memory. She approached him with caution, but there was nothing forbidding in his expression. She lowered herself into the chair across from him, glancing at the paper he held. The penmanship was scrawled, uneven.

“Is that to your brother’s solicitor?” she asked.

“Yes.” Sebastian set the paper and pen on a small table. “He’ll likely feel obliged to explain the situation to Alexander, but my hope is that things will be settled by then.”

Clara hoped so too, though she had no idea how. Perhaps a different solicitor could offer a solution. She nibbled on her thumbnail and stared at the leaping flames of the fire.

“Will you not dissolve our marriage?” she asked, her voice steady but quiet. She could not bring herself to utter the words divorce me.

“No.” Sebastian’s hand curled into the material of his trousers. “I told you when we first agreed to wed that I would not tolerate even the possibility of separation.”

“But surely that would be less troublesome for you than having to contend with our current situation.”

“No. There will not be another divorce in my family.”

Clara kept her attention on the fire. All that had occurred in the past week had forged a question at the back of her mind, one she had struggled to ignore because she was afraid of Sebastian’s answer. Yet now she forced herself to voice it.

“Do you regret it, then?” she asked. “Agreeing to my proposal? I fear the cost to you has been far greater than you anticipated.”

He didn’t deny it.

Her heart tightened. She felt his gaze on her, but could not face him.

“No,” he said. “I do not regret our marriage.”

She looked at him. A deep and abiding love swelled beneath her heart. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling as if her body could not contain all she felt for him.

“I’m so sorry for what I did,” she whispered. “Please know it wasn’t because I don’t love you. I have loved you for years.” She rose, hesitant, and went to lower herself into his lap, willing him not to reject her.

He didn’t. She tucked herself against him. The heat of his long, muscular body eased the tension from her, like steam smoothing wrinkles from a swath of silk. He lifted his left hand to touch her neck, resting his fingertips in the hollow of her collarbone. Warmth brewed in his eyes behind a shield of guardedness.

“I am no longer the man you once loved,” he said.

“Yes, you are.” She spread her hand over his chest. “People don’t transform completely into someone different. We change, yes, but we remain the same at our very core. You lost the use of your hand, Sebastian. You didn’t lose your talent or your kindness. You didn’t lose your love of life.”

“If that is true”—he tucked his hand beneath her chin and turned her face to his—“what about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you also the same as you once were? During those Wakefield House days when you were happy and filled with hope?”

A warm glow filled Clara’s chest as she looked into her husband’s beautiful dark eyes. “With you, yes,” she whispered. “I am.”

She imagined then what it might have been like had they met under different circumstances. If she had somehow already come to terms with her father and been living at Wakefield House with Andrew. She could have come to Sebastian free of desperate, calculated motives, compelled only by her love for him.

“I never meant for it to come to this,” she said.

“You meant to have Andrew again. That’s what it came to.”

“Will you forgive me for the price we paid?”

“Yes.”

The word flowered beneath Clara’s heart, though its brightness did not diminish her unease. He would forgive her because he was a good man who tried not to think ill of others, but he would not forget the fact that she had gone against his wishes. He would not forget that she had revealed his secrets to his father.

Her chest hurt. She pressed her forehead to his neck and closed her eyes. Sebastian cupped her chin and urged her to lift her head, his fingers strong and warm. How she loved his hands. The strong, gentle hands that had captivated her from the first moment he touched her. Their lips met in a gentle kiss before he curved her legs around him and rose, holding her against him as he moved to the bed.

The mattress dipped as he lowered her onto it and stretched out beside her, skimming his palm across the expanse of her shift. She reached for his right hand and brought it to her lips, brushing her mouth across the bent angle of his little finger. His eyes burned in the flare of the candlelight, his dark hair sweeping across his forehead as he moved closer.

Clara turned to him, an ache of longing swelling through her, and lifted her arms to allow him to divest her of her dressing gown and pull the shift over her head. She fumbled to remove his trousers, welcoming the shock of arousal that conquered her ever-present fear, like water crashing endlessly over a jagged stone.

He lowered his head to kiss her. Hard, his tongue sweeping into her mouth in a hot caress that tore a moan from her throat. Her head fell back, her mouth opening and body yielding to him all over again. He nipped at her lower lip with his teeth, the slight twinge vibrating across her skin. His tongue tangled with hers, slid over the surface of her teeth, his lips demanding a response that she could give only to him.

Soon, too soon, he lifted his head. He stared at her, then placed his hand between her breasts. Her heartbeat thundered against his palm. His fingers trembled. He leaned in close again, his breath hot against her ear.

“Touch me,” he whispered.

Clara’s breath caught as she grasped his smooth, hard shaft. He pulsed against her hand, driving her arousal higher. His breath burned against her neck. He palmed her breasts, watched the peaks harden beneath his touch, then smoothed his warm hands over her belly to the apex of her thighs.

He moved lower, his body taut, coiled tight. Clara’s heart began to pound slow and hard, her lips parting on an indrawn breath as he pushed his hands between her legs and spread her open. She fisted the bed linens in her hands, pushing aside the instinctive urge to close herself. She had long passed the point of being able to hide. She would forever be stripped bare for him, only him.

Her hips twitched upward. He rose to his knees and pushed his trousers to the floor. Lust pitched and rolled through her, and she arched herself toward him in silent entreaty.

He positioned himself at the entrance to her body and thrust into her once, heavy and fast. She gasped, lifting her arms to wrap them around his shoulders, stroking one hand through his thick hair. He lowered himself on top of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and locking their bodies together. Slowly, he increased the pace of his plunging, the slick glide filling her repeatedly, and Clara came apart like a bursting star, her hands gripping his back and her body undulating with trembles.

He grasped her right wrist, pinning her hand against the bed. He thrust again, and again, before spilling into her with a low groan that shuddered through her blood. For a moment, he was still.

Breathless, Clara opened her eyes. He was watching her, a sheen of sweat on his face and neck, the carnal satisfaction fading from his expression. She stroked a hand over his jaw, her gaze tracing the sharp planes of his cheekbones that sloped down to his beautiful mouth. His thick-lashed eyes, the color of burned honey in the firelight, gleamed with warmth.

I love him. She knew that to the depths of her being. A braid of fear and pleasure spiraled through her. She stroked his lower lip with her thumb.

Over the past weeks, she had overcome her fear and plunged forward with reckless and daring steps to ensure Andrew’s return to her. She had proposed marriage, conceived a calculated agreement, tried to bargain with her father, lied to her husband, plotted the abduction of her son. Yet it had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to tell Sebastian she loved him.

“What’s so amusing?” Sebastian asked.

Clara realized she was smiling. She’d had no idea that loving him could be both the most daunting and exhilarating thing of all. “I love you.”

Wary hope flashed in his eyes. Before he could respond, Clara shook her head to forestall him.

“I was so frightened after Richard died,” she said, her gaze on his mouth as she continued stroking his lower lip, “and then when my father made his accusations and forced me leave Andrew. For the past year, I’ve lived with fear as my sole companion. And yet I’ve realized that the only times I haven’t been afraid, I’ve been with you.”

For a long, stretched moment he just looked at her, then he took her hand in his. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. And you’re the only one who has ever challenged my own courage.”

“Because I know who you are. I know what you are capable of. I do still love the man you once were, Sebastian. I’ve loved that man for years. He’s the brilliant, charming musician who showed everyone, including me, how to find pleasure in life.”

She lifted herself onto her elbow, sliding her hand down his neck to his bare chest. “But the man you are now, the man I love with everything I am, is the man I know. I know the shadows and light that color your heart because I feel them too. You are the man who has proven that goodness and hope still exist, even in the face of despair. You are the man I love.”

A shuddering breath escaped him. Clara’s heart thumped hard in the wake of her admission, fear of his rejection rising to the surface. But no. Confirming what she had always believed about him, Sebastian turned to brush his lips across her forehead, down the slope of her cheek to her lips.

And then he kissed her, locking their mouths together in an affirmation of their inseverable union.



Two movements linked together. Sebastian studied the sheet of music and tightened his hand around the pencil. Starting with the woodwinds, then the full orchestra building into a crescendo in preparation for the piano’s entry. A stack of fourths. E, A, D, G. Blue, white, yellow, brown. He scribbled the notes and played them with his left hand.

Anticipation flared in his blood. Caution, too, for he didn’t quite dare to believe that a one-handed piano part would be any good, much less please an audience. His right hand had always been dominant, its dexterity concealing whatever imperfections lay within the composition. Focusing on his left hand required a perfection of musical balances and dynamic gradations, allowing no room for inadequacy.

He played the notes again. The dark orange bass of the orchestra resounded through his mind. Then the cadenza. He wrote another measure, trying to make his way a few more steps to the end, gritting his teeth when his hand faltered and the pencil dropped to the floor.

Before he could bend to retrieve it, Clara stepped forward. Sebastian straightened, not having known she was in the room. Apprehension tightened his spine.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“Just a few minutes.” Her gaze skimmed over the papers littering the piano surface. “I heard the music and thought you were here with Andrew.”

“He’s with Mrs. Danvers in the kitchen.” Sebastian reached for the pencil, but Clara moved away and took hold of the arms of a chair. She pulled the chair closer to the piano, then picked up the smudged sheet of paper.

For an instant, Sebastian didn’t understand. And then when it hit him, he felt his breath almost stop. He stared at his wife, gripped by an emotion he couldn’t name and had never experienced before. Her eyes soft with tenderness, she nodded toward the keys.

“I remember the basics of piano music,” she said. “But what I don’t know, you can show me.”

Sebastian swallowed hard and turned back to the piano. He played a chord with his left hand and showed Clara where it should be placed on the staff. Clara carefully transcribed the notes onto the paper, then looked up at Sebastian and waited.

Sebastian heard the double bass, the colors of a sunset. Then he listened for the echo and pointed out the structure of the notes so that Clara could write them down. Her penmanship was neat and precise, the notes marching like soldiers across the page. Together they worked for the next half hour, until several lines of music filled the paper.

When Sebastian finally lifted his hands from the keys, a deep satisfaction rose in him, a sense of fulfillment that he hadn’t experienced in longer than he cared to remember. He flexed his right hand. His third finger curled toward his palm, but no wrenching despair accompanied the reminder of his disability.

He felt Clara’s gaze on him and turned to face her. Warmth filled her eyes and curved her lips.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

Sebastian stretched his left fingers. He still didn’t dare believe that the final composition would be good, but he did know that he would finish it. For the first time in months, he would finish a composition that he could actually perform.

Clara stacked the sheets on top of the piano and brushed her lips across his forehead. “I want to help you.”

He caught her arm. “We leave for Brixham at four o’clock. I’ve arranged for a cab to take us to the train station.”

She put her hand over his and tightened her fingers. “Thank you. For everything.”

Sebastian watched her leave the room, recalling her admission of love from the previous night. She was the one who reminded him that he was the same man he’d always been, that the loss of his hand didn’t diminish his talent. Certainly it couldn’t affect his love for music, though he’d tried hard to bury that love under layers of fear.

And what good had it done him? Clara had never allowed fear to hinder her desire to reclaim Andrew. Even though she was afraid, she plunged forward with inflexible resolve, determined to achieve her goal by whatever means necessary.

A noise turned him toward the doorway. Andrew entered the room and approached the piano.

“Is that one of Mrs. Danvers’s cream cakes?” Sebastian asked, nodding toward the pastry clutched in Andrew’s hand. “When I was a boy, I knew I was having a very good day when Mrs. Danvers offered me a cream cake.”

Andrew grinned. An idea occurred to Sebastian. He reached for the pencil and turned a sheet of paper over. Gripping the pencil in a tight fist, he quickly scribbled a sentence and turned it toward Andrew.

You can tell us anything.

Andrew’s eyes darkened. He scuffed his feet across the rug.

Sebastian hesitated, loath to drive the boy away but also wanting to assuage Clara’s hurt. He held out the pencil to Andrew in invitation.

For a moment, he thought Andrew might accept the offer of communication, but Andrew gestured to the door leading to the foyer.

“Shall we try the balloons again?” Sebastian asked. “Now that we have two, we can have races.”

Andrew shook his head and gestured to the foyer again. Sebastian set the pencil and paper aside. He would try again later.

He followed Andrew to the kitchen, where they had worked on preparing and varnishing the balloons. They had also constructed a wooden frame crossed with wires that supported a spindle.

From beside the wall, Andrew retrieved a large wheel constructed of paper and indicated to Sebastian that the paint was dry. The boy had spent most of the morning painting and decorating it with several spiral designs, and now they attached it to the spindle. The paper wheel was further embellished with a pattern of small holes, which they had punched with a dowel.

Sebastian and Andrew fitted the wheel to the spindle and tested the mechanism. After ensuring that all the wires were tight, Sebastian carried the frame into the drawing room and set it before the fire—close enough to achieve the effects of the light, but not close enough to set the paper aflame. He stepped back.

“All right, then. Give it a try.”

Andrew held up both hands in the gesture Sebastian had learned to interpret as “Wait a moment.” The boy then scurried from the room, returning a few minutes later with a perplexed Clara in tow.

A smile broke loose from Sebastian’s heart. Clara cast him a questioning glance before she saw the paper wheel.

“Did you make this?” she asked Andrew. “It’s beautiful.”

Andrew motioned toward a chair in front of the wheel. Clara sat, shifting her gaze to her son. A guarded hope appeared in her eyes as she realized that Andrew had invited her here to demonstrate their new creation.

Sebastian moved to stand beside her, nodding at Andrew to conduct the performance. Almost vibrating with anticipation, Andrew went to the wheel and took hold of the spindle.

With a few hard twists, he set the paper wheel spinning into a kaleidoscope of colors. Firelight flickered and leapt through the pattern of holes, sparking with every rotation of the wheel. The paint shimmered and gleamed under the illumination until the wheel became a blur of colors and light.

“Oh, how lovely!” Clara clapped, charmed by the display. She glanced at Sebastian. “How on earth did you conceive of this?”

“My brothers and I used to make them when our governess banned us from making real fireworks. Talia usually decorated the wheels, and the rest of us tried to devise ever more dangerous ways to enhance the effects of the light. Andrew did this one almost entirely on his own.”

“Andrew, it’s brilliant! It’s like watching a spinning rainbow. On fire, no less. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do it again, would you?”

Andrew rotated the wheel faster, creating another fireworks display. Then he and Sebastian showed Clara how the mechanism was constructed, with Andrew pointing out the various parts and Sebastian explaining how they worked.

“I’m astonished. I love it.” Clara squeezed Andrew’s shoulder and started to lean in to embrace him. Then a shadow of wariness crossed her features, and she straightened. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

Andrew nudged the frame away from the fire. Clara slipped her hand into Sebastian’s.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “If it weren’t for you…”

Some of Sebastian’s tension faded with the trailing off of her voice. He tightened his hand on hers, then went to help Andrew situate the frame near the wall.

“Shall we try our balloon races before lunch?” he asked, glancing out the window. “No rain appears forthcoming.”

Andrew nodded. He looked at his mother. Clara twisted a fold of her skirt.

“Will you accompany us?” Sebastian asked.

“I’d be delighted.” She kept her attention on her son, her wariness fading beneath a growing hope. “I can ask Mrs. Danvers to pack us a picnic.”

Andrew smiled.