Something Old, Rebecca Connolly [ebook reader for laptop TXT] 📗

with moments of pleasure. She didn’t want to let this distance continue and find herself accepting it as the nature of them. She wanted to love her husband publicly and privately, wanted to express it to him and to others. She wanted to feel the love for him within her and not be embarrassed by or ashamed of it.

Why could it not bring her joy?

“Lily?”

She inhaled sharply, nearly choking on a new wash of tears. Her husband’s voice, softly calling to her in this garden at this moment, was extraordinarily wonderful and poignantly painful.

Did she wish for him to find her, or did she wish otherwise?

“Lily?”

Swallowing, Lily looked up at the night sky, a pair of tears tracking down her cheeks quickly as she managed a ragged exhale.

“Here,” she said without any attempt to raise her voice beyond its standard volume.

There was not time for another breath before he rounded the hedge and saw her, his face wreathed in concern. She met his eyes without attempting to hide her despair.

His fingers brushed together, then he was striding toward her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

With a watery laugh, Lily all but sagged against the wall. “Wrong? Thomas, did you know that bluebells only bloom for two weeks? And if they’re trampled, it takes years for them to return?”

“No, I didn’t,” he murmured slowly, pausing before her.

“Are we bluebells, Thomas?” she pressed. She swallowed hard, quivering as her emotions found their way to her tongue more easily than they had done in years. “Have we been trampled and are therefore struggling to bloom?”

Her husband’s brow furrowed a little, and he stepped closer. “No, we aren’t trampled. We just… we’re just…”

“She sang about time, Thomas,” Lily overrode insistently even as her voice broke. “Yes, I realize the word is spelled t-h-y-m-e, but the meaning is there. Time is a precious thing, time will go on, and there’s another variation of the song that warns you not to have your time stolen.” She shook her head now, pain tightening across her chest. “I don’t want my time stolen anymore. I can’t bear it, Thomas. I can’t.”

“Oh, darling, don’t…” He closed the distance between them and cupped her cheeks, his expression full of anguish, the feeling of his hands somehow both icy and warm upon her skin. “We have all the time in the world. We can do anything with it, we can use it however we like. It isn’t stolen, it’s right here.” He pressed his lips to her brow, the contact sending light cascading through her. “I’m right here.”

Lily sighed against him, resting her hands on his chest and finding more stability and balance from him than from the wall behind her. “We have wasted so much time, Thomas. So much of it.”

“I know,” he murmured against her. “I’m sorry.”

The apology warmed her as much as his lips, and she gripped the fabric of his coat in her hands as she exhaled slowly, praying for the strength she sought. “I fell in love with you when I was seventeen,” she told him, whispering the admission she’d carried for so long. “And that did not go away. Cannot go away.”

“What?” he breathed, stilling beneath her fingers.

“I was happy to be marrying you,” she went on, unwilling to stop now, “and my only complaint was that you never asked me. Why didn’t you just ask me, Thomas?”

His hands moved along her cheeks, tilting her face up and searching her eyes when they met his. What he was thinking, what he felt, wasn’t clear to her, but he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, silencing her weak gasp of surprise.

He’d kissed her before, during the time they’d been married, but this could hardly be considered a similar thing. His lips were soft and tender against hers, giving her every chance to pull away if she wished, hesitant while fervent and now leaving no question as to where he stood.

That was enough.

Lily moved her hands from his coat, sliding them up to wrap around his wrists and hold tight as he cradled her face in his hands. She brushed her thumbs against his skin, willing him to keep kissing her just as he was. She opened to him, sighing as he continued to kiss her in this slow, thorough, consuming fashion she had so yearned for.

She kissed him back, as much as she could, feeling weak in the knees and quivering with relief. She could have melted in his hold, been scooped into his arms for safekeeping as she dissolved into a million brilliant pieces. Yet she could feel the pulse of him beneath her fingers, could hear her own thundering in her ears and knew that she would not break. Could not. He would not let her.

Thomas broke off the kiss, his breathing ragged as he hovered only a breath away, his nose brushing hers.

Lily exhaled a shaking breath, rubbing her thumbs against his wrists over and over. “You’ve never kissed me like that before,” she managed, nudging against his nose gently and smiling.

He laughed a little, his thumb brushing away a lingering tear on her cheek. “Not for lack of want, I can assure you. Had I the courage, I’d have kissed you every hour of every day in such a way.”

Her right knee nearly buckled at his confession. “You would?”

His lips took hers again, more firmly. “Yes,” he assured her, his lips tickling against hers with the simple word. “Always yes, a thousand times, yes.” He kissed her again before wrapping his arms about her and holding her close. “I’ve loved you for years, Lily. Years. How could I have married you as I was had my feelings become known then? I was well enough off, but my reputation wasn’t good enough. Couldn’t be. Not for you. And then…”

“I wouldn’t have cared, Thomas,” Lily insisted, looking up at him, her hands once again on his chest. “I didn’t. And I don’t. But you were so changed after our wedding…”

“I was ashamed to