“Beth,” Devon whispered. “Beth.” He said her name again and again, kissing her throat or jaw or mouth each time, as if he were tasting something sweet. “You’re like a night full of bird stars and magical dreaming. I am so in love with you.”
“Thank you,” she replied automatically. Then the words reached through her old, defensive blockade of manners to fill her with happiness. A few grim memories crawled out, trying to scratch and bite her, but she shoved them away. “I love you too.”
“In that case,” Devon said, “we can reach only one logical conclusion.” Taking hold of her hips, he lowered her to complete and delightful corruption.
The heat that had evolved between them throughout their travels blazed now into a wildfire (fortunately metaphorical in nature, considering the tinder-dry conditions of the moorland at midsummer) as they moved together slowly, at first a little awkwardly while Beth grew accustomed to the mechanics involved. She tried to make mental notes for later inclusion in her field journal but quickly lost track of them. Leaves chafed her bare knees, but she did not care. Devon’s eyes watered—“smoke from the fire,” he insisted, and went on kissing her as if irritation of his corneas was not a serious threat. Their bodies grew slick with sweat, and their backs ached. Finally, grasping blindly for his coat, Devon spread it over the ferns, and they lay down, facing each other in a tangle of breath and limbs. Whispering of skies and thermals and oh my God, right there, don’t stop, I love you, they ventured a more intense rhythm until the night went utterly dark, and silence enfolded the moorland except for their mutual sighs as they reached fulfillment.
—
Devon woke at dawn, yanked from a dream by the obnoxious chut! chut! of a red grouse nearby. Aggravation clenched his body, but the moment he saw Beth lying asleep beside him, a shy wonder eased it away. He could scarcely credit that he’d gotten to spend the night with her. And moreover, she was still here in the morning. Granted, there was nowhere for her to go, out here on the moors, but Devon didn’t want to consider that. He watched her face grow luminous in the unfurling light, like a sacred pearl drawn out of the dark ocean, like a dream he could not believe was real…
He winced, appalled by this degeneration of his rational brain into cloying sentimentality. He tried to focus instead on how cold he felt, lying naked on the ground, the campfire having burned out—but it was no use. Beth quite simply bewitched him, beyond linguistic sobriety, beyond quantifiable data analysis. She was beauty. She was peace.
She was looking at him.
Devon’s pulse leaped up and began running frantically around his circulatory system, sweeping up, shoving things behind curtains, even while he gave her a languid smile. “Hi,” he said.
Her eyes grew wide, and she frenetically brushed her hair so that it covered her face and breasts. “Hello,” she answered through the shroud. “How lovely to see you. Would you mind terribly going away?”
Devon blinked, taken aback. “Um—??”
“No, don’t look at me.” She flattened the palm of her hand against his face. “I need to tidy—and wash—and oh God, my teeth.” He heard a puffed exhalation, then she groaned. “Don’t breathe, don’t look, just…give me a minute.”
“Okay,” he said against her hand, trying hard not to laugh.
“Close your eyes.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t care—”
“Close. Your. Eyes.”
He closed them obediently and the hand moved away. The warmth against his body vanished as Beth clambered up. Amused, he lay back, stretching and yawning as he listened to the urgent rustles of a woman getting dressed. The habit of wickedness in him hoped she would come back into his reach so he could pull her down and muss her again in delicious ways, but an unexpected domestic part of his heart smiled contentedly to think she was making herself nice for him, and he drew his coat over himself to conceal, and hopefully subdue, how much it aroused him.
“You may open your eyes now,” Beth said at last, sounding so dignified he felt certain her chin was tipped up and her arms crossed tightly. Opening one eye cautiously, he squinted up at her, and smiled to see his suspicions were confirmed.
“There’s enough water in the flask for you to wash also,” she told him briskly. “But no hope for tea, I’m afraid.”
Devon sat up, rubbing his face. “And no hope for wake-up sex?” he asked in an entirely scientific manner—after all, you don’t get a result unless you pose a question.
“Gracious heavens!” she exclaimed. “Is that quite the done thing?”
He shrugged. “In some parts of the world, yes.”
“Perhaps tomorrow morning, then,” she allowed, and all his metaphorical test tubes began bubbling over. “While I’m keen to replicate our experiments of last night, it’s more of a priority to get the caladrius safely to Dover.”
“You’re right,” Devon agreed, despite his baser nature. Casting aside the coat, he began to stand, and Beth hastily turned her back. “You’ve already seen it all,” he pointed out as he got to his feet and looked around for his clothes.
“Hhmughhmm,” she answered, and he just knew she was blushing. For that matter, he was close to doing so himself. He’d had more than enough sex over the years to feel blasé about it the next morning, but it turned out that love made a remarkable difference to the experience. Never before had he lain quietly afterward while a woman stroked his eyebrows, and kissed the corners of his mouth, and generally made him feel so cherished that he’d had to roll her gently over and slide back inside her just so he could breathe.
And it was just as good now—all right, mostly as good—listening to her talk about travel routes and buying yet another suitcase and what she wouldn’t give for a cup of tea, while she tidied the campsite. Her voice was like music to him, but he heard not one single word of it, too busy imagining when he might be able to get her into a bed.
Once they were dressed and ready to depart, they checked the caladrius, smiling as it shook its feathers and groomed its claws with a youthful, rather clumsy diligence. The morning light seemed to enliven it, but seed husks on the cage floor were threatening to become an enchanted garden, and thin, shining strands of magic wove up the cage bars, so they lowered the cover again for safety’s sake. Beth took the cage by its handle and was moving toward the road when Devon caught her wrist, stopping her.
She turned back to him with a politely inquiring expression, so lovely that the sun cast golden strands to adorn…
No, he told himself sternly. No more sentimentality! (And if his heart could beat in a steady rhythm, that would be rather helpful too.)
“Good morning,” he said again, wanting to reconnect with the feeling of intimacy they’d shared last night, the togetherness, before they faced the rest of the world. Really, just wanting her, with an intensity he felt might never diminish.
Beth seemed bemused for a moment, then understanding lit her eyes. She smiled—a smile just for him, one he could wrap up, tuck inside his heart, and keep forever. “Good morning, Devon,” she said. And putting down the birdcage, she hugged him.
Oh gosh, he thought dazedly. So this was what true comfort felt like. He’d never expected to know it in his life, certainly not after his mother died and his father decided the best way to deal with a wayward, brilliant child was send him alone to a far distant country—and yet here was Beth Pickering saying his name, holding him against her heart, and he realized that, regardless of what happened hereafter, he wasn’t ever going to recover from this beautiful moment.
—
Finally, they set off for Sheffield. Devon ached all over from having spent the night on the ground, and he noticed Beth stretch and twist her back so many times that he reached over to rub it for her as they walked. And yet they plowed on, encouraged by occasional peeps from the caladrius.
Only seven minutes later, they stopped in front of a stone building.
“Fox House Inn,” Devon said, reading the sign hanging above its door.
They stared at it blankly, undecided as to whether to laugh or cry.
“Hello! Good morning!” the innkeeper greeted them as they entered. “Up with the lark, you are!” He looked intently at their faces, then at the cage Beth held, and his eyes lit with excitement. “It’s a true honor to welcome you into my humble inn! You’re wanting a room? We have plenty available!”
He beamed a rather manic smile that suggested “plenty of rooms available” might be good news for them but was bloody terrible for his bank account, and would they please not pretend to be married?
“Excellent facilities, a bird’s-eye view of the moors, and our beds are the best you’ll find this side of Hadrian’s Wall! Soft, warm, like sleeping on a cloud.”
