Chapter 17: Guest Wing

On the ninth night in the guest wing, Margaux gave up pretending she was there to sleep.

The old woman was out of danger, and the doctor had gone home.

The bed was wide and cold.

She had been lying on top of the covers for an hour, listening to a man walk up and down a corridor.

He passed her door, and went back.

He passed it again.

She got up and pulled the door open.

He stopped with his hand half raised.

Julien stood there in a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled, his hair a mess.

"I was checking on the lamp in the hall," he said.

"For an hour."

"It is a very important lamp."

She almost laughed.

She was fifteen weeks along, in a borrowed silk nightdress, and she wanted this man more than she had ever wanted anything.

"I came here as a guest," she said. "That was the rule."

"I remember."

"I sleep in the guest wing, and you stay on your side of the house."

"Yes."

"I'm sick of being a guest."

His eyes went dark.

"Margaux. Say it plainly."

"Take me to your room, Julien."

He did not ask her twice.

He lifted her off her feet, one arm under her knees and one at her back.

She put her face into his neck and laughed.

"Careful of the baby," she said.

"I am being careful of nothing else."

He carried her down the corridor and kicked his door shut.

He set her on the edge of the bed and knelt on the rug in front of her.

Her nightdress had slipped off one shoulder, and he kissed the bare skin there.

His mouth moved up her throat, slowly, and she tipped her head back and let him.

"I have wanted you since the lift," he said, against her pulse.

"The lift was ten days ago."

"Then I have wanted you for ten days."

He kissed her collarbone.

"And for two years before that, in a way I did not understand."

She pulled at his shirt buttons.

They would not come, and she tore the last two open.

His chest was broad and warm.

A long thin scar ran across his left wrist where the cuff fell back.

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