tug his head down for a kiss. He would take her off to bed and all these difficult things could be put aside. After a moment Sophia said, ‘Tell me how it was with Daniel. How you communicated. Could you read his mind?’
She felt his body tense against hers and thought he would not answer, then he said, ‘Lord, no. That would have been uncomfortable and embarrassing! I felt his emotions as though they were mine and yet I knew they were not, somehow. And I felt those emotions physically as I would my own.’
‘That must have been awkward under certain circumstances,’ Sophia murmured.
‘You learn to disregard that sort of thing,’ Callum said, and she heard the trace of a laugh in his voice.
‘So …’ she struggled to understand ‘… it was as though his feelings were overlain on to yours, like writing on glass, but slightly awry, so you knew it was not you?’
‘Yes.’ Callum put her away from him so he could look at her. ‘Exactly like that. How do you know?’
Because sometimes I feel your emotions, in just that way, she wanted to say. Because I love you. ‘I guessed it must be something like that. Do you mind, when I ask about Daniel sometimes? I will not if it is difficult for you.’
There was a long pause. Sophia studied Callum’s face, the lowered lids masking the thoughts she was beginning to be able to read in his eyes. ‘Yes, it is difficult and, no, I do not mind. No one else will speak of him, you see. The more I can talk about him, acknowledge that he has gone, the easier it will become, I think.’
Sophia snuggled closer into the curve of Callum’s body and let her head rest back against his shoulder. ‘We won’t forget him,’ she murmured. ‘Whenever you want to talk about him, I will be here.’
Chapter Eighteen
The long, companionable silence stretched on. The fleeting pressure on the crown of her head must be Callum’s lips, Sophia realised, warm with happiness.
‘Shall we go to bed?’ he suggested, his voice a rumble close to her ear. The familiar heat coiled low in her belly as she heard the hint of a growl in his voice. When he spoke like that, husky with wanting her, his eyes intent, his hands already changing their comforting hold to an incitement to desire as his fingertips stroked across the inside of her wrist, how could she resist him?
‘We could certainly do that. There were a few things that I would like explaining, perhaps.’ Sophia twisted round so she was looking at him and ran her tongue tip over her lower lip. Callum’s eyes narrowed. ‘If I did this—’ she touched him, cupping her hand over the straining hardness ‘—and then this, is it better than if I do this?’ She scratched lightly with her nails and then closed her grip and laughed as he caught her hand.
‘Witch! Upstairs with you and I’ll discuss every inch that you want to explore. Or we could simply disrobe here?’
‘Callum! We cannot—any of the staff might walk in! Oh, you beast!’ Sophia protested as he stopped pretending to untie his neckcloth and stood up to sweep her off the ground and into his arms. ‘You cannot carry me upstairs at this time of night with the servants—’
It seemed he could, and would, and when they reached the bedchamber, and Chivers vanished as discreetly as a puff of smoke, Callum was as good as his word, letting her explore just as she would before demanding the same rights for himself.
Sophia woke to find the candles still burning and Callum asleep by her side, sprawled naked on his back, one hand behind his head, one knee drawn up, the sheet rammed to the bottom of the bed by his restless feet. It was the first time he had stayed after they had made love and she lay for a while, listening to the deep, steady rhythm of his breathing, savouring the pleasant tingle in her blood and the way Callum’s lovemaking left her limbs feeling as limp as velvet.
A clock struck one. She wasn’t sleepy now; in fact, the lassitude had gone. She rolled carefully on to her side and studied the unconscious figure beside her. It was the first time she had been able to study him naked for any length of time and the difference between their bodies intrigued her. Hairy where she was smooth; hard, flat planes where she curved and dipped; hands and feet so much bigger than hers. And his manhood, lax on his thigh—she moved a little closer and studied it, fascinated.
She had to draw him. Sophia slid from the bed, wriggled into her robe and went to find her sketchbook and pencils. She perched on a chair by the side of the bed and began making small studies first: his hand, palm up, the fingers flexed, a scar across the base of the thumb. His profile with the faint morning stubble just appearing, his lashes dark on his cheek, those mobile lips relaxed into a half-smile, his sex with all the detail she would lavish on a still life. Then she turned the page and began to draw the full length of him with every ounce of skill and concentration that she possessed.
When she finished she ran her hand over the drawing as she might over his naked body. It was the best thing she had ever done, she was convinced of it. Sophia wondered if Callum would be pleased with it or embarrassed as she closed the book and set it aside. It was certainly going to take her a little time to pluck up the courage to show him.
‘No!’
Callum’s face was stark with a horror that she could not see, his eyes tight closed, his body twisted. Sophia jumped to her feet, reaching for him. As she reached his side one outflung hand hit her a glancing blow, but she caught at his shoulders. ‘Callum! Callum, wake up!’
The wave was enormous, as high as a house, its foaming crest white in the moonlight, foam torn from it by the howling wind. ‘No! Dan!’ He seized the rail, struggling against the tilt of the deck. Below in the ship’s
boat faces were upturned, stark with horror. Averil, Dita, Lyndon already reaching for the women. Dan, white, his mouth open, shouting something that was lost in the scream of the wind and the terrible grinding of the ship on the rocks.
‘Dan—’ And then the wave hit and he was thrown across the deck to crash into something immovable, the breath crushed out of him as he began to crawl and stagger back to the side. And the boat was gone. Gone without trace. And Dan was gone too, gone from his head, gone from his heart.
Cal forced his body over the rail and launched himself into the chaos of water. If he could only reach him—
‘Callum!’ Hands on his shoulders, a desperate voice. Not Dan, a woman, but he had to help her, had to even if it meant abandoning the search for his twin.
‘Hold on!’
‘I am holding you. Callum, darling, I have you. You are safe. Wake up, please, wake up!’
Light against his closed lids. Light and silence. Stillness. Seaweed—no, long, unbound hair—brushed his shoulder. Hands held him, fierce, protective. He got his eyes open. ‘Sophia?’