They're Wed Again

But they weren’t looking for a bed for the master bedroom here; they were looking for one for Joy and Andy. And since they already knew exactly which one they wanted…

‘I really ought to get back,’ Belle told Luc hurriedly, closing the brochure. ‘But first I need to go upstairs and wash my hands…’

One of the drawbacks to the house had been the fact that it had not possessed a downstairs cloakroom. They had had plans to add one at the same time as they added an extra bedroom suite. Confidently Belle made her way upstairs whilst Luc carried their tea things back to the kitchen.

Up here, too, nothing seemed to have changed. The dried flowers she had arranged were gone from the deep window on the landing, but the curtains were the same, and… On her way to the bathroom she suddenly paused, stopped, and then retraced her steps.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. Very gently she turned the handle and then stepped inside.

It was like stepping back in time to another world. Once inside the bedroom she had shared with Luc the memories came flooding back with such force that she had to cling to the door for support. It was in this room that they had loved, laughed and fought. Belle could hardly bear now to think of the sacrilege it had been to fight in a room which should have known only the intimate content of their love.

Shakily she let go of the door and walked over to the bed, her hand trembling as she automatically smoothed the creases out of Luc’s side of the duvet.

Luc’s side…

Unwanted and unheralded the tears came hot and fast, a silent glissade of pain and regret. Her body shook with the force of her sobs, but still she didn’t make a sound.

‘Belle?’

Shocked, she stiffened her body in rejection of the warmth of Luc’s arms. She hadn’t heard him come in, didn’t want him to see her like this.

‘You’re crying,’ he told her, begging rawly as he turned her round to face him, ‘Don’t…please, don’t.’

‘Oh, Luc, I feel so ashamed when I remember the things I did…the things I said,’ Belle wept, unable to conceal what she was feeling. ‘I was so thoughtless, so selfish…’

‘No more thoughtless or selfish than I was stubborn and unreasonable,’ Luc comforted her.

‘It’s all such a waste,’ Belle cried heartbrokenly.

‘Love is never wasted,’ Luc told her softly. ‘Just like it never dies…’

Belle looked up at him.

‘It’s not too late for us, Belle, we still have the future…our future…together—if we choose to take it…’

‘What are you saying?’ she whispered. ‘We said that we wouldn’t rush things or make promises, that we’d take each day as it comes…’

‘I know, but I know as well that each day isn’t going to be enough for me. I want all your days. All our days.’

‘Remember Cheringham House?’ he asked her obliquely.

Belle nodded her head. The stately Georgian property was owned by the local council and had been painstakingly renovated and opened to the public. She had always loved it, often coaxing Luc away from his studies to go round it with her.

‘Under the new law, it’s now been given permission to hold weddings. It has an island…’

‘In the middle of the lake with a pretty mock-Gothic temple… Yes, I know,’ Belle agreed.

And then, as she looked at him, she breathed, ‘Oh, Luc, we couldn’t…could we?’

* * *

Ten minutes later, when she had finally extracted herself from his arms, she reminded him, ‘We’re supposed to be going out to dinner, remember?’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Luc told her masterfully. ‘Why don’t we eat here…?’

‘Here?’

Belle looked at him.

‘What are we going to eat?’ she asked him shakily.

‘I know what I want to eat,’ Luc responded sensually. ‘All right, all right,’ he acknowledged as he fielded the look she gave him. ‘Let’s go down and see what we can find in the freezer.’

* * *

‘Mmm…champagne and lobster. You really are spoiling me,’ Belle told Luc contentedly as she licked her fingers.

‘Well, I have to admit it was a lucky find. I’d forgotten all about the lobster. It was a present…’

‘From one of your students?’ Belle asked a little possessively, a warning glint in her eyes.

Luc laughed.

‘No, from my mother, as it happens.’

Belle allowed herself to relax. His mother was a wonderful cook, and loved nothing better than passing on the results of her skills to her friends and family.

‘Mmm…that was wonderful,’ Belle declared, stretching sensuously.

‘Mmm…wonderful,’ Luc agreed, reaching across to slide his hand into the tempting vee of flesh exposed by the borrowed shirt she was wearing and bending his head to kiss her.

‘Just think,’ he murmured as he covered her mouth with his, ‘if we bought a four-poster, we could close the curtains and eat in bed in true Tudor fashion.’

‘Throwing the bones out for the dogs and serfs, you mean?’ Belle teased back, wrinkling her nose as she disagreed. ‘Yuck, I don’t think so. Although I must admit the idea of a four-poster does have a certain amount of appeal…’

‘Mmm…although I have to say that there is something deliciously sensual about the way the light from the window touches your skin which I couldn’t enjoy through closed curtains.’

‘Luc…’ Belle reproved unsteadily as he gently pushed his shirt back off her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the early evening sunlight streaming in through the windows, and then moved back to enjoy the results of his handiwork.

‘Your skin looks as though it’s been sprinkled with gold dust,’ he told her softly. ‘You have the most beautiful skin, Belle, the most beautiful body…’

‘I’m thirty-four,’ Belle protested, but in truth she thought that Luc’s body looked even more sensually exciting now than it had done when they were younger. Perhaps Luc was right in what he had said to her earlier, that it took pain and loss and despair to make one appreciate love properly.

Well, she had certainly experienced all of those. They both had.

She trembled a little with excited anticipation as Luc’s hands cupped her breasts. Her body was so intensely responsive to him it frightened her a little.

He kissed her throat and then her nipples, his eyes darkening as he looked back into her face.

‘I don’t know how I managed to live without you,’ he told her rawly, and then added, ‘But it wasn’t really living; it was simply existing.’

His mouth returned to her breasts, teasing their hard crests. Belle moaned eagerly beneath her breath and reached for him. Her need for him overwhelmed her, urgent, immediate and hotly demanding. The feel of his weight against her body, between her thighs, made her shudder wildly. Her hands clasped his back, her nails pressed hard against his skin as she clung passionately to him. She cried out as he entered her, a wild, elemental cry of love and need mingled with pain and regret for all that they had lost, all that she had thrown away, and then the past was forgotten, the future just a shadowy vision, the only thing that mattered the thrusting movement of his body within hers.

Luc cried out fiercely against her as his own need peaked and her body exploded into a frantic spiral of orgasmic pleasure.

Damp, panting, her heart still racing, Belle looked up into his eyes.

‘Great-Aunt Alice could have an awful lot to answer for,’ she warned him meaningfully. ‘This wasn’t something I’d planned for…’

‘All the more reason to take that trip to Cheringham House just as soon as we can, then,’ Luc responded.

‘I might not—’ Belle began, but Luc shook his head, and then bent it and kissed her tenderly.

‘With or without child, I want you back in my life, Belle.’ Belle snuggled closer to him and then tensed.

‘Luc, I don’t want to have to tell anyone about us…not yet…it’

s too soon. What we have between us is too…precious. I…’

‘I understand,’ Luc confirmed as he kissed her again.

* * *

‘Belle.’

Belle gave Luc an answering smile as he called her name and cut a swathe through the busy fellow wedding guests to reach her side.

‘What happened?’ he asked her quietly, adding with a rueful look, ‘I was just beginning to wonder if I ought to send my mother on a search party to the Ladies for you.’

‘It’s just as well that you didn’t,’ Belle whispered, glancing warningly at where his hand rested, just a little too possessively and potentially betrayingly on her arm. ‘Body language, Luc,’ she reminded him under her breath. ‘People are watching us.’

‘Mmm…what do you mean, just as well I didn’t?’ Luc demanded, ignoring the second part of her comment.

‘I never actually got as far as the cloakroom,’ Belle informed him as they were caught up in the throng of people moving excitedly towards the exit so that they could watch the bride and groom leave.

‘Why, what happened?’ Luc asked her anxiously.

‘My mobile started to ring,’ Belle answered him, ‘and once I realised who was calling I decided that it might be an idea to make sure I took the call in private. So I went out to the car.’