Placing the candle-holder on the table, Amelia rummaged around in her workbox for the red silk thread she needed for the next section of embroidery. Her little corner of the library was well lit and her favorite place in her parent’s house to work. Dinner had continued without incident after the dispute with Mrs. Wisbech and the visit from Robert’s daughter. After the ladies had withdrawn, she’d escaped as soon as was civil. She didn’t want to be sitting across the fire from Robert, telling herself again that neither his attitudes towards fallen women nor his generous sweetness with his daughter were anything to admire him for. The intense look in his eye when he smiled at her was no better.

Robert next to her at dinner was as much of a trial as Mrs. Wisbech’s awful comments, though in a different way. What would he think of her if he knew that his closeness made her quiver with awareness, every part of her tingling?

The fire had been smoking at some point and beneath the scent of pine boughs, there was a tang of wood smoke. Moving to her trunk, she picked out a candle from her supply. Once it was dark, as early as five o’clock at this time of year, a good candle or an oil lamp was essential.

She went to pick up her candle and leave, her gaze slipping across the bookshelves. The Parent’s Assistant seemed to jump out at her and she thought of Robert saying he’d read Edith a story. These shelves had been hers when she lived here, allocated to her as a child by her mother. Initially, they’d held the books that had been read to her when she came down to see her parents in the evening. The books she read as an adult had all been taken to London five years ago, but these vestiges of childhood remained. Along with all hope of being a parent herself.

She didn’t have a present for either Robert or Edith tomorrow. It wasn’t expected to give presents outside of close family, but a children’s book would be a kind gesture. She didn’t examine why she’d want to be generous to a little girl she barely knew, the daughter of a man who’d snubbed her.

Her heart squeezed at the thought of Robert reading to Edith as she focused on the shelves. There was Aesop’s Fables. There was The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, which she’d loved. Or The Parent’s Assistant that had caught her eye. She picked the book off the shelf and flicked through. Her forgotten edition had engraved pictures and included the story of The Purple Jar, where the girl chooses a purple vase instead of shoes, only to discover the jar was just clear glass, full of disgusting purple liquid. She and Great-Aunt Henrietta had laughed once that the moral of the story was never to trust a man selling you something that looked too good to be true.

That was why she sometimes made a quick miniature of the whole pattern, so the lady ordering an embroidery would know where the piece was heading, and approve the design. She’d made a tiny shawl for Miss Montrose this summer, in light pinks and greens. The sample was somewhere in her work trunk, where she liked to keep all her pieces that would fit. If Edith’s doll was large, it could be a shawl, otherwise it could be a blanket.

“Apologies.” A masculine voice came from behind her.

She wheeled around to see Robert standing in the doorway. He stood so straight, like his back was made of metal.

“I don’t want to interrupt you.” He paused. “I came to find a book to read.”

He would pick a book and take it with him into his room, maybe to read in bed. His unclothed skin mere inches from the pages. Her chest tightened. Lucky book.

“One moment.” She was acting like a green girl. It wasn’t her place to be jealous of whichever book he chose. “I’ll leave you to choose in peace.” She slid The Parent’s Assistant back onto the shelf.

There was a soft swoosh as he closed the door and the sound of footsteps in the room. She gathered up the silk and heard the soft chink as he set his candle on the reading table in the middle of the room. Then out of the corner of her eye, she could see him standing in the large archway of the alcove, watching her. His face was panes of light and shadow from the fire and the candles.

“How have you been? It was a while ago that we last saw each other.”

“Yes.” That wasn’t an answer. Even answering his innocent question was dangerous, bringing up all the sentiments of the past. He made her want to shout the question that had been rumbling around her head for five years. “Fine. Thank you.”

“Are you happy in London?” His voice was low and warm, concerned almost. “You used to avoid crowds.”

“Things change.” Specifically, heartbreak had changed her. First nearly snapping her, then galvanizing her into a new life. A new way of being.

“Do you go to balls, assemblies, Vauxhall Gardens?” He sounded befuddled at the concept. As well he might, since Amelia had always avoided such gatherings in the past.

“No. Henrietta and I go to the theatre most weeks and go to the park every day. We meet up with her friends. Otherwise, we usually stay quietly at home. We read from the lending library.” London had plenty of distractions that weren’t Almacks or gin palaces. Henrietta had an enormous library that she'd picked out books from when Amelia had first arrived and dropped them into her hands saying that these would make her feel better. Poetry, mostly, but novels as well. Scott, Burns, Donne, Byron. Poetry that spoke to her aching heart. And to her other sensibilities.

Henrietta was a woman of the 1780s, always rolling her eyes about how insubstantial the current dresses and the girls in them were. She had laughed at how scandalized Amelia had been by Donne and Byron's poems and told her this was how the world was now she was a grown woman. At first, Amelia had read Donne’s poems of thwarted love. Then among the long tirades on Donne’s faithless loves, The Flea had caught her attention. Thou know’st that this cannot be said a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead. It had remade all her youthful preconceptions about what was, and wasn’t, a sin.

Robert’s shoulders looked strong, even under his coat, and his hair, shiny and gently curved over his ear, begged for her touch. He looked like he would be a wonderful lover. Tender and strong. And unlike either of her previous lovers, he would make her love him. Lying with Robert would take her whole heart, not just her corporeal body. She knew instinctively that with Robert that a mingling of blood in the marital bed would mean more than it would in a flea.

Enough. This train of thought was not a good idea. She went to walk past him.

He turned with her. “Aren’t you going to take your candle?”

She hesitated. Darn. She needed light to work by upstairs. He always befuddled her.

“There’s mistletoe,” he added. His voice was like sweet sherry, washing over her and promising searing delight, soothing as the alcohol stung.

“I warned you, it’s everywhere.” Why was her heart beating faster?

“We’re under some now.” His cheekbones were thrown into relief in the candlelight.

She followed his gaze upwards to the ball of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling, just where they’d stopped in the entrance to the alcove. A Christmas kissing trap.

“It wouldn’t be proper.” Her blood was crackling through her like a fire. Her first kiss with Robert, after all these years. Her eighteen-year-old self would have fainted away. Her present self was sewn to the floor. His warm lips could reignite all the old feelings that had been waiting, dry and ready for a spark.

“There’s no-one to see us.” He spread his hands as if to present the lack of company.

“There’s no-one to see that we didn’t kiss.” But she didn’t move. If she really didn’t want to feel his lips on hers, she would retrieve her candle and depart. She’d laugh, and brush away his insinuation like so much dust.

“It’s bad luck not to kiss.” He took a step towards her, closing the gap between them. “You denied me once before.”

She had. Before his marriage. At the beginning of the Christmas season of 1812, he’d caught her beneath the mistletoe in a crowded room. And she had felt the walls closing in on her as everyone watched them.

“And you blame that for your bad luck?” Her voice came out more concerned than confrontational.

He didn’t say anything, but she could see it was only a force of pure will that kept his gaze on her face. He wanted to hide the pain of the past years from her, but it was there, plain to see.

“It’s supposed to be the woman who is unlucky if she doesn’t have a kiss under the mistletoe.”

There was a beat of silence.

“I was embarrassed.” She rattled off the excuse. “Everyone was watching. I felt like if you kissed me everyone would laugh at me.” The silly, besotted girl throwing her handkerchief at a confident man obviously her superior. Their parents might have been friends, but he’d been away at boarding school most of his childhood. When she’d been tutored in embroidery by a governess, he’d been at university. She still flushed with humiliation at the memory of him laughing at her when she’d revealed she’d thought pineapples grew on pine trees. As an only child, she’d no idea how to deal with interactions between people, never-mind those between men and women.

“I asked to kiss you under the mistletoe,” he said mildly. “And you refused in front of our families and friends.”

He didn’t say that he’d put his pride on the line and she’d embarrassed him. He didn’t have to. Suddenly she saw it so plainly. In her own shyness and fear of discomfort, she’d embarrassed him. She’d thought he had understood that she’d felt awkward, that she hadn’t been rejecting him, just the public mortification of everyone watching her. She’d thought he knew. After all, he’d still talked to her and danced with her afterward.

Until he’d married Isabella Garway and she’d told him she never wanted to see him again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s in the past.” Stepping forward, he reached out and smoothed his thumb across the apple of her cheek while his brown eyes searched her face. “No-one is watching us now.”

She wanted to turn her face towards his hand. He was near and she could smell his cologne, something earthy and spicy. Could he hear her heartbeat? It seemed to be coming from outside her body, pushing her along. Without her volition, her feet went up onto tiptoes. Her mouth opened and her chin tilted up in an invitation for him to kiss her. But he didn’t.

She’d done him wrong once, and maybe this was just repeating the error in another way. But sense be damned. Softly, she touched her lips to his, so he could misinterpret it as a casual kiss of apology. Maybe she could have lied to herself that was all it was if she hadn’t heard the tiniest catch of his breath as his lips moved on hers. At the moment that she would have pulled away if this were a chaste kiss, his fingers pushed into the hair above her ear and he deepened the kiss, their tongues meeting between their lips.

She grasped at his lapels to steady herself. He wrapped his arms around her waist so she was pressed to him, the thin wool of her skirt and linen petticoats feeling like no barrier between them. His mouth was warm on hers, demanding more, his tongue stroking her lips. But the kiss was that of a new lover, allowing her the opportunity to leave, not holding her too tightly.

She’d been kissed before and assumed her lovers had been skilled, or certainly competent. But a kiss had never felt like this before, a sweet sparking sensation through her lips that spread all down her body. Her hand had found his shoulder, and ohhh, his body was as firm and muscled beneath the superfine wool of his coat as it had looked. The side of her forefinger rubbed against the smooth skin and jagged stubble of his neck. She wanted to indulge in his strength. If she’d known their mistletoe kiss would be like this, she’d have been right to refuse him in company. Her hips pressed closer to him of their own volition. He was hard against her stomach, which fluttered in response. It had been a while since she’d had a lover and her body revived to Robert’s touch. She wanted to feel his skin, touch and be touched, and have the thrill of joining. He’d be as attentive and tender as his kiss. An idea bloomed in her belly; they could be lovers.

It was a good thing there was no-one to see them, as he was trailing kisses across her jaw and the sensitive skin of her neck. She tilted her head to allow him more access. This was madness and she craved it.

A door slammed.

The push away was instinctive, but she saw his brows tuck together momentarily before his hands released her waist. They stood mute, both panting slightly.

The implications of being caught together rushed through her mind: her life as a respectable spinster companion, gone in a haze of scandal. She’d come a long way in five years with Henrietta’s assistance. Pinning all her hopes on Robert had been a mistake then, and it was no less an error now. One kiss and she’d been about to forget all the years when she’d worked to put him out of her mind and heart, and how she’d found comfort and happiness without him. He’d let her down, like a purple vase. He would prove just as false again, if she let him.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway.

He was watching her, his expression shuttered now. The murmured voices of the butler chastising the footman for his tardy clearing of the dessert plates felt as if they were right next to them. It was a timely reminder that it was too late for the two of them.

“I’ll leave you in peace.” She put all the best wishes she could in the words and hoped he understood. To be naïve enough to think a man would marry her and make his life with her at eighteen was bird-witted, but understandable. To make the same mistake, with the same man no-less, at twenty-three would make her a nincompoop. “To find a book.”

She turned away, gathered her candles and thread. There was no way she was going to risk herself again, just to close this chapter properly. She’d always wonder why he’d chosen another woman instead of her, but to bring up the topic between them would be futile and hurtful. She was almost at the door when he spoke.

“I visit London sometimes.” He rubbed his neck. “Usually every month or fortnight, on a Wednesday, for business. Could I call on you in the afternoon?”

Her mouth fell open. He had no idea what he was asking.

Every Wednesday afternoon Henrietta had a visit from her friend Caroline. From the beginning, Henrietta had been clear that Amelia was to make herself scarce and not disturb them. She said they played cards and were particular about being disturbed.

For the first year or so, Amelia hadn't questioned it and had left the house, along with the servants on their half day holiday, and gone to church or to the heath for a walk. Sometimes she'd taken the opportunity to visit one of her embroidery clients. One particularly wet and cold February afternoon, she'd decided to stay home and had lounged in the library, sewing and reading. And however good a card game was, the sounds she'd heard coming from Henrietta's bedroom were... excessive.

The John Donne poetry and Henrietta and everything Amelia had learned in the year since she’d arrived had crystallized in her mind. What Henrietta and Caroline did together was not a dishonor. Amelia had been brought up to understand that her innocence was only for her husband. But if Amelia wasn't going to have a husband, and she didn’t want to have a female ‘friend’ like Henrietta and Caroline, then who was it for but herself? And as The Flea showed, worrying about preserving herself for marriage was a false fear.

As Donne said, it wouldn’t harm her or anyone else if she experienced the marriage bed. If Great-Aunt Henrietta could have a lover, then so could Amelia. On a Wednesday afternoon.

By innocently asking if he could call on her on a Wednesday afternoon, it was as if he'd asked to be her lover.

“What a nice idea. Unfortunately, I'm very busy.” She had guarded her heart too long to risk it now. She was determined to take after Henrietta and be a happy spinster.

“Naturally.” Robert’s hand stilled on his neck as if his fingers were digging into his skin. “Goodnight, Miss Chilson.”

She felt his gaze, hot on her back, all the way until the door closed behind her.

Robert listened to Amelia’s light footsteps until he wasn’t sure whether he was imagining the sound or not. The feel of her lips still tingled on his and the darkness of the library felt like a thick fog around him.

He let out a deep, shuddering breath and straightened his cravat. Kissing Amelia, after all this time, was as stupefying and beautiful as the clear night sky.

This ought to feel like closure, but it didn’t. Obeying Amelia’s command to leave her alone had been a thorn so deep into his flesh that he’d barely felt the ache of it anymore. Their kiss had reopened the wound, leaking hope and love.

The feeling took him straight back to being twenty-one again. He’d graduated from Cambridge at the beginning of the summer of 1812 and upon returning home, had continuously argued with his parents. He’d wanted to join the army and fight the French, or at least manage the paper mill himself rather than shadow his father and learn the business of estate management. Fresh from university, he was convinced they had to innovate and his father’s traditional views frustrated him.

But his parents’ real intent had been transparent. They’d not only wanted to keep their only son away from war, they’d conspicuously ensured he went to every local social occasion where young women were present.

Amelia’s laugh, gentle, soft and warm, had drawn him in. She had been a wallflower, always on the edge of the chatter. But when he’d come and sat next to her, they’d talked easily. She’d listened to him explain the cultivation of pineapples and he’d asked about stem stitch and back stitch. He’d hoped they had a connection, but when he’d watched her he’d not been able to see anything particular about her regard for him. He had never been sure whether all the partiality had been on his side. But there had been a lot of partiality. Love, even.

Isabella had been utterly different. Gregarious and flashy, she’d made her admiration of him very clear. Whenever Amelia wasn’t there, or was reluctant to dance in public, Isabella had grabbed his hand and insisted on one more country dance.

As the leaves had turned yellow then brown, Robert had plucked up courage when out walking to ask Amelia about her thoughts on love. She’d rebuffed him then, not giving any indication she might share his budding feelings.

Still, he’d been cautiously optimistic as the days shortened and cooled and the nights became longer. They conversed and he teased her. She did seem to smile a bit more when she saw him. How did one coax a lady of delicate sensibilities into revealing her true feelings?

Then the Nevins’ ball, the first of the Christmas season, provided the simple answer. A kiss under the mistletoe was socially required. It was the perfect way to see if she would welcome his advances without spoiling their friendship with an unwanted proposal.

He hadn’t meant for everyone to be watching, but by the time she’d leaned away and flushed holly-berry red, it was too late. She’d made herself entirely clear and humiliated him into the bargain by not even allowing a chaste peck on the cheek. That was how much she didn’t want him.

This evening she’d turned everything upside-down by revealing that she’d not kissed him because of simple embarrassment. Perhaps accepting his attention had always been due to reluctance to draw attention to herself by rebuffing him. Even their kiss just now, when she’d arched against him so sweetly when they’d kissed, didn’t mean she cared for him. After all, she was ‘too busy’ to meet.

Turning to the bookshelves, he blindly picked a volume. He’d go to bed. Tomorrow he would fulfill his mother’s wish for a wonderful Christmas, possibly her last. He’d care for his daughter, who deserved better than her secluded life so far. He wouldn’t involve himself with Amelia, to protect himself and her. His vow to not marry was important, not something to be dismissed as soon as it was inconvenient.

She was undoing two stitches for every three she made. Which was, in general, the theme for the day. That kiss under the mistletoe had been a mistake. A devastating, beautiful, delicious mistake she wanted to repeat. But like a blue thread accidentally stitched into a scarlet rose, it had to be undone. It wouldn’t do her any good to think of his arms around her, the feeling of his tongue or the firm strength of his shoulders. He’d hurt her once, it would be unwise to allow him to again.

The embers were glowing in the fireplace grate, and her candle was spilling a little ring of light onto the red silk threads. The needle wouldn’t go where she wanted it. Her fingers were heavy and every stitch seemed uneven. Instead of focusing on her work she was thinking about Robert.

She put the embroidery aside, blew out the candle and slid down into her bed. It was pointless to resist. She would undo the night’s work tomorrow, and make better progress once she was concentrating properly. She’d forget about Robert and the quivers down her spine and the warmth between her legs that he engendered. Pulling the covers over her, she closed her eyes. Tomorrow she’d sort out everything. Tonight she ought to sleep.

But immediately she could see him in her mind, as he had been earlier. His arms had felt sturdy around her. She hadn’t had any reason to look or think about such things years ago, when she’d been a shy virgin, but her imagination filled in all the blanks now, thinking of uses for all that muscle. Like lifting her up.

Between his legs was well filled out too, she’d felt that clearly. If his manhood was as generously proportioned as it seemed, he’d be a deliciously tight fit. Would he have mischievous fingers that would stroke and tease at her nipples? He seemed as if he’d be a considerate lover, perhaps a little serious.

Well, it was bacon-brained speculation. She opened her eyes and stared at the wall leading to the corridor. He was through that door, across the corridor, and into the next room. He might only be twelve feet away from her right now. He might be under just a thin layer of linen. His chest might be bare.

The impulse to get up and go to find out went through her like a needle through fabric, a bold invasion that left a thread behind it. Two doors. A couple of steps across the corridor. She would enter without a knock and he’d be surprised, lying reading in bed. He would take her in his arms when she crawled over the bed to him, and hold her fast.

Or not. Hadn’t she already comprehended how to combat such thoughts about Robert? Her first lover – no love involved – had been her antidote to Robert, to some extent. Though she could never be sure why she’d laughed it off when Pierre had asked her to marry him, saying learning French would be beyond her.

It wasn’t often she gave in to the temptation of doing as he’d taught her. Onanism, Pierre had called it, and he’d delighted in watching her. And here in the privacy of her own bed, she could indulge the fantasy that Robert’s fingers knew exactly what she liked. She’d never risked for even a moment letting her guard down and imagining Robert as she touched herself. But this was Christmas, a time for excess and revelry. She relaxed and allowed her hand to smooth down over her collar bones, rubbing the linen of her nightgown against her nipple, pressing her waist and then gathering up the fabric at her hip to allow her hand to slip between her legs.

It was her own fingers that found the wetness seeping from her lips, but she imagined Robert’s expression of surprised joy that she was drenched for him.

She dipped her finger down to her entrance and slid her fingers up and over the top of her clitoris, spiraling in and away. It could be Robert’s fingers on her, his body over her, him watching her expressions as he brought her to pleasure. She didn’t want to want him, but her body was primed, desperate to tip over into ecstasy. Her fingers had sped up without her volition, focusing closer onto her center of pleasure, pushing harder onto it. He would be inside her, in the place that felt like an empty cavern though it was nothing of the kind. He would fill her up, hard against her core. Her orgasm punctured through her, making her jolt with the laconic pleasure of it. As it ebbed away, she moved her hand away. Her fingers and wrist ached from the ferocity of her circling.

She probably ought not to have done that. Her fingers were sticky and her knuckles felt brittle as she wiped them on her nightgown. For five years, she’d remained steady in her intention to never think of Robert during lovemaking, solo or otherwise. She didn’t know how she could look at Robert again without reliving the orgasm she’d had in his honor, or pleasure herself without imagining him there, with her. It was like having used silk thread – linen thread would inevitably feel inferior now.

But perhaps it was better than her other impulse. This might have been unwise, but the alternatives were much more dangerous than her little fantasy.