Ember Island by Kimberley Freeman Page A

curtains to let an evening breeze into the stuffy room. The sunshine fell onto the bed covers and she folded them back so that the warm light fell instead on her nightgown, across her breasts and belly. Tilly ran her hands along her body, feeling her own curves and hollows. She closed her eyes. The pleasure was sensual, thrilling. How she longed for Jasper to touch her this way. But their wedding night had been spent in the company of physicians and worried relatives, and then he had headed off the following day with promises to see her soon. And that was that. She was married, but still a virgin. A very reluctant virgin.
    Jasper had done no more than kiss her, once upon the lips, and quite coolly. But now she replayed that kiss over in her mind, deepening it and warming it, and imagining his hands sliding low to cup her breasts or press the small of her back.
    Guilty and a little embarrassed, she stopped. Pulled her bedclothes up again and lay there a while looking at the ceiling.
    She had no doubt that Jasper was a passionate man and would reveal that side of himself when they were finally alone together. Theirs had been a courtship closely scrutinized by the village. Jasper had been here visiting an uncle when he and Tilly met outside the tailor’s. He had been standing there, looking at his pocket watch, when Tilly emerged with Grandpa’s trousers all let out at the waistband.
    Jasper glanced up at Tilly and smiled. She smiled in return, eyes greedily taking in his well-shaped jaw, his dark and knowing eyes. “I wonder,” he said, “can you tell me where I might find Duck Street? I have an appointment that I don’t want to be late for.”
    “There are two ends to Duck Street,” she replied.
    “Basil Forster’s. The tea merchant.”
    “I’m going that way, sir. I can take you there.”
    “I’d be delighted.”
    They’d set off, exchanged names, and discussed the weather. She’d taken him to Basil Forster’s front path and was intending to be on her way home when he said, “I am visiting in the village for a few weeks. May I call on you?”
    Tilly willed herself not to blush. “You may, sir. I would welcome that.”
    Then she’d hurried off, calling herself a fool. Men as handsome as Jasper Dellafore fell in love with queenly blondes, not curvy little redheads. She went home and put it out of her mind.
    Until he called. Grandpa sat with them as they had tea in the parlor. Grandpa clearly approved of the young man, who was the descendant of French émigrés living on Guernsey. He worked in trading—tea, silk, shipping materials, anything he could acquire cheaply and sell to a specific clientele—so he traveled a lot. He told them about his beautiful home, which had been in his family for a hundred years. And by the end of his first visit, both Tilly and Grandpa were enamored of him.
    “You should marry him,” Grandpa had said, after he’d left.
    “I barely know him,” she’d replied. But secretly she thought she should marry him too.
    Within six weeks, she had. Now the wedding was behind her, but the marriage was yet to begin.
    •
     
    Tilly went to the post office early, to take her latest letter for Jasper, but also to inquire discreetly, without alarming anyone or subjecting herself to gossip, if any letter had come for her that might have been misaddressed or misdelivered. There were none. She knew there would be none, but the confirmation still stung.
    She was surprised, on her return home, to hear voices from the parlor. Even more surprised to recognize one of them as Grandpa’s. She quickly hung her bonnet on the stand by the door and hurried to the parlor.
    Grandpa sat heavily, legs spread wide, slumped to one side. He had dressed himself but misbuttoned his vest. His cheeks were sunken, so she could see the shape of his skull beneath skin that had taken a yellow-gray hue. It was almost uncanny to see him upright. Almost upright.
    “Grandpa!” Tilly exclaimed, moving towards him.
    But