“What was that for?” Edwin asked when Gwen finally pulled back.

  “An apology kiss on behalf of all womankind.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Now go on with your story,” she said as she straddled his hips and rested on top of him again.

  “My first lover, as I said, was thorough if indifferent. I felt confident I would be able to please my new bride once we were married. I was sadly mistaken, however.”

  “The first few times can really hurt for a woman. I was in pain about the first two weeks after I started having sex.”

  “It wasn’t physical pain,” Edwin said, caressing her back with his fingertips. “I could tell she had already been with someone. I didn’t mind. I had, as well. But she cried when we tried—before and after. I offered to stop and wait for a few weeks. Months would pass between attempts. After a year of feigning happiness in public and awkwardness in private, I discovered the cause of our incompatibility. Victoria had another lover.”

  “God, that must have been devastating.” Gwen kissed his chest in sympathy.

  “It was a shock, to say the least. I hadn’t even suspected. But then by accident I came home a day early from a trip and discovered her in bed with her lover. She confessed to everything.”

  “Were you angry?”

  “No,” he said and Gwen believed him.

  “I would have been furious. I would have beaten the hell out of that man.”

  “But you see,” Edwin sighed, “it wasn’t a man.”

  Gwen rolled up and stared down at Edwin in wide-eyed surprise.

  “Your wife was gay?”

  “Gay?”

  “You know, a lesbian? Played for the other team? A member of the Sapphic sisterhood?”

  “She was, yes. She’d secretly been involved with a friend of hers for years. The marriage to me was meant to shield their relationship from scrutiny. My kindness to her, she said, made things more unbearable. She hated that she had trapped me in a loveless marriage. There was nothing else to do. We divorced on the grounds of adultery.”

  “Well, at least she took responsibility in the divorce.”

  “She didn’t, Gwendolyn. Her parents would have disowned her had the truth come out. I allowed Victoria to claim I had strayed.”

  Gwen's heart twisted, her blood quickened, her smile fell.

  “You…” she said. “I just have no words for you.”

  “It was the only thing a gentleman could do. My family was, of course, furious and ashamed. I’d brought embarrassment onto their good name with the divorce. I packed my things and came to America. I found work here at the William Marshal Academy, and when the headmaster retired, I was elevated to his position. I told you it wasn’t a terribly interesting story.”

  “You were seduced by a friend’s mother, served in a war as an officer, and was married to a lesbian and divorced all by age…?”

  “Twenty-four,” he said.

  “If that’s not an interesting story then I don’t know what is.”

  “I’m sure your life story is far more interesting than mine.”

  “It isn’t at all.” Gwen pulled a pillow to her chest. “I was born in Asheville. Grew up among the hippies and hipsters. Normal childhood. Loved reading. Bit of a nerd. Like I told you, both my parents are both gone.”

  “Gwendolyn…I’m so sorry.”

  “Orphan by age eighteen. I guess it does sound Dickensian, doesn’t it? But I never became a street urchin.”

  “How did you cope losing both your parents?”

  “It was hard,” she confessed. “But books saved me. I know that sounds silly and glib. But I lost myself in books. Read constantly. I was a glutton for fiction. Any world was better than my own. Elizabeth Bennet had a fool for a mother but better a living crazy mom than a dead one. And then Mr. Darcy came along and saw her virtues, plucked her from obscurity, and made her his wife. Perfect. I wanted a Mr. Darcy of my own. And Jane Eyre, she was an orphan like me. And yet so much braver and stronger than I ever hoped to be. Being alone in Asheville wasn’t much fun so I moved to New Orleans—in my head, at least—and lived with some vampires for a while. Vampires, wizards…I got into more serious reading in college. Faulkner. Flannery O’Connor.

  “Faulkner? Modern tripe.”

  “Oh hush. Not every book has to be Ivanhoe. Anyway, my grandparents accused me of hiding in my books. But I wasn’t hiding, I was healing. Those stories made me believe bad things happened for a reason and good things happened if you kept going all the way to the end. Hope and perseverance—that’s what I learned from books. So now I teach literature to teenage boys. And maybe they’ll learn some hope and perseverance, too.”

  “Was your hope and perseverance rewarded?” Edwin asked, his voice soft. Gwen smiled.

  “I’m at a teacher at the world’s weirdest school—The William Marshal Academy,” she said. “And I’m in your bed. Yes, it was rewarded.”

  “The William Marshal Academy is not weird,” Edwin said with feigned severity.

  “Your students put on Shakespeare plays for the fun of it. There are approximately zero computers in the entire school. The buildings look like they’ve been transported from fifteenth-century France. There’s a big wall around the school like it’s some kind of fortress. Oh, and there’s a crazy woman wandering around at night. And you say Marshal isn’t weird? You and I need to have a long talk about the definitions of interesting and weird. You are living in opposite land.”

  “First of all, The Bride isn’t a crazy woman.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “She’s one of the boy’s girlfriend’s, isn’t she?”

  “I can’t comment.”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Gwen said.

  “Gwendolyn.”

  “What?”

  Edwin kissed her and dragged her into bed. Soon they were making love for a third time that night. The third time would be their final time. Afterward he pulled her close to his chest again and she fell asleep, wrapped in his arms.

  It felt like only a few minutes had passed when she woke up that morning. No, not quite morning. Barely dawn. She extricated herself carefully from Edwin’s arms and wrapped herself in his Oxford shirt she’d nearly ripped off of him last night. She pulled back a corner of the curtains and peered through the window. An autumnal fog covered the grounds of the school. The grass, the trees, the walls even huddled in a shroud of white. Night had fled, but the sun hadn’t taken the moon’s place in the sky yet. The world had turned white.

  Soon the boys would wake and start to stir. She should hurry back to her cottage now before anyone was about to see her leaving the headmaster’s quarters. They wouldn’t be able to keep their love affair a secret for long, but she wasn’t terribly worried. The boys adored their headmaster and had even conspired to find him a girlfriend. No, not a girlfriend. A wife.

  A wife? What the hell was she getting herself into?

  Gwen dressed quickly and quietly and left a note for Edwin on the bedside table.

  Headmaster Yorke—you are a heavy sleeper. Yet another of your many faults. If you’d been awake you could have had me again before I slipped out of your life forever. By forever I mean until I see you again later today. I adore you. Sincerely, Miss Ashby. PS—Tea later? And by tea I mean…not tea.

  She kissed him softly on the lips. It broke her heart to know his first lover had treated him like a mere body and hadn’t even kissed him on the mouth during their trysts. And then his wife had revealed that not only had she no sexual interest in him, she had no sexual interest in men—period. Gwen was determined to make up for all the lost time, all the rejection, all the hurt. She would kiss him and touch him and pleasure him every chance she could. And although she feared it would be the most foolish of ideas—she would love him if he wanted her to love him.

  She made sure she looked as put together and professional as possible on the off chance someone was out this early. But she saw no one and nothing as she left the main building by the back door and headed to her cottage. She was nearly there when she saw something out of the corner of her eyes.

  Movement. Somewhere. She stopped and spun around. No. Nothing. But surely she hadn’t imagined that rustle of white fabric in her peripheral vision.

  Gwen crept around the side of her cottage. She knew she’d seen something. She refused to accept she hadn’t.

  Again, a flash of white. Now she saw it. Something white has passed across a window in one of the student dormitories. Seconds later, Gwen saw her.

  The Bride stood on the back porch of the Pembroke dormitory with her face looking toward the sky and away from Gwen. Now they stood only fifty feet apart. She could see The Bride wore an elegant lace dress and had long black hair tied in a white handkerchief. Slender and tall, she had the bearing of a young woman and yet Gwen couldn’t see her face.

  Gwen opened her mouth to call out to the girl. Before she could speak a word, someone joined The Bride on the back porch. From the back she couldn’t tell who it was because of the baseball cap he wore over his hair. But she could see him reach for The Bride’s hand.

  That did it. Now Gwen was certain. The Bride was no bride at all. Just a girl in a dress sneaking on and off campus to see a boyfriend. Gwen wasn’t sure why she bothered with the wedding dress disguise. Maybe if she looked scary and ghostly, the other boys would keep their distance. Teenagers were weird. No doubt about that.

  Less worried now, Gwen left the young lovers alone. She’d keep digging around for more information on the girl, but for now she wasn’t as worried. Although it might not hurt to find out which boy she was sneaking on campus to see. Last thing Gwen wanted was a Marshal student getting a towny girl pregnant. As if this school hadn’t been through enough lately.

  Young love. Almost as powerful as not-so-young love.

  Love? Was she already using that word? Yep. She was. How long had she been here? Only a week? She knew people fell in love fast. Her parents had. Her father told her he knew he’d marry her mom on their very first date. Still…it was strange how quickly she’d come to love this place and feel at home here. She hadn’t once gone to her car to inspect the damage from her accident. She’d do it later. Now she wanted to curl up in her bed, catch up on the sleep she’d missed last night and dream of Edwin.

  Cars could wait.

  Ghosts could wait.

  The outside world could wait.

  Sleep couldn’t wait.

  And love. Love couldn’t wait either.

  So she fell into love when she fell into bed and woke up a few hours later still in both.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next week passed in a haze of teaching and reading and Edwin and happiness. She worked with the boys in small groups during her free period in the hopes of getting them to open up to her. She was on the lookout for any hint of which one of the boys was sneaking a girl on campus. They all seemed to have baseball caps, so that one clue wasn’t a damn bit of help. Their necks betrayed no hickeys or love bites. Their smiles betrayed no secrets. She could only hope whichever student it was with the girlfriend was being careful.

  Careful? Good question. Did they teach sex ed at this school? Seemed like an entirely reasonable thing to do. She should ask the headmaster about it. And she should insist that he teach the class himself and that she should be allowed to sit in and watch while Edwin talked about penises and vaginas to thirty sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds.

  Once the school day ended, Gwen walked up to the fourth floor of Hawkwood and found Edwin in his office.

  She shut the door behind her and Edwin looked up.

  “You’re smiling,” he said. “Stop it.”

  “I can’t. It just happens when I’m in the same room with you.”

  “I hope you’re here to discuss work.” He gave her a stern look, which failed to snuff out her smile.

  “I am.”

  “Good.”

  “And sex.”

  “Not good.”

  “Do we teach sex ed at Marshal?”

  “Sex ed? You mean health class?”

  “I guess you could call it that if you needed a euphemism,” she said. “But specifically sexual education. There’s at least one boy on campus with a girlfriend.”

  “Not this again.”

  “This again,” she said, coming around his desk. It was a big desk, a grand desk, an impressive, manly desk. Thus she felt perfectly justified in sitting on it and crossing her legs right in front of Edwin’s face.

  “We don’t need to teach sex to the boys.”

  “I’m not saying we teach them the best way to do doggy style. But they should know about birth control and STIs.”

  “STIs?”

  “You know—gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV…”

  “You mean venereal diseases?”

  “Those,” she said, amused by his tenacious clinging to old-fashioned terminology. He even called the bathroom “the water closet” once. Adorable.

  “It’s hardly anything we need to be concerned about.”

  “Edwin, it’s very sweet that you think the boys are all virgins who will be angels until the day they get married, but this is the real world. Teenagers have sex almost as often as adults do. And let’s see…we’ve had sex…” She paused. “Three times on Friday, three times on Saturday, twice on Sunday. Day of rest, I understand. And then Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday—”

  He raised his hand.

  “No need to tally it up,” he said, suppressing a smile. “I was there, too.”

  “You were, weren’t you? If the two of us are having this much sex, how much do you think a bunch of teenage boys awash in hormones are?”

  “I’m not saying they’re all monks, Gwendolyn. But there’s no reason to worry about them.”

  “I’m not worried. I just think they need to know more than Latin and geometry. There is more to life than school,” she said, uncrossing her legs and putting a foot on either side of his legs. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Gwendolyn.” Edwin gave her a cold, hard stare.

  “Edwin,” she replied, smiling seductively.

  “This is highly inappropriate.”

  “I locked the door when I came in.”

  He continued to stare at her. And then, just like that, he stood up, took off his glasses, grabbed her by the hips and pulled her to the edge of the desk.

  “Edwin!” she gasped in shock, but he silenced her with a kiss. If the boys wanted some sex ed, they could get it now if they watched Edwin at work. He’d amazed her with his skills as a lover. He never let her go to bed still wanting more. Of course, as soon as she woke up she wanted him again.

  Again. Always. And now.

  Especially now.

  “Are you absolutely entirely certain you locked the door?” Edwin whispered in her ear. She didn’t know what it was—the accent most likely—that made his whispers as erotic as his touch.

  “I promise I did.”

  “Good.” And with that good he unbuttoned her blouse. But he didn’t stop with unbuttoning it. He pulled it completely off. He then proceeded to strip her naked, completely naked but for her pale pink kitten heels on her feet. Edwin’s large, strong hands roved all over her body. As he kissed her again on the mouth, he took her breasts into his hands. He pinched and rolled her nipples between his fingers until she panted against his lips.

  He laughed softly and shushed her at the same time. Unless they were in his bedroom, they had to make every effort to be as quiet as possible. But it wasn’t easy to stay silent when Edwin massaged her breasts like that, when his hips ground against hers, when his mouth caressed her neck in that spot that made her tense and tingling and wet.

  Edwin cupped her between her thighs and pushed a finger inside her. She pushed against his hand, craving more. He pushed a second finger in and her vagina tightened around him.

  “God, Gwen,” he said against her skin. She loved these little moments when he was so turned on he called her Gwen instead of Gwendolyn. That was Edwin’s version of losing control.

  She reached between their bodies and unzipped Edwin’s pants. With both hands she stroked him to his full hardness. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back while she touched him. It was a beautiful thing to see him lost in his pleasure, pleasure she gave to him.

  Gwen let him go long enough to grasp the fabric of his jacket and push it off his shoulders. She yanked his tie off and unbuttoned his shirt halfway down. She didn’t care about getting him naked right now as long as she could kiss and touch his chest and shoulders. She needed his skin against her skin as much as she needed him inside her. He must have felt the same, because he gripped her hard by the hips again, pulled her to the edge of the desk, and with both hands pressed her thighs wide open. He lowered his head and pressed his tongue inside her. The sensation was exquisite, but the act unnecessary. She was already wet and ready for him.

  Edwin rose up and wrapped an arm around her waist, cushioning her as she rolled onto her back. He lifted her legs over his shoulders and with a thrust entered her. She lifted her hips to take all of him into her. Briefly she wondered what important paperwork they were on top of and possibly getting wet. But then he pulled out and thrust in again, hard and deep, and she decided she didn’t care if they were fucking on top of the original draft of the Magna Carta itself as long as he kept…doing…that.

  She half-closed her eyes, let herself bask in the heat of her own body and the hardness of his inside her. But her erotic reverie dissipated when she heard Edwin saying her name.

  “Gwendolyn?”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  “Edwin?”

  “You’ll stay, won’t you? No matter what happens? You’ll stay here with me?”