An Innocent Affair

XXXIV

"I'd lost myself in the abyss of someone else's tyranny...again." Cassandra Giovanni, Love Exactly

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XXXIV.

Cressie was quite certain her heart had ceased to beat the moment that Jem had rounded her privacy screen, and it had not restarted in the several moments that she had been standing before him in a scandalous state of undress.

Jem had to have lost every bit of his sanity to have found his way to her there. What on earth was he thinking? How had he managed to get in? Did he not realise the danger that he was in? The danger that they were both now in. Had Imelda caught him in her bedroom, Cressie could not even fathom the consequences.

And yet ...

And yet, Jem was still standing before her, with her, even after all this time. His coastal gaze washed over her as she stared into the hue of her favourite colour. His dark hair was curlier at the ends near his forehead, where the sweat from his exertion still glistened. He was not so formally attired as he had been, and as he usually was, during his calls. His cravat had been abandoned and the top buttons of his shirt were undone. He had also forgone his waistcoat. The linen of his shirt clung similarly to the planes of his chest in a way that Cressie found to be blush-inducing.

Jem was terribly handsome. He was also terribly foolish. In that moment, Cressie wished she were not so preoccupied with the former thought.

If Jem was any bit as distracted by her form, he did not display it. Cressie had not realised that she had been standing before him in nought but her drawers for the shock. Her scarlet cheeks had to have betrayed every reckless thought that was racing through her mind.

"I am sorry for frightening you," Jem uttered quietly. "I realise ..." he paused sheepishly, "I realise how incredibly peculiar this intrusion is, and that ..." His eyes shifted, and his composure waned for a second, and Cressie felt a stir in her stomach.

Cressie bit down on her bottom lip to focus on something that was not her erratic thoughts or the nervous fluttering in her stomach, but the moment she did, she heard Jem suck in a breath.

"Don't do that."

"What?" Cressie whispered.

She watched as Jem's jaw clenched and unclenched, his eyes boring into hers. Her heart still felt as though it was suspended in time, though she had long theorised that it no longer resided in her own chest. Perhaps the reason it felt this way was because the person to whom it had always belonged was standing right there in her bedroom.

Cressie knew she ought to have been afraid. She had spent the last five years of her life learning to be afraid of things that no usual person would ever find frightening.

She had learned to fear food. She had learned to fear certain styles of dress. She had learned to fear the dressmaker's tape measure. She had learned to fear her own voice and her own thoughts. Cressie had learned to fear her own shadow, and in doing so, she had completely lost herself.

She had been schooled by a man who had vowed before God to honour her. Everett had broken every vow he had made, though, could a man of honour ever make such a vow?

But in Jem's presence, Cressie was not afraid. She felt no semblance of fear. For the first time in a very long time, Cressie felt more herself then she did the weak lamb that Everett had moulded her into. The fog that had been clouding her mind for the longest time was clearing. The shackles were loosening. She was swimming up towards the surface, ready to finally take a breath.

Cressie did not know what reason had brought Jem to her bedroom, but it could wait. She took one step towards him, and then another, those two being all she needed to find his hands. The moment she reached for them, Jem bypassed her fingers, and his hands found their way to her waist.