“Oh! Maybe we shouldn’t—”

“Are you afraid I will sully your honor?” Karigan asked, eyebrow raised.

“What? No! But you . . . Yours . . .”

“I thought we’d settled this.”

“That was before I knew—”

“That I was some chaste maiden with her virtue at stake?” Karigan smiled, amused by Cade’s renewed blushing and that he hadn’t realized it was her first time, too. “Look, Cade, I love that you are concerned. I know it’s because you care about me, but this is my life, my body. I am of age to choose what I do with both. At this moment, I choose this. With you.”

“You are certain?”

She kissed him deeply enough to show him how certain she was. As her hands and mouth traversed his body on new adventures, he did not ask any more questions.

They were awkward at times, shyly hesitant, but they learned by experimentation how to give pleasure to one another, their touches quickly growing more confident. Karigan delighted in the myriad textures that were Cade, the hairs of his chest, the sleekness of long muscles. She inhaled his musky scent spiced with a bouquet of sweet hay, sawdust, and horse. His hands brushing over her skin made her shiver.

Their breaths and heartbeats quickened, his complementing hers, their warm flesh pressed together, hands clasped. As the cottage fell into the dark of full night, Karigan was finally able to reveal herself wholly. For once she did not have to be someone else, not a Green Rider, not Miss Goodgrave, nor a merchant’s daughter. She came to him as herself, unmasked, and thinking only of him as she did so. She met him as he met her, open and joyful, and discovering a peace she had not known before.

In their joining, it did not matter where she was or when. The world and its layers, with all its problems, became unimportant and vanished from thought.

• • •

They slept entwined, in the aftermath of their lovemaking, or at least Cade did, his deep breaths warm on the back of her neck. Karigan rested in a state of contentment she could not recall experiencing before. She marveled over how it felt to be enfolded by him. Their bodies fit together so very perfectly as if one had been made especially to match the other. She did not want this moment to end. If only it could be captured for all time, but that made her think of a picture made by image trapping, and it was a disturbing notion when all else had been so wonderful. She’d rather think about Cade coming home with her so every night could be this way. Except, of course, when she was away on message errands. But he’d be there when she returned. She sighed.

She felt unchanged, yet not the same, as though she’d finally crossed a threshold she’d long hovered over. Had her being with Cade this night finally made her a true adult? No. Many other situations had forced her into adulthood before now. She’d grown up abruptly, irretrievably, the first time she had killed a man. There’d been no going back after that. Even so, she could not help feeling she’d taken another long stride away from childhood. It did not sadden her. On the contrary, she felt alive and excited for the future. She hoped it was the same for Cade.

The moon glimmered through the window and across the floorboards, outlining the shapes of chairs, the footboard of their bed, and the fine hairs of Cade’s arm, which was wrapped around her. There was a flutter of movement beside the bed, and at first she thought it was a speck of dust reflecting the moonlight, or the wings of a moth, but gradually a figure resolved in her vision. She took a sharp breath and quivered. Cade, who even in sleep must have been so attuned to her, murmured into her hair and held onto her more snugly.

A ghostly Yates looked down at her. His sketchbook was closed for a change and tucked beneath his arm. A forelock of hair, like filaments of moonlight, spilled across his brow. At first his expression remained impassive as always, so unlike Yates in life, his eyes blank as though he did not see her at all. Then there was the slightest upturn to his mouth and a wink.

Now that was Yates.

He turned away and strode across the room on silent feet and paused by the window. He blended into the moonlight. Then stepped through the wall.

As much as Karigan did not wish to leave Cade’s warmth, she disentangled herself from him, and taking a blanket from the other bed, wrapped it around herself and crossed over to the window. She peered out and saw Yates there in the inn’s yard, gazing back at her. He raised his sketchbook and fanned the pages. He faded away, laughing, until there was nothing but the night. What drawings did his sketchbook contain? Perhaps she would never find out, but why would he keep appearing to her with it in his hands?

She heard the creak of floorboards behind her, and realized her absence in bed had roused Cade. He crossed over to her, and she admired how the moonlight limned the contours of his body. He glanced out the window.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He caressed her hair away from her face and gave her the whisper of a kiss, then he gathered her into his arms and carried her back to bed. She did not protest the carrying, and when once more they made love, it was with no awkwardness or hesitation, only lingering delight in the glow of the moon.

• • •

In the morning, Karigan felt weightless, that if unanchored she’d drift among the clouds. Yes, there was a certain soreness from the night’s activity, but it was a minor distraction. It had not been easy for her and Cade to part and ready themselves for the day and the ordinary world beyond their little cottage. Cade was solicitous, pulling a chair out for her at breakfast, gazing at her with longing. She must look much the same. She could not help but gaze back at him. They needed few words, only fingers entwined together on the table and knees touching beneath.