Free London Calling by Anna Elliott Page A

chest of drawers. At the end of the room farthest from her, Susanna could also see a bed.
    And sprawled atop the coverlet was James, his eyes closed and one arm flung out in sleep.
    The floor was thickly carpeted; her footsteps made no sound at all as Susanna crossed the room towards him. When she reached the side of the bed, she stood a moment, looking down at James’s face.
    When she had met him in the alley the night before, it had been too dark to see him clearly. But she could see now that he was thinner than when he had left her, the hard angles of his jaw and cheekbones more sharply prominent. His hair was longer, falling untidily over his brow. And he looked exhausted, even in sleep, with dark shadows like bruises under his eyes and lines that had not been visible before bracketing the corners of his mouth.
    He wore breeches and a loose cotton shirt, open at the collar‌—‌as though he had been too tired to trouble with undressing and had merely fallen into bed and been asleep the moment his eyes closed.
    Susanna had spent part of the journey here in planning what she would say to James tonight, if she did indeed succeed in finding him. But now that she was here, she felt the anger and resentment she had cherished melting away. Instead, a wave of tenderness made her chest feel suddenly tight, as though her heart were so full it threatened to spill over.
    She reached out, gently smoothing the hair back from James’s forehead.
    He slept lightly, for all he looked so exhausted; it was a wonder Susanna had not woken him when she climbed in through the window. The moment her fingers touched him, James snapped awake. His eyes were still bleared with sleep, and yet his one hand closed with an iron grip around her wrist, while the other reached as though by force of long habit for the pistol that lay beside him on the bed.
    “James, it’s all right. It’s me.”
    Susanna held very still, watching as James’s eyes cleared, the dazed look of half-sleep replaced by recognition. His breath went out in a ragged exhalation and he said, “ Susanna ?”
    He pulled her towards him so that she half-leaned, half-sat on the edge of the bed, his hand sliding up from her wrist to her shoulder to the curve of her cheek. He still looked as though he were uncertain whether he were awake or still asleep. And as his thumb moved lightly, tracing the line of her jaw, he shook his head slightly and whispered, “Please, tell me I’m not dreaming this.”
    “You’re—”
    Susanna never got the chance to finish, because then he was kissing her, her mouth, her jaw, her throat. James had kissed her before, but never like this‌—‌wildly, almost desperately.
    Susanna felt each brush of his lips run through her like fire. She had stopped thinking, stopped being conscious of anything but James’s touch. The warmth of his skin, the solid strength of his arms about her seemed to heal a cracked space in her chest that she had not even realized existed until now. She pressed against him, wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him closer‌—‌and lost her precarious balance on the edge of the bed.
    She was still holding tight to James, and they would have both crashed together onto the floor if James had not saved them with a hand braced against the bedpost.
    Apparently the near-miss recalled James to himself and brought him fully awake; he raised his head and looked at her as though fully realizing her presence for the first time.
    “Susanna. You’re actually here . I thought I had to be . . .” He shook his head as though trying to clear it. “What in God’s name are you doing here? How did you get here, for that matter?”
    Susanna’s head still spun from the combined relief of seeing him and the lingering warmth of his kisses. “I climbed in through the window.”
    James looked blankly from the still-open bedroom window to her. And then he started to laugh. “You climbed in through the window. Of course. Can I ask how