But she must get dressed and ready to leave.
To leave.
To leave home and Dora and all that had grown familiar and comfortable in just a year. She must have beenmadto marry a man about whom she still knew very little. Except that she was not sorry. She had been cautious for too long. All her life.
She got to her feet and felt all the delicious unsteadiness of her legs and tenderness of her breasts and inner parts, and dared to hope that she would never be sorry. And that perhaps at last—oh,at last—she would conceive and have a child. Maybe even children. Plural. Dared she dream that big?
But she was only twenty-six. Why must she always believe dreams were for other people but not for her?
***
They were in the dining room in the west wing of the house before half past seven. Even so, they were the last to arrive for breakfast.
“What?” Ralph said when he saw them. “Couldn’t sleep, could you, Flave?”
“Quite so, old chap,” Flavian said on a sigh as he raised his quizzing glass all the way to his eye and regarded with some distaste the kidneys piled upon Ralph’s plate. “I assume youdid?”
“I arranged to have breakfast sent to your suite at half past eight,” Lady Darleigh said. “But how lovely that you have joined us here instead. Agnes, do come and sit beside me. I hate good-byes, and there are a lot of them to be said this morning. But not for a while. Come and talk to me. I am going to miss you dreadfully.”
Agnes was looking pink cheeked, Flavian saw—probably from morning-after embarrassment. And perhaps she had good reason to feel self-conscious, he thought with unabashed male satisfaction. Tidy as her appearance was, she still somehow looked well and truly tumbled.
He had never,everenjoyed a night of sex as he had enjoyed last night. As he had suspected, andmorethan he had expected, she had been a powder keg of passionate sexuality just waiting to be ignited. And he had spent a glorious night doing the igniting and riding the waves of the ensuing fireworks.
And she was his for the taking tonight and tomorrow night and every night—and every day too if they wished—for the rest of their lives. Perhaps it was just that he had not had enough sex since his injuries. Perhaps he was just as starved as she obviously was. But he did not have to consider that possibility. They would feast after the famine until they were sated—and then work out what lay ahead.
Perhaps the banquet would last a lifetime. Who knew?
He sat between George and Imogen, and felt all the wretchedness of the fact that their three weeks were over, and he had more or less squandered the final week with his mad dash to London and back and then his wedding and wedding night.
“You are going to be in London during the Season, George?” he asked.
“Duty in the form of the House of Lords calls,” George said. “Yes, I will be there, at least for a while.”
“And you, Imogen?” Flavian asked.
She had made a rare appearance there last year for Hugo’s wedding and then Vincent’s fast on its heels.
“Not me,” she said. “I will be at home in Cornwall.” She covered his hand with her own, curled her fingers into his palm, and squeezed. “I am so glad you have found happiness, Flavian. And Hugo and Ben and Vincent too, and all within a year. It is quite dizzying. Now if Ralph can only find someone.”
“And you, Imogen,” he said. “And G-George.”
“I am rather too old a dog to be learning new tricks,” George said with a smile. “I will revel in my friends’ happiness instead. And in my nephew’s. I have grown closer to Julian since his marriage. He has turned out far better than anyone could have expected during the days of his wild youth.”
“How oldareyou?” Flavian asked. “I had not realized you were d-doddering.”
“Forty-seven,” George said. “I was a child bridegroom and still a child when my son was born. A long time ago.”
Good Lord, yes, that must be true. Flavian had never worked it out before. George must have been only seventeen or eighteen when he wed. Appallingly young.
Imogen’s attention was on her empty plate.
“Do not look for romance from me, Flavian,” she said. “It will not happen. Ever again. By my own choice.”
She had removed her hand, but he took it again in his own and raised it to his lips.
“Life will be k-kind to you yet, Imogen,” he said.
“It already is.” She looked into his eyes and favored him with one of her rare smiles. “I have six of the most wonderful friends in the world—and all of them handsome men. What more could any woman ask—even if theyareshowing an annoying tendency to fall in love with and marry other ladies?”
