Dorian pulled Rose down to the rug before the fire with him now, naked except for her gartered stockings, her shapely limbs rounded and rosy in the firelight. She gave a gasp at the first light touch of his fingers on her mount of Venus.
“I shall satisfy your desires and then my own,” he whispered to her, drawing up a stockinged thigh to his hip as he kissed her. “When I am done, none may ever take you from me, by natural right as much as law.”
How sweet were Rose’s cries as Dorian’s fingers found her womanhood and lightly traced the slippery folds and the tight, warm entrance.
“Softest, sweetest wife,” he breathed, sliding within and caressing her swollen nub with his thumb as he returned to their island fantasy. “What treasures your body and mine contain, Lady Felicity. What hidden delights you will discover with me. I promise that your maidenhead is not worth one hundredth of the joys of our marriage bed.”
Rose’s moans grew attuned to the rhythm of his hand as Dorian’s expert fingering continued between his words and light suckling of her breasts.
“Yes! Dorian, yes…” she cried out after some minutes of these attentions, arching her back as her body spasmed in its pleasure. “Oh, Dorian.”
“Surely, you mean, Sir Barnabas,” he teased her, despite the growing demands of his own lust. “It would be a terrible thing to call your husband by another man’s name on your wedding night.”
Pink and damp with pleasure and happiness, Rose laughed breathlessly, sitting up and taking Dorian’s face in her hands to kiss him while he unfastened his lower garments and produced his manhood.
“Sir Barnabas!” she exclaimed with pretended shock andveryreal appreciation. “What can you possibly be planning to do with that?”
“Come here and I’ll show you, Lady Felicity,” he growled and they wrestled one another back to the rug, the firelight playing on their naked limbs.
Cuddled safely in Dorian’s arms after their game, Rose closed her eyes and smiled to herself, biding her time. Physically and emotionally contented, she also had a secret she had been keeping, waiting until she was sure, and then for the right moment to share it.
“So, that was the story of Sir Barnabas and Lady Felicity’s wedding night,” said Dorian, stroking Rose’s back lazily. “Should I write it down and send it to Mrs. Cadwallader, do you think?”
“I can’t imagine Mr. Cadwallader would like that,” Rose giggled. “He might call you out, or publish a complaint in the papers. You had better not, Dorian. Or, if you do write it down, share it only with me.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. Next time, I do think we might play with the boat idea too. Maybe they stop on the way back to shore and Lady Felicity kneels down.”
“Mmmm,” Rose breathed, snuggling into Dorian’s shoulder again and wriggling her hips slightly in response to this suggestion.
“We both like that idea then. After the boat, what do you think happens next?”
The moment had come. In response to her husband’s question, Rose now took his hand and placed on her belly, just above her mount of Venus. She covered it with her own.
“This happens,” Rose told him very softly, and then tipped up her face to see his expression.
Dorian’s realization was quick. He was no innocent and must have known it was a growing possibility and yet her communication still seemed to affect him profoundly. The tenderness on his face deepened and then he rapidly kissed Rose’s belly, her breasts, her throat, her lips, in rapid succession.
“You’re sure?” he asked and Rose nodded. “Do you know when?”
“I haven’t bled since our first night together,” she told him. “I spoke to Jane and her midwife and they both thought that would likely mean a September baby.”
Dorian’s handsome face seemed to suffuse with the same joy that Rose felt.
“I wondered if it had happened yet but I was afraid to hope,” he admitted. “I didn’t know how to hope, or even if I should.”
“Our child is coming,” Rose confirmed with a smile. “You are to be a father, Dorian.”
He laid his head against Rose’s belly, smiling.
“I will be here to welcome you when you arrive, little one,” he said to the still almost undetectable presence in her womb. “I promise that you will be as loved as your mother, and that nothing will harm you while I live…”
Rose stroked Dorian’s dark hair.
“He or she will be a playmate for Jane’s Charlotte and little Hal,” she smiled. “A kind of cousin. I have said nothing of this to Jane, but it seems to me that the past is so far away from such little children. We need never specify what kind of cousin, as long as we are all discreet.”
Dorian raised his head and nodded.
“They will be cousins; our baby, Charlotte and…Hal,” he agreed, laughing as he spoke and lying back down beside Rose. “Charlotte still persists in calling her new brother ‘Ginger Biscuit’.”
