Erasmus pressed the softest of kisses to her lips, causing her eyes to close and back to arch. “They call it making love.”
“Do they now?” she asked, trying to contain a smile.
Her husband ran his nose over the wispy curls that framed her ears. “Making love and making a baby. Just as we did to create Phineas.”
Amy hiccoughed her sob before she even knew she was crying. Her heart simply couldn’t control the emotions flooding her as Erasmus brought her to pleasure and healed something she’d once thought broken for good.
And she realized it then: she was in love with him. She didn’t merely want his fine body or his sharp mind — she wanted his goodness, his infinite gentleness and care.
Somehow, despite all the reasons it should not be so, she had stumbled into the barn of the most wonderful man, and he seemed to like her.
“You’re so good,” he moaned, thrusting faster and rubbing over that nub until she felt like an over-wound clock. “Such a good girl for me.”
Erasmus pinched her nipple and grimaced, clearly holding himself back from his own release.
“That’s it, get ready to take this load I have for you. I want a baby on Midsummer.”
His words were too powerful, and Amy rocked to meet his shaft and get it right over the place she was straining to feel him. For one moment, he slipped the barest bit into the mouth of her hungry channel, and their combined efforts only teased each other as they fought the urge to couple.
Finally, Erasmus took control, holding his hand over his thrusting member so it stayed safely outside her body, working that bump until she experienced a sensation akin to being hit with a whole tub of wash water at once.
She must have shaken and cried out, insensible of her surroundings, because Erasmus fixed his lips to hers, presumably so he might muffle her cries.
When he pulled back, he looked down at her belly with some satisfaction.
“All of that in your womb,” he said, casting her a heated glance when he looked up from where his spend had sprayed over her abdomen. “You took that all in and gave me our baby boy. For that, I couldn’t be more grateful.”
He rose from the bed and collected the cloth he’d used for washing. Painstakingly, he cleaned Amy between her thighs and on her stomach, then wiped her dry with the corner of a sheet.
She feared that trying to talk now might reveal her to have lost the power of speech.
“There now, Amy,” said Erasmus, crawling behind her and draping his body around hers.
And for the first time since she was a girl, Amy slipped into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
Christmas
Chapter 7
Christmas, 25 December 1883
The road from Oxford
Erasmus pulled back the curtain in his hired carriage for what must have been the thousandth time. The wheels turned slowly, going more sedately than the equipage and team could handle.
The speed had been his own decision, as was traveling with the freight wagon that followed. He was bringing Eleanor and their unborn child home from Vienna at last.
He’d made it back to Oxford before the trains stopped for Christmas. A good deal of money — unthinkable amounts, if he was honest with himself — had roused drivers and their animals in the wee hours of the holiday.
But Erasmus Mangevileyn needed to be reunited with his family after many weeks away, arranging for the safe repatriation of his first wife’s remains.
The sun was breaking on the horizon when they crossed Shillingford Bridge and turned towards the Abbey.
Having been a foreign attaché in Vienna before departing in the grief-filled days after Eleanor’s passing, Erasmus thought he knew what to expect of Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy. Yet between a Fenian bombing in London in late October, the cholera outbreak in Egypt that summer causing panic at the ports, and alarming, still unexplained delays in obtaining aLeichenpassorlaissez-passerfor his first wife’s remains, Erasmus’s trip of a fortnight had taken nearly two months.
Two months away from his children and young bride. His heart ached to think of Thea and Phin waiting for his return.
And Amy — oh, his Amy, blossoming into confidence, soft curves, and serene smiles. She had moments of hesitation and doubts about intimacy, and Erasmus was all too happy to let her decide how they should proceed. Never could he have imagined that lingering over kisses and whispers would heal his soul so completely.
