He directed her pace then, in a frantic, hurried rhythm.
When he came, he jerked beneath her, filling her with his seed.
The truth was that she wanted everything with this man.To have his title and his children and all his love.She always had, even when she had only been reading about him in the scandal sheets, and she hadn’t known anything about him beyond his reputation for vice.
“I love you so much,” she gasped, taken by the beauty of him spending inside of her.The pureness of his ardor, of his pleasure, moved her.“I would never be able to bear losing you.Not again.”
He cupped her face.“You’ll never have to find out.I am yours.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved, both of them spellbound by the idea of no more separations.Two weeks had become forever.
Afterwards, they rang for a servant and ordered dinner from the tavern.They ate in bed, laughing and kissing.For perhaps the first time in their entire acquaintance, they were completely at peace and completely secure in their love for each other.Once they were done eating and she was in his arms once more, her head resting against his chest, he said, “You never told me what you bought in the shop.”
She laughed.It was very like him to think of that at such a moment.He was not a man to forget details.
“Youwilllaugh.”
“Could it be more ridiculous than a riding crop?”
“I suppose not.But it is not ridiculous in that direction.I will show you.”
She rose from the bed and padded to her trunk.Luckily, Sally had packed what she sought close to the top.
When she brought the object back to bed, he immediately exclaimed, “A book!”
“Yes, I knew you would laugh.”
“For once, I am the more adventurous party.”
“I wanted to get something that Iknewyou would consent to use.But you surprised me with your own selections.”
“Well,” he said, flipping through the book.“It is still very interesting.Even if you’re not as daring as me.But we cannot all be sexual renegades.”
She snorted but perused the pages with him.Each one showed the same couple in a different position.Some of them were mundane, some of them very scandalous indeed, and some appeared frankly impossible.But, with him, she wanted to try.
He pointed to a particularly challenging image that involved the woman standing on her head.
“Would you dare?I am not sure that you would.”
“Yes,” she said, flashing the gap between her teeth and then kissing him.“If only because you dared me.To ravishyou, in fact, why…I’d do anything.”
He kissed her with a laugh.
Miss Beatrice Salisbury had never been so happy.
Epilogue the Second
London, England
July 1830
Ten Years Later
Leith had neverseen a house party so large—or so boisterous.
Trem and Henrietta had insisted on inviting everyone to Tremberley Manor to celebrate the July birthdays.Because, as luck would have it, each of the formerly scandalous gentlemen once known collectively as the Rank Rakes had sired a son and heir born in July.
There was John and Catherine’s son, Griffin, the Marquess of Forster, and heir to the dukedom, who had been born on the tenth, and who, this year, was thirteen.And then there were the two nine-year-olds: Trem’s son, Hugh, born on the twenty-first, and his own son, Luke, born on the twenty-third.And Olivia and Monty’s son, Henry, had just turned seven on the twenty-eighth.
