Usually, that was one of the first things he did on reaching his estate. And, no doubt, his steward was even now expecting a summons. Quite possibly had put his work to one side in anticipation of a meeting.
Yet, all these things seemed less pressing than seeing to his wife.
“I can do that later,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Her cheeks turned rosy. “Tomorrow?”
He nodded at the footmen that lined the walls. “Thank you. That will be all.”
They bowed and left the room, and finally they were alone. Perhaps under other circumstances, he might have been tempted to have her against the table, but they had not progressed so far yet; he did not want to push things.
“Let me be clear,” Percy said as he rose, approaching her. She pushed back her chair and stood to meet him, though he stood tall enough to look down into her face. He secretly loved the size difference between them, and the way she could control him with just one look. “I intend to take you upstairs, and I do not intend to relinquish my claim on you until the morrow. Will that be a problem?”
Her eyes glittered with too many emotions for him to read. Freckles scattered across her nose, and her fiery curls bobbed as she nodded her head slowly. “I have no objection.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he promised as he left the room, her hand tucked firmly in his arm.
“You do not need to be.”
“Yes, I do.” He glanced down at her. “This is new to you. Is it not?”
She glanced down. “It is.”
Relief spiralled through him that she had not been intimate with anyone else. That this time—now—would be her first time.
She turned her attention to the paintings on the walls. Her expression turned contemplative.
“Do you know, I think I finally feel at home here.” She smiled a little as she nudged him with her shoulder. “Before, I would come here in the summer and count the days until we could return to London.”
“And to all your engagements, my social butterfly?”
“You must confess the country is sadly devoid of company.”
“A sad thing for a husband to hear.”
She laughed, the sound airy and light—so different from any of the laughs he’d heard her give over the past four years. “None of my married friends, you know, rely on their husbands for company.”
“Perhaps they married the wrong gentlemen.”
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “I suspect neither party has any desire to spend time with the other. Save Arabella, of course. She dotes on her husband. I always thought it odd.”
“And now?”
“I suppose I can see the appeal.” Her voice was so warm that he looked down at her. Beautiful, vibrant, alive, she watched him with amused affection. “And I am fortunate you dote on me, too. Another man might have given up on me for good.”
“I was about to.”
“I know. I think that was what spurred me into realising I wanted you. That, and knowing how it could be between us when I was not so caught up in the past.”
They finally reached his bedchamber, and he pushed the door open, guiding her inside and closing it behind them. Want pounded through his body, too potent for words.
“Let me kiss you,” he said gruffly.
She tilted her head so he looked down into her face. Then she reached up, removing the pins in her hair until her curls tumbled down her back, loose and a little tangled. Her eyes looked like the sunlit ocean in the fading light from the windows, holding untold depths. If he tried, he could swim forever and never reach the bottom.
“Percy.” She smiled, soft and slow, and the last of the barriers around his heart, the ones he had erected to keep himself safe, cracked into dust. He was irrevocably, irrefutably hers, and there was no pretending that he could save himself now.
“You have my heart,” he told her, sliding his hand along her jaw, his thumb coming to cup her cheek. “Forever, Cecily. Until the tides turn back on themselves and the moon outshines the sun. Until the earth crumbles into the sea. There is no world in which I don’t love you, and no lifetime in which I ever stop trying to be a man who deserves you.”
