She smiled, and in that wide and bright expression Peter saw her joy. She all but skipped to him and bounded against both men, kissing first Peter long and deep and then turning toward Elliot. “I will kiss both my loves, thank you very much, my lord.”
She then kissed him, and Elliot’s low chuckle against her mouth sent a cascade of desire through Peter that almost buckled his knees.
“Now come,” she said when she parted from Elliot. She took each of their hands and drew them back to the settee. “We have much to discuss before we do the thing I can see we all wish to do.”
“Yes, we do have much to discuss, it seems,” Peter said as Merry sat. Elliot took a place on one side of her and Peter on the other, but the marquess reached across the back of the settee to entwine his fingers with Peter’s. That simple act sent a shudder through him that seemed to shatter his very soul.
“I will begin,” Merry said, and glanced at Elliot.
He nodded. “My wife has a better way with words.Shewill begin.”
She smiled. “The way we left things at the cottage was not acceptable,” she said. “But I suppose it was necessary.”
“I assume this means you two…talked…about what you saw that last day, Elliot?” Peter asked.
Elliot shifted slightly. “Yes. But the truth of the matter is that I didn’t need to talk about what I saw. I love that you and Merritt are passionate together. It arouses me beyond measure to watch you two learn each other’s bodies. To find new ways to pleasure her from watching your hands move over her skin. That wasneverthe issue. And the issue wasn’t with the fact that you two loved each other, either. I realize that now.”
Peter wrinkled his brow in confusion. “Then what is the issue, exactly?”
“That I…” He looked at Merry and she nodded in encouragement before she took his free hand. It seemed to buoy him up. “God, I’m terrible at this. Couldn’t I just fill a bath for you?”
Peter couldn’t help but laugh, and Merry did the same. “Afterward, I’m sure that would be lovely, dear,” she said. “Now go on.”
Elliot huffed out a sigh. “The issue is that I am in love with my wife.” He drew in a long breath. “And I am…falling in love…with you.”
Peter blinked, staring at this remarkable man who always seemed to certain and yet in this moment was vulnerable and unsure as he struggled to hold Peter’s gaze.
“I…have been for some time,” Elliot admitted very softly. “But you know that admitting that sort of feeling is difficult for me. And even more difficult since I didn’t know if those feelings would be returned by either of you. Seeing how easy it was for you two to love each other, made me feel I had no place in your bond.”
“But Elliot knows now that I love him,” Merry said before she turned toward him and reached up to touch his cheek.
The marquess’s reaction, the way his gaze softened with joy and relief, nearly brought tears to Peter’s eyes. It was poetry to see it. It was what bards like him tried to capture in an entire play, and yet there it was in one beautiful man’s soft smile.
“I don’t expect you to love me,” Elliot explained. “You don’t know me very well. But it is clear to me now that if I don’t…say it…then I might very well lose what I hold the most dear. And I cannot do that, Peter. I can’t lose you. Or Merritt. I can’t watch you two lose each other and have any hope for my own happiness.”
Peter drew back, almost too shocked to speak as the words flowed over him. “You…can’t lose us and you don’t want us to lose each other,” he repeated. “What…what does that mean?”
“We’ve talked about it a great deal,” Merry said. “All the way home from Brighton and in all the hours before we left. Peter, we want all of us to be together. The three of us. If that is something you want.”
Peter stared at her, this woman he had loved and lost and never believed he could have again. But she was offering a future with her. And more than that, a future with Elliot. He shifted his gaze to the marquess and shivered at the focused power of what he returned.
Of the feelings that burned in Peter’s chest when he thought of loving him. Of loving her. Of loving them. And of being loved in all those same permutations.
“Is it what you want?” Elliot asked.
Peter knew he wasn’t just asking about the idea of the three of them together. He leaned in, over Merry. Elliot met him halfway, shivered when Peter cupped his cheek.
“I do love you,” he admitted. “I have been falling in love with you, almost against my will, for some time, Elliot.”
Merry let out a happy, tearful gasp. “Then what is stopping us from doing this? From loving each other like we did at the cottage? From becoming so much more as three than we are as one or two?”
“Societal expectation?” Peter said with a laugh.
Elliot snorted. “Please. I’ve been your patron for years. Artists are often close with those who finance them. They travel with them, they even live with them. What would be different?”
“Your servants wouldn’t talk?” Peter asked.
Merry shook her head. “They haven’t talked about anything else they’ve seen or heard. For all the world knows, we are a very staid couple. Powerful, yes, but passionate? And if the servants wished the world to know the truth, it would be out there, I assure you.”
