He kissed her in the entrance hall, just like she had been aching for, and she laughed against his mouth and wound her arms around his neck.
“I have been wanting to do that all morning,” he said.
“You kissed me during the breakfast,” she pointed out.
“That was a different kind of kiss.” He drew back just enough to look at her. “That was for the guests.”
“And this one?”
“This one,” he said, “is entirely for me.”
He kissed her again.
“I love you,” he said, with the ease of a man who had long since stopped being frightened of the words. “I love you, Penelope Wightman.”
She felt the name settle over her like something she had been waiting for without knowing it.
“I love you,” she said. “I have loved you for longer than was convenient, and I intend to continue doing so for the rest of my life.”
He laughed, a genuine, unguarded sound that she knew she would spend the rest of her life trying to earn again, and lifted her face in his hands.
“May I take you to bed, wife?” he asked, against her mouth.
“You may,” she said.
He undressed her slowly, with careful attentiveness, as though he intended to commit every detail to memory.
His fingers worked each button with a patience that was entirely at odds with every restless, urgent thing she felt moving through her, and when the last of them gave way, and the gown slid from her shoulders, he looked at her with an expression so undisguised and full of love that she felt more cherished than she had words for.
He rid himself of his coat and his cravat with considerably less ceremony – which made her smile – and came back to her, and kissed her again in the soft glow of the light.
He led her toward the bed, trailing kisses down her throat, her shoulder, the curve of her neck, and then he stopped and swept her off her feet with a sudden decisiveness that pulled a squeal from her that she would never admit to.
“Cecil!” she gasped, clinging to him as the room tilted.
He set her down on the bed gently, and she lay back against the pillows, looking up at him with her hair spread out and her heart hammering and laughter still in her throat.
“Was that necessary?” she managed.
“Entirely,” he said, and settled over her.
His fingers moved over her first – slow and deliberate, learning her again in the lamplight as though they had all the time in the world, which they did, she realised. They had all the time in the world now. The thought of it lit something excited and deep in her chest.
“I have been waiting for this,” he murmured, his lips at her temple, “Since the moment I last had you. I could barely contain it. The ceremony alone –”
“You were perfectly composed,” she said breathlessly.
“I was performing.” His fingers worked, and she arched into him, her breath ragged. “Inside, I was in a very different state.”
“I –” She stopped, unable to form the rest of the sentence, but eventually managed. “I know the feeling. I have thought of nothing else for days. Weeks. I have even had dreams about it. About you.”
He drew back to look at her, dark eyes warm and intent, and she trembled under his gaze and the movement of his hands and the accumulated tenderness of the whole long extraordinary day.
His fingers stroked her insistently but gently, slowly building the waves of desire as her moans filled the space around them. Cecil’s eyes never left her face, fixed in the way her skin flushed beneath his gaze, and how easy it was to render her disoriented each time she tried to stay afloat when the pleasure threatened to take her away.
“You are still so good for me,” he murmured, littering kisses along her jaw and down her neck. “I’m so proud of you. You’re so lovely, my angel.”
She shattered quietly, gasping as a wave that moved through her from the inside out, breaking over her slowly and completely – and he held her through all of it, steady and certain and entirely present.
