“Well, this part isn’t really a secret, but it might demonstrate how much I wanted this marriage, wantedyou. Griff and I combed London and the surrounding boroughs quite frantically for a week in search of a manor with a stone outbuilding of some sort, one able to withstand minor detonations. I must have inspected twenty residences before selecting the one.”
This got her attention.
Rising in a fluid movement, her gaze met his. Another surprise. Tiny flecks of brown ringed the outer edges of her irises, lending them a careless, almost cavalier air. “My lab.”
“Hmm, yes, your bureau of chemical mischief. I knew when I saw it, even needing work, that it was perfect.” He laid his index finger over her lips when she made to speak—thank him, most likely. If he was going to tell her the next, he didn’t want gratitude lingering, leaving a too-easy jump to pity. “You know about my reading issue, and my parents, particularly my father, finding this deficiency unacceptable. ‘What man lets words on the page defeat him,’ he saidto me countless times. He called it lethargy of the mind and the spirit. Griff tried to help, but…”
Dom gave a humorless laugh and rolled to his back to stare at the ceiling. It was level, surprisingly, without a ripple in sight. “The first time I gambled at a hell, the first time Iwon, I should say, I’d just had an argument with my father. A physical altercation, an occurrence my brother doesn’t and will never know about, if you please. He’ll hate himself for not stopping something he couldn’t stop.”
“Of course,” she whispered and laid her head tenderly on his shoulder.
“I’d just been tossed from Oxford and that night at the hazard table, I conquered the fear guiding my life. Winning was like a rush of opium, courage a direct shot to the veins. So, I went back the next night. And the next.”
“Dom, you don’t—”
Leaning, he caught her mouth with his own, silencing her while taking comfort in her nearness. “I do, Louisa. I need to tell you that it wasn’t enjoyable, even if the gambling helped me endure those months. Truth is, I was never the reprobate people think. I was the quiet one, Griff the gregarious Beckett. I was more comfortable in a library than a gaming hell, though books always intimidated me. They still do. And yet there I was, with all the noise and din, the chaos, night after night.”
Her hand rose to cradle his jaw, and he angled into the touch, his heart racing. “I hated myself for craving it, but I need you to know, without a doubt, that I don’t crave it anymore. It’s not me, it never was.”
Louisa let only seconds pass before she climbed atop him, her long legs tightening around his hips with surprising strength. Hearing the catch of his breath, she slid her softness over his firm length and silenced his low moan with a kiss that offered acceptance he hadn’t known he needed.
His hands shot to her hips with a groan that was half surrender, half challenge.
She shivered in reply, and he knew there’d be no more talk tonight—only the surety that their honeymoon was far from over.
Chapter Eleven
Where desire deepens intodevotion.
The day startedin what was becoming an ordinary but joyous pattern.
Louisa and Dominic made love with reckless hunger, as if their discovery of each other could never be exhausted. Sometimes it was hurried, all fire and grasping hands; sometimes slower, tender, but no less consuming.
Afterward, the rhythm of their days unfolded in the business of the house. Together they walked the echoing halls of the manor, making lists, checking off repairs, discussing which rooms should be readied first, debating whether to hire two more footmen or another housemaid and a gardener. By late morning, he disappeared into his study, contracts and correspondence demanding his attention, while she retreated with equal purpose to her little laboratory, the shelves scattered with glass and copper, the air already sharp with potassium nitrate and sulfur.
In the short span of seven days, it became a place she loved dearly.
Nonetheless, desire was never far from her mind.
More often than not, before dinner they found themselves pressedtogether in the linen closet or half-hidden among the shelves in the library, where the dust on the volumes was the only witness. He was teaching her, or perhaps she was teaching him, that love could be shared without hours at the ready, or even a bedchamber at their disposal.
Happiness slipped into Louisa’s life in silent increments, so natural she scarcely noticed until it was there in full. A bit dazed, she began to believe it might last.I love youwas on the tip of her tongue every time she looked at her husband, words begging to be spoken. The only thing holding her back was the caution in his eyes, as though he were still weighing the risk of them.
The day she’d decided to tell him, Louisa was bent over her workbench, coaxing powder into the narrow throat of a retort, when the mixture hissed and spit. A sharp crack split the air, the table jolted, and she was tossed backward onto the floor. Her skirts tangled about her legs, glass clattered across the flagstones, and the sharp sting of sulfur scorched her throat. Pain flared where a sliver had cut her cheek. She touched the spot and her fingers came away red.
Before she could gather herself, the door banged wide. Dominic filled the frame, his cobalt eyes wild, his boots hitting the stone with dull thumps as he barreled in.
She was already bracing herself on one elbow, irritated more by the loss of her experiment than the pain. “I’m fine,” she insisted, a shaky laugh escaping her, though her voice was hoarse from the smoke. “I may have added a touch too much saltpeter.”
His answer was to sweep her into his arms, silk rustling, as though she weighed nothing. He carried her out into the cooler air, jaw set like iron. She hadn’t often seen him vexed. Irritation, even directed at her, looked good on him.
She was coming to find thateverythinglooked good on him.
“Put me down, Dom.” She wiggled in his grasp with the trifling hope that he’d carry her back into her laboratory and delight her inother ways. It would be thethirdtime there, if her count was correct. “I can’t pause the experiment, or I’ll lose my progress. Unless—”
“You’re bleeding,” he growled, his arms tightening instead of loosening. “No more goddamn chemistry today, Lou. Do you hear me?”
The spark of lust died at once, replaced by anger, hot and swift. “Was that a demand or a request, Dominic Beckett?”
