Page 29 of The Earl’s Second Chance

Richard kissed Elizabeth in the carriage until she forgot every mile. His hands remained over silk and beneath permission, but his mouth taught her how quickly tenderness could deepen into hunger. Whenever the coach slowed near a toll gate, they separated with guilty laughter. Whenever it moved again, she returned to him.

They reached the Sussex house after midnight.

The servants had left a supper and withdrawn to a distant wing. Candles glowed along the staircase. Beyond the windows, the sea moved invisibly in the dark.

Richard locked the front door.

Elizabeth watched the deliberate turn of the key.

“One,” she said.

“One?”

“Of the promised doors.”

He crossed the hall. “My wife has an excellent memory.”

The word wife changed the air.

He lifted her into his arms despite his leg and carried her upstairs. In their bedchamber, a fire burned low. White curtains stirred at the open window. Elizabeth’s courage faltered before the broad bed and the intimacy of his gaze.

Richard set her down.

“We need do nothing you do not want.”

She touched his scar where it disappeared beneath his collar. “I want not to be afraid.”

“Then we shall go slowly enough for fear to become curiosity.”

He removed her gloves one finger at a time, kissing each newly bared knuckle. He unpinned her travelling bonnet, loosened her hair, and asked before every fastening. The patience was more seductive than haste.

Elizabeth returned the attention. She had imagined his body beneath his regimentals; reality carried the history of war. A puckered scar crossed his thigh where the ball had entered. A longer one marked the surgeon’s work.

She knelt and pressed her lips above it.

Richard’s breath broke. “Elizabeth.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not in any fashion I wish stopped.”

He drew her up and kissed her. Their remaining shyness dissolved by degrees: laughter when a ribbon knotted, wonder when skin met skin, stillness when sensation became too great for speech. He showed her that desire could be asked and answered. She showed him that innocence was not passivity.

When at last they joined, there was a moment of pain, then patience, then a slow awakening pleasure. Richard held himself still until she moved first.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

She did.

Nothing in the marriage advice had described the vulnerability of being known so completely, or the power of discovering that her pleasure altered his face. Their rhythm began uncertainly, then found itself. Elizabeth clung to his shoulders as delight gathered and broke through her in a bright, astonished wave.

Richard followed with her name against her throat.

Afterward, the sea filled the silence.

“Is that all?” Elizabeth asked.

He lifted his head, scandalized, until he saw her smile.