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He agreed with his mouth at the side of her throat, and she tipped her head back and did not think about Viscount Eddington or his drainage system at all.

The gown and his coat went, and she worked through his shirt studs with less ceremony than the first time; when she finally drew the shirt over his head, she pressed both palms to his chest, to the old scar at his ribs.

Adam took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth, and the patience between them—two and a half hours of the country reel and Viscount Eddington’s draining system—ran out entirely.

He came over her onto the bed, and she locked her arms around his shoulders. When he pressed into her, she turned her face into the hollow of his throat and let out a long breath and attended to nothing else.

She pressed her palm to his jaw and turned his face until his eyes were on hers. She held them there.

He held her gaze through all of it, his forehead against hers, his breathing uneven. She kept her hands in his hair and said his name in the low voice she kept for him only, and he answered with the rhythm she wanted, and held to it until she came apart with her legs locked around him, while he followed with his face buried in her shoulder.

The room settled. His weight came down over her, his breathing slowing against her neck, and she slowly petted him, rubbing a hand up and down his back.

“You complete me,” she told him.

Adam raised himself slightly to look at her as though he could see clearly in the darkness. “You complete me.” He emphasized the words.

Then he leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on what should have been her forehead, but it landed on the side of her eyes.

The sound against her shoulder was not quite a laugh, and entirely was.

“You should try that again.”

“I definitely should,” Adam agreed and leaned forward again.

This time, the kiss landed on her lips as he pulled her closer.

The lake below Ravenlocke’s eastern slope caught the morning light in long, flat sheets that Eloise ignored entirely in favor of the water itself.

“Watch!” she called from the shallows, not waiting to confirm she had their attention before launching herself forward with both arms extended.

She moved through the water with a splashing purposefulness that was more committed than graceful; she turned back with her hair flat and streaming, a look of thorough satisfaction on her face.

“Did you see?”

“We saw,” Adam called.

“Both of you?”

“Both of us,” Juliet confirmed.

Eloise’s expression was close to regal. She turned and launched herself forward again to prove it had not been a fluke.

Juliet sat on the blanket with her hands loose around her knees, watching. Adam was beside her, coat off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and the quiet of the morning had settled over both of them in the way she had come to treasure: unspoken, simply present. Above the slope, Ravenlocke Castle stood with its climbing roses trained across the east wing, its long windows bright with midmorning light.

“She is better than she was in Hampshire,” Juliet said.

“Considerably.” He watched Eloise surface and shake the water from her face. “Miss Green says she has been asking to come to the lake since we arrived.”

“She told me she has been practicing her breathing.”

“Where?”

“In her room. In the washbasin.”

Adam turned to look at her. One brow went up. Juliet pressed her lips together.

“She was very methodical about it,” she said.