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“Your butler has great abilities and even greater dignity. Your aunt didn’t take advantage of him, although he was one of the household employees. I like him.”
“I just think that it’s odd that we brought my aunt and her lover to your—” She caught his eye and corrected herself. “To our house. Imagine if someone in polite society knew the truth!”
“Luckily, no one does, and it’s none of our business who your aunt takes to her bed,” Fiennes observed. “I’m surprised she chose adultery over homicide, given the state of her marriage. Do you suppose that you’ve eaten enough, Ella?” He couldn’t stop himself. He stood up and walked around the table. “May I?”
Ella looked up at him with clear eyes. Happy eyes. He wanted to snatch her up and carry her to the bedchamber.
“Was there something you wished, Lord Peregrine?”
“I’d like to kiss you, to start.”
She jumped to her feet, giggling.
Fiennes realized his fingers were shaking. He lowered his head and kissed her.
“Hot chocolate,” Ella murmured against his lips. Then, pulling back, “I thought that men preferred strong tea.” Her palm rounded his cheek. “Kiss me again?”
“Of course.” He scooped her into his arms and backed unerringly into a strong-armed chair to the side of the morning room. Something tight in his chest unfurled as he kissed her. He didn’t pull back until she was breathless and flushed.
Ella nipped his earlobe with her teeth and then smirked at him mischievously. Fiennes was aware—not for the first time—that he would do anything, give anything, to see her smile every day.
“Could we kiss some more before the day begins?” she asked.
His kisses were possessive and fierce. Everything in him wanted to roll into their marriage bed in a tangle of limbs, but Ella had made plans to meet with the housekeeper. His wife thought that intimacies were to be reserved for the nighttime.
She truly was innocent.
“Touch me,” Ella gasped.
“Touch you … where?”
She picked up one of his hands. “Here.” She put it directly on her breast. His hand instinctively tightened, and an incoherent sound broke from her throat.
Fiennes nuzzled her earlobe. “Do you like this?” He brought both hands into play. Ella tipped back her head and arched her back into his caress.
Another whimper urged him on. He cast a look at the door, but Jarvis was surely standing guard outside.
The mere sight of her dazed, longing expression made him kiss her again, hard. “Could I persuade you to retire upstairs with me?” he asked. “All I want in the world at this moment is you and a bed. We needn’t be intimate if you are uncomfortable.”
“How could I be uncomfortable after last night?” Ella whispered. Her voice was raw with desire.
“I thought perhaps you might be sore,” Fiennes said. He cleared his throat.
“A tiny bit,” she admitted.
His heart sank.
“You could kiss it better,” she whispered. She turned pink, but her gaze was a potent mix of tenderness and desire.
“May I lick it better?” he murmured, his thumb rubbing over her nipple. He had been delighted when Ella had thrown away all maidenly reserve in bed, using his body for her pleasure and taking delight in her own.
“I would agree to that,” she said with a nod. A naughty chuckle escaped her mouth.
They spent the entire first day and night of their marriage in bed, occasionally collecting meals that had been discreetly placed in the corridor outside.
The household tried to avoid that corridor, but as one of the housemaids told another later that night, “It wasn’t just moaning and the like. I kept hearing bursts of laughter too.”
At midnight, Ella woke from a refreshing nap to find her husband lying on his side, his head propped up on one elbow. He was winding her red curls around his fingers.
