“You’re not taking on his habits, are you?” Tess said, looking askance at Annabel’s brandy.
“No,” Annabel said with a sigh, coming to her feet. “I’d better check on Imogen. Did Lady Clarice emerge from her bedchamber today?”
“Yes. But I don’t think it’s healthy that she never cries. And she never eats. I read to her all afternoon.”
“Come to the house before the funeral,” Annabel said, pausing in the door. “Perhaps Imogen will be able to greet you then.”
Tess went back to her own bedchamber and cried. She thought about bursting into Imogen’s room and demanding that she speak to her, then cried some more. And then—for it was quite the middle of the night, and her fire had burned down—she began to shiver and couldn’t seem to stop.
Whenever she thought about Imogen, she thought about Lord Maitland. And whenever she thought about Maitland, she thought about Lucius.
So, in her muddled state, she decided that the only thing to be done was to go see her own husband. He wasn’t far away, after all: he was at their house, a mere hour’s ride.
She pulled on a pelisse over her nightrail and went downstairs. Somehow it wasn’t very surprising to find Brinkley appearing from behind the baize door, looking tired but immaculate. “I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said, her voice echoing in the empty antechamber.
“Not in the least,” he said gravely. And then, as if there was nothing odd in the least about a lady dressed in a nightrail and a pelisse, “Would you like me to summon your coach, madam?”
“Yes. Thank you, Brinkley.”
She fell asleep waiting for her coach, nestled in her pelisse in the sitting room. She hardly noticed when Brinkley tucked blankets around her, and fell asleep again, jostling over the miles, going to Lucius. She was still asleep when the footmen opened the door of the carriage, peeked inside, and went for the master.
She began to wake up when strong arms closed around her and began to carry her toward the house. She was fuzzily aware that Lucius was carrying her up the stairs, as if she were featherlight. But she nestled her head against his chest and pretended to be asleep. He put her gently onto the bed, and she let her head fall slightly to one side, as if she were still sleeping. She felt his hand on her cheek for a second, then he went back to the door, and she heard him saying to someone—Mrs. Gabthorne—that they would just let her sleep.
And then, while Tess held her breath, she heard the door close. Had he stayed with her, or left the room when the servants crept away? For some reason it seemed a terribly important question. Lucius had probably left. He wouldn’t sit around and stare at his wife when he could be sleeping peacefully in his own bedchamber.
The bed shifted as he sat down. “Are you ready to open your eyes yet, sleeping beauty?” he asked. His voice had that faint strain of amusement that Tess fancied only she could hear. Other people probably thought that he was making colorless conversation.
She didn’t bother greeting him. She simply sat upright, pulled him against her, and pasted her mouth against his.
It wasn’t, as kisses go, a very polished effort. She could feel how startled he was, but he did kiss her back, after a second or two.
But Tess didn’t want just to kiss. She fell backward and pulled him with her so he ended up sprawled half-across her.
“Tess?” he said.
“I need you,” she said fiercely. “I need you.”
That was one thing—well, more than one thing—that she loved about Lucius. He listened to her. His hands tangled in her hair, and he gave her a kiss so passionate, so sweet and so alive that tears came to her eyes.
She kissed him back so intently that it banished the steely coldness in her chest, the fear that he would die as well, that life was nothing more than a series of farewells.
His hand swept under her nightgown, and his knee was nudging between her legs. But Tess felt a deep, fierce wish to make love, not to be made love to, and so she managed to push him flat on the bed, pulling away his clothing, throwing his boots across the floor, covering his eyes when he threatened to laugh.
And then, when she had him before her like a feast, she told him to stay still, with all the command with which she spoke to her horse, Midnight Blossom.
And stay still he did, watching as she covered his body with kisses, her mouth flickering over every muscle, every sweat-dampened ridge and bone and even—
And even.
Lucius allowed it, knowing somehow that his wife needed to drive him half-mad with desire, that she relished each hoarse sound he made, each husky plea, each moan. She drew her hair over his flesh, sending him into near delirium until he judged she’d proved to herself that he was alive, every burning inch of him was alive.
So he rose with a motion so fluid and fast that she had no time to protest. Before she knew what was happening she was on her back, and he was holding her hips, lifting her, coming to her.
And again. And yet again, and again, and again.
There was no slaking for either of them; she thrust toward him as fiercely as he moved toward her. The primal dance of life on the earth’s broad back…
Later, she collapsed into the bed, into the warmth of his arms, and broke into sobs.
“Poor sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “There have been rather a lot of good-byes recently, haven’t there?”
Tess woke with a burned-out feeling of clarity in her chest. She was tired of crying. In fact, she didn’t want to cry again for at least a year or seven years, for that matter.
Lucius was lying on his stomach, great muscled shoulders spread across the pillow. In his sleep he didn’t appear at all disciplined and contained. Instead he looked almost boyish, his hair tossed this way and that instead of ruthlessly swept back. He seemed—happy.
He needs his family to be truly happy, Tess thought. I’ll approach his mother. She ran a finger down the sun-kissed skin of his neck, onto the honey gold skin of his shoulders. His skin was warm with sleep, all that lovely hard bone and muscle seemed soft, like a baby’s touch. Her fingers wandered over him, over every little curve and ridge, not even knowing that a little hum had started in her throat.
Lucius knew. Lying utterly still and pretending to sleep—his turn at sleeping beauty—he heard that sweet little wandering hum and felt a bolt of lust that shocked him to the bottom of his toes. It took all his will not to roll over, to allow those small fingers their exploration. She was pulling down the sheet now, and her fingers more hesitantly slid up the ridge of his ass.
He didn’t move. Couldn’t move, pinned to the bed by the delicate flutter of her fingers, touching him where no woman had ever touched him, except in an abandoned frenzy. Her hum had deepened, grown more desirous to his mind. She was caressing him. The sheet fell back, onto his legs. Did she really think he was still asleep? She couldn’t.
In one lithe, sweeping move he turned about, had her body in his arms, pinned her to the bed, his hard body not languid, not sleeping, fitting perfectly between her sweet thighs—and he drank her startled cry, kissed her so fiercely that she reared up against him, seeking him, quivering, crying—
Sure hands pushed her legs apart, and his hand was there—
A small scream broke from her lips, and she arched into his hand, soft, swollen, and wet, all that he could ever wish for. Ready.