‘Perhaps another day,’ he promised, down to shirt and silk evening knee breeches now. ‘Come and help with my buttons?’
Julia was tempted. She felt so restless, she wanted to touch Hal so badly, but instinct was telling her to tease and to prolong. ‘I want to watch,’ she decided, wondering if she would embarrass him.
No, of course not: this was the rake she had fallen in love with, not the respectable gentleman he had been trying to counterfeit. Hal raised one eyebrow, then began to undo his shirt. Very slowly. It dropped to the floor and then he undid the fastenings of his breeches. Even more slowly. It seemed two could play at teasing. Julia licked her lips.
When he stood there naked, almost arrogant in his arousal, she caught her breath. She had seen his wounded body, the honed muscles slashed, the golden skin scored and bruised. Now she saw that nearly all the bandages were gone, with only a strap ping round arm and thigh where the sabre cuts had been deepest. The new scars, still red, laced across older white ones, but to her they did not detract from his beauty, they were badges of honour. On his left breast, the bruised outline of her notebook was still faintly visible. Such a tiny chance, that she had thought to give it to him. And without that impulse they would not be here, in this room, tonight.
‘This seems rather unequal,’ he observed as she continued to stare at him.
‘Mmm,’ Julia agreed. Cream cakes, indeed. She wanted to…wanted to lick him. All over. And bite. Just there, and there…tiny, playful nips. ‘Oh my,’ she murmured.
‘That is a delightful night gown.’
‘I bought it today. Nell took me to some of her favourite shops.’
‘Now I know why Marcus looks so smug these days.’ Hal took hold of the corner of the sheet and whipped it back. ‘Spending your dress allowance, Julia?’
‘My non-existent dress allowance,’ she corrected him, reaching up her hands to flatten the palms on his chest as he leant over her, intent on the ribbons. Under her palms, his skin was smooth and hot, the muscles hard, the hair crisp.
‘Such a mean husband you have,’ he sympathised, leaning down, pushing against her hands so she was forced back to the pillows. ‘But you have such delightful taste I can see that I must give you a large allowance, all to spend on flimsy nonsense like this. Now, how does it come off?’
Of course she had to wriggle and bat at his hands, so that he was compelled to tickle her, roll her across the wide bed, pretending to pounce until she sensed it was time to stop fighting. Julia lay still, quiescent under those clever hands while he smoothed the gown up and over and off, letting it caress her until she did not know what was his fingertips or his breath or the whisper of silk or even, as he bent his head to her breast, the brush of his hair.
Hal lay on his side and pulled her against the length of his body, then lifted her leg over his hip until she was open to him. It felt strange, but she let him do as he wished, finding she could lean in to lick along his collar bone, his neck, nip the point of his chin with her teeth, soothe with her lips. He tasted good: warm and slightly salty.
Then he began to explore her with his hands, boldly, intimately, until she writhed against him, panting, the tension mounting and knotting inside her as it had done last night. But this time she knew she was going to get to wherever that spiral of heat was taking her. And then he slid into her, easily, slowly, so that all she was conscious of was him filling her, making them one as he rocked her up, up until she was wound so tight it was impossible.
‘Now,’ Hal breathed in her ear. ‘Come with me now.’
Where? Where… And then she knew and let go and flew with him, over the edge, up and up as he gasped her name and held her safe until, so slowly, the world came back and she was tangled in his arms on the big bed.
It was possible that she would never move again, that they would stay like this, still joined, for ever. It seemed to Julia to be a perfect fate. She closed her eyes against his sweat-damp chest and floated.
‘Are you asleep?’
Julia blinked and opened her eyes to find his, blue and clear and smiling into hers, very close. She wriggled a little. ‘You’ve gone.’
Hal chuckled. ‘That happens. Now we start again. Can you ride?’
‘No.’ Mystified, Julia watched him roll onto his back.
‘Now’s the time to learn.’ He lay there watching her from under hooded lids while she worked it out.
‘Me? On top? Hal, that’s…’ Indecently bold. Indecently exciting. ‘Like this?’ His lean hips felt right between her thighs and she kept her weight forward, away from his wound. And beneath her, his body was stirring into life again. ‘Oh yes, I see—Oh, Hal! We fit together so well.’
And he smiled and then, as she took him fully into herself and began to move, his eyes closed. ‘Julia. Oh my God, Julia!’
The next morning at break fast, Julia felt as though she must have Satisfied Wife emblazoned across her forehead. They had made love a third time before they slept and then again this morning. Then Hal had kissed her lingeringly and padded off to his own room before her maid came in.
He had put his foot through the sheet at some point, she realized, finding the maid’s studious disregard of the tangled bedding and crumpled night gown every bit as pointed as a comment would have been.
But she was too happy to be embarrassed, even though unexpected muscles ached and she was aware of her body, inside and out, just as though he was still touching her.
‘Good morning, Mrs Carlow,’ Hal said, sitting down again as she took her own seat at the break fast table. He looked, and sounded, politely attentive, but his eyes, full of mischief and messages, were anything but those of a staid gentleman at his break fast.
‘Good morning, Major Carlow,’ she rejoined, demurely shaking out her napkin while trying to convey that she was most willing to try whatever that mischief was suggesting.
No-one seemed to notice the by-play. Lord Narborough, looking rather better that morning than he had for several days, settled back to his perusal of the news pa per while his wife discussed the desirability of harp lessons with Verity.