"Devil seems to manage."
"She doesn't fuss about him."
He started to rock her again, a tantalizingly slow ride. His hands drifted over her skin and she heated, and grew hotter. Grew wilder.
She hadn't yet got used to his manner of loving, of the slow, relentless giving, the gradual, inexorable rise toward bliss. If she tried to run ahead, he would hold her back, prolong the delicious torture until she was all but beyond herself-until, when he let her fly free, she screamed.
She'd had trouble with those screams from the first. She'd tried to muffle them, tried to suppress them, tried to at least keep them within bounds-keep them from disturbing the household. He didn't seem to care-but then, as Helena would say, he was a man.
The thought focused her mind on the evidence of that, on the thick, heavy, rigid reality filling her, stretching her, completing her-she felt excitement fuse, felt the thrill shimmer and grow.
Desperately, she opened her eyes and focused-on her dressing table across the room. In the mirror, lit only by the weak light of the fire, she saw him, a dark presence in the shadows behind her, saw her body lift rhythmically in his embrace, saw his body coil and flex, driving hers.
Upward. Onward. Into that realm of pleasure where the physical and emotional and spiritual merged.
But he kept their journey to a rigidly slow pace.
Dragging in a breath, her senses at full stretch, her wits all but scattered, she sought for some distraction-something to help her survive the slow disintegration of her senses. "Your nickname."
"Hmm?"
He wasn't listening.
"Scandal," she gasped. She'd heard Devil, Vane and Gabriel all use it to his face, although naturally, all the ladies called him Richard. Clutching the arm wrapped across her hips, she let her head tall back and licked her dry lips. "How did you come by it?"
She'd wanted to know since first she'd heard it.
"Why do you want to know?" There was a touch of amusement in his voice-a teasing hit.
Why? "Because we might go to London. In the circumstances, I think I have a right to know."
"You never leave the vale."
"But you might have to go south for some reason."
After a moment, he chuckled. His steady rocking penetration had not faltered. "It's not what you think."
"Oh?" She was clinging to sanity by her fingernails.
"Devil coined the tag-it wasn't because I cause scandal, but because I was: 'A Scandal That Never Was'."
Her wits were reeling, her senses fracturing-beneath her heated skin, her nerves had stretched taut. As if he understood, he nuzzled net ear. "Because of Helena's actions in claiming me as hers, I was a scandal that never eventuated."
"Oh." She breathed the syllable-it shattered in the warm stillness as she gasped. And tightened, every muscle coiling.
He bent her forward, drove deeply into her-and sent her flying, tumbling over the edge of the world.
Richard held her before him, heard her scream-listened to it die to a sob. He held still-briefly-buried within her, savoring the strong ripples of her release, then let go his own reins, let his body have its way, and followed her into ecstasy.
By the time she joined the breakfast table the next morning, Catriona was a walking testament to the fact that three days spent primarily out of doors had completely restored Richard's strength.
There was nothing wrong with his stamina; she could swear to that on The Lady's name.
A fact apparently so obvious, no one needed to ask, all the Cynsters were busy with their preparations to leave.
If anything, their leaving created even more commotion than their arrival.
Two hours later, standing on the steps, ready to wave them off, Catriona turned as the Dowager came bustling out, lecturing McArdle to the last.