The last guests were chatting with Madeline; Sybil and his sisters had left long ago. He shifted. “I’ll check in Falmouth and let you know. Until then, stay away from the cliffs and coves.”
Harry nodded. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”
They parted and Gervase returned to Madeline’s side. He was the last to bow over her hand. “I hope your day was memorable.”
She smiled. “It was, and the evening even more so.” Suddenly reminded, she put up a hand to her hair, feeling for the wispy strands that usually slipped loose—and finding none. “It worked!” Her smile turned radiant.
He smiled in return. “Indeed. I thought it might.”
He bowed again, then to Muriel, standing beside Madeline. At the last he met her eyes. “I’ll see you anon, no doubt.”
With that he left her, and strolled out into the night to where the grooms had his curricle waiting.
He didn’t drive home.
Madeline had wondered about his “anon”—then had wondered if her unvoiced wish that he would come to her that night, making a magical end to what had been a perfect day, was too wanton. Yet when she glimpsed him crossing the lawn heading for the morning room doors, her heart leapt.
Earlier she’d removed her new brooch and fichu, laid them carefully aside, then climbed out of her gown, but rather than don her nightgown, she’d wrapped a silk robe over her chemise and sat before her dressing table mirror so nimble-fingered Ada could unclasp the golden circlet locked about her topknot.
“Absolutely beautiful,” Ada had breathed, setting the circlet next to the fan. “Fancy him thinking of such a thing.”
“Hmm.” Picking up her brush, Madeline had dismissed Ada, then had sat brushing out her hair.
And wondering…which activity had made her rise and, still brushing, go to stand by the window and look out.
She watched Gervase until he disappeared from sight. She stood for a moment, imagining him opening the French doors and coming inside, then crossing the morning room to the hall. Pushing away from the window, she went to the dressing table, laid down her brush, and headed for the door.
The instant he turned down the long corridor to her room, Gervase saw her, limned in golden candlelight, framed in the open doorway at the end, waiting for him to join her. A soft, subtle smile played about her lips; she’d never looked more like a seductive Valkyrie.
He couldn’t stop a smile curving his lips in response, was aware of anticipation rising. Didn’t think to stop it coloring his expression.
Her smile deepening as he approached, she stepped back, aside, to let him enter. He halted just inside the room and waited while she shut the door.
Then she turned. Before she could speak, he stepped closer. Raising both hands, he framed her face. Felt the delicate bones, the silken skin beneath his palms. Gloried again that with her, he didn’t have to tip her face far to meet her eyes, to study the peridot depths, a more intense, mysterious green in the candlelight. To read in them her expectation of pleasure and delight…at his hands, with him.
He closed the distance and covered her lips with his, gently, without any sense of rush, without any of the reined hunger that between them usually ruled. He kissed her slowly, savored the sweet taste of her as she met him…with the same sense of unhurried ease, as if she, too, recognized that this was a time to follow a different drum, to indulge their passions in a different way.
A way that spun them out, that stretched and extended each moment until it felt as fine as crystal, as fragile as spun glass, until sensation was stripped raw, left naked and exposed for them both to see, to know and appreciate every tiny touch, every scintilla of delight, to feel each as clearly, as acutely, as ice on heated skin.
As usual, he’d come to her with no detailed plan, no plotted approach, yet with one definite, absolute aim—to give
her this night, and make it something special. Something better, magical, a night in which passion, desire, and intimacy reached new heights, breached new horizons.
And so they lingered, immersed in the kiss, sharing breaths, and each caress…letting the simple communion stretch until the thrum of passion was a third, more urgent heartbeat.
One they shared, one both acknowledged.
Yet when he drew back, glanced down and reached for her robe’s sash, she placed her hands over his, stopping him.
“No.” She waited until he looked up and met her eyes. “My birthday—I get to choose the games.”
There was a light in her eyes, soft, glowing, one he hadn’t seen before; more powerful than any cage, it held him immobile as, her lips lifting in a madonna like smile—one of secret knowing—she pressed his hands back, down, then reached for his coat.
The candle on her dressing table bathed them in golden light as, slowly, she undressed him, and he let her. The slow steady beat they’d set with the kiss had become a tattoo, one they continued to move to, one that orchestrated each movement as with infinite patience she divested him of waistcoat, cravat, shirt. As she circled him, small hands trailing, leaving fires flickering under his skin.
She took his hand and led him to her bed, had him stand beside it so she could kneel at his feet and remove his shoes, his stockings, then his trousers, letting the discarded garment fall from her fingers to one side.
Naked, he stood before her, watched her sit back on her heels and slowly, studying—savoring—every inch, lift her gaze from his thighs to his groin, to his waist, to his chest, to his shoulders, ultimately to his face.