“Are you sure you are prepared for all of this?” Jeffrey asked Phoebe, who knew her eyes must be wide.
“It is too late to decide anything else, is it not?” Phoebe asked, laughing, and Jeffrey smiled with some chagrin.
“You are correct — I have trapped you now,” he said, and Phoebe squealed in surprise when he reached down and picked her up. “Now, I will have no more interruptions. Come, wife, up to the bedchamber we go.”
Maxwell barked in glee.
“Not you, Maxwell!” Jeffrey exclaimed, but the dog followed them up the stairs.
“I am far too heavy to carry,” Phoebe protested, but Jeffrey shook his head.
“That is utter nonsense,” he scoffed. “And if you continue that line of thinking, I shall believe that you do not feel me strong enough, which would be a quite the affront to my manhood.”
She snorted. “That is ridiculous. A man is not defined by—”
He silenced her with a look. “I have come around to your line of thinking in many ways, Phoebe, but in this, you will not argue with me.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, but when she opened her mouth to do just that, he silenced her by pausing in the upstairs corridor and bringing his lips down on hers, and she entirely forgot what it was she was going to protest.
In the background, Phoebe heard a slight peep from who she assumed was a startled housemaid, as she was sure that Jeffrey’s sisters would have a lot more to say about such a sight in their hallway.
Jeffrey, however, no longer seemed to care of who might be nearby or what any might think, as he used his boot to push open the bedroom door. Despite the fact that Phoebe had spent a great deal in the house over the past few weeks as they planned this wedding, this was the first time she had ever been in his bedchamber. It was masculine, of course, the walls navy and forest green, the brick of an impressive fireplace covering one wall, the fire just embers as they were not, of course, expected to be in the bedchamber in the middle of the afternoon.
Phoebe, however, did not require any additional warmth, as Jeffrey was soon covering her body with his own, and he was becoming even more adept at releasing her hair from its pins, though she had left half of it flowing down her back for their wedding, as she knew he loved it so. For the first time, he slowly, gently, undressed her, and she relaxed into it, not hurrying anything. She yearned for him, for his body upon hers, as much as she ever had before, and yet perhaps because now they knew for certain that it was not the last time they would be together, but the first of a lifetime as one, that they took the time to explore, to revel, to enjoy.
And when they came together, it was as magical as it had ever been, and Phoebe had to close her eyes at the bliss that filled her.
“I love you, Phoebe,” Jeffrey whispered in her ear as she lay her head upon his chest afterward, her hand splayed upon his glorious abdomen muscles. He brushed a hand over her hair, then twined his fingers into her loose curls.
“And I love you too, Jeff—”
But her words were cut short by a knock at the door, to which Maxwell, who had been snoozing on the carpet in front of the bed, began to bark ferociously.
“Jeffrey?” It was his mother this time. “Are you in there? We cannot locate you, nor Phoebe, and we were wondering—”
He groaned aloud and raised an arm over his eyes.
“Coming, Mother!” he called out, and then placed a kiss on Phoebe’s forehead. “Shall we resume this later?” he asked.
“We shall,” she said with a nod and a laugh, and reluctantly they disengaged, with one last, quick kiss — knowing there were many more to come.