It took some time before either of them had the breath or the inclination to speak.
“Will we do that every day when we’re married?” Diana asked dreamily, stroking his back, her legs wrapped firmly around his waist and refusing to release him.
Edmund raised his head from the ground, a lock of sweat-damp hair falling over his face.
“Sometimes more than once. I may insist upon it.”
“I may also insist upon it.” She sighed contentedly.
“That is your right as my wife,” he agreed. “I will have a duty to satisfy your needs in this regard.”
“Aunt Henrietta never mentioned that.” Diana laughed, marveling at all that she hadn’t known before Edmund.
“Enough of Aunt Henrietta,” Edmund said with mock sternness, pinning her arms to the ground with his hands and kissing her again until she could only sigh and wriggle beneath him. “No more of her today, I say!”
Diana felt Edmund’s body stirring again in their play fighting and pressed herself against him with a blushing smile.
“More than once?” she reminded him. With a grin, he rolled over onto his back and swung Diana above him, guiding his shaft back to rub against her wet folds. She let herself sink down onto his length with her eyes closed, feeling the same thrilling stretching, pulsing and fullness in the new position.
“Ride me,” Edmund challenged her, and she did.
When the second time was over, they disentangled themselves at last and lay side by side in companionable silence, beginning to notice both the fading light and falling temperature.
Diana felt herself shiver and tried to ignore it, not yet wanting to put her clothes on and return to reality at Fernside. Edmund noticed and pulled her back into the warmth of his arms.
“Just a few more minutes,” she whispered, her head on his chest, and his heart beating steadily beneath her ear.
“We’ll have more than minutes,” Edmund whispered back. “I promise. When this is all over, Diana, when the time is right, I’ll make a formal proposal with a ring, a request for your family’s permission and everything else. For now, can you just promise me that when I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes?”
“Yes, and yes, and yes,” Diana said, loving him with every beat of their hearts.
ChapterSixteen
Jacob came rushing out to meet them in the garden as Diana and Edmund returned to the house in the glow of a glorious sunset. They had held hands until they left the woods, but even now standing deliberately apart, Diana could still feel an almost visible link between them.
“Where have you two been?!” Jacob exclaimed in reprimand. “Questions started being asked and I’ve been fending them off as best I could.”
“We walked down to the woods,” Diana volunteered. “I think we lost track of time…”
“No, don’t tell me anything. Just listen to what I told everyone else and see if you approve. I said you both wanted some air and then Edmund probably decided to return to the crime scene and check for clues. I assured Mrs. Bridge that Edmund was a gentleman who would know to have Diana home before dark, so thank God you managed that much.”
He ushered them inside, looking them both up and down, but saying nothing more about the state of their clothing and hair, and the glow on their faces.
* * *
The two local constables arrived together at Fernside the next morning after breakfast accompanied by four strong hired men. Diana knew both of them and introduced them to Edmund and Jacob as family friends who were supporting her and witnesses to the attack on Percy.
“Mr. Langford is one of the most respected lawyers in this county,” she said, gesturing towards the sober, grey-haired gentleman in a well-cut black suit. “Mr. Burnham is an equally respected naturalist and writer. My father and Mr. Burnham know one another well.”
For Diana, the day itself felt bright, light, and new. Everything had somehow been smashed and had reformed itself in an improved pattern, like the resetting of a wrongly placed broken bone. Edmund loved her, Percy would live, and she would no longer be forced to marry Andrew. Even her father’s condition seemed less grim than yesterday, both she and her mother perceiving him squeezing their hands.
Both constables were sensible men who took their duties seriously, and their presence promised further resetting and resolution. After half an hour closeted with Edmund and Jacob, and another with Jenson, they spoke to Percy, who was now wide awake and relatively well apart from a headache and a weakness due to blood loss. Confident in his patient’s recovery, Dr. Hughs had retired for his own rest.
All morning, Diana flitted between her father’s sick room, Percy’s bedroom and conference with Edmund and Jacob, trying hard not to let her eyes shine too brightly when they landed on the tall and dark handsome man who was now irrevocably betrothed to her. His smiles back to her were muted for prying eyes but full of love and meaning.
As polite but distracted as she was, Lady Templeton managed to receive the constables briefly in the hallway after their other conversations. Lord Templeton had shown more signs of returning consciousness that morning than in many weeks, all witnessed this time by his wife, his daughter, and Mrs. Bridge. While not yet wishing to get her hopes up, Esther wanted only to be at her husband’s bedside.
“Thank you both so much, Mr. Langford, Mr. Burnham. I do hope there need not be too much scandal for the sake of my children, especially Diana. First her London Season was cancelled and now very likely her marriage. Do keep her name out of the affair if you can, gentlemen.”