* *
Polly stayed totally limp against him for a long moment, savouring the mighty strength of her lover and revelling in being needed and wanted by the man she wanted and needed so desperately back.
‘I never dreamed I would marry at all, you know?’ she whispered as he held her even closer to shield her from the rocking carriage as it swept across Mayfair.
‘I know it,’ he said rather grimly, considering he had interrupted kissing his way up her throat to do so. ‘I deplore it and yet... Oh, love, I’m so glad you were safe at Dayspring and away from the wolves all the time I was strutting about the ton pretending I didn’t care a damn for anyone. I have no right to be so proud to be your first lover, but I am and fully intend to be your last as well, if God will grant us the time to glory in each other like this for life.’
‘Idiot,’ she muttered on a blissful haze of joy that almost went beyond words. ‘Of course I’m glad it was only ever you and always will be. There’s nothing wrong with being all in all to each other, nothing wrong with being glad we love and live and want each other so immoderately. Do you truly think Toby will be all right with Mr Peters, though?’ she added as remembrance of the rest of her family impinged on the desire he was feeding so shamelessly she wondered if they would make it home and into his splendid marquis’s bed before they fell on each other like ravenous tigers.
‘Why else to you think the man agreed to come with us tonight?’ Tom said and gasped in a huge breath as the brush of her thigh against his mightily aroused manhood made him grip his fists tight in his determination not to make love to his marchioness in a stranger’s carriage. ‘He’s no fool and knew neither we nor Luke and Chloe would be able to keep cool in the company of our lovers. I dare say he would rather have teeth pulled than enter a Mayfair ballroom of his own accord.’
‘Then he’s a good man,’ she said with a nod that said it confirmed her conclusions about her new husband’s lawyer and perhaps friend. ‘I hope your godmother hasn’t bitten off more than she could chew this time, though, for I would dearly like to see your Mr Peters happy.’
‘He’s neither mine nor Mr Peters, love, but I have learnt to have even more faith in Virginia over the past three months than I had before, so I expect he’ll end up wherever it is he thinks he has no right to be. However, my interest in the man is lukewarm at best when I have my Lady Mantaigne available to distract me with her many and varied charms,’ he said as the carriage finally lurched to its destination.
‘No,’ she ordered him brusquely as he jumped out of the carriage and turned to lift her in his arms again. ‘You will just have to carry this,’ she declared, handing him her cloak as a mask for the state they had done nothing to diminish during the drive. ‘I refuse to have you winded and exhausted when we finally manage to get ourselves upstairs,’ she added with a haughty sniff as he eyed her with lordly determination and made a grab for her.
‘She-wolf,’ he accused as she dodged him and reminded him he’d agreed to pay the coachman another two guineas if he got them here before the clock finished chiming midnight.
‘Tomcat,’ she shot back over her shoulder as she gathered up her silken skirts and frothy petticoats in one hand and ran up the steps as if the devil was on her heels.
‘Hand over the keys to the wine-cellar, marry him to your eldest daughter or just pay the man for me, would you?’ Tom asked his butler distractedly before he set off up the steps to his once-stately and echoing mansion without a second thought for his lost reputation as an elegantly bored and sophisticated man about town.
‘Yes, my lord,’ the butler said with a glare for the grinning coachman. ‘Breathe a word of this and I’ll make sure you ain’t up to marrying any man’s daughter, let alone mine,’ he threatened the man as he handed over the extortionate fee his master had promised him.
‘Even the nobs will know by now he can’t keep his hands off her, cocky, so that’s a horse as has already bolted,’ the man said cheerfully and went off to tell his tale to whoever was the most eager to listen to it.
‘And ain’t that just how it ought to be between a man and his wife?’ the butler asked the sparkling June night, lit by stars so bright they even managed to outshine the man-made glitter of Mayfair in full fig.
‘Hurry,’ Tom gritted between clenched teeth as Polly streaked up the stairs ahead of him and he could see enough of her slender legs and the long, sleek lines of her hips and bottom outlined by that wicked provocation of a gown to drive him nigh demented. ‘I hope your maid isn’t waiting up,’ he managed as she got to the door only one step ahead of him and fumbled it open before turning to snap a hasty denial.
‘Of course not. Jane has far more sense,’ she told him as if he was an idiot to even mention it.
‘Silly me,’ he said with a predator’s grin and shut the door behind them with a contented sigh. ‘Alone at last, my love,’ he whispered and set about the laces of her gown with hands clumsy with too much haste even as he devoured her temptation of a mouth with a driven groan.
‘Ah, love, quiet,’ she soothed even as her still slightly calloused fingers raced to undo as much of Lord Mantaigne as she could while he was doing the same for Lady Mantaigne in his ham-fisted fashion. ‘We have all night,’ she promised even as she hastily shrugged out of her loosened gown and gave a crow of triumph as she pushed his roughly unbuttoned waistcoat and tightly fitting evening coat off his shoulders.
He dipped his head to feast on her roused nipples even as she moaned with pent-up need and haste and caressed his wildly disordered locks with such tenderness he raised his head and snatched another of those hasty, open-mouthed kisses before pulling far enough away to fumble off his cravat and tug his shirt over his head. Any last trace of ladylike restraint vanished as she eyed his hard-muscled torso and lean waist with a heavy-eyed smile.
‘Evening breeches are a cursed nuisance,’ she informed him as he bent to unbutton them at the knee and heel off his elegant shoes before impatiently stripping away his stockings.
‘Oh, I don’t know, they have their uses,’ he said huskily as she attacked the buttons at his waist with more haste than skill.
‘Not for hiding this,’ she told him with would-be severity, but her eyes glittered hotly in the light of the candle Jane had left on the nightstand, so they might at least try not to ruin another set of expensive raiment and cause her and his lordship’s valet even more trouble.
‘Did you want to?’ he asked with a wicked grin.
‘Not from us, from all those other women,’ she admitted rather painfully.
‘None of them matter. I didn’t love anyone until I met you, remember?’
‘Oh, you man, you. You have always had it there deep within you, Tom, but you wouldn’t let yourself know it. How else could you have made a family of the heart when your real one faded? How did you win a legion of friends and lovers who put you at the centre of their circle and had the sense to know you made them more than they were without you? You are so much more than you ever let yourself know, but what if you learn that for yourself one day and don’t need me any more?’
‘Now who’s the idiot?’ he asked with a catch in his deep voice. ‘I will never not need you, Polly. I found pleasure with other women before I met you and if that makes you sad and uncertain of me, I’m sorry for it and wish it otherwise, but it was nothing like this. I’ve never needed to make love to another woman so desperately it feels as if I might
