swelled and rose at the touch, and “Mine,” she said softly. “All this manly beauty. All mine.”
He caught hold of her dress, the embroidered flowers feeling almost alive under his hand. He dragged it up by fistfuls, a great mass of dress and petticoats that billowed over his arm. He stroked over her drawers, upward over her thighs and between her legs to the opening of her drawers. He cupped her and she shivered. “Mine,” he said. “All this feminine perfection. Mine.”
His mouth found hers again and he kissed her and drank in the taste of her and the feel of her mouth and her tongue, and he took it all in like a man starved. And while he kissed her, he slid his fingers into the soft cleft between her legs. She was wet there, and her legs trembled as he stroked her, and then he was trembling, too. So much happiness.
“What a lucky man I am,” he said.
She let out a throaty laugh. “You’re about to get luckier.”
She unfastened his trousers fully and grasped him. “I want you,” she said softly. “I want you inside me. I want you to be mine and I’ll be yours.”
“Yes, yes, yes, whatever you say.” He pushed into her, and he seemed to fly up into the heavens. He saw stars, and “Oh,” she said. “Your grace.”
“Gervase,” he said.
“Gervase,” she said, and she made it a whisper, and the sound made him shiver. “Mon amour.”
Then in French: murmured words of nonsense and love and pleasure while they made slow love, then faster love, until there was nowhere farther to go, and they seemed to leap to a blinding happiness, like flying to the sun. Release came in a cascade of sweetness. Then he was sinking onto her, burying his face in her neck, and murmuring her name.
For a time they simply lay together.
Quietly. At peace.
So hard to believe, after so much turmoil. But here he was, in her arms, and there was her heart beating steadily in her chest and filled with happiness.
She held him, relishing his weight and the feel of his silky hair against her skin and the scent of him, while her breathing quieted, and the world came back.
“That was much more fun than self-sacrifice,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Yes, cheri, it was.”
He raised himself up to look at her. “Cheri,” he repeated. “Why does it sound so delicious when you say it?”
“Because I’m delicious,” she said.
“The delicious Duchess of Clevedon,” he said. “I like the sound of that. I like the feel of her better,” he said. “And the scent of her. And the sound of her voice. And the way she moves. I love her madly. I would like to stay here, and count all the ways I love her, and show her all the ways I love her. But the world calls. Life calls.” He kissed her, so tenderly, on her forehead. “We have to put our clothes on.”
It took only a minute or two, since they hadn’t taken very much off. For her, a slight rearrangement of her undergarments, a few hooks to fasten, a stocking to pull up, a garter to tie. For him, a quick business of pulling up his drawers and trousers, tucking his shirt in, and buttoning a handful of buttons.
He found her black lace fichu, and she tied it.
He collected her hat from the corner it had bounced to. He brushed it off, and attempted to straighten the plumes.
She watched him for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, Clevedon, you’re the dearest man,” she said. “Give me that thing. You’ve no idea what to do with it, but I do love you for trying.”
He stilled briefly. Then he looked down at the hat and back at her. “Isn’t that it?” he said. “Trying? If we try with all our hearts, do you not think we can make a go of this—of us? And then, even if it doesn’t come out quite as we wish, at least we’ll know we tried wholeheartedly. That’s the way you do everything, is it not? With all your heart. And look how far you’ve come and all you’ve achieved. Only think what we can do together.”
“Well, there’s that,” she said, gesturing with her hat at the sofa. “We did that very well. Together.”
He laughed. “Yes. And don’t you think that a man who could do that—after a fight and a night of maudlin drinking—don’t you think he could take on the ton? I may not be much of a duke, but I haven’t given any time to the job. Only think what I might do, once I set my mind to it—with madame la duchesse at my side.” He grinned and added, “And under me or on top of me or behind me as the case may be.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Behind you, your grace?”
“I see that you still have some things to learn,” he said. He straightened his waistcoat.
“I was married very young, for a very short time,” she said. “I’m practically a virgin.”
He laughed again, and the sound was so sweet to her ears. He was happy, and so was she. And so she dared to hope, and dream, as she always did. And she dared to believe, that it would all come out as it ought, somehow, eventually.
He took her into his arms, crushing the hat.
She didn’t care.
“I have a plan,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Let’s get married,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Let’s conquer the world,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. No one in her family had ever been accused of dreaming small.
“Let’s bring the beau monde to its knees.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s make them beg for your creations.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Is tomorrow too soon?” he said.
“No,” she said. “We’ve a great deal to do, you and I, conquering the world. We must start at once. We’ve not a minute to lose.”
“I love hearing you say that,” he said.
He kissed her. It lasted a long time.
And they would last, she was sure, a lifetime. On that she’d wager anything.
The dresses were brilliant in the extreme; and it afforded us much gratification to notice that those worn by her Majesty and the Royal Family, as well as many others, were chiefly composed of British manufacture.
