"Do you think he will?"
"As soon as he can manage after Jasper marries Hetty."
Ophelia laughed. "How can you be so sure? You were not around them very often."
"But I saw enough."
Ophelia straightened her skirts over her knees. "What did you see?"
"I saw a man look at woman the way he does when she's before him every day and he cannot have her."
"Oh." As if of their own accord, Ophelia's hands stopped their smoothing motion, and she pressed them hard into her lap. She could feel her cheeks burning.
Alexander jumped up. "I should have had Lucca make us some tea. I can go down and get some."
"No. I'm sure he won't be gone long, will he?"
Alexander shook his head. "Father Leonardo is lodged not far from here."
"Maybe we could pass the time in reading. You and I are both fond of books."
Alexander pivoted and went right to the desk. "A good thought."
Ophelia watched him studying the titles. The shaft of sunlight from the casement window passed just across the top of his head, lighting the gold strands in the brown. He reminded her of little brown butterflies in a summer garden, looking humble and common until the light caught their wings.
He came back to his chair with two volumes and handed one to her.
"The Republic?
What have you got?"
"The Rights of Man.
"
Ophelia straightened in her chair and opened her book. "Well, happy reading!" She bent her head over the pages.
Alexander opened his volume, but his mind wouldn't settle to read. He thought of Marc Antony, who had kissed a wily slip of a girl by the Nile and lost a kingdom.
Men had considered Antony weak-
witted ever since, and Alexander was sure his wits were no stronger. He read the same sentence in
The Rights of Man
five times before he gave it up and glanced at Ophelia.
Her book lay at a slant in her slack hands, one page arching up between the open halves of the text. Her chin had dropped to her breast, which rose and fell quietly. As if she felt his scrutiny, she started, coming upright with a little jerk.
"Oh dear, I'm afraid I nodded off."
"Do you want to lie down?" His voice came out hoarse and low.
"This is a ploy to get me into your bed."
"It is."
She shrugged. "Lucca cannot be much longer."
"Will you lie down, then?"
She nodded. They stood, moving awkwardly around each other, as if negotiating the few feet to the bed required an intricate dance. Alexander shed his coat as Ophelia climbed into the bed. She stretched out on her back, leaving room for him, and he lay down beside her.
All sleepiness vanished. Ophelia fixed her gaze on the ceiling, as if she could find some distraction there, but its smooth plaster surface without even the novelty of swirls was no help. "I've never shared a bed with anyone," she said. "Is this how it's done?"
She felt Alexander move beside her, crossing his arms above his head.
"There are different schools of thought, I suppose," he said.
"And this, lying side by side on our backs, would this be the marble tomb effigy school of thought?"
He laughed.
"What else is there?"
He turned into toward her, grabbing her waist and rolling her to face him. "There's this."
"Like two halves of a mussel shell, very cozy."
He gave her a quick kiss that started a fluttering in her stomach and rolled her away from him. Immediately he rolled the other way so that they were back to back.
"What would you call this?" he asked.
"The bookend school of thought, and I'd say it is most likely used by those who've quarreled."
In a swift reversal, he turned and seized her waist and pulled her tight against him. "This is the approach I like best," he said. "Nesting spoons."
"Oh." Ophelia couldn't think of anything else to say. She wondered fleetingly whether Father Leonardo would speak in Italian and whether she would know when to answer and decided her heart would know.
While she pondered it, Alexander's hand slid up her ribs and opened over her breast, and he made a low sound of pleasure in his throat. His fingers played gently over her, and the tips of her breasts drew hot rivulets of sensation from his touch that trickled down through her torso
and limbs to her most intimate center, pooling there in liquid heat. She stretched to give him access, pressing against his taut length.
With his fingertips Alexander made tight circles on one tiny bud. He wanted to bare her breasts to his gaze, but that would have to wait. For now it was a sweet delight to have her open to him, arching to his touch, unafraid. He pressed his lips to the back of her neck, breathing a scent like blossoms.
His breath grew ragged at her ear, and he pressed his aching groin against her hips. Where was the priest? He dragged his hand down her side and up again, sliding the light muslin of her day dress over her skin, feeling tiny tremors shake her. His hand came to rest on her belly.
"Do you think it will be long now?" she asked.
With a groan he rolled onto his back. His chest rose and fell with his uneven breaths. He was so close to possessing her now, his Sprite. The priest was coming, and he trusted her, but sprites were elusive; one didn't really possess them. They appeared at a whim, inviting one to drop cares and duties for play, and disappeared into the woods and hills or the night sky. He, who had clung to duty and denial for years, hardly expected to hold a night fairy.
The separation left Ophelia feeling suspended, her muscles straining for something she had been denied. The bar of sunlight had moved up the
wall to light only the last corn
er of the ceiling.
"Does the spoon approach work the other way?" she asked.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned toward
him, nudging him onto his side, facing away from her. Boldly she kissed the back of his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. Then she snuggled against him and put her arm around his chest. It seemed natural to rub her palm in lazy circles, exploring the flat, ridged shape of him. Under her hands the beat of his heart told her things about desire that she had not realized before.
Abruptly he grabbed her wrist, stilling her hand, his body taut against hers. She waited, unsure what to do, aware only that his whole person expressed some urgent longing. With a low, ardent sound, he pressed her palm to his heart and dragged her hand down the silky surface of his waistcoat, over the tiny buttons and the waistband, past his belly, lower still to his man's part. He held her hand there, unspeaking, and Ophelia, understanding only that he needed her touch, closed her fingers around him.
A shudder passed through him, and she kissed his cheek. With no idea of what might please, she drew her fingers down the length of him and up again, then squeezed gently. He sat straight up in the bed, swinging his legs to the floor. His breathing was shallow and labored, as it had been after the fight in the alley. He pushed himself up on shaking legs and staggered to the mantel, resting his elbows there, leaning his head in his hands.
"Majesty?" Lucca's hesitant voice came from the hall. "Father Leonardo can't come today."
Alexander pressed his head against his arms. He had only to summon his resolve, to walk out the door and down the stairs, to find some distraction and exercise restraint, as he'd done before. She would not escape. There was no danger he would lose her again. Neither his aunt nor Castlereagh could prevent this marriage. But his limbs refused to obey any command to move away from her. It required all his will to cling to the mantel when in his mind he was already pressing Ophelia under him in the narrow bed.
Ophelia came up on her knees, her hands in her lap. After a few minutes she heard Lucca's footsteps going down the stairs.
"We don't have to stop this time, do we?" she asked.
"What?" The word came out as a croak.
"You were going to tell me once about the fourth stage of love. Haven't we reached that?"
Alexander pushed away from the mantel and turned to her. "I don't want to dishonor you."
"You won't dishonor me, if you act from love." Her eyes were dark and knowing.
He let out a long, shaky breath. "Don't. You'll tempt me beyond bearing."
"Let this be our wedding night, these our rites of love, in this room where we can be just ourselves."
He moved before she finished speaking, reaching her in two strides and pulling her up onto her knees on the bed and into his fierce embrace. His oath was swallowed in his kiss. When they broke apart, she laughed and began unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat with a frown of concentration between her brows.
When she freed the last button, he stepped back impatiently, yanking off his neckcloth and stripping away shirt and waistcoat. He sank beside her on the bed, tugging at his boots while her fingers played up and down his back. He stood and shed his last garments.
"You are beautiful," she said, her expression solemn. "Like Raj." She ran her fingers down his sides, following the curve of his hip sockets down to his thighs. Heat raged through him like fire through a field in late summer.
"Now you," he managed through his teeth, his breath a faint whistle.
She held his side for balance, untangling her skirts, and stepping daintily down from the bed. He turned her gently and began to work the buttons between her shoulder blades, and then her stays, slowly because he had to stop often to press her to him and kiss her neck, her back, her shoulders. He was trembling when she stood before him in her shift. He lifted the edge of the dainty garment, she lifted her arms, and he freed her from bashful constraint.
As the fading light of the mild spring day washed the room in blue, he pulled back the coverlet and they joined each other in the bed, entwining limbs, sliding against each other, letting their hands touch everywhere, until they lay panting, their hearts pounding wildly.
"This is the fourth stage of love," he said, "the yielding of one's whole person to one's lover."
He rested his hand on her belly, and Ophelia pressed her lips together to keep from crying out with impatience.
"Do you know what happens next?" he whispered. "Did anyone tell you?"
She nodded. "Mrs. Pendares told us a little."
He slid his palm lower, spreading his fingers
wide through her dark curls. She drew in a sharp breath as he found the hot, moist center of sensation, and coaxed and urged her to readiness for him.
Ophelia arched and stretched, opening to his hand, and with a sudden move, he pressed her down, positioning himself between her thighs. Braced on his arms, he looked down, and in the blue of his eyes she saw hot seas of promise and love.
Alexander lowered himself into her embrace, sliding into the slick, hot center of her, where he was prince of nowhere, an ordinary man in love. With one swift thrust he broke the last barrier between them, and kissing and coaxing, he taught her a rhythm beyond the meeting of their bodies and into love.
L
ater, Alexander slipped into his breeches and crept down to the basement kitchen, bringing back wine, bread, and cheese, not exactly a wedding breakfast. The thought sobered him a little, but he was cheered when he opened the room and found her waltzing in his discarded shirt with his coat as a partner.
An instant's embarrassment passed over her face and dissolved into a wistful smile. "We've never danced," she said.
"I look forward to it." He concentrated on arranging their repast and starting a fire, to avoid looking at the way the thin cambric of his shirt outlined her shape. He wasn't sure when she would be ready to make love again. Passionate she might be, but she was not experienced.
She sat on the floor with her legs crossed under her, making little sandwiches of bread and cheese and offering her handiwork to him, apparently unaware of how the open collar of his shirt offered tantalizing glimpses of taut, round breasts to his view.
"Mrs. Pendares told the truth, apparently," she said, looking up at him from under her lashes.
"What?" He lifted his gaze from her breasts, trying to follow the shift in the conversation.
"She said that a m
an's… breeding instrument…
swells and stiffens for the act of love." She looked directly at him. "But apparently it doesn't remain so."
"You peeked, didn't you?"
"I don't want to be at a disadvantage here. You have more experience than I."
"I can see I'll have to take you to Italy."
"To understand male anatomy?"
"To see the fountains." He sipped his wine. "Every town has one, and each displays the male attributes of Neptune, or Cupid, or whatever deity happens to be honored in that particular town. Of course, you may not like me so well, when you've seen more specimens."
She threw a piece of bread at him. "Tell me about Italy, about Trevigna."
He did. He was telling her about the wonders of Venice when she stopped him again.