Would he ever be able to forget her even if he were free to do so? Now /that/ was an interesting question. "What is it?" she asked, and he realized that he had been standing there staring at her for several silent moments. "You are almost too beautiful to touch," he said.

She raised her eyebrows. "But not quite, I hope." "Do you hope so?" he said, and he walked closer to her and set his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arms' length while his eyes roamed over her. "But you /are/ beautiful, Maggie. I am a fortunate man." He lowered his head and kissed her at the base of her throat.

She tipped back her head and sighed softly. "I am not embarrassed any longer," she said. "It is so foolish to be, is it not? This is the most natural thing imaginable. I want it, Duncan. I want it more than anything else in the world, in fact." He wondered what the words had cost her in courage. Though he could tell from the heat radiating off her body that she did mean them.

He slipped his thumbs beneath the shoulders of her nightgown and moved them partway down her arms. He kissed one bare shoulder and moved his mouth over the swell of her breast, lowering the nightgown further as he reached the nipple and took it lightly into his mouth. He touched it with the tip of his tongue and felt her shiver. With heat.

He stood back a little and released his hold on the nightgown. She was pressing it against her stomach with both hands and could have kept it there if she had chosen. Instead, she let her arms fall to her sides and let the flimsy garment slither and slide downward to pool at her feet.

Her cheeks flamed and her eyes held his – until he looked away to see all of her.

Full breasts with rosy tips, small waist, curvaceous hips, long, slim, shapely legs – if there was any imperfection in her, he could not see it.

She was every man's sexual dream come true.

Then one of her arms lifted from her side and pulled on the sash of his dressing gown until it came loose. The garment fell open and she pushed it off his shoulders so that it too fell to the floor.

He was surprised – at her nakedness, at his own. He had been prepared to be far more … what? Decorous? Considerate? Gentle? She was not a virgin, it was true, but if his guess was correct – and he would wager on it – she was as close to being a virgin as it was possible to be without actually being one. "More beautiful than ever," he murmured. "Duncan." She set her hands on his shoulders and moved them down his arms, looking him over frankly as she did so. "You are beautiful too. Is that an inappropriate word? I am sorry if it is. But it fits. You /are/ beautiful." He took her hands in his and wrapped them about his waist, bringing her full against him as he did so. /God in heaven/!

He touched his lips to hers, opening her mouth with them as he did so and thrusting his tongue deep inside. She moaned and arched in harder against him. His erection pressed against her belly.

So much for gentle discretion. "May we lie down?" she asked against his lips when he withdrew his tongue. "I don't think my legs will hold me up much longer." He bent and picked her up and carried her the short distance to the bed.

He lay her down on the bottom sheet and kissed her openmouthed again.

She still tasted of wine. She smelled of lavender soap. Siren and lady all rolled into one. "Do you wish me to blow out the candles?" he asked her. "I would prefer to leave them burning – I want to watch what we do. But it will be as you wish." Watching them have sex by candlelight had not been part of his original plan either, by Jove.

Her eyes opened and widened. "Oh," she said. "Leave them burning by all means, then." He lay down beside her, slid one arm beneath her back, and moved the other hand over her body in a light caress, tracing her curves, feeling the soft heat of her skin, breathing in lavender and wine. He really must /slow down/. His hand roamed over her breasts and lifted one in his palm, feeling the soft, firm, magnificent weight of it as he rubbed the nipple with the pad of his thumb and lowered his head to take it into his mouth again. This time he sucked firmly.

She inhaled slowly and audibly, and her fingers twined tightly in his hair. "Oh, please," she said, but did not elaborate.

He moved on top of her and pressed his knees between her thighs, pushing them wide until he could kneel between them. He gazed down at her with half-closed eyes. She was gazing back at him, her hair a riot of dark glory over her shoulders and breasts.

Candlelight flickered over her face.

She lifted her arms and spread her hands over his chest before moving them in slow circles there, her fingers bent back, smoothing the light hairs with her palms in one direction and ruffling them again in the other. She looked back into his face and smiled.

He could feel the soft smoothness of her inner thighs against the outsides of his legs. He could see the heavy fullness of her breasts. He could smell lavender and wine and woman.

And his erection was so taut that if he did not bury it inside her soon, something very embarrassing was going to happen. "Forgive me," he said, lowering his head and kissing her lips, "I cannot wait any longer." "Good," she said, still smiling. "Neither can I." He could have stretched out on top of her then and taken her with swift, urgent strokes. He would feel that whole lovely, curvaceous body beneath his, and the feeling would further ignite the fire in his loins.

She had said she was ready.

But to her their wedding day had been wonderful. This, the consummation, was the culmination of the wedding day. He would not let it be a disappointment to her.

It was the least he could do.

He spread his knees, lifting her legs over them until she twined them about his. And he slid his hands beneath her buttocks, lifted her and held her firm, positioned himself at her entrance, and pressed firmly inside.

He both watched and listened to her inhale slowly, her eyes fluttering closed until he was deeply embedded in her. He held still.

Lord God, she was all wet heat and soft sheath and clenching muscles.

And he –

He clamped his teeth together for a few moments. He would /not/, by Jove, give in to pure instinct.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He slid his hands from beneath her, moved them up her sides, pressed them beneath her breasts, and brushed his thumbs over her nipples. "Oh, no," she said. "Oh, no, it is too much, Duncan. It is too much." "Is it?" He settled his hands on her hips and withdrew from her and pressed in again and withdrew and thrust, beginning a deep and steady rhythm, gritting his teeth against too early an ejaculation.

He looked down to watch what he did. And he glanced up to see that she watched too, with heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips – until her eyes drifted closed and her hands, spread on the bed on either side of her, pressed into the mattress and her head tipped back against the pillow and her inner muscles clenched hard about him and she breathed in labored gasps.

He took her hands in his and raised them above her head, straightening his legs and bringing his whole weight down on top of her as he did so.

He quickened and deepened the rhythm, pumping hard into her until she cried out, shuddered convulsively against him, and fell limp and relaxed beneath him.

Her hands were hot and slick with sweat. So was the rest of her body.

The blood pulsed through him, hammering in his ears, thundering in his chest, making his erection an agony. He worked her swiftly until the climax came, and then he sighed against the side of her face and relaxed.

He listened to his heartbeat return to normal, perhaps drifted off into a sort of sleep while it did so, and marveled at the feel of her beneath him – and at the realization that she was a woman of great passion. "Duncan," she whispered, "are you awake?" "Mmm? No," he said. "Am I heavy?" "Yes," she said, "but you need not move yet. It was lovely. Thank you." The prim lady again – lying naked and sweaty beneath him and all twined about him.

He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her. "It was," he said, "and thank /you/, Maggie. But it might grow a little tedious if we feel we must thank each other every time." She cupped the free side of his face with one hand. "I am not sorry," she said. "That I married you, I mean. I am really not." As if she had thought she might be.

Because of Dew? It had been a little disconcerting to see the man at their wedding breakfast – to see her talking with him, to see him take her hand.

He opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. "I am not sorry either," he said. "However, if there is to be any more to this wedding night, Maggie, I am going to have to get some sleep, I'm afraid." "Oh," she said – and smiled.

He disengaged from her body, rolled to one side of her, and lifted the bedcovers up over them. He looked across at her and realized that, just like that, she was asleep.

He lay beside her, looking at her for a while until sleep overtook him too.

Tomorrow they would be on their way to Woodbine and the rest of their lives. Within a few days Toby would join them. He was to live with them, just as if he were a normal, regular child – as he was, of course.

He would, Duncan thought, forever be grateful to her for that.

His heart ached with longing.

Daylight was making a bright square of the window behind the curtains when Margaret woke up. She stretched tentatively, remembering instantly – how could she forget? – and was aware of her unfamiliar nakedness between the sheets.