Harry nodded. “We’ll wait to hear from you.”

They parted and Gervase returned to Madeline’s side. He was the last to bow over her hand. “I hope your day was memorable.”

She smiled. “It was, and the evening even more so.” Suddenly reminded, she put up a hand to her hair, feeling for the wispy strands that usually slipped loose-and finding none. “It worked!” Her smile turned radiant.

He smiled in return. “Indeed. I thought it might.”

He bowed again, then to Muriel, standing beside Madeline. At the last he met her eyes. “I’ll see you anon, no doubt.”

With that he left her, and strolled out into the night to where the grooms had his curricle waiting.


He didn’t drive home.

Madeline had wondered about his “anon”-then had wondered if her unvoiced wish that he would come to her that night, making a magical end to what had been a perfect day, was too wanton. Yet when she glimpsed him crossing the lawn heading for the morning room doors, her heart leapt.

Earlier she’d removed her new brooch and fichu, laid them carefully aside, then climbed out of her gown, but rather than don her nightgown, she’d wrapped a silk robe over her chemise and sat before her dressing table mirror so nimble-fingered Ada could unclasp the golden circlet locked about her topknot.

“Absolutely beautiful,” Ada had breathed, setting the circlet next to the fan. “Fancy him thinking of such a thing.”

“Hmm.” Picking up her brush, Madeline had dismissed Ada, then had sat brushing out her hair.

And wondering…which activity had made her rise and, still brushing, go to stand by the window and look out.

She watched Gervase until he disappeared from sight. She stood for a moment, imagining him opening the French doors and coming inside, then crossing the morning room to the hall. Pushing away from the window, she went to the dressing table, laid down her brush, and headed for the door.

The instant he turned down the long corridor to her room, Gervase saw her, limned in golden candlelight, framed in the open doorway at the end, waiting for him to join her. A soft, subtle smile played about her lips; she’d never looked more like a seductive Valkyrie.

He couldn’t stop a smile curving his lips in response, was aware of anticipation rising. Didn’t think to stop it coloring his expression.

Her smile deepening as he approached, she stepped back, aside, to let him enter. He halted just inside the room and waited while she shut the door.

Then she turned. Before she could speak, he stepped closer. Raising both hands, he framed her face. Felt the delicate bones, the silken skin beneath his palms. Gloried again that with her, he didn’t have to tip her face far to meet her eyes, to study the peridot depths, a more intense, mysterious green in the candlelight. To read in them her expectation of pleasure and delight…at his hands, with him.

He closed the distance and covered her lips with his, gently, without any sense of rush, without any of the reined hunger that between them usually ruled. He kissed her slowly, savored the sweet taste of her as she met him…with the same sense of unhurried ease, as if she, too, recognized that this was a time to follow a different drum, to indulge their passions in a different way.

A way that spun them out, that stretched and extended each moment until it felt as fine as crystal, as fragile as spun glass, until sensation was stripped raw, left naked and exposed for them both to see, to know and appreciate every tiny touch, every scintilla of delight, to feel each as clearly, as acutely, as ice on heated skin.

As usual, he’d come to her with no detailed plan, no plotted approach, yet with one definite, absolute aim-to give her this night, and make it something special. Something better, magical, a night in which passion, desire, and intimacy reached new heights, breached new horizons.

And so they lingered, immersed in the kiss, sharing breaths, and each caress…letting the simple communion stretch until the thrum of passion was a third, more urgent heartbeat.

One they shared, one both acknowledged.

Yet when he drew back, glanced down and reached for her robe’s sash, she placed her hands over his, stopping him.

“No.” She waited until he looked up and met her eyes. “My birthday-I get to choose the games.”

There was a light in her eyes, soft, glowing, one he hadn’t seen before; more powerful than any cage, it held him immobile as, her lips lifting in a madonnalike smile-one of secret knowing-she pressed his hands back, down, then reached for his coat.

The candle on her dressing table bathed them in golden light as, slowly, she undressed him, and he let her. The slow steady beat they’d set with the kiss had become a tattoo, one they continued to move to, one that orchestrated each movement as with infinite patience she divested him of waistcoat, cravat, shirt. As she circled him, small hands trailing, leaving fires flickering under his skin.

She took his hand and led him to her bed, had him stand beside it so she could kneel at his feet and remove his shoes, his stockings, then his trousers, letting the discarded garment fall from her fingers to one side.

Naked, he stood before her, watched her sit back on her heels and slowly, studying-savoring-every inch, lift her gaze from his thighs to his groin, to his waist, to his chest, to his shoulders, ultimately to his face.

Her eyes locked with his. She placed one hand on his thigh, steadying herself as she slowly wrapped her other hand about his erection.

His lungs locked. He felt his jaw set, clench, sensed the heat rise within him as she tightened her grip, then looked down. And swept her thumb slowly over, then around the sensitive head.

He closed his eyes on a smothered groan, let his head fall back, felt his chest seize as she boldly caressed. Clenching his fists, he felt his senses reel, reminded himself that this was her choice-her wish, her want, the gift she’d chosen to claim.

The thought made his head swim, fragmented what little rational thought remained.

He sensed her lean nearer, felt the sweep of her silken hair against his naked skin, over his thighs, his groin. The wash of her breath over the head of his erection made his lungs tighten, the touch of her lips made him shudder.

Then she took him into her mouth, into slick heat, into scalding wetness, and he lost touch with the world, was swept into some other where time was suspended and sensation ruled, and there was no reality to which to cling.

Only this-the slow, long-drawn torture. Only her and her wishes, her caresses, her ministrations.

His head reeled; he felt giddy, enough to sink his hands in her rippling mane and anchor…himself and her. Holding her to him, reveling in the slow, steady suction of her mouth, the different pressure of her lips as she experimented. The lighter touch of her fingers on his sack as she played.

And searched for the ways to pleasure him.

Found them, used them. Lavished pleasure and more upon him.

That last slowly penetrated the fog of sensation wreathing his mind. She was pleasuring him…but he’d intended this night to be for her.

The inexorable rise of the tide she was increasingly expertly evoking, the inevitable that loomed nearer with every harsh breath, shook him to panicked awareness. “Enough.” His voice was weak, hoarse; he had no idea if she understood.

Forcing his hands from her skull, he reached for her chin, easing her mouth open, getting her to release him.

She did, then rocked back on her heels. Both hands on his thighs, she looked up into his face. “Didn’t you like it?”

Her voice was a sultry siren’s, reaching through the night.

He stared down at her face, confirmed she was in earnest. “Too much.”

The growled words seemed to satisfy; her madonna’s smile reappeared.

“Come here.” He reached for her shoulders. “It’s your birthday-it’s you-your senses-I should be delighting.”

She allowed him to draw her up, but her smile had deepened. Her chuckle as she let him draw her into his arms was beyond erotic. “Oh, you are.”

He wasn’t up to deciphering what she meant; taking a firm hold on his will, he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her. Took her mouth in a long-drawn engagement, a claiming undisguised, a campaign of conquest that had only one possible end.

She allowed it-more, she encouraged him, her hands gripping, urgency building, yet still held at bay.

He waltzed her, still adhering to that slow, compulsive beat, into the familiar landscape of their passions, heightened, made broader, more intense, more vivid by their mutual refusal to rush, their determination to dally until every possible sensation had been wrung from each stage.

She let him tug the sash of her robe free, let him slide the garment from her shoulders and strip away her chemise, on a gasp rode out the keen edge of sensual shock when their bodies finally met, heated skin to skin, long limbs pressing, hands seeking, gripping, arms banding. Her surrender still hovered on her lips when he covered them anew, when he drank in the passion surging through her.

He gorged on it, on the feel of her naked in his arms, so responsive, so ardent-and all his.

His to pleasure, now and forever; his to lavish all his expertise upon. She was the reason for his past; she was his future.

His hands spread, caressed, boldly possessed; trapped within his embrace, she fed him her delight, the elixir of the pleasure he gave her, and flagrantly urged him on.

Until he lifted her and tumbled them both onto her bed, where the pillows lay plumped and waiting, where the covers were drawn down the better for them to give passion and pleasure free rein.

They jostled, and she laughed, the sound one of sheer delight. He heard it, felt it kick beneath his heart. A shaft of pleasure finding its mark.