He closed his eyes, picturing her in various states of undress, followed by various interesting poses, followed by various fascinating activities.

He groaned. She was going to have to return home very soon, because his imagination was far too active not to be satisfied, and-

“Gareth!”

Not the most mellifluous of tones. The lovely erotic haze floating about his head disappeared entirely. Well, almost entirely. Hyacinth might not have looked the least bit inclined for a bit of afternoon sport as she stood in the doorway, her eyes narrowed and jaw clenched, but she was there, and that was half the battle.

“Shut the door,” he murmured, rising to his feet.

“Do you know what your daughter did?”

“Your daughter, you mean?”

“Our daughter,” she ground out. But she shut the door.

“Do I want to know?”

“Gareth!”

“Very well,” he sighed, followed by a dutiful, “what did she do?”

He’d had this conversation before, of course. Countless times. The answer usually had something to do with something involving marriage and Isabella’s somewhat unconventional views on the subject. And of course, Hyacinth’s frustration with the whole situation.

It rarely varied.

“Well, it wasn’t so much what she did,” Hyacinth said.

He hid his smile. This was also not unexpected.

“It’s more what she won’t do.”

“Jump to your bidding?”

“Gareth.”

He halved the distance between them. “Aren’t I enough?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He reached out, tugged at her hand, pulled her gently against him. “I always jump to your bidding,” he murmured.

She recognized the look in his eye. “Now?” She twisted around until she could see the closed door. “Isabella is upstairs.”

“She won’t hear.”

“But she could-”

His lips found her neck. “There’s a lock on the door.”

“But she’ll know-”

He started working on the buttons on her frock. He was very good at buttons. “She’s a smart girl,” he said, stepping back to enjoy his handiwork as the fabric fell away. He loved when his wife didn’t wear a chemise.

“Gareth!”

He leaned down and took one rosy-tipped breast into his mouth before she could object.

“Oh, Gareth!” And her knees went weak. Just enough for him to scoop her up and take her to the sofa. The one with the extra-deep cushions.

“More?”

“God, yes,” she groaned.

He slid his hand under her skirt until he could tickle her senseless. “Such token resistance,” he murmured. “Admit it. You always want me.”

“Twenty years of marriage isn’t admission enough?”

“Twenty-two years, and I want to hear it from your lips.”

She moaned when he slipped a finger inside of her. “Almost always,” she conceded. “I almost always want you.”

He sighed for dramatic effect, even as he smiled into her neck. “I shall have to work harder, then.”

He looked up at her. She was gazing down at him with an arch expression, clearly over her fleeting attempt at uprightness and respectability.

“Much harder,” she agreed. “And a bit faster, too, while you’re at it.”

He laughed out loud at that.

“Gareth!” Hyacinth might be a wanton in private, but she was always aware of the servants.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be quiet. I’ll be very, very quiet.” With one easy movement, he bunched her skirts well above her waist and slid down until his head was between her legs. “It’s you, my darling, who will have to control your volume.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh…”

“More?”

“Definitely more.”

He licked her then. She tasted like heaven. And when she squirmed, it was always a treat.

“Oh my heavens. Oh my…Oh my…”

He smiled against her, then swirled a circle on her until she let out a quiet little shriek. He loved doing this to her, loved bringing her, his capable and articulate wife, to senseless abandon.

Twenty-two years. Who would have thought that after twenty-two years he’d still want this one woman, this one woman only, and this one woman so intensely?

“Oh, Gareth,” she was panting. “Oh, Gareth…More, Gareth…”

He redoubled his efforts. She was close. He knew her so well, knew the curve and shape of her body, the way she moved when she was aroused, the way she breathed when she wanted him. She was close.

And then she was gone, arching and gasping until her body went limp.

He chuckled to himself as she batted him away. She always did that when she was done, saying she couldn’t bear one more touch, that she’d surely die if she wasn’t given the chance to float down to normalcy.

He moved, curling against her body until he could see her face. “That was nice,” she said.

He lifted a brow. “Nice?”

“Very nice.”

“Nice enough to reciprocate?”

Her lips curved. “Oh, I don’t know if it was that nice.”

His hand went to his trousers. “I shall have to offer a repeat engagement, then.”

Her lips parted in surprise.

“A variation on a theme, if you will.”

She twisted her neck to look down. “What are you doing?”

He grinned lasciviously. “Enjoying the fruits of my labors.” And then she gasped as he slid inside of her, and he gasped from the sheer pleasure of it all, and then he thought how very much he loved her.

And then he thought nothing much at all.

The following day. We didn’t really think that Hyacinth would give up, did we?

Late afternoon found Hyacinth back at her second favorite pastime. Although favorite didn’t seem quite the right adjective, nor was pastime the correct noun. Compulsion probably fit the description better, as did miserable, or perhaps unrelenting. Wretched?

Inevitable.

She sighed. Definitely inevitable. An inevitable compulsion.

How long had she lived in this house? Fifteen years?

Fifteen years. Fifteen years and a few months atop that, and she was still searching for those bloody jewels.

One would think she’d have given up by now. Certainly anyone else would have given up by now. She was, she had to admit, the most ridiculously stubborn person of her own acquaintance.

Except, perhaps, her own daughter. Hyacinth had never told Isabella about the jewels, if only because she knew that Isabella would join in the search with an unhealthy fervor to rival her own. She hadn’t told her son George, either, because he would tell Isabella. And Hyacinth would never get that girl married off if she thought there was a fortune in jewels to be found in her home.

Not that Isabella would want the jewels for fortune’s sake. Hyacinth knew her daughter well enough to realize that in some matters-possibly most-Isabella was exactly like her. And Hyacinth’s search for the jewels had never been about the money they might bring. Oh, she freely admitted that she and Gareth could use the money (and could have done with it even moreso a few years back). But it wasn’t about that. It was the principle. It was the glory.

It was the desperate need to finally clutch those bloody rocks in her hand and shake them before her husband’s face and say, “See? See? I haven’t been mad all these years!”

Gareth had long since given up on the jewels. They probably didn’t even exist, he told her. Someone had surely found them years earlier. They’d lived in Clair House for fifteen years, for heaven’s sake. If Hyacinth was going to find them, she’d have located them by now, so why did she continue to torture herself?

An excellent question.

Hyacinth gritted her teeth together as she crawled across the washroom floor for what was surely the eight-hundredth time in her life. She knew all that. Lord help her, she knew it, but she couldn’t give up now. If she gave up now, what did that say about the past fifteen years? Wasted time? All of it, wasted time?

She couldn’t bear the thought.

Plus, she really wasn’t the sort to give up, was she? If she did, it would be so completely at odds with everything she knew about herself. Would that mean she was getting old?

She wasn’t ready to get old. Perhaps that was the curse of being the youngest of eight children. One was never quite ready to be old.

She leaned down even lower, planting her cheek against the cool tile of the floor so that she could peer under the tub. No old lady would do this, would she? No old lady would-

“Ah, there you are, Hyacinth.”

It was Gareth, poking his head in. He did not look the least bit surprised to find his wife in such an odd position. But he did say, “It’s been several months since your last search, hasn’t it?”

She looked up. “I thought of something.”

“Something you hadn’t already thought of?”

“Yes,” she ground out, lying through her teeth.

“Checking behind the tile?” he queried politely.

“Under the tub,” she said reluctantly, moving herself into a seated position.

He blinked, shifting his gaze to the large claw-footed tub. “Did you move that?” he asked, his voice incredulous.

She nodded. It was amazing the sort of strength one could summon when properly motivated.

He looked at her, then at the tub, then back again. “No,” he said. “It’s not possible. You didn’t-”

“I did.”

“You couldn’t-”

“I could,” she said, beginning to enjoy herself. She didn’t get to surprise him these days nearly as often as she would have liked. “Just a few inches,” she admitted.

He looked back over at the tub.

“Maybe just one,” she allowed.

For a moment she thought he would simply shrug his shoulders and leave her to her endeavors, but then he surprised her by saying, “Would you like some help?”

It took her a few seconds to ascertain his meaning. “With the tub?” she asked.