“Just forty winks,” she allowed, glancing around as if to make sure of their privacy then lowering herself to the blanket.

“Twenty apiece,” Val replied solemnly then lowered himself to the blanket and began unlacing his boots. “Getting up at first light and abusing my hand all morning is tiring work. I can’t imagine taming your own jungle is exactly restful, either.”

“It is, actually.” Ellen regarded him as he popped up and retrieved a pillow from the bench to stuff behind his head. He stretched out on her blanket and smiled up at her where she sat beside him.

“This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.”

She regarded him where he lay.

“Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.”

She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back.

“You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him.

“The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.”

“You would drift off while I’m confiding?”

“I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.”

“I am unused to this friendly napping.”

“You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?”

“We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.”

But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back.

“Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly.

“Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day.

God was in His heaven, and enough was right with the world that Val’s own busy mill wheel slipped its cogs, and dreams rose up to claim him.

* * *

Val sensed when Ellen woke, sensed the change in her breathing, the wariness in her body as she sorted through impressions and regained her wits. He’d probably provoked her by shifting his hips back ever so slightly so his growing erection wouldn’t disturb her dreams.

He wasn’t particularly surprised to awaken aroused—Nature imposed a certain agenda on the slumbering healthy male of the species—but he was surprised at the pleasure it gave him simply to lie on a blanket with the inspiration for his lust. The feel of Ellen’s flank under his hand, the soft curve of her hip, the contour of her spine, for Val, they all became more alluring for being covered in the thinnest of cotton rather than revealed immediately to his eyes or his touch. The old blanket beneath them, the faint scent of lavender coming from the pillow under his head, the shift and sway of the willow branches, combined to imbue the moment with a precious languor.

He levered up slightly, tucked Ellen a little closer, and pressed a kiss to her temple. She made no protest, so he kissed her again, letting his lips cruise over her cheek, inhaling the rosy scent of her, drifting his hand along the flat of her stomach.

Was there any greater pleasure than seducing a willing woman on a lovely summer day?

Beneath him, Ellen opened her eyes and then closed them. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten of her mood, Val saw the dawning of pleasure, but something else, something a little sad or forlorn.

Gently, he shifted her to her back and maneuvered his body over hers. He kept most of his weight from her but put his forearms and knees close to her body, not quite trapping her but sheltering her. She lay passive beneath him, and he almost smiled at the challenge that presented.

“Touch me,” Val whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her neck. “Put your hands on me, Ellen, wherever you please.”

He ambushed her impulse to argue by settling his mouth over hers and seaming her lips with his tongue. When she offered no resistance, he invited himself into the plush heat of her mouth, exploring the contours and textures to be had there and inviting her to do likewise.

She was slow to respond, and he liked that too. Liked the savoring and the need to pay attention to her. She was shy but moved her tongue over his and took his lower lip between hers. Val felt his shirt being tugged from his waistband and had all he could do not to rear back and tear it off. Her mouth carefully exploring his kept him in place.

That and the desire to press his body more closely to hers, to find that exact spot where he could wedge his cock against her sex and push, gently at first, to test her arousal and increase his own.

She understood, bless the woman, for she raised and spread her knees so her dress dragged up her legs and the cradle of her pelvis accommodated him more closely. The fit was good—too good—and Val knew a moment’s consternation as his body suggested that coming—right now, in his breeches, merely by thrusting a few times against the woman—would suit famously.

He silenced that thought and raised up enough to see Ellen’s face. She met his gaze and brushed his hair back from his forehead, her expression a little dazed and bewildered.

He couldn’t merely use her like that. Couldn’t live with himself if he did, couldn’t find any pleasure in it. None. He shifted to lie on his side beside her but kept a leg across her knees.

“Don’t…” Ellen frowned and caught his right hand, bringing it to her stomach.

“Don’t?” Val kissed her mouth then rested his forehead on her sternum.

“Don’t stop touching me,” Ellen said, her hand tangling in his hair. “Please.” She held his hand over that place in her body where Val suspected the emptiness gathered most intensely, where a child should grow but hadn’t. Where life should start but where, for her, it had stubbornly refused to.

He stared down at her, trying to fathom what exactly she was requesting—and what she wasn’t.

“I’ll touch you,” he said softly, “however you want, for as long as you want.”

But she wasn’t going to give him any more clues, so he began where he was, by stroking gently over her stomach. She closed her eyes and let her hand drift to the blanket, a small gesture Val took for a sign of submission.

Trust, even.

Through the thin cotton of her dress, he traced the crests of her pelvis, the contours of her navel, and the undersides of her ribs. She sighed, her fingers twitching on the blanket.

Lower, he surmised. She wanted him to touch her sex, and he was happy to oblige. His hand drifted to her thighs, and Ellen opened her eyes long enough to meet his gaze. He saw acceptance there and knew he’d guessed right. She wanted him to touch her intimately, and yet she couldn’t ask for it overtly.

He held her gaze as he gradually slid the material of her dress up, until it lay across her thighs, shielding her sex from his view but not from his touch. He leaned in and kissed her, not a polite, teasing kiss that invited and dallied and flirted. This was a kiss of possession and arousal and challenge, informing her in no uncertain terms where he intended to take her and demanding she acknowledge the destination.

She tugged at his shirt again, her body coming slowly alive under his. He broke the kiss only long enough to let her pull his shirt over his head, and then he was back, his chest arched over hers, his mouth sealed to hers. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer, her grip surprisingly strong when he resisted slightly.

“Valentine,” she chided, physically urging him to give her some of his weight.

“Behave,” he growled back, angling his body only partly over hers. His hand covered her breast, and she went still, a shiver going through her body. Carefully, he closed his hand over the soft fullness, and she turned her face into his shoulder.

“Tell me.” He repeated the caress, watching her carefully. She was so quiet, so focused, he honestly could not determine if she was enjoying it, until she arched her back, pressing herself into his hand, and he had his answer. As he shaped and stroked and teased, he wondered if her precious baron had ever thought to pleasure his wife, or if Ellen had been deprived of the most basic accommodation between spouses for the entire five years of her marriage.