“I am not shivering, Evie.” He scooped her up and arranged her on her side, so the warmth of his chest blanketed her back. His hairy, muscular legs snugged up to her bottom, and his arm came around her middle.
She loved it when he held her like this, loved the way it made her feel safe and cherished and toasty all over. The only thing that might have made it better would be if she had thought to take off her nightgown so she might be as naked as he.
“You will tell me if there’s anything else I can do to make you more comfortable, Wife.”
His lips grazed her nape. A casual caress, one he’d indulged in many times before, and each time, Eve felt the impact of it in low, wonderful places. She wanted him to do it again.
And he did, more lingeringly, more tenderly.
Never in their marriage had he made her ask for his attentions, and Eve was not about to start now—no matter how badly she needed the reassurance, no matter how passionately she wanted… him.
And yet… she needed to find the compromise that would allow them to move ahead, and Deene had not filed his lawsuit.
She shifted so they were facing each other on the mattress. “Do you think to get me with child and then file your lawsuit, Deene?”
He looked for a moment as if he’d rise up from the bed and not come back, but then his features composed themselves. “And if you had a girl child, Evie, would you then expect me to wait to file the petition until you were carrying a second child? To withdraw the suit until we had a son, and then file yet again? And what of a spare? Anthony does not want to marry, and the burden of the succession is ours.”
He was so angry.
And so hurt. They were both hurt, and even as Eve despaired, she also recognized that any common ground was better than none.
“Please make love to me, Lucas. I need you to make love to me.”
He was on her in an instant, poised over her, one arm under her neck, the other on her hip, pushing her nightgown up. “We cannot go on like this, Wife, but if I tell you I will not file that damned lawsuit, will you agree not to take any rash measures yourself?”
Rash measures? With her husband’s weight pressing her into the mattress, Eve tried to fathom his meaning.
Women could prevent conception, or try to. They could take herbs to make it less likely a child quickened. She’d had reason to learn these terrible things seven years ago.
“I will not betray the vows I took at the altar, Deene.”
“For God’s sake, call me Lucas. At least here, at least when we’re like this…”
He fell silent, and Eve closed her eyes, feeling the hot length of his engorged manhood against her belly. “Lucas, please… I want… I need…”
He slid into her, a slow, hot glory that had her body fisting tightly around him in a welcome that should have been ecstatic. He loved her slowly, thoroughly, ravishing her with physical pleasure until she understood that until that night, he’d been holding back with her.
He’d been her husband and her lover but had denied them both the greatest depth of his passion. When at long last he allowed himself to spend in her body, when Eve had lost awareness of anything save the pleasure he showered upon her, she lay beneath him, sheltered in his arms and saddened beyond measure.
Deene had made his point: if they did not find a way through their current difficulties, Eve would be giving up not just her husband’s expert lovemaking, not just passion and pleasure and companionship of the deepest order, she would also be giving up the only man she would ever love.
“The Marquis of Deene, sir. He calls upon you alone.”
Deene pushed past the butler—a stuffy old fellow who smelled of camphor—and found Dolan in his shirtsleeves at a massive desk much like the one in Deene’s own library.
“We’re family, Brampton. I hardly think I need be announced.”
Dolan did not rise, which showed exactly the kind of animal cunning Deene expected from his brother-in- law.
“That will be all, Brampton, though have the kitchen send up a tray. Marriage has apparently put his lordship off his feed.” Dolan waited until the butler had withdrawn before turning an expression with a lot of teeth—and no welcome whatsoever—on his guest. “How is it you know my butler’s name?”
“They all know one another’s names, Dolan. It’s what we overpay them for.”
Dolan did not roll down his shirtsleeves, though Deene had the sense it wasn’t an intentional rudeness; it was instead a function of having been caught off guard by an opponent.
“How’s Georgie?”
Dolan’s brows rose. “Still protesting her French lessons, though she has an aptitude for them. You may use that against me in court: I force her to learn French by withholding my granny’s Irish lullabies from her.”
“You had a granny? I am astonished to find you were not whelped by some creature sporting scales and breathing fire.”
Dolan fiddled with a gleaming silver penknife. “Insult my sainted mother, Deene, and a lawsuit will be the least of your problems.”
“My apologies. I meant only to insult you.”
Except he hadn’t, exactly. Antagonize, of course, but not quite insult. If Evie would not countenance a lawsuit, she’d certainly not countenance a duel.
Dolan brushed his thumb over the blade of the penknife. “I was under the impression a gentleman—using the term as loosely as present company necessitates—plotting to do murder on the field of honor generally slapped a sweaty riding glove across his opponent’s chin before witnesses of similar rank.”
“I cannot challenge you to a duel, Dolan, though every day you draw breath offends me.”
“Oh, of course. Because I married your dear sister, whose hems I was not fit to kiss, though I certainly paid enough to have them trimmed in lace. You’ll not be seeing your niece very frequently if this is the tack you take, Deene. A bit more charm is wanted or some lordly attempts at groveling—one’s in-laws ought to be a source of amusement at least.”
“I don’t see Georgie at all as it is, Dolan. I have nothing to lose.”
This point must have struck Dolan as valid. He rose from his desk, his expression thoughtful. It remained that way until a lavish silver tray fit for the highest tea before the highest sticklers was brought in and set on the desk.
“You will please pour,” Dolan said. “I haven’t the knack.”
This was not said with any particular sneer or smirk, and it set the tone for an oddly civilized session of tea, crumpets, sandwiches, cakes, fruit, and cheese.
“There is an issue between us,” Deene said when the tray had been decimated. “You made my sister miserable, and you are not the best resource to have the raising of her daughter.”
“You are so confident of your facts, Deene. One would envy you this, except the quality is an inherited reflex of inbred aristocracy and not a function of any particular wit or study on your part.”
Dolan had a way with irony—the Irish did; the Scots did as well.
“You are telling me Marie went into your loving arms at the altar and never once looked back? You are telling me she consented to marry you of her own free will? You are telling me she was happy and well cared for married to you?”
“She was a minor at the time of the wedding. Her consent was neither needed nor binding, and I have been patient with your rudeness long enough. You may either leave or state your reasons for imposing on my fast- dwindling and unlikely-to-be-repeated hospitality.”
The moment became delicate, all the more so for having to seem otherwise.
“I am prepared to leave here and go directly to White’s, where I will place the following wager in the book in legible script: I propose a match race, my colt against yours, the stakes to be as follows.”
