caressing her face, his thumb moving lightly over her eyelids and her cheeks. Over her mouth. And the hand moved down to touch her breasts, to trace their outline, to cup their fullness. And down over her waist and abdomen.
“You are losing your waist,” he murmured against her ear.
“Yes.” She did not open her eyes. She willed the spell not to be broken.
His hand moved over her, touching, exploring, caressing through her clothing. And it felt so very good. She wanted to turn into his arms, to wrap her own about him. But she lay still and seemingly relaxed.
His hand was edging up the skirt of her dress and was finally beneath it, strong and warm against her legs, against her inner thighs. Up over her stomach, over the early swelling of her pregnancy.
She lay still and relaxed, with closed eyes.
And then his mouth was on hers again, light still, but open this time, and his tongue reached deep into her mouth to stroke her slowly and gently. And his hand stripped away undergarments and caressed her unhurriedly, circling and circling the place where he was not ready to touch her yet.
Her hands were flat on the grass beside her.
But she was no longer relaxed. His mouth was at her throat, and his hand was touching her very lightly, and stroking her very lightly in a way that made her throb from the place he touched to her throat.
His hand left her in order to adjust his own clothing. She lay with closed eyes beside him. But she opened them when he spoke to her.
“Come, Ellen,” he said softly, and reached across to lift her over him.
She looked into his eyes as he brought her down fully onto him, and then lifted up onto her knees and threw back her head until her face was bathed in the light and warmth of the sun.
And the throbbing turned to a pain and an agony.
And to a tension that was past bearing.
“Dominic!” she called to him.
And to a bursting of ecstasy.
And to a slow, shuddering return to life and happiness and fulfillment.
Strong arms came about her and lowered her to the grass beside him, and held her close. A warm mouth sought out hers and kissed her lingeringly.
“Marriage will not be such a terrible fate, you see,” he murmured against her lips.
Her eyes fluttered open and looked into his. But she was in too deep a lethargy to summon a smile. She let herself slip beyond lethargy.
Lord Eden closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the smooth hair on top of her head. He supposed he would sleep. He felt relaxed right down to his toes, and utterly satiated. But he didn’t particularly want to sleep. There was just too much physical contentment to be savored.
He had not really intended to make love to her. That had not been his reason for taking her walking or for bringing her up there. He had wanted to be with her, to build on the feeling of friendship that had grown between them since their arrival at Amberley, and to talk to her about their wedding and his plans to take her immediately afterward into Wiltshire.
Even when he had invited her to lie beside him and had started to kiss her, he had not meant to take the embrace any farther. He had wanted to touch her, to discover the changes in her body that the presence of his child in her was bringing about. He had felt the slight and soft thickening of her waist.
And it had all become suddenly and achingly real to him. She was with child by him. He had known it with his head for some time, had planned a whole lifetime around the fact. But for the first time he felt it with his body. She had taken his seed into her. Their child was gradually swelling her body. The body of the woman he was touching. The woman he loved.
And without any conscious decision on his part, he had started to make love to her, his mouth and his tongue inviting her to physical intimacy, his hand beneath her clothes, against her warm and enticing flesh. And she had made love to him. Though she had not moved or opened her eyes while she was on the ground, and though she had knelt above him, her head thrown back after he had lifted her astride him and joined them, and was thrusting his own need and love into her. She had made love to him too. He had felt her need, her total surrender to him. And she had cried out his name a moment before she had shuddered into release.
He had been right in what he had said to her before she fell asleep. He must convince her of that when she woke up, her defenses firmly in place again. Their marriage would have a chance for success. They were friends. They were good together sexually. He loved her. There was only one ingredient for happiness missing. And that did not have to be disastrous. He would not smother her with his love. He would be content to be her friend day by day, and to pour out his love for her in bed, where perhaps she would not quite recognize it for what it was.
His mind wandered back over the past few months to the disaster that had succeeded Madeline’s unexpected arrival in her rooms in Brussels. They had come a long way since that dreadful afternoon. He had much to be thankful for. And a whole lifetime of hope ahead. He was not going to let his mind dwell on the one small source of discontent.
His mind slid into sleep.
ELLEN WAS DISORIENTED for only a moment after she woke up. She was lying against Dominic, her cheek pressed to the lapel of his coat, his one arm beneath her neck, the other hand at her waist. She could tell from his breathing that he was asleep.
Had she become an utter wanton? They were on an open hillside, not quite surrounded by trees, lying asleep in each other’s arms. And before they had fallen asleep, they had made love without even a thought to possible discovery. And in a way more erotic than she had ever experienced before.
It was nothing short of scandalous.
It had been wonderful!
She eased her head back to look up into his face, but his eyes opened even as she did so, looked blankly into hers, focused on hers, and smiled in that way that never failed to make her stomach turn a somersault inside her.
“Are you offended?” he asked. “I didn’t set out to seduce you, Ellen. It just happened. But you are to be my wife soon anyway.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
“Yes,” she said.
He drew back his head and looked at her. “Why do your eyes always turn bleak when I mention our marriage?” he said. “Don’t you want to marry me, Ellen? Do you feel coerced?”
She did not answer for a while. “I just wish the baby had not forced it on us,” she said.
“Is that what you think?” He frowned. “You think I am marrying you only because of the child?”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “And it’s the sensible thing to do and the responsible thing to do. And I honor you for being willing to do it, and I am not going to back out, because it would be selfish and irresponsible to do so. I just wish it were not so.”
“The baby is not why I am marrying you,” he said quietly. “It is just the excuse.”
“The excuse?”
“I have been unfair to you, Ellen, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I used the argument that I thought would best work with you, and it seems that I have succeeded very well indeed. But it was an argument that came from desperation.”
She merely looked at him.
“I didn’t think there was any other way of getting you,” he said. “But it was not the honorable thing to do. I owed you the truth, especially since I was asking you to be my wife. Married couples should not have any secrets from each other.”
“What is the truth?” she asked.
He looked rather shamefaced. “Pure selfishness, I’m afraid,” he said. “I love you, and I love the child because it is yours. Ours. I haven’t stopped loving you since I discovered you hovering over my bed in Brussels, the only stable being in a world of delirium and pain. In fact, I love you more now than I did then, because we have developed a relationship since then. I’m sorry, Ellen. I know you don’t need this when you have just lost Charlie. But I won’t burden you with my love, I promise you.”
“I did love him,” she said carefully. “For those years there was nothing brighter in my life than my feelings for him.”
