"Did you know, wife, that there are techniques a husband can use in order to please his wife in their marriage bed? An 'Unbridled Embraces for Men.'"

Her mouth was rosy and thoroughly kissed. "Making love to his wife as though she were his mistress?"

"Exactly." He found the two b.u.t.tons at the back of her trousers and freed them a moment later. "It's time for these to come off."

She lifted her arms over her head, and swayed her hips in a little dance as he spread his fingers over her hips and slipped the trousers slowly down. He knelt as he went, his efforts tantalizing him with the softness of the silk, the sight of her bare belly, then her fleece and the sleekness of her legs as the silk gathered in a pool around her bare feet.

"You're beautiful, Elizabeth."

She gazed down at him, still swaying, though completely naked now. "You make me feel that way."

The woman did that all on her own. And here he was, on his knees in front of her, with a tantalizing view of her womanhood, and a driving hunger to taste her.

"Hold on, wife."

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Indeed we are." He reached his hands around her hips to her bottom and splayed his fingers across the coolness of her cheeks. He planted kisses on her flat belly and then moved his mouth downward.

"Oh! Ross! Oh!" She gasped with every inch of his descent toward her curls at the cleft of her legs, her fingers winding tighter and tighter into his hair.

He kept her close with one hand on her bottom and began to toy at her mound with the fingers of the other. Playing among her curls and the slickness he found there, gently sliding a finger inside her where he wanted to be thrusting his throbbing erection.

"Ross, what are yo u - o h!" She grabbed his shoulders, then his hair again, her hands unsettled and pulling him closer as he stroked and plunged with his fingers.

But when he plunged with his tongue, delving deeply with his strokes, her knees buckled against his arms and she let out a keening moan that would have thrown her backward in a free-fall if he hadn't carried her safely to the ground onto the pile of pillows.

"Oh, Ross! Shall I add this one to my Unbridled Embraces}'" Her knees were bent, her hips thrusting upward and writhing into his kiss, pulling at him as though she couldn't get enough of him.

But bringing her too close to her climax. Too soon for the first time.

"We'd best keep this marital suggestion between us." He kissed his way from her belly all the way to her mouth, until they were face-to-face, and he could see the dizzying pa.s.sion in her eyes. "Or we'll both be locked up for distributing salacious materials."

"They'd never believe me anyway." She was crooning against his cheek, rolling his hotly distended, much beleagured erection against her belly, inching him ever closer to her sheath with her determined squirming. "Take me there now, please."

He felt suddenly like he was falling. "Where?"

"Wherever it is you were taking me. Because I don't think I can wait any longer."

And there would always be other times with this remarkable wife of his. Tomorrow. An hour from now. Other nights in their own special harem.

And she was so eager. Wouldn't want to frustrate her the first time around.

So he rose up on his elbows and let her find him with her fingers, with her impatient grasp, which nearly cost him dearly.

"Here?" she asked, fitting the tip of him unerringly against her cleft, then sliding it back and forth along the slick heat of her until he caught her hand.

"Let me."

"Oh, yes!" She lay back like a cat lounging in the sun and wrapped her legs around his hips.

"I see you're ready."

"Mmmm in... ready for you." She closed her eyes and brought her heels against his backside.

Slick and open and, dear Lord, this might just kill him.

He lifted her hips and fit her better against the tip of him. He thrust slightly and met a firmness that widened her eyes, then made her smile and catch her hands around his waist.

He thrust again a little deeper, encouraged again by her smile and the brightness of it, until she finally buckled forward and propelled him mindlessly all the way inside her.

Until he was buried to the hilt and quaking, and she was kissing him as though she were starving.

"You're very large, Ross, and very warm and, oh, how I want you here."

Elizabeth loved the way her husband was hovering above her, gazing down at her so possessively, his eyes as hot as his breath. His growl of pleasure rumbling through his chest and into hers. Into every part of her.

Oh, my, what all those unfulfilled husbands and wives of London were missing.

And then, as though they had formed a silent pact between them, she began to move with him in a spellbinding rhythm, meeting each of his strokes measure for bewitching measure. An earthy pleasure that built like a summer storm, bristling with bolts of blue lightning.

An urgent heat that leadened her limbs and lit up her fingertips. That centered on that splendid place where they were joined. Her husband kissing her madly, as though he couldn't get enough of her.

The rhythm increasing, surging like a wildfire, focusing its tension, coming faster and faster, lifting her up toward the clouds.

Until she finally felt herself splintering into bits of giddy light in an unimaginable bliss. Heard herself calling out his name against his mouth, catching his every breath, his every pulsing moan.

Until he caught her fiercely around the waist and lifted her against him and began to quake and shudder above her. His muscles turned to stone, his bellowing breath turned to grunting groans as he pulsed and drove into her, spilling his seed deeply, completely, inside her.

A blissful sharing so profoundly moving that she began to weep quietly and stroke his hair out of his handsome face.

"Well, my lord, did you find pleasure enough in my harem?"

His coal dark eyes took on a brilliant glint. "Not nearly enough, my lady. I'll be wanting more of this."

"Really?" She hadn't thought of that, but the very idea made her skin tingle. "You mean we can do it all again tonight?"

He lowered himself to her side, his breathing still coming in long drafts. "Technically, we're well into tomorrow. But since I'm all paid up for my night of pleasure..."

She sighed and slipped her arms around him. "Delighted to oblige, sir. Simply delighted."

Elizabeth had never in her life been treated so like a pampered fairy queen. Complete with a quaint, enchanted cottage. With a heaping sideboard of heavenly dishes delivered twice the following day, as if by magic. With an attentive husband who seemed to adore her.

Just as she adored him.

They took a walk on the grounds and ended up playing naked in the stream. They toasted chunks of bread in the fire and ended up drizzling warm honey and b.u.t.ter over each other's skin, snacking off the excess, and snacking and snacking. They arm-wrestled for erotic wagers, and he always lost to her questing f i ngers.

Always, the lout.

And in the last rays of daylight, after feeding each other a delicious meal of thick beef stew and steamed asparagus, cuc.u.mber salad and fleshy fruit, all the while wrapped in a tangle of bed linens and pillows, Elizabeth found herself unable to stay awake any longer. She finally began to drift asleep, her dreams and her heart caught up in Ross's powerful arms.

And those splendid dreams spun out as she slept, tendrils of joy twining around every part of their lives. Happy children and meadowlands, acts of Parliament and games of whist.

Each new strand amazed her, because Ross was a husband right out of legend. The converse of each of her closely held prejudices against men and their arrogance.

Votes for Women, the signs still read.

And husbands still wielded their absolute authority over their wives.

Boys grew to men, girls to women, and still the cycle repeated.

And repeated.

And she felt the cliff begin to crumble out from beneath her shoes.

Felt herself falling, heard herself crying out into the darknes 's - "Ross!"

She woke with a shock, sitting bolt upright in the darkness. And alone. Chilled.

"Ross?"

No sound at all.

She slipped out of bed and into a nightgown, then wrapped herself in the silky counterpane and padded out into the main room.

She wasn't alone after all, but the reedy figure bending to the hearth wasn't Ross.

"Ah, Willie!" The young son of the caretaker who lived in the village and had faithfully delivered the meals from his mother's kitchen. "Don't tell me you've brought more food? As you can see, we're full up. And it's after ten at night."

And where was Ross?

"No, my lady. I brought a note to his lordship. Straight from London, it was. And urgent, said my ma."

"Where is he?"

"Left here on my horse 'bout a half hour ago, right after reading the note I brung him."

"And he didn't tell me?"

"Didn't want to wake you," he whispered, as though recreating Ross's exit. "Told me to stay here and keep guard over you."

Good grief. Was she never to move again without a pair of dutiful, male eyes watching over her, by command of her beloved, still overbearing husband?

"That's it, Will? I'm to guess why he's gone?"

"Oh!" Will jumped to the hob, plucked a folded note off the mantel then jabbed it at her. "Also told me to give this to you in the morning when you wake up. But I guess you're awake now, aren't you?"

"Quite." And disappointed beyond imagining. "Thanks, Will, you can go home now."

"No, my lady. I'm to stay here and kee p -"

"Guard over me, yes, yes, I remember," she said, unfolding the note and turning up the lamp at the side table. "Then relax. Have something to eat. Take a nap, lad. I'm sure I'll be awake for a while."

You have a lovely hand, husband. His script was plain and clear and f i rmly struck.

But, oh, there was a world of trouble in the contents.

My dear Elizabeth, Forgive me for not waking you with a farewell kiss, but I hadn't time to risk that a taste of your honey would keep me from my sudden call to action.

As I feared, and warned you, wife, the monstrous kidnapper struck again late last night.

"Again? But that's impossible." Lydia wasn't due to make her escape until the end of next week. Surely her a.s.sistants hadn't advanced the schedule without telling her.

This time he has not only abducted the wife of the Russian deputy amba.s.sador, but he has taken her from her own chamber in the Russian Emba.s.sy.

"Dear G.o.d, no!" Not Lydia at all. But a stranger! A completely innocent woman.

As you may know, an emba.s.sy and its grounds are considered sovereign soil, its fences as sacred to the home country as its own borders. The mere act of breaking into an emba.s.sy can be considered an invasion. Abducting one of its citizens at the same time can precipitate a declaration of war.

I've been called back to Whitehall to help smooth over the situation with the Russians before it becomes an international incident which might force us into an unwanted, unwinnable war. I'm also to use all my resources from the investigations into the previous abductions.

Oh, but Ross, you have it all wrong! Whoever kidnapped the hapless deputy amba.s.sador's wife was using her own methods for his evil deeds!

To misdirect everyone! Ross and Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office! The press and the public!

"Dear Lord, what have I done?" Thanks to her, they were investigating the wrong crime.

"Anything the matter, my lady?" Willie must have been watching her the whole time, listening to her babbling. His eyes were wide as the moon and worried for her.

"Uh in , well, Willie, it's nothing I can't handle."

As long as I can get to London in time to save that poor, helpless woman from my own b.l.o.o.d.y foolishness.

"Good, my lady, because his lordship wanted me to be sure not to let you leave before he comes back for you."

She'd been afraid of that. Her overprotective husband and his ever-present henchmen. Though a nicer henchman she had never met.

I'll send my carriage to pick you up at noon. In the meantime, love, stay abed in our honeymoon cottage and think of me.

Your adoring husband, Ross Well, she'd be thinking about him, all right, but while speeding into London, not while lying abed.

Chapter 19.