Relief flooded him and he sucked in a shuddering breath, drawing her scent into his lungs. Richer and earthier than before. "I wanted to spend hours worshipping you. I wanted you to feel cherished and special and adored."

She tangled her hands in his hair and brought him down for a lengthy kiss. "I do feel cherished and adored. I feel like you're the answer to all the questions I've ever asked, the beckoning fire at the end of every journey, my shelter against the storm." Her voice thickened. "Thank you for loving me, Elias."

"Oh, my darling," he choked out. He wasn't worthy of her, but he'd do his d.a.m.nedest to keep her happy.

When he stared into her glowing eyes, all doubt vanished. They'd come together as naturally as rivers ran to the sea. That recognition banished his last misgivings and he began to move.

With the first slide of his hips, her eyes flared and she made a wordless sound of pleasure. "Elias," she whispered in surprise.

"With my body I thee worship," he said smiling.

"I'm the luckiest girl in England," she murmured and rose to join him in the fiery voyage to ecstasy.

Marianne was in the grip of a whirlwind. Frantically her hands grabbed at Elias's shoulders as his body thundered into hers. This was no gentle mating. Instead it was basic and brazen and untamed, as though what they did sprang directly from the earth.

She panted for air and bowed up, stirring a tempest of responses inside her. His skin was hot under her dancing hands. She'd never been so aware of another person's physical presence.

At first, she'd felt overwhelmed by his size and vigor. Now she reveled in his will to possess her. Every time he thrust deep, he silently proclaimed his love. Bliss overwhelmed the memory of brief pain.

After the night in the music room, she recognized the strange, coiling sensation rippling through her. He shifted in her like mighty waves crashing on a wild beach, driving her higher and higher. Desperate for relief from the ferocious torrent, she whimpered and dug her nails into his shoulders. He shivered in response, but kept torturing her with merciless rapture. Surely she must shatter.

On a sob, she arched up, taking him further into her body to break the unbearable tension. Only to find the tension twisting tighter.

She could endure no more.

This tested every boundary.

He plunged deep and something within her broke free to soar. All the frantic seeking blazed into heat and satisfaction, and joy beyond anything she'd ever imagined.

"Elias!" she cried, arms and legs closing hard around him as she dived and swooped into the flame. He moved choppily in her grasp and m.u.f.fled a guttural groan against the damp skin of her neck. His body hardened and shuddered, and liquid heat flooded her.

For a long time, she lay quivering beneath him as the outside world slowly regained a place in her awareness. She returned to an opulent room and a soft bed and the hot weight of Elias crushing her into fine linen sheets.

Eventually his breathing eased and he rolled off her, separating their bodies. She bit back a whimper. He lashed her to his left side, sliding up on the pillows and drawing the sheet over them.

"Are you all right?" He brushed her tumbled hair back from her face with a tenderness that made her bare toes curl.

She managed a weary, contented smile. "Absolutely wonderful."

Elias dipped his head and kissed her with a sweetness all the more profound for the pa.s.sion that preceded it. When he pulled away, she looked into his eyes and wondered how she'd ever questioned that he loved her.

"I bit you." She strained to see his right shoulder, then blushed to find the mark of her teeth.

"You did. I've married a barbarian." The warmth in his voice indicated he didn't really mind.

"I'm appalled that it might be true."

She stretched to see across his chest. Her muscles protested the movement, a reminder of how powerfully he'd taken her. When she kissed the faint abrasion, his skin tasted of salt and male musk.

How delicious that she'd claimed him in such a carnal way. He was right. She was a barbarian. Who would have thought? She settled back beside him and he wrapped his arm around her, bringing her close.

"You're smiling," he said, cupping her jaw in one hand and idly rubbing his thumb in a line from her ear to her chin.

She touched lips swollen from his kisses. "Am I?"

His hold tightened. "Tell me why."

Beneath her fingertips, she felt her smile widen. "How lovely to know that we can do this for the rest of our lives."

Excitement sparked in his black eyes. "I say we should start as we mean to go on." He shifted until she straddled him, his hands holding her hips. "I've spent months dreaming of having you in my arms. It's time to turn those dreams into reality."

For all her new boldness, she was burningly conscious of her nakedness, although his glittering gaze told her that he loved to look at her. From this angle, she had a breathtaking view of his leanly muscled chest. She intended to discover the rest of him before much longer.

With instinctive sensuality, she shook her hair back from her face. Intoxicating audacity seized her, made her brave. She swung down to share a sumptuous kiss.

"Show me more, my darling."

Epilogue.

Houghton Park, Lincolnshire, August 1836 Elias followed the sound of happy shrieks and laughter through the verdant grounds of the Thorne ancestral seat. He swung open the walled garden's gate and stood under the rose-covered arch to observe his family.

Peter, his oldest son, a tall six-year-old with his mother's deep brown hair, did his best to fight off an attack from his five-year-old brother, Michael, who was the image of his Uncle Harry. The clack of wooden swords echoed off the ancient stone walls. Beyond the dueling boys, Baroness Wilmott did her best to catch the black-haired streak of lightning that was their daughter Selina. His wife's best was, as usual with Selina, not good enough. Elias had often wondered how three-year-old legs could move so fast.

As so often happened, Selina was the first to notice him. "Papa!" she bellowed and veered in his direction to fling herself against his knees in an ecstasy of adoration. He slipped the letter he carried into the inside pocket of his coat and lifted her up.

"Are you teasing your poor mother again, monster?" he asked with a smile.

"She can't catch me," Selina said with a self-satisfaction that made him laugh. "n.o.body can."

"Then what are you doing in my clutches?"

She stared up at him, her black Thorne eyes alight with devilry. "I wanted you to catch me."

"That makes all the difference," he said solemnly.

"I should have married Desborough," Marianne said breathlessly, reaching his side and leaning in for a kiss. "He'd have given me perfect children instead of these h.e.l.lions."

The boys stopped their game and watched their parents curiously. "Perfect children are boring," Peter announced.

"I was a perfect child and I certainly wasn't boring," his mother told him, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

"None of the Thornes were perfect," Elias said.

"And we're all Thornes," Michael said calmly.

"You are indeed," Marianne said. "I blame your regrettable behavior entirely on your father."

"What's gettable?" Selina asked.

"It's a barrel of fun," Elias said.

His wife regarded him with an unimpressed expression. "See if you believe that after they've had you at their mercy all morning."

Elias tightened one arm around his daughter's slight weight and reached to touch his wife's lovely face. "I could handle this lot with my eyes closed."

"I'm sure you could," she said drily. "And you'd only look around when the house collapsed on top of your head."

He glanced down at his children and felt a familiar sensation, as if his heart was so overloaded with love it was likely to burst. "There are kittens in the stables."

Michael, who loved animals above all things, dropped his wooden sword and started to wriggle with excitement. "Bella had her litter?"

"She did."

Marianne looked with fond exasperation at her offspring. "Be gentle with Bella. Take it from me-she's had a very long morning."

"Can we go and see?" Peter asked.

"Yes. I want to talk to your mother."

Michael grimaced with disgust. "That means you're going to kiss her."

Elias laughed. "It does indeed. So run away before you have to witness the horror."

"Come on, Michael," Peter said, taking to his heels and darting through the archway. Michael followed at a gallop.

"Papa, let me down," Selina complained, squirming against him.

"Can I have a kiss first?" Elias asked. "You don't want your mother to have all the fun, do you?"

Selina conquered her impatience long enough to suffer a kiss on the cheek. Usually her father was the most important object in her life, but the lure of Bella's kittens outweighed even Elias's charm. The moment her feet touched the ground, she zipped after her brothers.

"They are h.e.l.lions, aren't they?" Elias said.

"Don't sound so proud of yourself."

He glanced at Marianne with a smile. With her gra.s.s-stained skirts and mane of rich brown hair, she looked something of a h.e.l.lion herself. "You're not really sorry you accepted me and not Desborough, are you?"

"Life would be quieter with him," she said with a straight face, but humor lit her blue eyes to sapphire.

"Peter would say a quiet life, like a perfect child, is boring."

She laughed and came readily to his hand as he swept his arm around her waist and swung her closer. "You look like you've got wicked plans afoot."

"I can't lie to my children."

"Is that so?" She linked her hands behind his neck.

"Indeed. I promised to kiss you, so for honor's sake, I must."

"How n.o.ble," she said faintly then melted against him as he pressed his lips to hers. It was a long time before either spoke.

He raised his head and regarded her with the adoration that had only increased over seven years of marriage. "My G.o.d, I do love you."

She looked as smug as Selina. The years had made many changes, including lending her a self-confidence that he found sinfully arousing. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Just glad?"

She trailed one hand down the side of his face. "All right. Very glad."

"Wench," he said fondly, tightening his grip on her hips.

She glanced around. "The children are occupied elsewhere and we are quite alone, my lord."

Heat surged through him at the prospect of enjoying his wife in this hidden corner of the garden, but as he shifted to bring her closer, the letter in his pocket crackled. "First, I really do want to talk to you." He caught her hand and drew her to a stone bench with moss-covered lion's feet. "Your father's solicitor has written."

Marianne frowned and the laughter faded from her face. "Is my father well?"

Elias settled her beside him on the seat and pa.s.sed her the letter. "See for yourself."

Marianne's hands were unsteady as she unfolded the thick sheet of cream paper. Again, Elias cursed that old trout Baildon for his intransigence.

She'd held her head up through the scandal surrounding their marriage, although when the truth of Tranter's sins emerged, the gossip lost much of its sting. Hardly anyone now remembered the brouhaha at Ferney seven years ago. Hardly anyone, except his wife's bull-headed father.

Although over the last two years, there had been signs of rapprochement.

Lord Baildon had eventually insisted upon seeing his grandchildren, even if in London, never at Elias and Marianne's home. And six months ago, Elias's burgeoning prosperity had sparked a grudging request for financial a.s.sistance with a failing shipping line.

Elias would happily let the dolt stew in his sour pride, but he knew Marianne regretted the estrangement. And when all was said and done, Lord Baildon was his children's sole living grandparent, however cantankerous.

Dazed, Marianne looked up at Elias, the letter resting on her knee. "I'm back in his will. He's restoring my dowry."

"Yes."