Riding St. George was even better the second time than the first.

Cecy didn’t want to climb off Gareth afterwards. It felt marvelous to have his organ inside her, both of them warm, relaxed, sated.

When she’d caught her breath she drew back slightly, resting her forearms on his shoulders, and smiled at him. Her husband. This marvelous man she’d married.

Her gaze was drawn to his shoulder, his arm, that neat, white bandage. Cecy trailed her fingers along his collarbone, halted at his shoulder, and asked, very quietly, “How did it happen?”

Gareth didn’t tense, but he did seem to stop breathing.

“Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

After a moment, Gareth said haltingly. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s that . . . I never have. No one’s wanted to know.”

“I want to know,” Cecy whispered. “If you can bear to tell me.” She stroked his collarbone soothingly. “But only if you want to.”

Gareth was silent for almost a minute, and then he said, “It was after the first charge. I don’t remember much, but I know we were reforming the line, and that Toby and Ned were both missing, and . . .” He took a shallow breath. “I don’t know quite what happened. Something hit me, grapeshot or a musket ball or something. Knocked me off my horse. And there was all this blood, I remember that, but . . . the surgeon said that my arm was shredded, and I don’t remember that. I think I must have hit my head when I fell off my horse.” He was silent for a moment, and then said, “The surgeon took it off, right there on the battlefield. I don’t remember that, either. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up the next day with only one arm.”

His voice caught on those last words. His breath hitched in his throat. He lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes.

Cecy gathered him in her arms. After a moment his breath steadied again. His arm came around her. “I was lucky it happened when it did. If I’d fallen in the middle of a charge, like Toby and Ned, I would have bled to death before anyone found me.”

“Ned? You mean Edward Kane?”

“Yes.”

Cecily remembered the man as she’d last seen him, the terrible scars on his face, the missing fingers. “How would you describe his character?”

“Ned? He’s one of the best men that ever lived. Stayed with me in Brussels until I was able to travel.” Gareth stroked her hip. “I caught a fever, you see. Couldn’t get out of my bed for months.”

He’d had a fever for months? No wonder there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

“Ned wouldn’t leave until I could, too. He’ll find your friend, I’m sure of it. Once he sets his mind to something, he won’t be turned from it. He’s . . . steadfast.”

Cecy wondered whether Mattie wanted Mr. Kane to find her or not.

“How would you describe Miss Chapple?” Gareth asked, and she realized that he probably felt as protective of Mr. Kane as she did of Mattie.

“I would have gone mad at Creed Hall without Mattie,” Cecy told him. “She made it bearable.”

Gareth rubbed his thumb across her skin meditatively. “Those stories she was writing . . .”

“Are they very lewd?”

He gave a laugh. “Yes. Very lewd.”

Cecy considered this for a moment, and then said, “I don’t care. She’s still my best friend.”

His thumb moved on her skin, stroking tiny circles, rhythmic and soothing. “I hope Ned finds her.”

“So do I.”

A comfortable silence fell between them. The shutters rattled slightly. Coals shifted in the grate. The bedchamber was cozy. Cecy’s eyelids drooped. She felt sleepy and happy. Deeply happy. Joy hummed quietly in her veins. She pressed her face into Gareth’s shoulder and inhaled his scent. My husband.

“I’m glad you came to Creed Hall,” she told him.

“So am I. Although, my God, the food.”

Cecy stifled a giggle against his shoulder. “The worst food in England.”

“So Toby always said.” He gave a sigh. “I miss him.”

Cecy had only met Tobias Strickland twice, but she’d liked the man. He’d been full of joie de vivre, nothing at all like his aunt, Lady Marchbank. “I’m sorry he died.”

“So am I,” Gareth said quietly.

They didn’t talk after that. Gareth’s thumb stopped whispering over her skin. After a while, she realized that he’d fallen asleep.

Cecy almost slid into sleep herself, but although it was marvelous to lie on Gareth like this, she thought it would become rather uncomfortable for them both if she did it all night.

Regretfully, she eased herself off him. Gareth stirred and muttered, but didn’t wake.

Cecy knelt for a moment alongside him, gazing at him. Her husband, with his long, lean body and that amputated arm. He looked vulnerable lying there with his eyes closed, his muscles relaxed, the tidy white bandage on his arm. Emotion closed her throat for a moment. I love you, Gareth. I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again.

Cecy reached to pull the bedclothes over them, and realized that a number of candles were still burning in the room. She climbed carefully off the bed, tiptoed across to the mantelpiece and blew out the candle there, tiptoed to the dressing table . . . and saw her closed journal lying in the candlelight. She didn’t need to open it to remember what she’d written.

We are formed so that men enjoy copulation and women do not.

Dear Lord, how wrong she’d been.

Cecy hesitated, torn between blowing out the candle and returning to the bed, and correcting the mistake she’d made. She glanced at Gareth, glanced at the journal, glanced back at Gareth.

Why did it seem so important to erase those words now?

Because to leave those words written, even overnight, felt like a betrayal of everything that she and Gareth had experienced tonight. Not just the pleasure, but the connection they’d forged.

Cecy opened the journal. She reread what she’d written. Some of it—the parts about shyness and embarrassment and nervousness—were still true. The rest of it wasn’t.

Very, very quietly, she tore out the pages and fed them to the fire. She tiptoed back to the bed and carefully drew the covers up over Gareth, then she pulled on her wrap, returned to the dressing table, and sat down. As she dipped the quill in the inkpot she heard a clock distantly strike the hour. Midnight.