Robert returned to the coach and sat with his back to the horses. He and Morwenna had snatched a quick meal in the inn’s private parlor while a new team was harnessed, but neither had been inclined to linger.

“I should send ahead to reserve rooms at the next change,” he said, stretching out his long legs in the space between the seats.

“We’ll find somewhere when we’re tired.” Morwenna looked untroubled. In fact, instead of complaining about the inconvenience of their swift departure, she’d looked increasingly happy as they’d covered the miles toward Leicestershire.

She’d always been a champion girl, ready for adventure. He’d thought her the model of a naval wife. He suspected she’d be equally adept playing the gentleman farmer’s lady, too.

He realized he hadn’t yet told her about his discussion with Silas. “Silas has offered us the tenancy at Belleville.”

Morwenna frowned in thought. “Is that his manor in Devon?”

“Yes. The last tenants have left it in a bit of a state, apparently.”

“Won’t country life strike you as very dull after what you’ve been through?”

“Not at all.” He hid a shudder at the idea of facing more of what he’d just experienced. “It will give us a chance to have a real family life.”

“With Kerenza?”

“Of course with Kerenza.” And God willing, a brood of brothers and sisters. “A peaceful life in the country. Just what I need. Will you come with me?”

“Of course I will. I’ve...I’ve missed you so much, I can hardly bear to let you out of my sight. I think you’re going to have to accept a wife who is inclined to cling.”

“I’ll like that.” He reached forward to grab her hand. Her touch immediately calmed the currents of disquiet running through him. “You’re the one thing in creation right now that isn’t playing on my nerves. Surely you know that.”

Her blue eyes studied him, as if she sought to discover all his secrets. “No, I didn’t.”

“Well, you should,” he said shortly. “It’s only when I’m alone with you that I feel I can breathe. Every other person in this whole damn world, even God forgive me, my family, makes me feel like I’m suffocating.”

“Robert...”

“At least you don’t expect me to be more than I am.”

“I want you to do and be what you wish. In these last years, you’ve had enough freedom stolen from you.”

“A wife beyond rubies,” he murmured, as outside the coachman steered the horses out of the inn yard. The evening drew in, but the long twilight offered them a couple of hours of travel ahead.

“Well, at least a wife who likes the idea of a farming life.”

“You won’t miss London? You looked completely at home in society when I burst in last night.”

He spoke without resentment. Morwenna was always meant to be his. Garson, sadly for him, was a mere distraction. Although Robert had always loved her, this oneness was new. He’d felt it when he was deep inside her body, but the bond persisted beyond passion.

Although passion certainly shored it up.

He was more than ready to shore it up again, although he couldn’t regret the hours they’d spent talking. He’d almost felt like his former self, discussing things typical couples talked about, and not his extraordinary history of abuse and captivity. But as he caught a faint hint of Morwenna’s scent, his cock rose insistently inside his trousers.

“I’ve enjoyed the time in Town, but it’s not my real life. My real life is Kerenza.” She paused and leveled that thoughtful gaze upon him again. “And you, if you’ll let me make it so.”

“I’d be delighted.” He reached over and pulled down the blinds, plunging the carriage into gloom. He went on as though he hadn’t just shut them into a private space ripe for pleasure. When his wife must know exactly what he planned. “So you’ll think about Devon?”

“Is there anywhere else you’d like to go, anything else you’d like to do? Or is it too soon to ask?”

“I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I want. I’m looking forward to retiring somewhere Arcadian with my lovely wife and my angelic daughter.”

As he’d hoped, his small attempt at humor elicited a laugh. In the shadows, now his vision adjusted, he caught the gleam of her eyes. She watched him steadily, the way he’d watched her when they left London. He’d wondered then how long he’d last before he took her into his lap and slid inside her. The idea made his dick twitch with approval.

He went on. “Silas has offered to turn over a wing of Woodley Park. We could stay in Portsmouth, although God knows what employment I’d find. The town must be crawling with captains on half pay, with the country at peace. Or as I’d originally planned, I could use my prize money to buy an estate. If Devon doesn’t appeal to you, we can go somewhere else. But I had a fancy you might like going back to the West Country.”

Robert stopped to draw breath, surprised he’d managed so many words. He’d got out of the habit of talking when he was in prison, where he’d go days without speaking to anyone.

“Let’s see,” she said slowly, clearly considering the options he laid before her. “I’m drawn to a country life. We could try Belleville. If we find the estate unsuitable, we can reconsider our choice. As Silas’s tenants, we can move easily enough.”

“That’s what he said. And if we like it there, he said he’ll sell Belleville to us.”

“How kind he is.”

“He is. Although he warned me the place is in a deuced mess.”

“I’m happy to scrub and clean,” Morwenna said with a hint of wryness. “I don’t come from the same exalted ranks as you do. I’m not afraid of hard work.”

“I hope it won’t come to my wife doubling as the scullery maid. I might be the younger son, but I’m well able to provide for my family.”

My family. How he liked saying that.

He caught the glint of her teeth as she smiled. “What a lot you’ve accomplished in the short time you’ve been back. I’m in awe.”

So was he. Last night he’d lurched into that party like a monster into a feast. He’d looked like a beggar and felt like a ghost. Here he was a mere day later, dressed like a gentleman, on his way to see his daughter, and with the outline of a workable future beginning to appear before him.

A week ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.

Even better, several hours of privacy beckoned. He had a beautiful woman within reach. A beautiful woman he was lucky enough to be married to. “There’s one more thing I want to do before I’ve ticked everything off my list.”

His wife’s low chuckle made his skin prickle. “Your voice goes all low and velvety when you’re thinking about the conjugal act.”

His lips twisted. “Then it’s velvety all the time, because I’m always thinking of getting you under me.”

“It’s...it’s thrilling that you want me.”

“Good,” he said, as burgeoning need defeated his fragile ability to string more than a couple of words together.

“What would you like me to do? Lie down on the seat?”

Her cooperation shot a jolt of heat through him. He lowered his hand to undo his trousers. His cock sprang free, hard and demanding and ready for action. Over the creak of the carriage, Morwenna’s faint squeak of excitement was audible.

“No, not this time. I want you to come here and kneel over me.”

With a rustle of skirts, she scrambled from her seat and arranged herself across his knees. The coach’s lurching made her breathtakingly clumsy. As they dipped into a rut, he caught her by the waist to save her toppling to the floor.

“Dear God in heaven,” he gasped, as sleek feminine folds slid over the hot, tight head of his cock. “You’re not wearing drawers, you naughty girl.”

She shifted to find a more secure position, nudging her knees forward until they closed around his hips. The wriggling meant more wanton, tantalizing touches. He closed his eyes against the explosions going off in his head. He’d imagined he’d take the lead in this encounter. Now his wife’s heart-stopping daring left him not quite so certain about who was in charge.

“Do you mind?” She leaned forward until her body curved against his. The bumpy ride turned the contact into delicious torture, nudging him against her, then away.

“Mind? You make me your slave.”

She gave a husky laugh, and the warm puff of breath against his neck made him shake with need.

“You...mentioned...the carriage...when you...went to...the Admiralty.” Balanced over him as she was, she had to speak in time with the bumping carriage. Bumps that tormented him with the rhythmic slide of her body.

“Yes, then Silas put a spoke in my wheel.”

“I wish you’d put a spoke in my wheel,” she muttered.

Before he could express his shock at her boldness, she shocked him again. She tugged his neck cloth free and scraped her teeth over his neck. He shuddered with response. His hands tightened on her waist, keeping her in place long enough for him to slip a small way inside her. She was lusciously hot and wet.

Delight held him still, or as still as the rattling carriage allowed. “Mrs. Nash, you are a saucy wench. And I love it.”

Almost as much as I love you.

His hold turned ruthless, and he brought her down over him. She muffled a cry against his throat and bit him. The sting intensified the wild sensations rocketing through him. The brazen clench of her muscles. The heat. The closeness.

The love?

She raised her head and leaned back. The shift in pressure threatened to blast him to rapturous oblivion. He stared blindly into shining eyes and lifted a shaking hand to catch the back of her head. He tangled his fingers in her silky mass of hair, bundled up for travel. Clumsy with need, mad with being inside her, he dragged her up until his lips met hers.

Their mouths slammed together in a succulent, open kiss of unabashed sensuality. She squirmed around him, taking him deeper. He felt he drowned in Morwenna. It was a marvelous sensation.

The fast-moving carriage shifted them up and down, and she tugged away from his lips, gasping. For a few dizzying moments, she moved against the carriage’s rise and fall, then in one incandescent instant, she found the rhythm and started to ride him as smoothly as a rider on a cantering horse.

Heat surged through him, and the urge to lift his hips and fill her with his seed was nigh irresistible. But she was enjoying every moment of what they did, whimpering and sighing with rising pleasure. He couldn’t bear to bring the encounter to a quick end.

Somehow he held back, although every satiny glide of her body threatened his resolve. He gulped in a great lungful of air, sharp with the scent of female desire.

She rose high over him, until only the tip of his cock remained inside her. He caught her waist again, afraid she’d fall. He glimpsed wild excitement in her eyes before she closed them and sank down. An expression of greedy bliss lit her lovely face as she took him.

His grip tightened when she raised her hands from his shoulders. “Hold onto me,” she said roughly.

“Always,” he gritted out, tensing every muscle against spending himself in her welcoming womb.

For five years, he’d battled the fear that he was likely to fragment into a thousand jagged shards. But inside Morwenna, he felt complete. Every time their bodies joined, he felt more like the man he’d once been.

She had such magic, his wife.

Morwenna shifted in time with the swaying coach, the dance of her body shooting explosions of light through his head. The movement was so beguiling, it took him a few seconds to notice that she was unbuttoning her green merino pelisse. He frowned as it fell open to reveal the darker green dress beneath. The bodice was demure, fastening high to the white lace collar. The contrast with her bare arse beneath her dress made him jerk his hips upward in a surge of desire.

She gave a broken laugh. “Don’t move just yet.”

“You’re driving me utterly insane,” he growled, flexing his fingers in the thick material of her skirts. He desperately wanted to touch her, but he feared she’d tumble into the well between the seats if he let her go.

“That was the plan,” she said. “If I hold your shoulders, can you undo me?”

He wondered if she meant undo in the carnal sense, then his reeling senses focused on one detail that he should have noted before.

Unlike the gown she’d worn at breakfast, this dress fastened up the front with a row of carved wooden buttons.

“God in heaven...” he grated out.

“Is that yes?”

How the hell could she sound so lucid, when she squeezed his cock so sumptuously? He made an incoherent sound of agreement. Too incoherent.

She caught his shoulder with one hand and fiddled with her top button. “Because I can do it, if you’d rather.”

“Damn it, Morwenna, you have no idea how I...”

Words failed him, as these days they were wont to do. She curled her hands over his shoulders and settled more securely on his lap, an action that nearly blew the top of his head off. The urge to rip the damned dress to shreds rose, but he bit it back.

For years, memories of her beautiful breasts had filled his dreams. So often he’d woken from restless sleep with his hands curled to shape those luscious curves. He’d loved her breasts from the first moment he saw them, a shameful fortnight before their wedding. When they’d been lawfully wed, he’d lavished endless attention on them.

Forcing back his need to spill into her, he began to unbutton the dress. It seemed sacrilege to fall on her like a starving man fell on a loaf of bread. But even so, he couldn’t stop his hands shaking.

Control, man, control.

The collar parted to reveal a strip of pale white skin. He leaned in and placed a tender kiss where her pulse throbbed at the base of her neck.

Then Robert returned his attention to the buttons. Only half a dozen, but they felt like an infinite line.

Another free. More white skin.

Another.

He frowned. Perhaps female undergarments had radically changed since he’d been away. But shouldn’t he see a shift and a corset by now? She’d certainly worn stays under that fetching blue gown last night, when she’d tortured him with the unlacing.

Torture? He hadn’t known the meaning of the word. This was torture indeed. Morwenna heaving over him in a speeding carriage while he negotiated these pestilential buttons.

A line of creamy skin extended from her neck to the high waist. And no shred of linen between her and the air. Every drop of moisture evaporated from his mouth. Anticipation sizzled through him.

“Did you forget all your undergarments this morning?” he asked, loosening the last button.

“Oops,” she said breathlessly.

The effort of resisting his climax already had his heart crashing against his ribs. Now it performed a somersault. “Let me make sure.”

He spoke lightly, but he felt like he revealed a sacred mystery when he caught the edges of her bodice and slowly parted them. The shadowy valley widened under his gaze until curves rose on either side. His shaking intensified, and he licked his lips.

Quickly he raised his eyes to find her watching him with no hint of teasing. Her lips were full and glistening after their kisses. He kissed her briefly, then slid the dress aside to reveal her bare bosom.

“Morwenna...”

Again words failed him. In the gloom, her breasts were extraordinarily beautiful. White, fuller than he remembered. Hard, pink nipples like ripe raspberries.

Sighing in homage, he cupped her right breast and bent to draw that pert nipple between his lips. These lush breasts had suckled his child. The idea blazed through him like wildfire.

She started, and a gasp of pleasure escaped her. Her taste filled his head. Sweet woman. A hint of salt.

He tongued her nipple against his teeth, then gently bit down, glorying in how she shivered. She closed tighter around him. He scraped his teeth across the beaded peak, and this time, the ripples inside her tipped over into full climax.

She bit back a cry, and stretched into him, shuddering. He reveled in her pleasure, even as his balls tightened to the point of pain.

He gave her left nipple the same attention, as he rolled the other between thumb and forefinger. She whimpered, and he sucked harder until she lost herself again. She’d always had supremely sensitive nipples, but this ability to reach her peak when he kissed her breasts was new.

“Oh, Robert...” she sighed, voice husky with sensual satisfaction.

He couldn’t hold back much longer. He squeezed her breasts, loving how they filled his hands. Then he reached down and caught her hips in a ruthless grip. The gentle friction of her body against his became a pleasure too tantalizing.

“Hold on,” he grunted, tensing his loins.

She jerked in his arms, then remarkably he felt her claim another peak. As her broken cry echoed around the carriage, he moved inside her until the world turned to fire. The surge started in his feet and flooded upward, through his aching balls. He filled her with every drop of his essence, while she trembled through the last of her rapture.

He snapped the bonds of earth and soared into some new world. Even after he was drained, his hips kept jerking. He couldn’t bear this bliss to end.

Finally he collapsed against the seat and hauled her into his arms. He was still inside her, and they were both shaking. In the aftermath to those transcendent minutes, he felt her wriggle up to kiss him under the jaw.

“Welcome home, my darling,” Morwenna whispered.