It was late. Dinner had long since been cleared away, and Garson and Jane shared the oak settle before the fire. He finished his port and set the empty glass on the table. After an active day, he was pleasantly weary. Jane had been eager to see as much of Wilton House as she could and had even hauled him across the wintry grounds to visit the famous Palladian Bridge.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly from beside him.

It was the kind of question lovers asked. Anyone looking at them would assume they shared a bed. They sat hip to hip, and he absently stroked her hand as he stared into the flames.

Since this morning’s impulsive kiss, he hadn’t gone past holding her hand. A change was in the air, but he still feared pushing Jane too far too fast—as he had their first night—and tearing the filigree net drawing them inexorably together. A woman’s trust was both fragile and exquisite.

“I’m thinking how you’ll love Italy.”

“I’ll be so wide-eyed, I’ll drive you mad, I suspect.”

He gave a soft huff of laughter. “I’ll bear up.”

“Such a hero.”

“You have no idea.”

“You certainly bore up today when I made such a fuss about all the treasures we saw. What a lovely house.”

“Yes, I’ve always liked it.”

“It’s been the nicest day.” To his surprise, she turned her hand and laced her fingers through his. “Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure.” Another surprise. It had been. Showing Jane around Wilton House had been fun.

She drew her hand away. “And now it’s time for bed,” she said softly.

Although her announcement heralded nothing more than the sleep of the innocent, his blood heated. He gave his masculine instincts a stern order to step back. There was no reason to get excited. He didn’t even have a kiss to anticipate. “What would you like to do in the morning?”

“Let’s see what the weather brings.” She rose and smoothed her skirts. Another dreary dress. He couldn’t wait to see his Jane in some real color. “Are you coming?”

Devil take her. These damned ambiguous remarks asked for trouble. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her fine russet brows drew together. “Aren’t you going to…sleep with me?”

There was no point telling his dick that she really did mean sleep. He ground his teeth and prayed for patience. Surely by now, Jane knew that teasing him like this verged on cruelty. How his debauched friends would fall around laughing, if they found out Hugh Rutherford’s bride was still a virgin five days after his wedding.

“No, I’m damn well not.”

His tetchy answer made her jerk back. “Don’t you want to?”

“You know I bloody want to.” Garson lurched to his feet, the evening’s peace shattering as if it had never existed. “I might have held you in my arms pure as an angel last night, but nothing this side of heaven can make me do that again.”

The somber gray gaze settled on him, as he struggled to control his temper. She was too inexperienced to understand what she put him through. When she licked her lips, Garson swallowed a groan. This was agony.

“I’m not asking you to do that again, Hugh,” she said calmly. She raised her chin. “I’m asking you to make me your wife.”

For what felt like an age, Hugh stared at her as if he didn’t understand. Once she spoke the words, she’d expected him to sweep her into his arms and through to the bedroom. Preferably kissing her, so she didn’t have to think too hard about what was about to happen.

“Are you sure?” His growl wasn’t reassuring, and he still didn’t touch her.

“I was.” Irritation fought its way up through an ocean of bewilderment. “You’ve been trying to bed me for days. I can’t believe you’re dithering like an old woman deciding on green tea or black.”

To her relief, a spark of humor lit his dark eyes. “Green tea or black?”

“Yes,” she said steadily. To her vast relief, he no longer looked like she’d struck him with an ax. “Fussing and fretting and asking for something, then deciding you don’t want it after all.”

The spark in his eyes flared into a blaze. As that glittering gaze focused on her, she gave a long, sensuous shiver, and her heart performed acrobatics.

“I want it.” He took a pace toward her. “By God, I want it.”

She licked her lips again, and for the first time said the words that had been true since their wedding night. Powerful words, expressing a powerful feeling. That very power had once turned her to ice. But no longer. “And I want you.”

At last, he seized her in his arms. “My beautiful wife, you make me so happy.”

By now, she should be used to his kisses, but perhaps because this kiss wasn’t an end unto itself, but the beginning of a passionate journey, it felt different. Hungrily she kissed him back, twining her arms about him and pressing as close as she could.

He turned around, almost waltzing her into the bedroom where last night, she’d slept in his arms. Tonight she’d lie in his arms again, but she suspected there wouldn’t be much sleep involved. He set her on her feet near the bed.

With greedy hands, she ripped at his neck cloth and cast it away. “I wanted to tell you first thing this morning.”

He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and tore at the buttons on his cream brocade waistcoat. “I wasn’t fit for you then.”

She knocked his hands out of the way and pushed the waistcoat off, letting it drop to the floor with his coat. “What about now?”

He kissed her as if he starved. When he raised his head, the light in his eyes made her shiver again. What a long way she’d come in these few days. This unabashed passion would have sent the girl who married him fleeing for the hills.

“I’m burning up with wanting you.” He kicked off his shoes and grasped her shoulders to turn her round so fast, her head swam. “Why are you wearing so many damned clothes?”

“Because I like to make your life difficult,” she said, wondering who this smart-mouthed wench was. It certainly wasn’t prim Jane Norris.

“Then congratulations, it’s working,” he grunted, tearing at her laces so roughly that her body jerked. “That bloody maid should be shot for trussing you up like a Christmas goose.”

Jane was panting, and her hands opened and closed at her sides as she fought the urge to tell him to forget about undressing her and just throw her on her back. “Tear it,” she said in a strained voice.

He didn’t query the command. She heard rending fabric, and air brushed across the bare skin of her back and shoulders. She wriggled to pull the long sleeves down and twisted her hips until the ruined gray gown puddled at her feet.

“Shall I tear the corset too?”

“No, I’ll unhook it from the front.” She turned to face him, as her shaking hands unfastened her plain corset and dropped it to the floor.

Hugh looked like a man on the edge of disintegration. How she loved that what happened between them was so important to him. She watched hungrily as he tugged his shirt over his head and sent it flying into the corner. That magnificent chest was just as breathtaking as she remembered from last night.

This time, she didn’t have to hold back from touching him. She ran seeking hands down those ridges of hard muscle. His trousers didn’t do much to hide the hardest part of all. The way he responded to her had once been terrifying. No longer.

He caught her by the waist, grabbing handfuls of linen shift, and hauled her closer until her breasts met his chest. She stroked his powerful back, feeling the subtle shift of muscle under her palms. More ruthless kisses that left her shaking with excitement. The heat of his mouth, his blatant need, made the blood pound between her legs. Dark, irresistible desire churned in her belly, as her body turned hot and liquid.

On their wedding night, she’d started to feel like this, as though she lost her footing in a raging sea. It had scared her into running away. She’d felt like this when he’d touched her in the carriage, and she’d discovered that these intoxicating responses were the gateway to blazing sensation.

Tonight instead of recoiling from the flames, she flung herself forward, seeking immolation.

With a groan, Hugh tore his lips from hers and scraped his teeth down the sensitive skin of her neck. A dizzy, quivery feeling gushed through her, and her knees turned to water.

“Oh,” she gasped, tilting her hips toward his erect rod. He groaned again and bit her neck. The faint sting sharpened her arousal. As her body convulsed, she dug her fingernails into his back.

He rubbed her loose shift up and down her bottom, creating a teasing friction. Then he edged a few inches away and tugged the shift over her head. That left her wearing filmy white drawers, black satin shoes, and white stockings gartered at the knee. She wasn’t naked, quite, but she felt like she was.

Hugh’s eyes flared as they focused on her breasts. Her nipples, already tight and aching, hardened to the brink of pain. Her hands fluttered toward her chest, before she deliberately forced them back to her sides. It took courage to face him without concealment, but she refused to be frightened. Fear had already stolen too much time.

His gaze lifted to meet hers. What she found there moved her to the depths of her soul. His expression held endless wonder.

“You’re a goddess, Jane.” The awe in his voice clutched at her heart. “I’ve wanted to see you like this for so long.” The humor she loved creased the skin around his eyes. “Or perhaps more like this.”

Trembling, she waited for him to touch her breasts, but instead, he drew one pin from her upswept hair, then another. A long tress snaked down over her shoulder to curl over her bare breast.

“Shall I let my hair down?” she asked huskily.

He still looked like he witnessed a miracle. The power she pretended to possess became real power. She might be inexperienced, but with Hugh spellbound in her presence, she was his equal.

“No, let me,” he said gruffly. “I’ve dreamed of your hair.”

He’d dreamed of her? The discovery pierced like a knife. That insistent demand between her legs heightened, made her feel hollow and hungry. Only Hugh could fill her emptiness. Only Hugh could feed her craving.

He undid her hair, taking his time to untangle each lock until the red mane tumbled around her shoulders. The silky drift of hair across her nipples added a new level of sensation. As he took out each pin, he murmured praise. A nonsense litany. Lovely. Beautiful. Pretty. Soft. Shining.

The way he absorbed every detail made her feel precious. She felt like he was the first person who truly saw her. His unwavering concentration on her was extraordinarily powerful. Absurd tears pricked at her eyes. His passion was a mighty force indeed, but this quiet tenderness threatened to shatter her.

When he turned his attention to her breasts, a moan broke from her lips. He stroked and squeezed her until she quivered. “Please…”

A smile hovered about his lips as he cupped her breasts. Through the rising fever, she saw what he was doing. “You’re teasing me, you devil.”

“And myself.” He raised eyes so dark, they were almost black. The desire she saw in his face made her heart somersault. Desire that had built over days of dancing closer, then away, then closer once more.

The dance ended now. Her heart thumped so hard, each beat made her shake. She set her hands on his shoulders and leaned forward. “Kiss me there.”

Another flare of heat in his eyes before he bent his ruffled dark head to take one nipple between his lips. She’d reached such a pitch of arousal that the kiss felt like a whiplash. Heat flashed through her, and a broken cry escaped. She jerked, when he flicked his tongue against the exquisitely sensitive tip, then drew hard.

Feverishly his hands traveled across her back, then shaped her bottom. Her drawers sagged and through the storm of pleasure, she realized he’d untied them. The next time he touched her, he stroked bare skin.

Panting, he raised his head from her breast. Adamant hands curved under her bottom and hitched her off her feet and up, until her mound crushed against him. She shuddered as she met his hot flesh through the fine wool of his trousers.

Jane cried out again, her secret places clenching on absence instead of him. This yearning became torture. He groaned and bumped forward, building her arousal. She grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around him, so the pressure shifted to between her thighs. As her sex jammed into him, a wave of searing pleasure tightened every nerve.

“Please, Hugh…” she begged incoherently.

“Soon,” he groaned and still carrying her, he walked toward the bed. It was only a few feet, but with her curled around him, each step created exquisite torment. By the time he swept back the covers and laid her on the sheets, she was gasping and quaking. He set her down as if she was likely to break with the slightest bump.

Hugh quickly slid her stockings and shoes off, then stepped back to rip off his trousers. When Jane saw him naked, the breath crammed in her throat. He was splendid. Massive and powerful, like some mighty force of nature. She remembered how on their wedding night, she’d thought he looked like Zeus. She hadn’t been far wrong.

The moisture dried from her mouth and stopped her speaking. Or perhaps his male beauty struck her speechless. Still, after a couple of tries, she managed a few words. “Hugh, we’ve waited long enough.”

He set one knee on the bed and straddled her. The last time she’d been under him, she’d panicked. This time, she stared up into eyes the color of strong coffee and held his arms to keep him exactly where he was.

To her surprise, she was smiling. “Don’t wait anymore.”