He turned her onto her back at last, came over her, spread her legs wide with his own, and slid his hands beneath her while his weight came down on her, almost robbing her of breath but not of need. And she felt him at the most sensitive part of herself, seeking, circling, settling. He came into her. She inhaled slowly and deeply, feeling the hardness of him opening her, stretching her, hurting her, coming deep and deeper, the sharpness of the pain gone, until she was filled with him and filled with wonder.

At last. Ah, at last! At last.

He held still for a few moments and then took some of his weight on his forearms while he gazed down at her, his eyes heavy with an expression she had not seen there before.

“I am sorry,” he murmured.

For the pain? “I am not,” she said. She would have endured a great deal more of it in order to have this—this joining of her body to a man’s, this knowledge that after all she could be fully a woman and fully a person too.

He lowered his head to the pillow beside her own then and began to withdraw from her. Please don’t, she wanted to say but did not. She was glad a moment later, for he paused at the brink of her and pressed inward again—and then again and again until his movements were firm and swift and rhythmic. And of course. Oh, of course. She was not an utter ignoramus. She had occasionally observed the animal kingdom, and it was not so very different for humans. This was what happened. This was the consummation, the lovemaking, and it would happen again and again in the nights and weeks and years ahead. This was how they would be man and wife. This was how they would get sons and daughters. She concentrated upon experiencing every strange and new sensation, upon listening to the unexpected wetness of it and their labored breathing, upon breathing in the surprisingly enticing smells of sweat and something else unmistakably carnal, upon seeing dark hair mingling with her own and his muscled shoulders just above her own and his rhythmically moving body as he worked in her.

This, she told herself with very deliberate exultation at last, when the ache of need and pleasure flowed in tandem with her blood, was her wedding night. Their wedding night. The first night of their marriage. She was glad she had decided to trust him, not just on the issue of money, but in everything. It would be a good marriage.

After what might have been many long minutes or only a few—time had become meaningless—his movements turned swifter and more urgent until they stopped suddenly when he was deep inside and she felt a gush of liquid heat and knew with only a slight pang of regret that it was over. But only for now. There would be other times. They were married and he was the one who had suggested that they share a room and a bed.

He made a sound of male satisfaction that did not translate into words, relaxed his full weight onto her again, and—if she was not mistaken—fell promptly asleep. The thought amused her and she smiled. He must weigh a ton. But she did not want him to wake up.

Alexander was not sleeping. He had just allowed himself the self-indulgence of total relaxation after his exertions even though he was aware that he must have been crushing her. It had been a long time. Too long. And now he had settled for less than his dream. But that was a disloyal thought, and he moved off to her side and pulled the bedcovers up about them. He felt too lazy to get out of bed to snuff the candles. Her face was turned toward him, shadowed by the flickering candlelight, her dark hair in disarray about her head and over her shoulder and one breast. It made her look much younger and more obviously feminine than usual.

He wondered if he had made the right decision in persuading her to make his bedchamber and his bed her own too. It seemed, strangely, like more of a commitment than simply marrying her had been this morning. It was a loss of privacy, of somewhere to retreat that was entirely his own. But he could no longer think that way and would not. He had made the decision when he offered her marriage. No half measures. No harking back to a dream that could never now be fulfilled. But then most dreams were like that. That was why they were called by that name.

He must get used to having her here in his bed, partly because he did have needs—as did she—but more because he had duties to his title and position over and above the financial ones. Cousin Eugenia, the dowager countess, had stated it baldly not so long ago. There was a great dearth of heirs in the Westcott family. He was it, in fact, yet he was not even the heir. He was the incumbent. If he were to die before producing at least one son, the family tree would have to be climbed to the very topmost branches in order to discover another more fruitful branch, or else the title would have to pass into abeyance. It was his duty to beget several sons and, he hoped, some daughters. He liked the idea of daughters. Yet his wife was almost thirty. They could not delay.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“I did not mind,” she said, though she did not deny it. But no, she would not. She had wanted to be married. She wanted children too. If she had ever dreamed of romantic, passionate love, she too had made the decision to settle for a quieter substitute. It was not necessarily a bad thing. It was not without hope.

“I do not believe it will happen again,” he said. “The pain, I mean.”

“No.”

“Was I very heavy?” he asked.

“Alexander,” she said. “I was well pleased. I thought all men above a certain age were experienced enough not to feel such anxieties.”

Good God! He was very glad of the dim, flickering light. He was quite possibly blushing. He had not been a virgin tonight. He had had one very satisfactory lover ten years ago when he was at Oxford. She had been a tavern keeper—not one of the barmaids, but the owner herself, a widow twenty years his senior and buxom and hearty and affectionate and very, very skilled in bed. Not that he had had anyone with whom to compare her, it was true, but he had not doubted at the time and did not doubt now that she had been the very best teacher any young man could possibly wish for. They had parted on the best of terms after he graduated, and there had been very few women since then. For one thing, he had been busy at Riddings Park. For another—well, finding women of easy virtue, an unkind euphemism for women who were forced to sell their bodies in order to eat, had always seemed distasteful to him.

“You see,” he said, “it has always seemed a bit sordid to engage in casual liaisons.”

“So I have rescued you from a life of near celibacy, have I?” she asked him.

This was a strange conversation. “You have indeed,” he said. “Wren, thank you for marrying me … without a marriage contract. Thank you for trusting me.” According to the law, everything that had been hers, including her very person, was now his. And if that was a disturbing thought even to him, what must it be to her?

She did not say anything for a while but merely gazed at him. “I learned trust at the age of ten,” she said. “It was a bit like jumping out of an upstairs window while someone stood below, holding no more than a pillow while the house burned down behind me. I put my faith in the person who saved me and learned that trust and knowing whom to trust are among the most important qualities anyone can cultivate. Without trust there is … nothing. A contract would have made me feel that perhaps I ought to have a little bit of doubt, and I chose not to entertain that fear.”

He gazed at her for a long while, wondering if she intended to continue, to tell him what it was in her life that had been like a house burning down behind her. But she did not say any more.