Page 81 of Blame It on the Earl (The Duke's Estates 3)

Sarah choked on a laugh. “He promised he wouldn’t intrude upstairs.”

“I don’t think he actually understands that concept. Nor Jowan either.”

“We will have to teach him. Jowan, I mean. Merlin is…”

“Intractable. And I don’t wish to talk about him right now.” He straightened and came back to her, stopping so close it seemed she could feel the heat of his skin.

“What do you wish to talk about?” Sarah murmured.

“Nothing! That is, I don’t wish to talk.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Sarah.”

She heard yearning in his voice. She could not be mistaken. She reached up and laced her arms around his neck. Their lips met in a searing kiss.

He pulled her tight against him as the kiss went on and on.

Desire blazed through Sarah, all the more urgent for having been thwarted so long. She arched up to meet him.

His hands roamed her body. She felt they ought to give off sparks, they were so enflaming.

No knock came, no nagging voice intervened to pull them apart. There was only the slight clumsiness of unfastening their clothes, and then they fell onto the sheets they had smoothed together.

“Scandalous things,” Sarah murmured as her husband touched her more intimately than she’d ever been touched before.

“What?” he murmured.

She replied with a kiss, and then a moan of pleasure and surprise. They called it consummation, an errant part of her brain observed. Devoutly to be wished, Hamlet had said. But no, that was about something else entirely. And then, for perhaps the first time in Sarah’s life, sensation drowned out every vestige of thought.

Kenver had learned ways to please a woman in London. He suspected that his uncle had arranged these encounters with willing older ladies for this purpose. And he was glad now that he could rouse Sarah and make her arch up for his touch and pant with desire. But he also found that this lovemaking was sweeter than any of those had ever been. The weeks of thwarted desire had driven him nearly mad. Yet the time had let them grow closer in other ways. He knew not only Sarah’s luscious, rounded curves but so many endearing things about her. She was idolized by dogs. She had an endless store of arcane facts, many of which were fascinating. She was patient and courageous. As they—finally!—came together as man and wife, his tender feelings were as powerful as his release.

Kenver’s body was hers to enjoy now, Sarah thought, as they nestled together in the aftermath of passion. She could do as she pleased. She could run her fingers down his chest so far and no farther, teasing and tantalizing. She could smooth back his dark hair. She could learn what he liked because he moaned with pleasure when she found it, which was gratifying and thrilling. It was lovely to discover this new power to enthrall. Surely now all would be well in their inadvertent marriage.

It was difficult to find a routine when each detail of life was a new challenge, Kenver thought. He’d never had to consider currycombs for his horses or shaving soap, for example, still less furniture polish and cleaning rags or utensils like mixing bowls. Householding seemed to encompass so very many small objects. Some appeared mysteriously a day or two after they had been mentioned. He suspected that Elys had a clandestine source at Poldene who sent them along, and he couldn’t decide whether he was grateful or embarrassed about this. Others were more complicated, and a few seemed impossible, for now.

Some things could be settled, at least. Kenver and Sarah took their meals in the dining room. The three young servants ate in the kitchen, declaring they preferred this. Merlin hovered by the back door like a stray dog, quickly learning the best times to linger for a handout, which he was always given. Since he continued to tend the vegetable garden, from which they clearly benefited, it seemed mean to refuse him a share of their other supplies. But Kenver found his continuing presence uncomfortable.

Kenver curtailed his riding over the Poldene estate, not knowing what his father might have said about his move. But word spread, as it generally did in the country, and people from there began to come to Tresigan to speak with him, as they were accustomed to doing on his rounds. He soon set up a sort of auxiliary estate office in the small front room to receive them and deal with their requests and problems.

He made arrangements with people in the neighborhood who could supply firewood and farm products and staples. He pitched in on tasks that he’d never had to do before and admired Sarah’s conviction that they were having an adventure even as he wished to give his wife more than this. She deserved an established, respected position in his family and their social circle. For all the discomfort, he had the compensation of his wife in his arms each night. At last. A joy she seemed to welcome as enthusiastically as he did. They explored the realms of physical passion together, and Kenver felt like the questing knight who had honorably won his fair maiden and was amply rewarded.

He also discovered a new delight—warm, intimate conversations in bed with Sarah tucked in the curve of his arm.

“Do you think you could take a milk cow from Poldene?” she asked him on a sultry night as September began.

“You wish me to become a cattle thief?” he asked, breathing in the flowery scent of her hair.

“But would it really be stealing? Don’t heirs sometimes borrow against their future inheritances?”

“Are you speaking of post-obit bonds? A very dodgy practice, my dear Sarah. I would ask where you heard of them, but I know by now that you must have read it somewhere.”

“In a novel,” she replied, sounding a bit guilty.

“Aha.”

“The villain was urging the hero to use them to forward his schemes.”

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