Page 112 of The Masterful Mr. Montague

She could never question the rightness of this—could not doubt the sense of falling in with destiny as she let him lead her into his bedroom and close the door.

What followed . . . was a reflection of them, of who they were, the straightforward, honest, and true people they knew no other way to be. They offered themselves up—to each other, to the glory that erupted and swept through them.

In the soft sheets of his bed, in the soft light of a long, autumn afternoon, they found each other, and discovered themselves.

Discovered a wider view of all they could be—of all they could aspire to claim.

Passion and joy, heat and desire, and the culminating cataclysm of ecstasy—they found them all on that golden afternoon, found, seized, and made them theirs.

And when, at the end, Violet settled in his arms—a Violet unbridled, her lustrous hair rippling in a silken mass over his chest and arms—he smiled. On his back, eyes drifting closed, he recalled an earlier thought. “Before I met you and all this”—with a slight wave, he indicated them and their togetherness—“came about, I never thought of myself as a man of action. But courtesy of you, and all that’s followed, I’ve discovered that when the need is there—”

“You very much rise to the occasion.” She chuckled, soft and low.

He could feel the curve of her lips against his chest. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t going to put it quite like that.”

“That’s why I said it—I knew you wouldn’t.” She shifted; lifting her head, she looked into his face. Smiled. “You haven’t surprised me—I saw you, your potential, clearly from the first. You’re the man I’ve been waiting all my life to find, and now I’ve found you and claimed you . . .” Stretching up, she touched her lips to his. “I’m never going to let you go.”

As she eased down again, into the hollow by his side—a space, it seemed, perfectly fashioned for her—he tightened his arms around her. “Just as well, because you’re everything to me.”

Settling, she sighed happily, then spread her hand over his heart and lightly patted. “My Heathcote.”

He smiled. Through the last hours, she’d said his name several times—gasped it, moaned it, sighed it . . .

Nestling his cheek against her hair, he closed his eyes.

Hearing her call him by his given name had already become his most treasured dividend.