Page 142 of A Much Maligned Miss

His hips snapped forward and he started moving at a brisk pace. “I won’t last long,” he gritted out. “Just bear with me.”

Caroline watched the various emotions flitting across his face. They seemed to range from sweet torture to rapture and back again. She must feel amazing to him, she thought with gratification. She was a little surprised when he reached down behind her knee, bringing her leg up. “How is this?” he panted.

She opened her mouth to assure him it was fine, when suddenly the angle of his thrusts changed and she had to catch her breath. “Oh! Oh, Gervaise.”

“There?” he asked, redoubling his efforts. Suddenly his movements all made terrible, awe-inspiring sense. She felt him everywhere, deep inside her, her heart was full to bursting with him. Her fingers scrabbled at his shoulders until he caught her hands in his, pinning them to the bed beside her head, threading his fingers through hers.

Suddenly, it was all too much, it overwhelmed her, their laboring bodies, their skin on skin, his burning gaze. Caroline cried out and Gervaise fell forward, burying his face in her neck. She heard his strangled, drawn-out groan. It was somehow loud yet muffled at the same time.

Once she had caught her breath and her thundering heartbeat had evened out, she reached up to pet his hair. “Oh, well done,” she murmured in assurance. “That was very well done.”

He pulled back his head to look at her, then gave a breathless laugh. “Just tell me that you love me,” he wheezed, collapsing onto his back beside her. “I’m begging you at this point.”

“Have I not said so already?” she asked in surprise.

“No. You have not, my stern preceptress.”

“But of course I do, Gervaise. I love you so very, very much.”

He heaved a satisfied sigh and insinuated his arm between her head and the pillow. “Finally,” he said.

58

“Do I look like a maenad right now?” Caroline asked. “Wild and wanton?” It had to be around midnight and she was still naked under the sheets. No one had knocked to disturb them and they had spent the last three hours in each other’s arms. It had been glorious.

“Yes.” Gervaise was propped up on one elbow, smoking a cigarette. He reached over with his free hand to smooth her long dark hair over the pillow. He could not seem to stop touching her and Caroline did not mind it one bit.

“Does it bother you that others have seen me like this? In the painting, I mean?” she added swiftly when his eyebrows rose.

“Yes, at least… No. Not as much as I would have expected.” he admitted, looking thoughtful. “Truthfully, I rather like showing you off and displaying you to the populace at large. I thought I would hate seeing you in those flaunting gowns I ordered for The Citadel but…I didn’t. I didn’t hate it at all. I liked it.”

“I only got to wear one of them,” Caroline pointed out regretfully. “The scarlet one with the jet beads. I would like to have worn the others.”

“Don’t worry, you will,” Gervaise said, flicking ash into a saucer. “We will visit The Citadel often. I know how fond you are of the place. And its inhabitants,” he added as an afterthought.

“Really?” She sat up, clutching a sheet to preserve her modesty. “I thought Lady Atherton would never darken the doorstep of such a place.”

“Yes, I did not realize she would be such a dazzling creature,” he said, regarding her with lazy appreciation.

A sudden suspicion entered her head. “You thought I would shrink from wearing such revealing gowns, did you not?” she guessed.

He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he admitted, a rueful smile curving his lips.

She tutted. “Was that another part of your plan to have me scrambling for respectability?”

His breathing hitched. “Yes, damn it.” He stubbed out his cigarette and shifted down the bed, pulling her into his arms.

“So devious…” she murmured.

“Yet you foiled all my plans.”

Caroline laughed softly. “Your goose is cooked, my lord,” she said, dreamily tracing her initials on his chest. CMH. “You have met your match.”

“Those aren’t your initials anymore,” Gervaise corrected her. She looked at him in surprise. He was right, of course. CML she wrote instead. “That’s better,” he murmured with satisfaction. He liked the proprietary act it seemed.

“Aren’t you going to ask what the M stands for?” she asked.

“I already know. I saw how you signed the marriage register at St. Catherine’s.” He was not remotely cavalier toward her anymore, she realized. Maybe he never really had been. She did not think she could have a more attentive husband.