Running her fingertips beneath the flap of his lapel, gazing into his eyes with clear intent, she whispered, “I think we ought toleave this party. These children will run you ragged otherwise, and I need you to have some of your strength left.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You wish to return home?”
“I wish to be alone with you,” she replied, desire smoldering in her veins.
A smirk lifted one corner of his lips. “Very well, my love.” He pressed an infuriatingly chaste kiss to her cheek. “But what of your brother and sister?”
“I have already asked Mrs. Mullens and Mr. Jarvis to bring them home in an hour or two,” she said thickly. “They are having fun; there is no reason they should not stay and enjoy themselves, while we return.”
“To enjoyourselves?”
She grinned. “Precisely.”
“In that case…” Adrian weaved her arm through his and, with a cursory wave to anyone who happened to be watching, he led his betrothed out of the town hall to the waiting carriage.
From there, it was but a short journey back to Blackwall Castle, back to the place she now called home.
EPILOGUE
The couple burst through the front doors of the castle, their lips locked in a frenzied dance of unbridled desire. Valerie stumbled backward as Adrian pressed her forward, one arm grasped tight around her waist to keep her balanced while the other cradled the back of her neck.
Most of the servants were at the party, meaning no one would witness their ardor. Indeed, though the party had been stressful to organize, she was nowverythankful that she had not refused to arrange it.
“We can… wait for the wedding night,” Adrian murmured as he kissed his way down her throat, before catching her mouth once more in an urgent graze.
She moaned her protest against his lips. “No… no, I do not want to wait anymore.” Her fingertips slid into his hair, tugging gently. “Do you intend to change your mind and jilt me?”
“What?” He paused, staring at her. “No.”
“Then, there is no difference,” she said breathlessly. “In my mind, we are… as good as married.”
He smiled. “Well then, wife, let us not wait any more.”
She squealed as he hoisted her up into his arms, her legs locking around his waist as he carried her. At first, she thought he meant to take her all the way up the narrow stone staircase to her bedchamber, so it was a rather thrilling surprise when he turned down one of the hallways instead.
All the while, he kissed her, his mouth flitting between her lips, her throat, her neck, her cheeks, her brow, her collarbone, kissing every speck of bare skin he could find. She kissed him back in kind, her mouth savoring the rough friction of his stubble, the corded lines of his neck, the broad shelf of his collarbone, the triangle of bare, warm skin where she had already thrown away his cravat and loosened his collar in the carriage.
Indeed, they had kissed all the way from town, but nothing more. An exercise in anticipation and exquisite torture that was finally coming to fruition.
Down the same hallway that she had stumbled along on her first night in the castle, helplessly trying to find Mr. Jarvis, Adrian kicked open the door to the library.
“My love,” he growled against the curve where her neck met her shoulder, his teeth nipping a gentle bite. “You are still my torment.”
She smiled, running her hands through his hair. “Still?”
“Yes, love, for I doubt I shall ever get enough of you,” he murmured, as he kicked the door shut behind him and carried her to the chaise-longue.
But he did not lay her down. Instead, he set her on her feet, his hands tugging at the ribbon around her waist. Once loose, he tossed it to the floor, the thin fabric fluttering down.
As they crashed together in a fresh frenzy of kisses, he grasped the skirts of her gown and raised the garment up, not slow and restrained, but eager for his torment to be over. In perfect agreement, Valerie fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, his tailcoat left behind in the carriage.
“There are altogether too many buttons,” she laughed, as she tore his shirt off him and threw it across the chaise, before reaching for the fastenings of his trousers.
“And too many laces,” he replied, his fingertips deftly undoing her stays.
Within minutes, they stood together, arms around one another, bare of everything but their love and desire for the other.
The hot press of his skin was a thing of wonder, greater than the fire that crackled in the hearth—as if, perhaps, some of the servants had known there might be evening visitors to the library.
