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The room was cool; the warmth of the main room’s fire had not reached it. And here he kissed her, solemnly, almost chastely; a tender press of the lips, a signal of intent.
He would make love to her in this room
.

“Turn around, Lily,” he ordered softly.

Slowly, she did as ordered. Gideon tugged with trembling hands at the fine laces that closed her gown, loosening them until the shoulders of it drooped; as he did, he dragged his lips along the silky length of her neck, stopping to nip a tender kiss at the place where it joined her shoulders, and saw the gooseflesh rising along her arms. Lily’s head went back; he wrapped his arms around her slim waist and trailed his tongue along the arc of her neck, stopping to savor the pulse beating in her throat with his lips; he could feel her breathing quickening beneath his hands.

And then, with a touch as delicate as moth wings, he pushed the sleeves of her gown down, down, down, until the bodice drooped to her waist with a soft rustle.

“Oh, Lily. My Lily. How I have wanted you,” he sighed into her ear. Her breathing was rapid now, and it excited him unbearably. He ran a single finger reverently down the beads of her spine to the cleft of her buttocks, feeling the goose-flesh rise in its wake; he fanned his hands to slowly savor the way her hips curved gently into her waist, stopping tantalizingly just shy of her breasts. When Lily arced back against him reflexively, whispering his name, urging his hands to go farther, he felt a surge of triumph, but he did not oblige her.

Instead, he unfastened his trousers with hands gone suddenly clumsy, and shook his shirt away from his shoulders until it dropped to the floor.

“Turn around, Lily,” he ordered softly, again.

Lily turned again, slowly, her arms coming up to cover her breasts, the gown still clinging to her hips. Her eyes were pale and bright in the dark; she took in his nudeness and his arousal with unabashed, avid wonder.

Fairly shaking with the effort to hold his desire in check, Gideon leaned down to kiss her parted lips again, softly nuzzling, tasting her breath, while he searched her hair for pins. One by one he found them and pulled them; they fell to the floor with little pings. He loosened the dark gold glory of her hair, and combed it away from her face.

And then he pushed his fingers up through it and pulled her head back, taking a kiss almost marauding in its force.

Lily’s arms came away from her breasts and folded around his neck, and she pushed herself up against him, meeting his released hunger with her own. Tongues and lips and teeth clashed in this deep, endless kiss; her breasts chafed against his chest; her soft belly dragged against his shaft.
Dear God
.

Patience slipped his grasp; he pushed at Lily’s gown until it at last slid down over her hips and sagged into a soft heap at her ankles, and his hands cupped her small round buttocks, lifting her up against his hardness. “Feel me, Lily,” he whispered against her lips. “Do you want me?”

“I want you.” Her low velvet voice was ragged with the truth of it.

He held her back away from him to look, to briefly savor. Lily now stood bare except for her stockings and garters, her skin glowing like the surface of the moon in the dark of the room. As he looked, her shoulders were back, her chin up. She was so beautiful, so perfectly her.

“
Oh God
.” Did he say it? Did she? It was impossible to know; it was all the same now. His hands twining in her hair, her hands roaming over his chest, he kissed her, backing her slowly up to the bed, until her knees bent and she sat down upon it. And then he pushed her gently until she lay back, her hair spread out behind her, her eyes half closed with desire. He stretched out on the bed alongside her.

His palm skimmed over one of Lily’s small, upthrust breasts, and she breathed in sharply; he lowered his head and closed his mouth over it, taking the silk crepe of her nipple first with his tongue, then his teeth; her fingers combed through his hair, holding him to her, and she arced with a soft keening whimper.

He was of a mind to satisfy his need quickly.

Gideon pulled her into his arms, covering her briefly, and dragged his tongue down the seam that divided her slim ribs, to her nest of damp curls, where he savored the fresh singular taste of her with his tongue; she rippled beneath his hands and mouth like quicksilver, encouraging him, whispering his name. With his hands, he gently parted her slim legs covered in their fine stockings, and savored her again; he cupped her buttocks, lifting her up to meet his mouth, and her hips began to move in time with his relentless tongue, until her breathing was hoarse and swift, until she begged him with incoherent syllables and gripped the coverlet.

And then he moved up the length of her body again, taking her mouth in a deep kiss, because he wanted to feel her entire body against his when she found her release. He slipped one finger slowly, deeply into the damp heat of her and crooked it ever so slightly.

She came apart with a long, nearly silent cry, bowing up beneath him, pulsing wondrously.

It has to be now
, he thought.
Or I will die
.

Gideon moved her knees apart with his hands and fitted himself to her, and, rising up over her, he entered her quickly; Lily gave a shocked little intake of breath, but she lifted her hips to meet him, to ease his passage. They breathed roughly together; he groaned until he was seated deeply in her.

And then he knew, without a doubt, that he was her first.

“Lily… I’m sorry,” he whispered, foolishly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she whispered.

And though he tried, God knows, he could not be slow about it; the need was too great and too long contained. He moved in her, and his release was swift and explosive; it seared his every nerve with astounding pleasure, sending him out of his body. He heard his own hoarse cry as if it had come from someone else entirely.

Stunned and spent, he rolled away from Lily and threw one arm over his face, breathing heavily. He lay alongside her for a long moment without touching her, the cool air of the room chilling the perspiration on his body.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, finally.

A pause.

“No.” A single soft word.

“Liar.”

She laughed softly. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him, stroking her sweat-dampened hair away from her face. He touched her lips, her brows, the curve of her chin, wonderingly, as though she were a magical being, something he’d only just discovered, and she smiled up at him.

“It can be so wonderful, Lily, I promise you.”

“It
was
wonderful.”

“Was it?”
God, I sound like a boy
, he thought. He felt shy and proud.

“Mmmm,” she confirmed languorously.

“I should have been more gentle…”

“Hush. Gideon, it was… extraordinary. I wasn’t sure… that is…”

He smiled in the dark.
She
was extraordinary. “But you suspected.”

She laughed softly. “I had a book.”

“I
knew
you could understand more French than you let on.”

She laughed again and shifted a little in his arms, and his hands slid down over her belly. With just that little movement, he was hardening again. He moved his hands up over her breasts, languidly exploring the satin shape of them, until her breath came in little gasps.

“Gideon.”

This was it: This was what he had feared. For he could sink into the sea that was Lily and happily never come up again; he feared he would never, ever be sated.

It seemed they still could not go slowly, though he had intended to try. He sat up, pulling her into his lap; he gently nipped the silky back of her neck, and covered her breasts with his hands; he eased into her as she straddled his thighs. His hands moved down to the cleft in her legs; he urged her up and down his shaft until he groaned his own release, shuddering from it. He held her as Lily again pulsed around him, gasping his name like a cry for help.

She collapsed against him, and he rolled her over into his arms and buried his face in her hair, murmuring her name. He felt the rise and fall of her ribs beneath his hands. Nothing had ever felt more miraculous.

What am I going to do?

Don’t think
, he told himself.
There’s only today
.

They were silent together, languid for a time. No sound but breathing filled the room.

“I didn’t take the necklace,” Lily said suddenly.

Gideon tensed. “It doesn’t matter.”

She pulled away from him a little and leaned on one elbow, her hair falling over her face. “Gideon, I swear to you—”

“What I’m saying, Lily, is that I know you didn’t take it. I think I’ve always known. But… it wouldn’t matter if you had. I still would have come to you.”

Neither of them said anything more after that. Lily settled back into his arms, and he held her like a gift.

After too short a time, Lily pulled gently out of his arms again; he released her reluctantly. She sat up on the bed, and he admired the pale curve of her waist and hips as she twisted her hair into a loose knot. She lifted her dress up from the floor and stood to pull it over her head.

She turned to him. “Alice,” she said simply.

She returned to sit briefly on the edge of the bed. Gideon reached out his hand; she took it in hers and their fingers twined. She kissed his knuckles, and then she leaned down to kiss his lips softly.

“I will stay with her,” he told her. “You can sleep.”

“Thank you. But if she wakes, she’ll want me, Gideon.”

He knew this was true. “I want you, too,” he said softly. “I always have.”

She said nothing; she merely gazed down at him for a moment, a small smile hovering on her lips. And then she bent down to kiss him on the mouth, and slowly withdrew her fingers from his.

* * *

Gideon remained stretched out on the narrow little servant’s bed for a long time, thinking. He finally roused himself to dress, and then walked through the sickroom to find Lily kneeling on the floor next to Alice’s bed, her head resting on the bed, cradled on her arms. Both girls were fast asleep.

Gideon settled his coat over Lily’s shoulders, and then rested the back of his hand briefly, lightly on Alice’s forehead. She was cool; her breathing seemed even.

He was not in the habit of thanking God, but he uttered a silent prayer of thanks anyway. Today, his gratitude for everything was so large a whole planet could not contain it. He thought he had best thank God, if only to relieve himself of a little of it.

He used the poker to coax the dying fire higher. And then, quietly, he left them.

Chapter Nineteen

Lily awoke to a bright room and the feel of someone’s little fingers drumming her head.

“Thank goodness, Lily. I thought you had died.”

Lily smiled, weak with relief. “
Somebody
is feeling better.”

Alice still looked a little peaked, but her eyes were bright—not with fever, thankfully, but with curiosity. She frowned at Lily. “
You
look terrible, Lily. It’s purple underneath your eyes. And why are you wearing a man’s coat?”

Startled, Lily reached her hand up to her shoulder. She hadn’t noticed the weight of the coat, but the rush of Gideon’s scent nearly felled her.

“Well, thank you very much, Alice, but you aren’t exactly looking radiant this morning, either. You’ve been very ill, goose, and I’ve been very worried. How do you feel?”

Alice gave it some thought. “Hungry.”

“Perhaps the doctor should have a look at you. How is your breathing? Do you hurt? Take a deep breath and see.”

Alice inhaled deeply. “No. It doesn’t hurt anymore. But I like the doctor. Let’s have him come anyway.”

Lily smiled. “Perhaps Mrs. Plunkett will bring you some broth.”

“And some cakes.”

“All right. Perhaps some cakes, too.”

Lily stood and stretched. Her body was stiff, and there was a soreness between her legs which surprised her until she remembered:
Of course. Last night
.

And then suddenly the memory of last night flooded her heart and mind. Gideon lifting her up against him, her first feel of his naked flesh against hers.
Do you want me, Lily
? The breathtakingly tender, and then rough, demand of his very accomplished lips. His fingers gliding over her skin, the feel of him moving inside her, the smooth skin of his hard back, the curling hair of his chest.

I love him.

Lily’s restlessness drove her to the threshold of the little maid’s room near the nursery. The most astonishing things had taken place upon that narrow, austere little bed, all because, like a wanton, she’d asked for something for the first time in her life:
Please
, she’d said to him. She’d sought comfort, and relief from weeks of pent longing. He’d given it to her.

Lily smiled a little, even as her throat tightened with tears. The
power
of it was indescribable, terrible in its beauty. The moment Gideon had touched her, there had been no thought or choice. If she’d known how terrifyingly, exhilaratingly it would be to make love to him…

I want you
, she’d told him last night.
I want him
, she’d told herself for weeks. If she’d known what it really meant, she might have fled long ago.

Never willingly put yourself at the mercy of a man, Lily
. Her mother had known the bittersweet danger of it.

“Mr. Cole was here this morning,” Alice called from the bed.

Lily’s heart gave a jump. “Was he?” she asked casually.

“He didn’t know I saw. He looked in at us for a long time, and then he left.”

“He cares for you, Alice.”

“And for you, Lily.” Her words were innocent.

But even if they were true, it would not change a thing. Nothing could come of it.
We cannot stay here any longer
.

Gideon had been unable to sleep for more than a few fitful hours. Finally, at dawn, he’d visited the nursery to look in on Lily and Alice. Reassured that they were both still breathing, he stopped himself from touching Lily.