“That was great fun,” Sycamore said, brushing his fingers over his hair. “Serious, but fun. I predict by spring Chastain will have bolted for America. His father will either put him on remittance, or the colonials will do him in. I am off to bed, for this has been the most exhausting, interesting, trying house party I can recall attending.”
Della kissed his cheek. “We leave for Dorning Hall after breakfast. Be packed, or we will wait for you.”
He bowed, smiling bashfully. “You need not convince me to leave this place. I’ll see you in the morning.” He sauntered out the door, though Ash suspected Sycamore would not go straight up to bed. A night cap with the marchioness might yet await him.
And finally, at long last, Ash was alone with his wife. Della came to him, wrapped her arms about his waist, and gave him her weight.
“Did you mean it?” he asked, gathering her close. “You will put the whole business in writing to Chastain’s mother?”
“Yes, and I will send a letter to my brother Nicholas too. He has no idea about my panics. Only George does, and he has kept my confidences.”
A letter was a way to start, though Ash suspected the Haddonfields would find news of Della’s malady a difficult surprise. Too bloody bad, because Della deserved their support and compassion, and her husband was determined that she should have it.
“Will you take me to bed, Della?”
“I will join you in bed,” Della said, stepping back to take Ash’s hand and lead him toward the door. “This was hard for you, wasn’t it?”
Ash had to consider his answer, because with Della only the truth would do. “Yes and no,” he said. “The hard part was putting myself together and making idle talk until the appointed hour. The sitting on my backside, playing hand after hand of cards… That was simple. Not maiming Chastain… That was difficult.”
“I wanted to kick him,” Della said as they passed an oddly genial footman in the corridor. “I wanted to kick him in his breeding organs, but I’m only wearing slippers, and he might have retched on Lady Wentwhistle’s carpets.”
Ash paused at the foot of the steps to kiss his wife. “You are very fierce. I adore that about you.”
“You are fierce too, Ash Dorning. Another man would not have passed Chastain’s vowels to his wife.”
“Chastain mostly wronged you and the other ladies. You deserved to hold his fate in your hands as he tried to hold yours in his.”
They climbed the steps, and real weariness dragged at Ash. Not the megrims, blue devils, or melancholia, but the honest fatigue that follows strenuous mental exertion. When they reached their rooms, they assisted each other to undress, fell into bed, and cuddled up, as had become their habit.
Della wrapped her hand around Ash’s half-aroused cock. “I would like to make love with you, husband, but I would also like to put a thought before you.”
“I would like to make love with you too, so the thought had better be uncomplicated and briefly stated.”
Della had already learned the exact grip and the loose, easy rhythm that drove Ash mad. He wasn’t plagued by an ongoing sense of inchoate desire of late, but with Della’s inspiration, he was rising to the occasion. He suspected as winter wore on, desire might be less in evidence, but as Della had pointed out, he could please her without himself being aroused.
He’d forgotten that. He would never forget it again.
“My thought is this,” Della said, pausing to scoot down, get comfy, and drive him mad.
Ash had the oddest sense that this activity, about which most men could only dream, soothed Della in some way. She liked using her mouth on his cock, liked the trust it involved, and he liked—he loved—indulging her whims.
“Della, I will very soon be unable to think of anything other than that feels good or please don’t stop.”
She finished her frolic, giving him a final swipe with her tongue. “William Chastain is to be a father. The child will be Portly’s, but still, William—a venal, self-absorbed, pathetic disgrace of an overgrown boy—will be a father in name. He might well become a father in fact, because Clarice is shrewd and practical.”
“No woman should have to be that practical.”
Della rose and straddled Ash’s lap, then took him in her hand and seated his cock at her entrance. “I love this part. I love you too.”
“I love you, and I love every moment with you.” And Della had a point. The pleasure of joining his body to hers was always breathtaking, always miraculous. Della was in the mood to tease him, so Ash endured as best he could, playing with her breasts and praying for fortitude.
She set up a sweet, languorous tempo with her hips, never quite allowing him the depth he craved. “Does every child deserve perfect parents, Ash?”
She wanted to philosophize now? “Children deserve perfect parents, but no parents can meet that standard.”
“Exactly.” She wet her thumbs with her mouth and grazed them over his nipples. “There are no perfect parents, but just as you rose to the challenge at this house party, I think I could rise to the challenge of being a mother.”
Ash’s hands went still on her breasts. “Your panics made you doubt your ability to be a mother.” Of course they would. When a woman’s mind could race off with her good sense at the least provocation, parenthood was an emotional obstacle course. “You want to have children—with me?”
“I certainly don’t want to have them with anybody else, and I thought we’d start with one and see how we manage.” She shifted the angle of her hips, making coherent thought nearly impossible.
And yet, Ash knew he must think. He must comprehend, and he must gather up all his courage to love his wife as she deserved to be loved.
“Children, Della? With a man who stares out windows for hours and can’t always satisfy his lady intimately?”
“A child,” Della said, “with a man who will slay dragons, though his sword sometimes feels rusty and unreliable, his horse gets winded, and his shield occasionally becomes tattered. He knows things, that man, about determination and human failings, about compassion and appreciating the joys when they come along. He is wise and kind and loving, and he has absolutely stolen my heart.”
Della quit teasing him and took him deep into her body, as Ash bowed up to wrap her close.
“Babies are awful, Della. They squall and stink and stay awake all night. They cry at nothing and drool and—are you sure?” A baby. A little soul full of love and wonder, somebody to cherish and treasure and delight in. Della’s daughter or son, another Dorning, who might have the family eyes or might have Della’s laugh. “Are you truly certain, Della?”
“With you,” she said, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, “yes, I am certain.”
“Then I am certain too.”
Their lovemaking became something more then, a celebration of hope and joy, an exchange of vows beyond words. The pleasure reached past bodily satisfaction to encompass hearts and souls as well, until Della was replete and sighing in Ash’s arms, and Ash was awash in a joy beyond anything he could have imagined on his best, happiest day ever.
Epilogue