Page 76 of Debtor’s Daughter

“Thank heavens for that,” he said, grinning as he reached for her, sweeping her up into his arms. “It makes me feel a good deal better.”

“Why?” she demanded as he carried her to the bed.

“Oh, Maggie,” he said, shaking his head. “You would not believe the dreams I have had about you.”

“Really?” she said, instantly desperate to know. “Tell me.”

“I cannot,” he told her, his eyes glinting with mirth. “For then you will realise how very depraved your husband is, and I fear you will be shocked.”

“Oh, Larkin,” she said with a sigh as he laid her gently down on the bed. “I do hope so.”

He stared at her for a moment and then gave a bark of laughter. He tugged at the sash of his banyan and cast it aside with such abandon the sleeve hit the lamp on the bedside table. It wobbled and Larkin lunged, setting it upright again.

“That’s a relief. The only fires I want to start tonight are the kind to make you sigh and moan, not run screaming out into the street,” he said ruefully.

Maggie snorted, trying not to laugh, but then she noticed just what he’d revealed, and her laughter stopped abruptly. Instead, her heart thudded hard as she stared at him, at the landscape of finely wrought muscle across his chest and abdomen, his broad shoulders and powerful arms, and at the evidence of his love and desire for her. The fire he had promised her burst to life beneath her skin, her blood suddenly hot, her entire body blazing to life. She held out her arms to him, he came to her, and she revelled in the feeling of his flesh burning beneath her palms, of the sensation of hard muscle shifting beneath satiny skin.

He made a sound low in his throat that made her pulse leap as he tugged her nightgown off, over her head.

“Maggie,” he murmured. “You’ve no idea how I’ve longed for this, dreamed of it. I need you,” he told her, pulling her into his embrace and claiming her mouth with such passion it stole her wits.

The feel of his body and his hot skin pressed against hers made the fires blaze higher, and when he pressed himself closer, finding his place between her legs, she cried out in startled surprise. The sensation that rocketed through her was a bright shock of desire that made her forget everything but her need for her husband, the rightness of how it felt to be in his arms.

“I need you too,” she gasped, writhing against him impatiently. “So much.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands moving restlessly over him, sinking into his hair and sliding down his back to grasp his buttocks.

“Maggie… Maggie, love, slow down! I meant… I meant…”

But whatever it was he’d meant to do or say, Maggie did not know nor care. He had promised to set her on fire, and she was ablaze, an inferno, out of control.

“Please, please,” she gasped.

Larkin had never denied her anything, had always given her everything she could possibly need from the moment they first met, and he did not resist her now. He thrust into her, the sensation so exquisite and powerful she moaned and held on as if she might fly away if she were not anchored to him.

Larkin groaned, burying his face in her hair and breathing deeply for a moment before he began to move, slowly at first and then with increasing fervour as she followed his lead. Dimly she realised that whilst she had known what passion was, what desire felt like, it had only been a shadow of what she felt in this moment. Now she knew what it was to love and be loved, not only with heart and emotion, but with body and soul too. She felt giddy with pleasure, dizzy with the frenetic joy of their union and yet she could not slow it down, could not deny it or try to savour the moment. There would be time enough for that, for slow love making and tender words, but this, this perfect burst of desire and adoration was everything she had ever wanted and needed, though she had never, would never have realised that without the man loving her now.

“Maggie,” he rasped, his breath hot and damp against her neck as his movements became erratic and faster. “Maggie.”

“Yes,” she said simply. She cried out as he shattered too, feeling the powerful shuddering of his big body as he abandoned himself to her, giving himself to her, to them, and she gave herself with equal fervour.

She closed her eyes, blinded by the starburst of joy, by the overwhelming pleasure of it as they flew into the skies, and returned to earth, still joined physically and in all other ways that mattered, forever.

8th November 1850 Berwick Street, Soho, London.

“Are you ready?” Larkin asked, walking back into the bedroom as Maggie slid the last pins into her hair.

“I suppose so,” she said with a sigh.

“Well, I like that. After all the trouble I went to getting your manor back, now you don’t want to go!”

Maggie laughed at his feigned indignation, for she knew he was as loath to leave as she was. “I do!” she protested, getting up and walking into his arms. “I cannot wait to go home, and to show it all to you and have Giddy and everyone I love around me again. But I want you all to myself, too. I’m greedy, you see.”

“So you are. Never satisfied,” he observed, a glint in his eyes that made her blush.

She gave him a playful smack, huffing at his teasing. “And aren’t you lucky,” she said wryly.

“I am,” he replied, quite serious now. “I am the luckiest fellow that ever lived. Let’s go home, Maggie. It’s a place I’ve never been before, but I’ve been looking for it for such a long time I’m even willing to share it with all the others that live there too.”

She reached up and touched his face, staring at him, still astonished by how dramatically and splendidly her life had changed. “Larkin Weston, you are the most wonderful man, and I am so glad Gideon plagued you to death. I suspect you only married me hoping to get some peace and quiet, but whatever the reason… thank you.”

He laughed at that and pulled her close. “Strangely, I don’t think I’m going to get a second’s peace and quiet for the rest of my days, and I’m glad of it, Maggie. For all of it. I love you.”

And though the carriage was waiting, and they were already late, he did not miss the opportunity to prove that to her again.