Page 30 of The Earl’s Second Chance

“Lady Elizabeth, I have been grievously insulted.”

“Shall you complain to my father?”

“I shall dedicate the next fortnight to correcting your misunderstanding.”

He was a man of his word.

The next morning he loved her slowly in the sunlit bed, teaching her that pleasure changed with pace and angle and the confidence to ask. That afternoon, after a walk along the beach, he locked the bathing room and set her upon the wide marble ledge beside a steaming tub. Water pearled on her skin. His mouth followed it. Elizabeth learned that a woman could gasp, laugh, and lose every coherent thought without ever reaching a bed.

On the third day, rain trapped them inside. Richard discovered a bolt on the library door.

“Two,” Elizabeth said.

“I locked the bathing room yesterday.”

“That was a bolt. We are counting keys.”

“Then we must establish separate records.”

He backed her against the shelves and kissed her until a volume of Shakespeare fell to the carpet.

“Sacrilege,” she whispered.

“He wrote comedies. He would approve.”

They made love upon the leather settee, Elizabeth above him because his healing leg ached after the stairs. The position startled them both. Richard’s hands steadied her hips; his eyes darkened with helpless admiration.

“You are beautiful.”

She bent over him, hair falling around them. “You once promised my mind would be welcomed.”

“At present I cannot locate mine.”

Her laughter changed to a cry as he drew her closer.

They explored the house with the zeal of cartographers. A window seat overlooking the sea proved too narrow but excellent for kissing. The breakfast room table was sturdy and, once cleared, inspired conduct that caused Elizabeth to blush whenever tea was served there afterward. A hidden garden enclosed by yew offered privacy beneath the stars, though the Sussex wind soon drove them back indoors. The rug before the drawing-room fire was soft; the music room bench was not.

Nothing was merely conquest. Between hunger came conversation. Richard spoke of men he had lost. Elizabeth confessed how deeply Darcy’s first insult had lodged beneath her pride. They read aloud, slept tangled together, argued about horse breeding, and took long walks while the tide erased their footprints.

On their final night, they returned to the bedchamber early.

Elizabeth stood before the mirror in a white night rail. Richard came behind her, his hands resting at her waist.

“Do you regret leaving the army?” she asked.

“Not when I see tomorrow.”

“And what is tomorrow?”

“Oakmere. Work worth doing. You disagreeing with me before breakfast. Children, if we are fortunate. A lifetime of locked doors.”

She turned in his arms. “We have not yet tried the dressing room.”

His eyes flared.

“My lady,” he said, lifting her, “your education advances remarkably.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN