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Halfway?

The answer came a moment later, stealing the breath from her lungs as he sank deeper, the unfamiliar fullness leaving her caught somewhere between astonishment and pain. Instinctively, Eliza tried to move, but Arthur’s hand came gently to her neck, holding her still. There was no force in it, no threat, only a quiet warning.

“Do not move,” he gritted out.

Eliza stilled.

This was peculiar.

When Cecily had described her many encounters with men, and she had described them in considerably more detail than Eliza had ever thought necessary, Eliza was quite certain there had been rather more movement involved.

“It has been a long time,” Arthur admitted, the words strained as though dragged from somewhere between pleasure and torment, “and I am already dangerously close to the edge.”

He drew back only slightly before his eyes found hers, and despite the tension written across every line of his face, he waited.

There it was again—that silent question.

Eliza answered with a small nod.

Only then did Arthur begin to move, slowly at first, his rhythm measured as though he were still determined to give her every opportunity to grow accustomed to him. The initial sting gradually surrendered to something warmer, something that unfurled low within her with every careful movement, and soon her body was rising instinctively to meet his, her hands clutching at his back as pleasure began to overwhelm everything else.

The restraint did not last.

His pace quickened, his hands settling firmly at her hips as the marble pressed cool against her back, every movement driving her closer to that impossible precipice once more. Her cry escaped before she could contain it, her body tightening around him as another wave of pleasure broke through her, stronger and more consuming than the first.

Arthur followed moments later, his body shuddering against hers as he buried his face against her neck.

For several breaths, neither of them moved.

Then, slowly, Arthur lowered her legs and returned her feet to the floor, keeping one arm securely around her waist until he appeared satisfied that she could actually stand without assistance.

Eliza was considerably less certain.

Only once she was steady did he release her and begin putting his clothing to rights.

“Thank you,” she found herself saying, her cheeks still flushed and her hair considerably more out of place than usual.

Arthur stared at her.

“The woman who deserves the world allows me to ruffle her gown, take her virtue against a pillar in a royal residence, and then thanks me?”

The question appeared to be directed at no one in particular. He tipped his head towards the heavens as though appealing to some higher authority for an explanation.

Eliza might have found some suitably indignant response had his fingers not already begun fixing her hair, smoothing stray curls back into place with such easy concentration that one might have thought he had done so a dozen times before.

There was something unbearably tender about it.

When he was apparently satisfied that she once again resembled the Duchess of Buckingham rather than a woman who had just allowed the Duke to thoroughly ruin her, Arthur offered her his arm.

And together, they returned to the ball.

Chapter 45

The next morning, Eliza woke to a dull ache across almost every inch of her body, but she was delighted.

Arthur had bared his soul to her and then made her his wife in every sense of the word; on top of that, she got to dance in his arms, and boy did she dance for most of the night, with Viscounts, Lords and beyond. This, she suspected, was the source of the aching at her feet. When she was not dancing or stealing heated glances with her husband, she had her sister, Cecily, by her side; all in all, it was truly the perfect evening.

It was nearly dawn by the time the carriages returned to Pembroke House. Arthur apparently had no intention of allowing her feet to touch the ground. He climbed out first, swept her into his arms and carried her across the threshold without so much as a backward glance at the Colonel or her sister.