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His voice rasped from his heart. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Let the deflowering commence!” Her eyes were lit with pure anticipation.

“It may hurt,” Miles said, hating that idea.

“So I’ve heard. But I’m already aching.” No man could have refused that plea.

Daisy’s reaction to the said deflowering was a shiver and then a request that Miles go faster. She wiggled, sending fire through his body. “Actually, could you come deeper?” Her voice was intoxicating, a mixture of desire and happiness as potent as any siren’s song.

When Miles pushed up one of her legs and stroked into her, harder and faster, his wife’s eyes widened, and a low moan broke from her throat. Her hands clamped on his shoulders. “I think I finally understand Byron’s poetry.”

The only poetry Miles wanted came in the form of Daisy’s cries. The very fibers of his being were focused on making sure that his bride enjoyed herself. Found enjoyment. Fragments of thoughts flew through his head like cracked china. Daisy’s moans. The way she arched her neck. The way her legs curled around his hips.

The whole of it. The profound joy of making love to his wife.

When he finally rolled onto his back, sweating and exhausted, he thought dimly that he was the luckiest man in the world. Daisy lay beside him, air sobbing from her lungs, but a minute or two later, she turned her head, and he saw a smile in her eyes.

She swung herself over him coming down on her knees, wearing only a violet diamond and a wedding band. Miles crossed his hands behind his head and enjoyed the fact that his body responded to her as if he were a mere lad again.

“I have an idea,” Daisy announced. She wiggled her hips side to side, and he drew in a sharp breath. “It’s something I read about. I couldn’t envision it, but now I understand.”

Miles’s attention was caught by her breasts, because there they were in front of him, gloriously lush, reddened by his lips. “Did I bite you?” he asked, looking closely.

“You are marvelously obedient when I said ‘harder,’” Daisy told him. She bent forward, bracing her hands on either side of his head. “I finally figured out what you meant,” she said, easing down onto his cock with a blissful expression.

“What?” Miles grunted. It was all he could summon up.

“Some parts of you are more lovable than others,” Daisy said, joy liquid in her voice.

EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

One year later

“The outside fork is for salad,” Daisy informed her oldest half-sister.

“Lettuce is for rabbits. If this is a dessert spoon, what do you use to eat rabbit stew?” Pandora wasn’t Daisy’s twin, but close enough: the same blue eyes and silvery hair, but with a more elegant nose and a distinctly inelegant manner of speech.

Which made sense since she’d grown up the beloved daughter of a carnival barker, albeit one whose tinctures were sold in the best stores throughout the kingdom. Miles had taken one look at Mr. Gale and pronounced him a swindler, but he had to admit that the man was a charming swindler, who adored his adopted daughter. For her part, Pandora was fiercely intelligent with a wry, firecracker wit that regularly had the household in fits of laughter.

Daisy glanced down at the shining place setting. Two silver forks to the left, two knives to the right, and a dessert spoon and fork above the plate. “We never serve rabbit stew at a formal meal,” she explained. “Roast rabbit, perhaps. But not stew.”

Pandora groaned. “The meal sounds as much fun as being deserted on an island. No beer. No rabbit stew. No rye bread?”

“Never.”

“It’s as if there’s a conspiracy to ruin our figures,” Pandora said indignantly, putting her hands on her hips.

Daisy frowned, since two months ago she’d reached the point in her pregnancy when she had no figure.

“Beer and rye bread!” Pandora said, plumping up her breasts before her hands went back to her hips. “Not to mention my arse. I have a fantastic arse.” She took a hasty step back. “Are you about to hurl again?”

“Perhaps.” Daisy put her hand on her huge belly and waited it out. Finally, she took a deep breath. “I thought I was done vomiting a few months ago. It doesn’t feel fair to have started again this morning.”

“My father makes a tincture of ginger root, like ginger beer,” Pandora suggested. “It settles a woman’s stomach.”

On finding out that Mr. Gale sold “cures” for everything from hair loss to fevers, Miles had made Daisy swear never to swallow one of those potions under any circumstances. “I’ve been using your father’s Essence of Pearl cream,” Daisy said, dodging the subject.