“Christ, Thomasina,” he said, ducking his head into her neck with a laugh. “Because this is the first time and I’m trying not to hurt you. I promise you, you’ll get hard and fast later. Tonight, slow and gentle.”

She nodded. He knew best in this, of course. She would learn more as they went, it seemed.

He moved and her thoughts emptied at the slick slide of him through her tender body. He ground his hips as he took her, his pelvis meeting hers with every stroke and bringing her pleasure back to life. As he did so, she began to understand, and she lifted to him, matching his pace and rhythm with her own.

His embrace grew tighter, his hips pistoning a bit faster, and she reached to meet him, her vision blurring as new pleasure darted through her body. How could he make her feel so alive? How could every touch be better than the next?

She didn’t know, but she didn’t need to know as once again the pleasure crested and she keened beneath him. He quickened, moaning as he dragged his hands down to cup her hips and lifted her hard against him as he thrust and thrust, and then his neck tightened, the cords of tendons becoming outlined and she felt the heat of his release flood her.

He collapsed over her, his arms around her, his breath warm against her neck. For a moment they were quiet together, and she smiled against his skin because she was his now.

Nothing could change that fact.

Jasper rolled over and looked at his wife in the dying light of the fire he was too lazy to get up to stoke. She was asleep and she had earned that rest, certainly. After all, he had made love to her for hours, over and over. He hadn’t expected that to happen on their wedding night. But it was like the moment he claimed her, he never wanted to be parted from her again.

Which was a troublesome thought, in truth. A contingency he hadn’t planned for, just as he hadn’t planned for the situation with her sister or with Ellis Maitland. For a man who always focused on the plan, these deviations vexed, indeed.

He moved, sliding his arm from beneath her head. She made a little sound but rolled away from him and continued to sleep. He reached down and pulled the coverlet up over her naked body, then got up. He found a robe draped at the end of his bed and threw it on over his shoulders, then paced from the bedroom into his adjoining dressing room. He sat down at his desk and withdrew the letter he had received from Reynolds just that morning.

Thomasina had helped him forget his troubles for a while, but now he refocused as he should and reread the words on the page. Reynolds didn’t wax poetic but wrote simply that he had discovered the name of the man Maitland had turned Anne over to: Rook Maitland.