They sat for a moment, an occasional sob still rising in Gabby’s throat. Finally she took a long shuddering sigh. “Do you know what Lady Sylvia would say now?”

“I can’t say it jumps to mind,” Quill said dryly.

“‘Time for some tea. Emotions are so tedious without sustenance,’” Gabby said, in a fairly good imitation of Lady Sylvia’s bark. “I should ring for Margaret.” She tucked her face against his chest. “My nose must be as red as a cherry.”

“It doesn’t appear to be red,” Quill said, running a finger down the side of his wife’s little patrician nose. “And I don’t want any tea. It’s far too late in the evening for tea. I want you, Gabby. I need a draught of my wife.”

All he could see of her face were long brown eyelashes, tipped in gold, and the beginnings of a very small smile. Then she raised her arms and clasped them around his neck. Her lips hovered an inch from his.

“I don’t know. I really would like a cup of tea.”

“Gabby.” His tone was dangerously even.

“I expect my eyes are swollen. I should ring for a compress.”

“Gabby!” he growled. He bent forward and eased a kiss on those reddened eyes. Delicate fingers played a concerto on his neck. And then…her lips opened into the sweetness of a slow kiss.

They were a better sustenance than tea, those kisses. They repaired and soothed and knit together the weave of married life.

It was quite a while before infinite sweetness changed into something different, something more eager and more wild. Gabby gasped and protested, found herself naked and then grew accustomed to the indecency, finally became too hoarsely incoherent for protest and too openly passionate to care. Quill had decided to teach his wife that there was more to their continuing experiment than she had dreamed.

And he succeeded magnificently. Perhaps too well. By the time Quill drew Gabby down on top of his body, he was blazing with a maddening fire. Gabby’s uneven cadence was torment rather than pleasure. He endured. And endured.

But there are limits to every man’s patience.

Suddenly Gabby found herself flipped over on her back, Quill’s delicious weight pinning her down, pleasure flaring into her stomach as he drove into her.

“No,” she said on a wailing note, but then she was caught up in his pounding rhythm and nothing escaped her mouth but cries of pleasure, spiraling higher and higher, joined at the apex by his rough groan. And a second later she heard a hoarse mutter against her neck: “That was worth anything, Gabby. Anything.”

She didn’t reply.

Her husband slept, his body warm next to hers, but Gabby’s eyes didn’t close.