“Did you like it?” she asked, tracing her fingers over his chest. “One suspects some practice is required.”

“One damned near had me spending at the first taste, you fiend. If this is how you react to solving cases, then I hope many more difficult conundrums find their way to your door. Hold on to me.”

That was her only warning before Stephen fused his mouth to hers, entered her in a gloriously sure thrust, and sent her on a breathless upward spiral.

“Let go, Abigail,” he whispered. “For God’s sake, I haven’t a sheath, and just—let go.”

She did not want to let go. Not of him, not ever. She wanted to hold fast and never turn him loose.

“Stay with me.” She locked her ankles at the small of his back to emphasize the point. “Please.”

“But I cannot—”

She kissed him and, by sheer force of will and the main strength of her sturdy female body, she overcame his determination. Their pleasure was spectacular, protracted, and vigorous.

Also…stolen. Abigail would think about that later, when the little shocks of after-joy stopped racking her, when she could breathe normally, and when Stephen’s weight wasn’t the most comforting bodily reality she’d miss all the way back to York.

“You are naughty,” he said, kissing her nose. “Naughty, naughty, naughty. Where have you been all my life?”

“Yorkshire. Are you angry with me?”

He rolled, taking her with him, which effected an intimate un-joining and put Abigail atop her lover.

“I’m furious,” he said. “Aghast at your audacity. Give me ten minutes and you may enrage me again all you please. Sweet, hard, any way you like. Every way you like, in fact.”

Abigail curled down onto his chest. “Ten minutes?”

“Well, fifteen then. You have rendered me the veriest weakling, I admit it. A happy weakling, though. Enraptured, in fact. Perhaps I am among the celestial beings as we speak.”

“Hush.” Abigail raised up enough to draw off her chemise and used it to tidy them both. “Hold me.”

Stephen hooked a blanket from the foot of the bed with his toes and drew it over Abigail’s shoulders.

“Sleep, Duchess.” He kissed her cheek. “You have earned your rest. A sweet and hard loving is satisfying but exhausting. I believe it’s my new favorite.”

“You are my favorite,” Abigail said, cuddling close.

He drew patterns on her back—naughty walking sticks?—while she drifted closer to sleep. Her last thought before she slipped into dreams was that no short week of pleasure with Stephen, no matter how wild, would be enough to comfort her against all the years she would endure missing him.

“I consider myself a tolerant woman,” Jane began, “but your brother has been carrying on like a stag in rut for the better part of a week.” She paced the length of the sitting room, her skirts swishing in a way that made a new father start counting days.

“Stephen is a Wentworth male in his prime,” Jane went on. “Certain allowances must be made, but Quinn…I believe his enthusiasm for Miss Abbott’s company exceeds even my devotion to you at the outset of our marriage.”