“Really?” Harry propped his chin on her lower belly, his arms resting across her pelvic bones.

George craned her neck to see him. He was lying between her spread legs, his face only inches from her . . . And he was looking gravely interested in her story.

“Yes, really.” She let her head drop back on the pillow. “And he put on the cloak and went and stole the Golden Swan without the nasty witch even knowing. And when he got back”—what was Harry doing down there?—“he gave the Golden Swan to . . . Oh, my Lord!”

Harry finished leisurely licking up through the flanges of her woman’s place, then kissed that spot. He raised his head. “Is that part of the fairy tale, my lady?” he inquired politely.

George tunneled her fingers in his silky hair. “No. I’m through telling the story for now.” She pulled his head back down. “Do. Not. Stop.”

She thought he may have laughed, as she seemed to feel a vibration, but then Harry lowered his mouth, placed it over her nubbin, and sucked on it.

And, frankly, after that she no longer cared.

“WHAT DO YOU DREAM ABOUT at night?” Lady Georgina asked him a long time later.

“Mmph?” Harry tried to focus his mind. His body was a dead loss. His limbs were leaden, almost liquid with fatigue, and he was struggling to stay awake.

“I’m sorry. Are you asleep?” His lady obviously wasn’t. He could feel her fingers stroking through the hair on his chest.

He made a heroic effort. “No.” He opened his eyes. Wide. “What did you say?”

“What do you dream about at night?”

Rats. He suppressed a shudder. “Nothing.” He winced. That wasn’t what a gently born lady wanted to hear. “Besides you,” he added hastily.

“No.” She tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m not fishing for a compliment. I want to know what you think about. What you want. What you care for.”

What he cared for? At this time of night? After he’d loved her, not once, but twice? “Ah.” He felt his eyelids drifting shut and struggled to open them again. He was just too tired for this. “I’m afraid I’m a simple man, my lady. I think mostly about the harvest.”

“What do you think?” Her voice was intent.

What did she want from him? He stroked her hair as her head lay on his chest and tried to think, but it was too great an exertion. He let his eyes close and said whatever came to mind. “Well, I worry about the rain, as you know. That it won’t stop in time this year. That the crop will be ruined.” He sighed, but she was quiet beneath his hand. “I think about next year’s planting, whether we should try hops this far north.”

“Hops?”