Still, he moved at the same even tempo, granting her no quarter. He knew, as Maggie did, that the final moments of their loving would be all the more gratifying for the long delay.

Maggie grew fevered as she was trained to the exact motions that Reeve wanted of her. Her nails delved into the hard flesh of his shoulders as he moved beneath her, driving her inexorably toward sweet madness. As the passion became too piercing and too intense to be borne, she began to toss her head back and forth wildly, and Reeve’s hands tightened on her hips as she tried to accelerate the pace and wrest his control from him.

Finally, Maggie’s whole being convulsed as her body buckled in one spasm of elation after another. On and on the glorious tumult went, until Maggie sagged, exhausted, to Reeve’s chest.

He was approaching his own pinnacle, and, in a frantic shift of his body, he set her beneath him and lunged into her depths. Reeve’s torment ended with a great shuddering in his body and a rush of senseless pleas from his mouth, and then he fell to lie, gasping for breath, beside Maggie in the sand.

She let her hand rest on his quivering, granitelike belly, and her head found its way unerringly to his shoulder.

Perhaps because her emotions were so raw, and so close to the surface, Maggie remembered that Eleanor planned to take this from her and she began to cry. Several moments had passed before Reeve felt her tears against the flesh of his shoulder and raised himself to look down into her face.

“Tell me,” he commanded, his voice ragged.

“I never want to lose you,” Maggie wept, shaking her head against the sand. “Never. Oh, Reeve—I love you so much!”

Tenderly, Reeve brushed tangled strands of golden hair back from her face. “And I love you,” he said, his breath warm where it touched her lips. “Maggie, don’t cry.”

She trembled. “You’ll never take a mistress?” she whispered, and if she was begging, she didn’t care. She touched the charm dangling from his strong neck with the tip of her finger. “Promise me, Reeve, that you’ll never betray me.”

He kissed her lingeringly, and then said, “I believe I’ve already made that promise, Yank. Before a priest, if I remember correctly.”

Tears were slipping through the sand that coated Maggie’s face with a fine layer of grit. “S-someone told me that you’d t-take a mistress when I get f-fat and—”

“Whoever told you that is wrong, Maggie.”

She sniffed. “I couldn’t bear it, Reeve, if I had to share you. I kn-know some women can look the other way when their husbands stray, but I c-couldn’t.”