“My first two wives were both inexperienced, to say the least. They both got the idea right away, though.”

Then he winced, because presumably he remembered just how expert his second wife turned out to be. Or how voracious. Or . . .

She ought to be solemn and sympathetic, but Ophelia found herself giggling instead. “I guess your teaching was a mite too successful the second time around. Oh! I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry!”

Thankfully, Hugo’s mouth eased into a smile. “Either that, or the golden locks of a Prussian count cast mine into the shade.”

Ophelia didn’t need to glance at his thick head of hair to know which she preferred. “If we’re not discussing my previous spouse, oughtn’t yours to be taboo as well?”

“Certainly in the bed,” Hugo said. “Where was I?” He reached out, his eyes gleaming.

“You truly don’t mind?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“This,” she said with a wave that vaguely indicated everything above her waist. “I thought you’d want to do other things.”

“Have you ever heard of the poet Robert Herrick?”

Ophelia shook her head.

Hugo curved his hands around her breasts again. “Display thy breasts, my Julia—well, have to change that line, won’t we? Display thy breasts, my Ophelia, there let me behold that circummortal purity.”

Ophelia giggled, looking down at his hands and her breasts. “Circum-what?”

“Circummortal. No idea what it means. I’d suggest ‘dazzling’ in your case. Perhaps ‘round.’” He pushed her breasts together and they plumped up. “Because your breasts are dazzlingly round. And God, so dazzlingly delectable.” He lowered his head, and whatever he said next was muffled by her skin.

Time passed. Ophelia decided to stop bothering about what he was thinking. Peter never—no. More generally, she doubted that many men thought about poetry while they were in bed.

Hugo’s fingers were making their way down her sides, creeping across her stomach. But all the time his lips kept going from one breast to the other until her legs were trembling. To her shock, her whole body was damp, her hair sticking to her brow. She couldn’t stop moving either, wiggling under his weight, trying to silently suggest that he direct his attention elsewhere.

“May I?” Hugo asked sometime later.

She raised her head and stared at him. His eyes gleamed at her, desirous. He didn’t look like a duke any longer.

But that was all the intelligent thought she could muster. She’d never appreciated her breasts before. No, that wasn’t true. She had been inordinately proud of them for producing milk on command when Viola had needed it.

But now?

This was different. Every time he tightened his lips around one of her nipples, heat connected to far-flung parts of her body, making her shiver.