“You’re divine,” he said.

She pulled away, stood, and raised the skirts of her dress to reveal that she wore no undergarments. Then she eased one leg beside him, balanced, and pulled up the other leg so that she sat above him, straddling him. She placed her hands upon his shoulders and curled her lips into a soft, telling smile. She leaned down and kissed his face, from his lips to his cheeks, and then from his cheeks to his forehead. And when the moment was right, she slowly sank down so that the entrance to her sheath touched the crown of his staff.

Newland groaned with extreme pleasure as her impassioned vessel consumed his crown first and then the full length of his staff. He grasped her hips and anxiously waited for her to begin the dance.

She touched her lips to his, giving him a soft kiss, and then clasped his lower lip between her teeth. She gently pulled the lip inside her mouth and began to suck. A moment later, she began to move, raising and lowering her body against his. The swing began to sway as she built a rhythm, and they continued to make love at a leisurely pace.

Newland would have stayed right there forever, sharing breaths with Ellen for all of eternity. When a man’s heart, body, and soul is rich with love, he needs no more—not food, nor water, nor the warmth of the sun. He had all that he would ever need.

He had always known that this must happen …

“Oh, Mr. Archer!” exclaimed a loud young voice; and looking up he saw before him the youngest and largest of the Blenker girls, blonde and blowsy, in bedraggled muslin. A red blotch on one of her cheeks seemed to show that it had recently been pressed against a pillow, and her half-awakened eyes stared at him hospitably but confusedly.

“Gracious—where did you drop from? I must have been sound asleep in the hammock. Everybody else has gone to Newport. Did you ring?” she incoherently enquired.

Archer’s confusion was greater than hers. “I—no—that is, I was just going to. I had to come up the island to see about a horse, and I drove over on a chance of finding Mrs. Blenker and your visitors. But the house seemed empty—so I sat down to wait.”

Miss Blenker, shaking off the fumes of sleep, looked at him with increasing interest. “The house IS empty. Mother’s not here, or the Marchioness—or anybody but me.” Her glance became faintly reproachful. “Didn’t you know that Professor and Mrs. Sillerton are giving a garden-party for mother and all of us this afternoon? It was too unlucky that I couldn’t go; but I’ve had a sore throat, and mother was afraid of the drive home this evening. Did you ever know anything so disappointing? Of course,” she added gaily, “I shouldn’t have minded half as much if I’d known you were coming.”

Symptoms of a lumbering coquetry became visible in her, and Archer found the strength to break in: “But Madame Olenska—has she gone to Newport too?”