“You’d have to do all the work,” Yasmin breathed. “I don’t think I can move again.”

He—the man who rarely smiled—let out a crack of laughter. “That would be my privilege.”

She turned her head and caught sight of the two of them in the glass over her dressing table, Giles driving into her, his hair rumpled, his powerful shoulders flexing. The sight sent a bolt of heat through her tired body.

Compromise. Marriage was about compromise.

And in return? This. This was worth anything.

“Look,” she whispered hoarsely.

Giles turned his head to the glass and laughed. But he didn’t bother to look again, instead gazing into her eyes, caressing her breasts, making her tremble, and then sob with pleasure.

Afterward, he lay beside her on his stomach. His broad back glistened with sweat. “I like mirrors,” Yasmin told him dreamily, “as long as they are in our bedchamber, not the drawing room.”

“Mirrors,” he repeated, his voice hoarse. One hand moved slowly to her chest. “I like breasts. Your breasts.” A thumb rubbed over her nipple.

“I couldn’t possibly. Get away from me!” Giggling, she rolled over onto her stomach, knowing he would pounce on her.

She waited until they had kissed, and kissed again, and kissed once more before she whispered, “I’m having your baby, so we cannot wait to marry until next Season.”

Giles lurched backward so fast that he nearly fell to the floor. “A baby!” His voice was shocked, hoarse.

Yasmin sat up, anxiety thrumming through her. “I told you that my mother wasn’t very fertile but it seems that I am quite different. Do you . . . Do you mind?”

The joy shining from Giles’s eyes answered her question, transforming his somber face entirely.

For the first time, Yasmin glimpsed the man whom their children would call Father: a man who smiled easily and laughed on occasion, a man who was far prouder of his family than his title. Who would never consider reputation more important than love.

Later, they lay on the bed side by side, reading letters. Aloud.

First Giles ordered them by date. “I wrote far more than you did,” he said with satisfaction.

When they reached her letter describing how Hippolyte Charles had seduced her at sixteen in an act of revenge, Giles pushed the letters aside and rolled onto her, holding her as tightly as he could. “I will kill him.”

Yasmin chortled and gave his shoulder a little nip. “He’s left the country for Spain. That’s what Grandfather heard.”

“I’m so sorry, Yasmin.”

She couldn’t feel sorry, not anymore. “If Hippolyte hadn’t seduced me, I never would have traveled to England.”

“That’s true.”

“If I never traveled to England”—she reached out and grabbed the thickest letter—“I wouldn’t have written this.”

Giles’s eyes were still dark with anger, but he said, “There is one more of mine that was written before that one. We must read them in order.”

Dear Yasmin,

You haven’t answered any of my letters, and I am afraid that you have decided to throw me over. At the same time, I know you. You are not a woman who would hop from my bed to Silvester’s, no matter what the gossip columns say. You are funny, and wise, and perhaps afraid of your own sensuality.