Page 16 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 16

“ U ncle Hugh!”

“Uncle Hugh, you’re here!”

“Uncle Hugh, you’re hurt!”

Persephone leapt to her feet at the girls’ cries, chucking aside the novel she’d been pretending to read for the last quarter hour. She hurried toward the front of the house, ignoring the tingling anticipation in her body at the mere sound of Hugh’s name.

It only got worse when she heard his voice.

“Ah, don’t fret, Lucy, I’m just fine,” he said. “I took a tumble, is all.”

Persephone skidded into the foyer—with less grace than she might have hoped for, not that this was her priority at the moment—to see Hugh bending down on one knee in front of Lucy, who was nodding solemnly.

“Were you playing outside?” she asked knowingly.

Persephone pressed a hand over her mouth.

“I was,” Hugh agreed. “I’m sorry if seeing my injury frightened you. But take it as a reminder to play carefully when you’re outside, yes?”

Lucy put a hand on her hip. “ I’m careful. You’re the one who wasn’t careful, Uncle Hugh.”

At this, Persephone could not stop the little snort she let out.

Hugh’s eyes quickly darted toward her, a familiar smirk on his face, and something clicked into place in her heart.

This man. This family .

They were hers. She was so, so lucky she got to keep them.

Hugh turned back to Lucy. “I suppose you are correct about that, sweet girl. How do you think I should make amends for this oversight?”

Persephone winced and frantically gestured that this was a terrible question to ask. If the girls had been less inventive, perhaps he could have gotten away with it, but there were some downsides, apparently, to having such marvelously clever children.

“Writing lines helps you remember to do the right thing,” Martha said seriously. In some ways, it was a pity that Martha was a lady being raised in a duke’s household. She would have made a marvelous governess. “You should write I will be careful at playing five million times.”

A very strict governess, apparently.

“Five million ,” her uncle echoed.

Martha’s nod seemed to say, it really is what’s best, I’m afraid .

Just like that, Persephone was back to laughing.

“I think we should never have bedtime,” Lucy offered.

“I think ?—”

“What about presents?” Hugh interjected before Grace could voice her idea. “I have presents.”

This did an admirable job of distracting the children from their mischief.

“Presents, presents!” they cried, voices overlapping.

Hugh made a big production of patting down his jacket pockets, then gave the children an exaggerated expression of dismay. Martha looked briefly aghast, but Grace, for one, was not fooled.

“What’s that big lump in your pocket, then?” she asked. “You’re missing a big lump right in that pocket.”

He pointed at something that was, unmistakably, a lump. “This pocket?”

“Yes, yes,” Lucy said, squirming like she had too much energy for her tiny body to contain. “Right there.”

Hugh inspected it as though he had never seen such a thing before. He really was putting his all into it, Persephone had to admit. It was delightful to see such a stern, serious man engage in silly play all for the sake of the children he so obviously adored.

“Ha, right you are, my dear Misses Blackwood,” he said, pulling out three small paper-wrapped parcels. “Let me see here.”

The girls looked as though they were liable to keel over dead in anticipation.

“First, Miss Lucy Blackwood,” he said, handing over the paper with an exaggerated bow.

Lucy tore into the paper so ferociously that Persephone worried for whatever the wrapping contained.

“I love it!” she cried when she had freed the small object. “What is it?”

“It’s a quizzing glass,” Hugh explained, showing Lucy how to wrap her fingers around the handle. “You can use it to look closely at the interesting things you see when you’re playing outdoors.”

Persephone clutched her hands in her skirts to avoid giving a little clap of delight. She didn’t want to distract from the moment between the girls and their guardian, which she suspected were few and far between. But this was the perfect gift for Lucy, one that showed that Hugh really understood who his niece was.

“Like insects ?” Lucy asked, eyes wide.

“Insects, plants, even the ground below you. You never know what you might find. Perhaps you shall have a future as a naturalist.”

Lucy was no longer listening, as she had already dropped to her stomach and was using the quizzing glass to look at the floor like it was entirely novel to her.

“Next,” Hugh said. “We have Miss Grace Blackwood.”

“That’s me!” Grace said.

“Indeed it is.”

He handed over the little parcel. Grace was not any more delicate in her opening process than Lucy had been; when she yanked, however, the parcel seemed to explode into a flurry of sparkling rain that tinkled against the ground where it landed.

Everyone blinked for a moment—Lucy even glanced up from her floor inspection briefly—and then Grace let out a cry of utter delight.

“Hairpins!” she yelled.

Indeed they were, but Hugh had not brought his niece any mere hair pins. Instead, each of these was adorned with a minuscule silk flower.

“I’m going to look so pretty ,” she whispered, as if in awe of her own future beauty.

“You already look very pretty,” Hugh told her. “But I think these will suit you anyway.”

He dug through his pocket once more and produced a small, square parcel.

“And last but not least,” he said, “Miss Martha Blackwood.”

Martha, a contrast to her sisters, was very careful in opening her parcel, first pulling loose the string and then unfolding the brown paper. Inside was a small notebook hanging from a loop.

“I thought you might want to write some stories of your own,” Hugh told her. “The loop is so you can attach it to a pencil, so you’re never left without an implement when inspiration strikes.”

Martha’s smile was bright as the sun. And then, surprising all of them—but clearly Hugh most of all—she threw her arms around her uncle’s neck.

“Thank you, Uncle Hugh,” she said. “I love you.”

Hugh’s arms paused halfway to returning Martha’s hug. He quickly recovered and squeezed her tight.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” he said quietly.

Persephone found herself suddenly staring at the floor, just like Lucy. She blinked rapidly against the prickling in her eyes. Who knew that floors could be so affecting?

“Right.” Hugh’s voice sounded uncommonly gravelly as he got back to his feet. He cleared his throat. “Off to bed with you, then. Your nurse is no doubt waiting for you. I’ll see you in the morning, hm?”

The girls took a moment to wrench their attention away from their gifts, but, once they did, the recent act of bribery made them agreeable.

“Goodnight, Uncle Hugh, Aunt Percy,” Grace called, already starting to skip away.

“And thank you?” Persephone prodded.

“Thank you!” the girls cried from various points on the front staircase.

“You are very welcome,” Hugh called back.

They scampered off in a clatter of footsteps, a flutter of skirts, and a great deal of chatter. Persephone waited until the sounds faded before she crossed to her husband.

She wrapped her arms around his waist without thinking about it, though, had she paused to consider, she would have concluded that she had no other choice to embrace him after what she’d just seen.

“You,” she told him, pressing herself close and gazing up at him, “are a very kind man.”

He grumbled. “They were just trifles.”

“They were just trifles,” she agreed, “but they meant a great deal to those girls. And you clearly chose them very thoughtfully.”

“The shopkeeper helped.”

“Oh.” Persephone nodded, commiserating. “I see. I forgot that there is a shopkeeper who comes here regularly and who has learned all there is to know about the girls. You’re right. She is kind. You had nothing to do with it.”

“Do you feel that you’ve made your point?” he asked, tightening his grip on her when she tried to pull away. She let herself be tugged back.

“I do,” she said. Then she pressed up onto her toes and pecked a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”

He looked down at her, arching an eyebrow, and, in an instant, Persephone’s body responded.

“Do you think that thanking me will make me forget your impertinence, my sweet girl?” he asked. He snaked an arm around her back and cupped his big hand under the curve of her bottom. This alone was arousing enough—not that she needed any help after his words, delivered in that low, threatening voice—but then he used his grip to pull her closer to him, higher, until she could feel the hard ridge of his arousal against her belly.

It was patently unfair to ask someone questions under these conditions, Persephone thought.

“Ah, yes?” she asked.

He chuckled. It was a dark sound. Oh, how she adored it.

“Well,” he murmured, raising his other hand to wind through her hair, fingers tugging the strands just enough to make her properly take notice, though not enough to cause any genuine pain, “let’s say it worked. Do you think, then, that a mere thank you would make up for you standing over there and laughing at me?”

She gave an outraged scoff. “I wasn’t laughing at you!” she protested. It was frustrating but somehow also endearing that he never seemed to assume that anyone was thinking good things about him. “You cannot try to deny that those children are perfectly hilarious. You just happened to be…in their vicinity.”

He tugged a little more sharply on her hair. That did hurt, but not in a manner she found objectionable.

“If you’re lying to me, I will put you over my knee,” he threatened.

God help her, she didn’t find that objectionable, either.

“I’m not lying,” she hedged. “You were just…” She sighed. “It was very charming, all right? It was…”

“Say it,” he ordered.

“Arousing,” she whispered, her face burning with her blush.

His eyes flashed.

“I have something for you, too, you know,” he said. When she blinked at him, surprised, he cracked a smile. “Yes, it’s a change of subject, but you are forever threatening to distract me, Persephone. And trust me when I say that I have a great number of highly arousing plans for you, my darling wife, but first?—”

He reached into his other pocket, the one opposite from where he’d kept the girls’ presents. There was no telltale lump there to reveal anything inside, and the parcel he produced was small, wrapped in a small piece of blue velvet, tied with a silk ribbon just a few shades lighter than the cloth. The wrapping alone was one of the finer things Persephone had ever owned. She reached out a finger, tracing it over the soft fabric.

“I…thank you,” she breathed.

“You might want to actually open it up before you thank me,” Hugh commented wryly.

Persephone snatched back her finger like she’d been caught out.

“I—yes, of course,” she stammered. He was forever making her lose her words. “Shall I--?”

“Please.” He gestured for her to take the little parcel. She did so, albeit tentatively, as though if she actually reached out and grabbed it, the beautiful thing might vanish from her hand.

She pulled the ribbon, then gasped when it slithered free and the heavy velvet fell away.

“Hugh. I don’t know what to say.”

It was a necklace, one that would sit along her collarbones. The dual chains were thick and gold, linked together at a bar clasp at the back. Around the front was a cluster of flowers, daintier near the chains, growing larger to a center bloom. Each flower was delicately made, some of the petals in a sage green enamel, others emerald—not just in color, but truly made of emeralds. Each bloom was outlined in gold wire, which twisted into a delicate filigree that turned the flowers into a bejeweled bouquet.

“It’s…it’s so beautiful.” She felt near tears. The object was expensive, to be certain, but that wasn’t the part that made her feel as though she might cry at any moment.

“Like your dress,” he said, gruff, as though he were nervous that she wouldn’t understand. “The embroidery that you put on your dress. To be married.”

“Yes,” she said. “I recognize them.”

You remembered . That was the thing she wanted to say, but she feared that it would not be well received. She was beginning to know his frowns, and this one said he would not appreciate his unbelievable sweetness being commented upon.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Good. Turn around.”

For a second, she didn’t understand. Then, at once, she did.

“You can’t mean me to wear it now ,” she protested.

This frown was his stubborn frown.

“I can and I do,” he told her. “I want to see how it looks on you.”

“But this is for an evening out,” she said. It was too beautiful for her regular gown, the one that barely fit and had been patched and restitched over time. “We’re staying in—aren’t we?”

There was no misunderstanding his comments from that morning—hell, even his comments from moments ago. He had promised arousing plans . He had promised a great number of said plans. Surely, he hadn’t changed his mind?

“We are,” he said. “But there is no rule that says a man cannot see his wife wearing jewels that are almost as pretty as she is in his own home.”

Persephone didn’t care at all that this was blatant flattery. She blushed mightily.

“Well, now, the jewels haven’t a chance at rivaling your beauty if you’re blushing like that,” he tutted. “Come now, Persephone. Turn around, please.”

She was out of arguments.

Besides, she really did want to wear the necklace, even as part of her was almost frightened to do so. It was just so beautiful, and the gesture so lovely.

She turned. He draped the jewels against her throat. It was alternately warm and cool where it changed from gold to gems and back again; she felt the warmth of the gold like Hugh’s fingers around her throat.

Her fingers flew to the weight of the piece. It felt like…a reminder. A reassurance.

It felt like affection, and she knew that was a dangerous way to think. Money was not love, not to men with wealth or those who had lost it. She couldn’t have missed that lesson these past few years with her father.

And yet. And yet.

“Thank you,” she said one last time as she turned to face him again, her fingers still lingering on that large central flower.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “The only thanks I want is seeing you wear it, do you hear me?”

He tucked a tendril of her hair behind her ear, traced a thumb over the curve of her cheekbone, and kissed her delicately right on the edge of her mouth.

And then he hauled her up, threw her over his shoulder like she was a sack of flour and he a baker, and carried her up the stairs.

“Hugh!” she cried.

“Hush,” he chided her, “or else you’ll wake the girls.”

This, Persephone felt, was rich from a man who had just threatened retribution if she dared lie to him. Because there was no way the girls could hear them from their nursery.

Still, she did not feel that her current position was a good one for accusing him of falsehoods. So she just hung on and tried not to squeal in too mortifying a manner when he tossed her down on a mattress.

It was his bedchamber this time, she noticed when she finished bouncing. The room was a mirror image of hers, though the large four-post bed frame was a touch grander, the colors of the furnishings a bit more masculine.

She did not spend very much time paying attention to her surroundings, not when the man standing before her took up all of her focus.

Their positions were very similar to the ones in which they’d found themselves that morning, and yet Persephone had the odd sense that it had been ages since she’d gotten her hands on him.

The day’s waiting had been long, indeed.

“Did you think about me today, Persephone?” he asked.

As he spoke, he started undoing his cravat, fingers deftly tugging at the knot, loosening it by degrees. Persephone felt her mouth go dry at the sight of an inch of bared flesh and realized, with something like wonder, that for all that he had seen of her—and he had seen all of her—she had scarcely seen him undress at all.

That was an oversight. Thank goodness he appeared prepared to fix it.

“I did,” she told him. Something about his expectant gaze made her secrets spill from her mouth. “I…it drove me mad, my lord. I could not stop thinking about—about?—”

“About my hands upon you?” he prompted when she did not finish her thought. The cravat was fully off, now, his throat bobbing as he spoke. “Or perhaps my mouth? Or maybe it was the promises I made, to make you mine? To show you all the pleasure you can manage?”

“Yes,” she whimpered. “I—yes. All of it.”

“Hm.” She wasn’t sure if that sound was approval or disapproval and found, oddly, that she craved both. She wanted his praise and she wanted to see his frowning, tempestuous look, the one that promised delicious retribution.

He shucked his jacket, his movements controlled. Persephone pressed the tip of her tongue against the sharp point of her incisor to stop herself from doing something destined to work against her, like beg him to go faster.

She knew the game by now. She knew that every time she asked for fast, he would go slow. If she begged for more, he would give less.

If she fought, he would fight harder. Until he won.

It was wonderful when he won.

“And how,” he asked, tone dispassionate, as if he was a schoolmaster administering an examination, not a man well on his way to seducing his wife, “did you feel when you thought about those things?”

She lost the battle against her whimper.

“Use your words, Persephone,” he chided. His waistcoat was gone now, too. The linen of his shirt clung to his muscles after the long day, and Persephone had the brief, insane thought that she was jealous of the fabric.

“I…I ached for you,” she said. She pressed up to sitting, feeling as though she was drawn toward Hugh on a rope. “I wanted you. Desperately.”

He gave her a flash of a smile, gone as soon as it appeared. He moved to the buttons on his shirt.

“Did you touch yourself?”

“Did I--?” The question came out as a squeak.

“Touch yourself,” he said in that same calm tone. “Take your hand, put it between your legs where you were, as you say, aching, and touch until you reached your crisis?”

“No!” she cried, shocked. People could… They could do that? Did people know about this?

He stopped undressing.

“Stand up and turn around,” he ordered. She complied automatically, too busy thinking about his words to argue. Touching herself ? That was—it was?—

Filthy. Alluring. Intriguing. Incomprehensible.

She did not regain her wits for the entire time that it took Hugh to undo her laces. Either he was astonishingly quick at it, or she was particularly slow at comprehending.

When her gown dropped to her feet, he took her by the shoulders and turned her. It took only the gentlest prod for her to fall back onto the bed, her chemise still on.

“Don’t rip this one,” she implored him hastily when she realized this. “It’s from my trousseau. It’s new.”

“I accept your terms,” he said, inclining his head, “ if you show me.”

She blinked. His shirt was nearly all the way unbuttoned now, revealing a wide V of his chest.

“Show you?” she inquired.

“Show me,” he agreed. “How you touch yourself.”

“How I—” She cut herself off. She could not just keep repeating him.

Besides, teasing her was part of the game. He was meant to prod, and she was meant to resist, to show that she was brave and urbane and knowledgeable—even when they both knew she was neither of those things.

“Raise your hem,” he instructed, “and put your hand between your legs. Touch yourself. You needn’t know how to do it,” he added when she hesitated. “Do what feels good. I want to see you.”

“And you’ll let me see you as well?” she asked. She sounded wheedling, perhaps a touch desperate, but no matter—she was desperate. Not seeing him, all of him? It might actually kill her.

“I will,” he allowed. Then he made a little shooing gesture that boiled Persephone’s blood. “Go on, then.”

She positioned herself against the head of the bed, pillows propping her up. He held her gaze expectantly, not moving to continue undressing until, she drew her chemise up high enough to expose her core.

Her movements against her body were tentative at first, exploratory, uncertain. None of it felt bad, not in the least, but none of it was as intriguing to her as the sight of Hugh finally, finally his whole shirt.

Her fingers stilled as she looked at him. He paused before casting the garment aside.

“Don’t stop,” he told her.

She kept exploring, though her attention remained on him. He was broad, strong, big in every way. The muscles in his shoulders were rounded, then tapered slightly before bulging out again into strong arms. His chest was lightly dusted with hair, which trailed all the way down to the front of his trousers. She followed that line of hair with her eyes just as her fingers found a spot that felt good .

She gasped. Hugh smirked.

“Yes,” he praised her, hands dropping to the fall of his trousers. “That’s right, beautiful. Do what feels good. It will help prepare your body for me.”

“I—it will?” she asked. Her eyes drunk him in as he revealed the line of his hips. For all his broadness, his waist was straight, an intriguing contrast to what she knew of her own body.

Though apparently, she did not know as much of her own body as she suspected. She kept tracing the pads of her fingers against the sensitive spot and then, in a moment of curious inspiration, dipped lower and pressed the tip of her finger inside her entrance, the place that Hugh had touched that morning.

That felt good, though not as good as did touching the hard, sensitive nub higher up. What was intensely more gratifying, though, was the way Hugh seemed to get distracted for the first time in any of their encounters. It lasted only an instant, that pause as he undid his breeches, but she caught it. It made her feel as though she was the most desirable woman alive.

“It will,” he confirmed. His smirk grew more pronounced. “You know, there are some physicians who believe that a woman’s pleasure helps a man’s seed to take root.”

“They…do?” A particularly sensitive brush against the nub caused her speech to stutter.

He chuckled. “They do. The stance is controversial; some argue that the physicians arguing for such a thing have sick and twisted minds, that they disparage ladies with the very thought.”

Persephone, finding she lacked interest in medical debates when there were so many more interesting things to focus upon, ignored this and continued exploring her own sensitive spaces. She did not feel disparaged, not a bit.

“Any man with good sense, however,” he went on, even as her breathing picked up, “will tell you that conception or not, a woman’s pleasure is one of the most delicious parts of taking her to bed. Her little sounds, the soft feel of her.” He dropped his trousers and kicked them carelessly away. “The way she looks when she likes something.”

Whatever that expression might be, Persephone assumed she wore it now as she looked him over. His legs were strong, muscled, just like his arms. And at the apex of those legs…

The proud, almost arrogant aspect of his manhood made her whimper with an intense stab of want .

Her own fingers, no matter how appealing they felt, were no longer enough. She needed him. Nothing else would do.

“Hugh,” she said, pleading. “Please.”

“Well,” he said, smirking. “Since you asked so nicely.”

He leaned over her, an imitation of that morning once again—except so, so much more.

The bare skin of his thigh was warm against hers, the light prickle of his thicker hair an intriguing sensation. Hugh reached gently down the hem of her chemise, then gently played with the lace edging there. It had been purchased before the worst of Persephone’s father’s financial collapse, and, when things had been being sold off to pay whatever debts could be salvaged, Persephone had laid awake several nights worrying that her father would decide that her meager trousseau would be worth more at market than the value it would lend her on the marriage mart.

Now, though, she couldn’t think of it in pounds and pence. Instead, its worth to her was in the way it tickled against her hips, against the appreciative way that her husband rubbed it between his fingers, just for a moment, before returning to caress her skin.

He lifted the gown off, peeling it over her stomach, her breasts, then her head. He laid it aside with gentle precision and she had the clear sense that he hadn’t done so just because he was that kind of man—particular, focused on details—but because she’d asked him to.

And then she was as bare as he, the two of them, entirely nude before and with one another.

Except, she realized a moment later, for the necklace, which still lay nestled around her throat.

She only reached halfway up to touch it before he caught her hand and stopped her.

“Leave it on,” he ordered.

For once, she was not even tempted to argue. It just felt right.

He settled his weight upon her, then captured his mouth in his.

“Hugh.” She sighed the word into his mouth.

His smile tasted sweet. “Do you suspect you’ve figured me out, then, darling?” he asked. “I urge you to use my name once and you think it the key to getting what you want?”

“I want you,” she told him between kisses. Her hands had taken their own journey, tracing over the hills of his shoulders and the valley between the muscles in his back. He was a study in contrasts, hard muscles and the dips between them, his skin surprisingly soft in some places, disrupted by furring hair in others.

She couldn’t get enough of him. Before she could reconsider her actions, she wrapped one of her ankles around the back of his calf, hooking him close to her.

“What do you want from me?” he teased, pressing kisses down her throat. She could feel the hot bar of his manhood against her leg, maddeningly close to where she knew he would feel best.

She moaned quietly just at the thought of Hugh rubbing on that spot that had felt so good against her fingers, not with his fingers but with his…

“All of you,” she said.

She felt him smirk against her neck.

“Haven’t we discussed this before, Persephone? Use your words.”

This time her cry was more frustration than anything else. “Why do you always ask me to—to think when you’re—making it—so?—”

He shifted his weight midway through her sentence, so that part of him was rubbing against her core, and God above, it felt even better than she’d suspected. And yet it wasn’t quite enough to resolve the tension that had been building up inside her for what felt like hours now, and she knew he wouldn’t give her enough until she gave him what he wanted.

“Because,” he said, answering her unfinished questions, “it is so bloody fun .”

And then he bit lightly against her throat, right above where the necklace laid, now fully warmed by their skin.

Her hips surged up, grinding into him.

“I want—” The words felt impossible; she practically trembled with the effort that it took to get them out. “I want you to be inside of me. I want you to make me yours forever. I want you to—” She thought of that feeling of family of the way her belly always clenched when he talked about needing an heir. “—I want you to get me with child.”

This time, it was his hips that surged. She felt the flash of satisfaction that came from startling him, from affecting him. She’d done it twice now, and the power was heady.

“You want me to give you an heir, Persephone?” he asked. She’d never heard his voice so deep. “You want to swell with my child—our child?”

Oh, Lord, why was that arousing? She’d known dozens of pregnant women, had heard them complain about their various aches and pains, and it had never once been the kind of thing that made her think about what had gotten them in that condition in the first place.

But now? Now the thought of it happening to her, of the evidence of this heat between them changing her, creating new life…?

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, please, Hugh, give it to me, please.”

He gave her everything.

It was his fingers, first. Without lifting his weight from her fully, he slid a hand between them and toyed with her, brushing intermittently against that sensitive point, then delving lower to her entrance. With each pass, up and down and then up again, she felt slicker, more primed for explosion.

“Does this feel good, Persephone?” he asked her slyly when she started to let out a sort of squeaking noise with every breath.

“You’re a horrible man,” she accused. Perhaps foolish of her, but she was so far beyond sense that she could not have found it with an astrolabe and sextant.

“I am,” he agreed, sounding as cheerful as she’d ever heard him. “But I am not without mercy.”

And then, finally— finally —he moved his fingers, took himself in hand, and gently but inexorably guided himself inside her.

“Hugh,” she gasped. “Hugh, Hugh.”

There were no other words, only his name, for she did not know how to describe precisely what she was feeling except for how fully she was consumed by him. He was everywhere, all around her, inside her.

It was overwhelming, and as he kept pressing forward, even a little painful. But she was learning that a bit of pain didn’t put her off, that maybe she liked it. And maybe that meant she was braver than she’d suspected, bolder than she thought.

Maybe there was a little darkness in her, too.

But she liked it. And maybe that was fitting, for a duchess to the Dark Duke.

“More?” he asked, voice strained, as though he was using all his effort to hold himself back.

“More,” she agreed without pause, though she did not understand how there could be more. But if it was there to be offered, she wanted it. Needed it, even.

“I am going to make it so you never forget this,” he promised her gutturally. “I will feel you forever; I will make sure you do the same. And if you ever have doubts, I will show you as many times as I need.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she agreed feverishly. She would have agreed to nearly anything at that point, but this was an easy promise to make. She wanted to repeat this activity as often as possible. It wasn’t just the physical enjoyment; it was the closeness. There was no amount of clinging that led Hugh to push back against her, there was no space between them to further close.

They were together . They were as together as together could be, unless he truly did give her a child, and then there would be no extricating one from the other.

It was this idea, along with the smooth, powerful thrusts of Hugh inside her, that finally tipped her into her crisis. It was profound, dizzying. She cried out, clenching her fists against him, feeling her nails bite into the skin on his shoulder and the back of his neck.

Maybe Hugh, too, liked a little bite of pain with his pleasure, because when she clutched at him, his movements grew erratic instead of smooth, became even more powerfully forceful.

“Persephone,” he panted into her mouth. “Persephone, love.”

The endearment made her insides clench again, right as he spilled into her. Hugh moved through a few more erratic thrusts as he rode out the last moments of his pleasure.

There was a long beat of calm as they each caught their breaths, their foreheads pressed together. She felt his heart thundering from where her fingers, draped over the back of his neck, gazed against the thrum of his pulse. She was certain that her heart beat in time with his.

Persephone, love .

It was just something people said, she knew. A soft word, shared between lovers—for that was what they were, now. Not just husband and wife in the eyes of the law, but in truth.

But for that moment—just for one small, minuscule moment—she let herself pretend that it was true. That she could be his love. That this feeling between them could remain.

It was a beautiful lie.

She clung to it as he slipped free from her body, rolling them to their sides so that he was nestled around her, his front to her back. They were limp with exertion, damp with sweat. It should have been unpleasant to be held so tightly against his warmth.

But there was no place else that Persephone would rather be.

Even so, she could not stop herself from asking, her voice quiet.

“Do you wish me to…go? To return to my bedchamber?”

Her understanding of these things was that gentlemen visited the lady’s chamber, then retreated to do whatever gentlemen did after lovemaking.

The pause before he responded was eternal.

“Not yet,” he said at last.

Persephone smiled, soft and gentle against the pillow.

She fell asleep before yet arrived.