She'd been grateful for the interruption. Placing her hand on Luc's sleeve, she'd let him lead her in. Let him seat her at the end of the table, at the place she hadn't occupied since their wedding night.

The touch of his fingers trailing over her bare arm evoked a memory of past thrills; she'd considered sending him a frowning glance — instead, she got distracted, wondering… Luckily, the meal provided a diversion, especially with Portia and Penelope present. Portia, fourteen, was a hedonist, bright, cheery, and sharply intelligent. With her looks and her tongue, and her quick wits, she was so much like Luc that of the four, he found her most difficult to deal with.

Portia tied him in knots. At every opportunity.

Despite that, the affection that flowed between them was apparent. It took Amelia most of the meal to realize that Portia had set herself to play the role of Luc's nemesis, at least within the family, making sure her eldest brother never got too arrogant, too above himself with masculine condescension.

No one else would dare, at least not to the extent Portia did. She herself would never have opposed Luc so definitely as did Portia — not in public. In private… in reality, she had more power than Portia over Luc, more chance of altering his entrenched behaviors where they needed adjustment. She wondered how, given that Portia was only fourteen, she might explain, might suggest that Portia could now leave her brother's arrogance in the delicate hands of his wife.

For unknowingly — Amelia was quite sure unintentionally — Portia was also grating on something else in Luc — the very thing that made him what he was, but which also gave rise to the worst instances of what appeared to be his masculine high-handedness.

She could see it, and was mature enough to value it where Portia did not.

Luc cared deeply for his sisters — not just in the general way of duty, because they were in his care, and had been for the past eight years — but in a manner that went to the heart of family, and what family meant to him.

As she watched him frown and snipe intellectually with Portia, Amelia was reminded of his earlier words about their potential offspring.

He would have to know — she would have to tell him as soon as she herself was sure. It was simply that important to him. So important it was the first thing he'd deliberately revealed now the barriers between them had come down. He'd asked, admitted more than he'd needed to — a confidence she knew how to value and knew she needed to return.

That unwavering, unreasoning, unconditional devotion was there in his expression, in the effort he made to cope, to remain as far as he could in control of his sisters' lives. With or without their consent.

Emily was almost at the point of stepping out of Luc's care, but he'd deal with that by passing her hand to Kirkpatrick. Until he did, however… Amelia made a mental note to suggest to Emily she avoid giving her brother any potentially inflammatory information he didn't need to know.

Then there was Anne, who remained so quiet that everyone was forever in danger of forgetting she was there.

Anne was seated on Amelia's left. She smiled at her, then set herself to learn how Anne had found her first Season. Anne knew her, trusted her, confided in her easily; while she absorbed Anne's reactions, Amelia felt Luc's dark gaze resting on them and dutifully made mental notes.

She was more than socially adept enough to, while listening to Anne, also glance at Penelope, the youngest, seated in the next chair. In terms of the number of words she uttered, Penelope could well have been judged "quieter" than Anne. No one, however, was at all likely ever to forget that Penelope was present. She viewed the world through the thick lenses of her spectacles — and the world knew it was being weighed, measured, and judged by a shrewd and highly intelligent mind.

Penelope had decided at an early age to become a bluestocking, a woman for whom learning and knowledge were more important than marriage and men. Amelia had known her all her life, and could honestly not remember her ever being otherwise. Presently thirteen, brown-eyed and brown-haired like Emily and Anne, but possessed of a decisiveness and confidence her older sisters lacked, Penelope was already a force to be reckoned with, but just what she planned to do with her life, no one had as yet been informed.

Portia and Penelope got on well, as did Emily and Anne, but the older sisters were forever at a loss when it came to dealing with their juniors. Which threw an added burden on Luc's shoulders, for he couldn't, as a male in his position normally would, rely on Emily and Anne, or indeed on his mother, to keep the younger two within bounds — bounds neither Portia nor Penelope truly recognized.

And they encouraged each other. Where the elder girls shared aspirations, so, too, did Portia and Penelope. Unfortunately, their aspirations did not lie within the areas generally prescribed for gently bred young ladies.

As things presently were, the pair of them looked set to turn Luc's black hair grey. Amelia glanced at Luc's dark locks, inwardly frowned.

A moment later, she caught Luc's eye. She smiled, and reminded herself she was, after all, his wife.

Which meant she had a right and a duty to ensure his black hair remained just the shade it was for the next several years.

She'd come to that conclusion, made the resolution, by the time she climbed into their bed that night. Snuffing out the candle, she lay back, and considered the hurdles she'd decided to face with a welling sense of rightness.

One of those hurdles was gaining his agreement, his understanding, his acceptance of her help, but she was too wise, when he joined her half an hour later, to mention the matter.

He himself brought it up; halting in the dimness by the side of the bed, he reached for the tie of his robe. "Did Anne give you any indication of how she felt about the Season — the ton?"

Eyes and the better part of her mind fully absorbed as he loosened the robe, then shrugged out of it, she murmured, "If you mean how she feels about the subject of a husband, I don't think she does."

He frowned, knelt on the bed, then slumped down beside her, propped on one shoulder on top of the silk sheet that covered her to her shoulders. "Does what?"

"Have any real thoughts of a husband." She twisted to face him. "She's only what? Just seventeen?"

He raised his brows at her. "You think she's too young?"

She met his gaze. "Strange though the thought may be to you, not every girl dreams of being wed as soon as she's out."

A moment passed, then, his gaze steady on her face, one dark brow arched higher. "Didn't you have girlish dreams of being wed?"

She wondered if she dared tell him that the only dreams of marriage she'd ever entertained had transformed into reality. He was the only gentleman she'd ever dreamed of marrying. Nevertheless, as she felt between them the inexorable rise of the compulsion that now ruled them here, in their bed, where neither any more pretended otherwise, she was very glad — gave thanks to the gods — that she'd waited until she was twenty-three to tackle him.

"I'd be surprised if Anne doesn't have dreams of marriage, of what she wants her marriage to be. But I sincerely doubt — no, I know — that she's not yet thinking specifically about stepping into that sphere. She will when she's ready, but it won't be yet."

He studied her face, then lightly shrugged. "There's no need for her to do anything in that arena until she wishes to." She smiled. "Precisely."

She lay still, watching, waiting, letting her gaze roam his face while heat and desire welled and swelled and grew between them. Waited for him to make the first move, confident that whatever route he chose to take, the outcome would be novel, and as exciting, fascinating, and enthralling as she wished. In this sphere, his imagination had, she suspected, no bounds. His understanding of what she would find thrilling and pleasurable had proved, thus far, to be one hundred percent reliable.

After a long moment, his lips curved; his teeth flashed as he smiled. Then he leaned closer, bent his head, and set his lips to hers.

He didn't touch her in any other way, simply kissed her — while they both lay naked with only the flimsiest barrier of silk between their heating bodies.

And the temperature steadily escalated. Rose as he demanded her mouth, then took rapaciously when she offered. Yet with not so much as a finger did he touch her.

His body was like a flame, a source of pure heat beside her; she could feel that heat, warm, alive and so well remembered, all down the length of her. Her skin itself seemed to yearn — to burn with the need to touch, and be touched.

A yearning that only grew.

Then he drew back, looked down. Hooked one long finger into the sheet, now tight about her swollen breasts; crooking his finger between her breasts, he didn't so much as graze her skin as he drew the sheet down, easing it down to her waist.

His gaze touched her face, then he bent his head. And set his lips to her nipple. He didn't touch the soft skin of her aching breasts, but only the aureole — tortured the tightly budded peak until she arched and gasped.

The instant he released her, she slumped onto her back, giving him access to her other breast. He bent his head and repeated the exquisite torture until she cried out and reached for him.

He caught her hands before she touched him, locked them both in one of his. Anchored them above her head as he reached again for the sheet, and tugged it still lower.

To her hips.

This time, when he bent his head, his tongue touched her navel. Probed, circled, probed again.

She'd never truly considered that one of those spots that could make her weep with need; with her skin on fire, with her body burning with the need to feel him against her, with that confined, restricted caress, he proved her wrong.

When he next raised his head, he drew the sheet all the way down and away. Releasing her hands, he grabbed two pillows, simultaneously moving down the bed.

"Lift your hips."

She did, knowing full well what was coming when he stuffed both pillows beneath her. She expected him to run his hands up her legs, to caress them. Instead, he grasped her knees — lifted them up and wide as he settled between, and bent his head to her.

Covered her with his mouth, caressed her with his tongue.

She smothered her cry, suddenly unsure.

He lifted his head to murmur, "No one can hear."

She hauled in enough breath to ask, "Even if I scream?"

Dark satisfaction rumbled in his voice. "Even then."

He bent to his task; she lay back, and let the fire wash over her. Her skin was aflame, her nerves leaping, even though he was only caressing her there, at her core. He held her knees so wide her thighs didn't touch him; she could have reached the top of his head, but it seemed more important to close her fists tight in the sheet beneath her, as if she could thus cling to her wits, to the world as he wound her tighter and tighter.

Notch by steady, knowing notch… until she fractured.

She saw stars, felt the heat and the force swirl through her body. Felt his satisfaction in the way his mouth worked on her, the way his tongue filled her.

Then the pillows were gone and he surged over her.

And he was inside her, all around her, surrounding her with heat, fire and flaming passion. He drove into her and she ignited; her skin, so long denied, like white-hot lava merging with his, her entire body hungry and greedy to touch, to take, to consume and be consumed.

She grabbed him, held him tightly.

Luc felt her nails bite as she writhed beneath him, riding the wave of ecstasy he'd conjured, as she strove as passionately, as desperately as he to reach the next pinnacle of promised delight.

Their bodies knew each other deeply, completely; they merged and fused, unrelenting in their need.

Consumed, consummating in that moment of absolute trust, of abject surrender.

And then they were there, at the highest peak of earthly delight, and the inferno took them. They gave themselves up to it, bathed in the flames, and let the glory fill them.

The moment stretched, held, then slowly faded as, locked together, they tumbled back to reality. The fire waned, until it was nothing more than glowing embers, buried inside them.

It would never be anything less — their shared hearth would never be cold, never lonely; the fire that now smoldered within would always keep them warm.