Allegra sighed happily as his mouth and his hands began to roam over her warm flesh. What was happening to her? You are falling in love, the little voice whispered in her head. "No!" she cried aloud.

"What is it, my darling?" the duke said, raising his head from her breasts. "Are you all right? Do you want me to cease?"

"No, no," she said. "Don't stop, Quinton." Why had he called her darling? "Oh, yess!" she murmured as his lips moved down her shapely torso. "Ohh, that is nice, husband," she told him as he licked at her belly. "Ohh, I want to do it!"

"Do what?" He had stopped in his worship of her body.

"I want to make love to you. Wives can do it, can't they?" she asked. "I don't want to be some passive lump of dough. I want to learn to make love, too, Quinton. Can I? Will you show me how?"

Sitting up, the duke yanked his nightshirt off and threw it by the bed. "You have but to do what I do to you. And yes, wives can make love to their husbands in return, Allegra. I am flattered that you want to make love to me."

"You give me pleasure, my lord. We are friends now, and I would give you pleasure in return."

He lay back. "Then do so, madame," he told her.

Matching him, Allegra pulled off her own nightgarb. Then she sat cross-legged at his side studying him for several long and silent moments. Finally she reached out with her hand and touched the hair upon his broad chest. "It's soft," she noted aloud, her fingers ruffling across it. Then she traced the narrow line down his flat belly curiously. She wanted a better view of him, and so to his surprise Allegra climbed atop him, plunking her bottom upon his thighs. Reaching out she ran the palms of her hands over his long hard torso. Her fingers teased at his male nipples. Leaning forward she brushed them with her own nipples.

He drew his breath in sharply, unable to help himself, amazed by her boldness.

"Did you like that?" she asked curiously.

"Your touch is arousing," he admitted honestly.

"You have a beautiful body, Quinton," she told him. "I saw pictures of ancient statues in books in Papa's library. That is how I may make my comparison."

"I would not have thought otherwise, my dear," he responded gallantly. His male member was absolutely throbbing, imprisoned between his thighs beneath her round buttocks. He wanted to roll her over and plunge himself into her sweetness.

"What is the matter?" she asked him, seeing the look in his silvery gray eyes that she didn't understand.

"Climb off me, you little bluestocking, and I will show you," he said, half laughing.

Allegra obeyed. Then she gasped at the sight of his risen manhood, which thrust from between his muscular thighs. It was the first really good look she had had of it, and Allegra could scarce take her eyes off of it. Tall, blue-veined, and hard, it bobbed before her eyes. She was mesmerized by the sight.

Quinton Hunter lay his bride back amid her pillows once again. Mounting her, he pushed gently into her love sheath with a single smooth motion. She was very wet and hot. "Do you understand the power you can exert over me, Allegra?' he asked her softly as he bent and kissed her lips lightly. Then he began to move upon her, slowly at first, and finally with quick, hard strokes of his lance that sent her senses reeling with mindless pleasure. Allegra cried out, unable to restrain herself.

"Ohhh, it is so wonderful! Do not stop, Quinton! Do not stop!" Then with some silent, ancient instinct guiding her she wrapped her legs about him allowing him even deeper passage within her eager body.

Her unexpected action rendered him hot with new lust, and he drove himself deeper and deeper into her until he could hear his heart thundering in his ears. Her body was shuddering with their fulfillment, which once again, as on that first night, they shared together.

"Ahh, Allegra, I cannot help myself, but I adore you!" he cried out. "Do not hate me for it, my darling! I want you to love me even as I love you." He caught her face between his hands, and began to kiss her with a desperate passion.

She hadn't heard him say he loved her. Had she? She was so fuzzy and replete with her satisfaction. "We don't believe in love," she murmured almost to herself. "Love hurts."

"It doesn't have to, my darling," the duke said. "Ohh, Allegra, open your eyes and look at me."

Slowly the heavy, thick, dark lashes lifted themselves from her pale cheeks. Her violet eyes stared directly into his.

"I love you," he said quietly. "I know we meant this marriage to be a logical and judicious match without the encumbrance of foolish emotions, but I find I am, alas, like my romantic antecedents. I have fallen in love. Can you forgive me? Can I one day teach you to love me, my darling Allegra?"

"Oh, Quinton," she said weakly. "I do not know what to say to you. If I am honest with you, and I must be, I have to admit to feeling some emotion I cannot comprehend with regard to you. But is it love? I do not know. I have never been in love, and the love I feel for Papa, Aunt Mama, and Sirena is, I know, an altogether different thing. You really love me? Why?"

Rolling onto his back the Duke of Sedgwick thought a moment. "I really don't understand it myself, Allegra," he admitted. "But I know that I love you. Those few weeks you were away from me I could not bear your absence. Ask Ocky. I was a perfect fool, waiting for and anticipating your return. At one point I convinced myself you might not rejoin me. It was agony."

"Why on earth did you think I wouldn't come back to marry you, Quinton?" she asked him. This was a proud man, and his sudden revelations were most startling to say the least.

"What have I to offer you but a title? Having come to know you this past summer, Allegra, I knew that my title wasn't reason enough, for you are too honest to be awed by such things."

"But I gave my word to the match," she replied. "You surely didn't think I would break my word?"

"Logic and reason, I have discovered, play no part in love," he said quietly.

"I see," she said. "But do you trust me?"

"With my life, my darling," he swore.

Allegra laughed. She couldn't help it. A starburst of happiness was beginning to fill her. "You love me? You really love me?"

"Yes!" He pulled her into his arms, and kissed her hungrily.

"Oh, my." She laughed again. "Dearest Quinton, this is going to change everything," she told him.

"I know," he admitted, and kissed her again, his big hands beginning to wander over her body.

Allegra purred with open contentment. He loved her. She had never before believed in love, but suddenly his devotion was very important to her. "It is most unfashionable for a husband and his wife to be in love," she said, then murmured happily as his kisses covered her torso, to be followed by his warm bathing tongue. "Ohh, Quinton, that is nice," Allegra said softly. "Ahhh, yes," she agreed as he suckled upon her breasts until she thought they would burst from the sheer pleasure. When he began to lick her ear she imitated his action, whispering to him, "Do you want to fuck me again, Quinton?"

"I am going to fuck you again, Allegra," he replied as he pushed slowly into her, teasing her by withdrawing and entering again several times until she began to protest.

She wrapped herself about him, silently demanding his full attention and homage. "I want to feel the soaring again!" she finally told him. "Don't stop! Don't stop!" Her nails dug into his shoulders, and then raked down his back sharply.

The light pain honed his appetite for her. He drove deeply into the hot marsh of her sex making her whimper. The body beneath his strained and writhed as he forced her fiercely to passion's peak. His own desire for her was enormous. "You are mine, Allegra. You are mine!" he groaned, unable to withhold his own passions any longer.

"Oh! Oh! Ohhhh!" she cried in return. What was happening to her? It had been wonderful before, but this time she didn't think she was going to survive their shared lust. She was dying. Ohh, God, she was dying! And it was incredible!

When Allegra came to herself again it was within her husband's arms. Her cheek was pressed against his chest, and she could hear his heart thumping beneath her ear. His hand was gently stroking her dark hair which had come undone from its proper nighttime plait.

"You are revived," he said softly.

"Am I still alive?" she wondered aloud.

He laughed. "You have an incredible capacity for passion, my darling young wife," he told her, and she felt him kiss the top of her head. "You leave me breathless, Allegra."

She was silent for several minutes, and then she said, "Will you leave me tonight, Quinton?"

"No, my dear," he answered her. "It is unlikely I shall ever leave your bed again, no matter the gossip involved."

She smiled then closed her eyes, feeling more at peace with herself and with her life than she had ever felt before.

Quinton Hunter sensed his wife relax, but he was not yet ready to sleep. He had no idea what had made him admit his love for Allegra, but at least she hadn't been repulsed by her new knowledge. She had even said she harbored some sort of feeling for him, but she had not said she loved him. That would surely come in time, he decided. For the first time in his life he understood his father's drinking himself to death after his mother's death. To be without the one you love was surely a hell on earth.

Allegra awoke early. Quinton still lay by her side, curled onto his side, sleeping peacefully. She studied him closely for the first time. He was handsome, but it was not his beauty of either face or form that attracted her. Looking into his face she saw something else. She saw strength and honesty. But I don't believe in love, she thought once more. You don't? the little voice in her head mocked. Then why do you care that his demeanor is one of strength and honesty?

Quinton Hunter opened his eyes, and looked into Allegra's beautiful face. Her gaze was suddenly startled by what she saw.

"You do love me," she said wonderingly. "I can tell. It is the look in your eyes, Quinton. Oh dear! Oh dear!" God almighty! She sounded like a perfect ninny, but his words last night while surprising were nothing compared to the emotion she saw now in those silvery depths.

"You think too much, my darling," he told her. "Get up, madame. We have a houseful of guests arriving today, and a future King of England in the Lake bedchamber even as we speak."

Allegra couldn't help it. She giggled. "I never expected to be so rudely tossed into my duchess-dom this quickly, my lord," she told him. "We should have been gone when Prinny and young Mister Brummell arrived. They say we will not go to Italy next spring as some French general is harrying the Venetians."

"I will make it up to you when the French stop harrying the Venetians," he promised her. "Besides, I am longing to make love to you in a gondola, my darling Allegra. Mad, passionate love beneath the moon as we glide by the Piazza San Marco on a warm summer's night."

"Sir, I think you quite mad," Allegra told him, arising. "Ohh!" She whirled about, rubbing her bottom which he had just lovingly smacked.

"I could not resist," he told her with a grin.

She laughed, then told him, "Go back to your own bedchamber now, my lord. I wish to dress, and so must you. His Highness will want to hunt, I have not a doubt."

The duke had no sooner finished his morning ablutions and descended the stairs to his dining room when he heard Prinny and his traveling companion coming down behind him. A swift glance about the room told him that breakfast was more than ready.

"Good morning, my lord," Crofts said calmly.

The Duke of Sedgwick nodded his greeting, delighted and amazed at the same time that his household was running so smoothly. Allegra was truly a wonder, he thought to himself.

"Good morning, Your Highness," Crofts said pointedly.

The duke turned quickly, and welcomed his guests. The footmen seated the gentlemen and began bringing about the silver dishes and covered platters that held the breakfast. The prince almost purred as he helped himself to a rare and juicy beefsteak, and allowed the footman to ladle a sauce of cream, braised onions, and peppercorns over it. He murmured his approval of the eggs poached in heavy cream and Marsala wine and dusted with nutmeg. He hummed with delight as the various platters were presented to him. Then he ate, and he ate, and he ate, washing down his meal with a goblet of wine that never seemed to empty itself. His companions ate more sparingly.