“Henry,” she said. She was whispering, she found. “I love you so very much.”

He gazed into her eyes, a look of hunger in his own. He drew breath but seemed to change his mind. Instead of speaking he lowered his head and kissed her-an openmouthed kiss of raw need that drew an instant response of surprise and desire. She tightened her arms and arched herself to him. There was shock for a moment as she felt his hands working at the buttons down the back of her dress, and then a surge of happiness.

“I always have,” she said against his mouth. “Since the first moment I saw you. I have always worshiped you.”

She gasped when he lowered her bodice and her chemise to her waist, and her naked breasts came back against his coat. And then his hands were on them, cupping them and stroking them, and his thumbs and forefingers were squeezing her nipples, rolling them lightly until she felt such a sharp stab of desire that she moaned into his mouth.

“Henry,” she begged him, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth still against his, “make love to me. I have always wanted you to make love to me. Please, for this special day. Make love to me.”

She would die, she thought if he merely coupled with her as he had the night before and all those other nights since their marriage. She should not have said what she just had. She should not have given in to the temptation to hope. She should not have begged for what he had never freely given.

But she was on the bed before she could get her thoughts straight, before she could feel shame for her wanton words. She was flat on her back, and he was stripping away her clothes from the waist down, looking at her from eyes heavy with desire as he straightened up and began to remove his own clothes. She was surprised to find that she felt no embarrassment though the candles burned and those passion-heavy eyes were devouring her nakedness. She lifted her arms to him.

She had asked for it, begged for it, wanted it. He would not feel guilt.

This was not the way a gentleman used his wife, but they both wanted it.

They both needed it. He resisted the urge to douse the candles so that she would be saved from embarrassment. And as he joined her naked on the bed, he rejected the idea of somehow restraining his passion. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. For this one occasion, she had said. So be it, then.

He worked on her mouth with his lips and his tongue and on her breasts with his hands and his fingers. She fenced his tongue with her own and sucked on it. She pushed her breasts up against his hands and gasped when he pinched her nipples, hardening them before rubbing his palms lightly over them. Her own hands explored his back and his shoulders.

She wanted him. He felt a fierce exultation. She wanted him. This was not a mistress. This was his wife. This was Sally. And she wanted him.

He moved one hand down to caress her and ready her for penetration. She was hot and wet to his touch, something she had never been before. His temperature soared and his arousal became almost painful.

“Please,” she was moaning into his mouth. “Please. Henry, please.”

And so he moved on top of her, felt her legs twine tightly about his, lifted his head to look down into her face-her eyes were wide-open and gazing back-and mounted her, sliding deeply into wet heat. God. Oh, my God. Sally.

“Love me,” she whispered to him. “Oh, please, Henry. There is such an ache.”

She was going to come to him, he thought, the realization hammering through his temples with the blood. She was going to climax. He had heard that it was possible with some women.

“Tell me when.” He lowered himself on his elbows until his mouth was an inch from hers and he began to move slowly and deeply in her. “I’ll wait as long as you need.”

But she did not have to tell him. He felt the gradual clenching of her inner muscles, the building tension of her whole body. He heard her deep breaths gradually turn to gasps. And he watched the concentration in her face as her eyes closed and her mouth opened in the agony of the final moments before she looked up at him, stillness and wonder in her eyes, and began to tremble.

He lowered himself onto her, held her tightly, held himself still and deep in her, and let himself experience the marvel of his woman shuddering into release beneath him and crying out his name. Only when he was sure that she had experienced the full joy of the moment did he move again to his own climax.

It was the most wonderful night of her life. She did not care if it was never repeated. She had this to hug to herself in memory for the rest of her days, the most wonderful Christmas that anyone could hope to have.

She was nestled in his arms, watching him sleep. After more than three years of marriage she felt like a new bride. She felt… oh, she felt wonderful. And she would be satisfied, she swore to herself. She would not demand the moon and the stars. She had the Christmas star, the brightest and best of them all. She would be satisfied with that. Things could never be quite as bad between them now that they had had this night-or this part of a night.

He had opened his eyes and was looking at her. She smiled. Don’t remove your arm, she begged him with her eyes. Let’s lie like this, just for tonight.

“You said it,” he said. “It seemed to come so easily, though I know it did not. You have not been able to say it in three years, have you? Why have we found it so hard? Why is it so difficult to talk from the heart with those closest to us?”

“Because with them there is most fear of rejection?” she said. “Because we have to protect our hearts from those who have the power to break them every day for the rest of our lives?”

“I do not have your courage,” he said, one hand stroking lightly over her cheek. “I still don’t. Sally, my love… Ah, just that.My love.

Did I hurt you? Did I disgust you?”

“Say it again,” she said, smiling at him. “Again and again. And do it again and again. I want to be as close to you as I can be, Henry. Close to your body, close to your heart, close to your mind. Not just for tonight. I am greedy.”

“My love.” He drew her closer to him, set his lips against hers. “It is what I have always wanted, what I have always yearned for. But I have wanted to treat you with respect. Foolish, wasn’t I?”

“To think that being respectful meant holding me at arm’s length?” she said. “And giving much of what I have longed for to mistresses? Have I made you flush? Did you think I did not know? Yes, you have been foolish, Henry. And I have been foolish not to fight for your love and not to put you straight on this ridiculous notion that gentlemen seem to have about women.”

“Would this be happening if we had reached the Middletons’ before the rain came?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “No, it would not. Perhaps it never would have happened.

We would have kept drifting until perhaps we would have lived apart.

Henry…” There was pain in her voice.

He rubbed his lips against hers and drew back his head to smile at her.

“But it did happen,” he said. “Christmas happened almost two thousand years ago, and it has happened this year for us. Love always seems to blossom at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected places.

This was meant to happen, Sally. We must not shudder at the thought of how nearly it did not happen. It was meant to be.”

“Do you think we will ever have a child?” she asked him wistfully, snuggling closer to the warmth and safety of him. “I wanted so much today for that baby to be mine, Henry. Ours. Do you think we ever will?”

“If we don’t,” he said, and he chuckled as he drew her closer still, “it won’t be for lack of trying.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Shall we try now?” he said to her. “And perhaps again later?”

“And again later still?” she asked.

He laughed. “After all,” he said, “dawn comes late in December. And there does not seem to be a great deal to get up early for at this apology for an inn, does there? Especially not on Christmas morning.”

“Christmas morning is for babies,” she said.

“The making of them as well as the birthing of them,” he said, turning her onto her back and moving over her.

She smiled up at him.

“Sally,” he said, serious again as he lowered his mouth and his body to hers, “my most wonderful Christmas gift. I love you.”

It did not seem quite the same once everyone had gone to bed and he was left alone in the taproom. Even though he built up the fire and sat on a settle close to the heat, the place felt cheerless again. Christmas had fled again.

He thought of the Whittakers’ large and fashionable mansion and of Lady Frazer’s enticing beauty. He felt a moment’s pang of regret but no more.

He did not want to be there, he realized with a wry smile directed at the fire. He wanted to be exactly where he was. Well, not exactly, perhaps. There was a room upstairs and a bed where he would rather be.

But perhaps not. He could no longer think of her in terms of simple lust. There was a warmer feeling and a nameless yearning when he thought of her. Also a regret for wasted years, for years of senseless debauchery that had brought no real happiness with them.

They would not be able to travel during the coming day, Christmas Day.

Probably they would the day after. The rain had finally stopped, and the sky had cleared before darkness fell. He would have one more day in which to enjoy looking at her and in which to maneuver to engage her in conversation. One day-a Christmas to remember.

And then he looked up from his contemplation of the flames in the hearth to find her standing before him, looking at him gravely. She held a blanket and a pillow in her arms.

“I thought you might be cold and uncomfortable,” she said, holding them out to him. “It was very kind of you to give up your room for Lisa. You are a kind man.”

“I gave up my room,” he said, taking the pillow and blanket from her and setting them down beside him, “because you had tried to give up yours and I wanted to impress you with a show of chivalry. Kindness had nothing to do with it. I am not renowned for my kindness.”

“Perhaps because you sometimes try not to show it,” she said. “But I have seen it in other ways. You came to help Lisa give birth though it terrified you to do so.”

He shrugged. “I came for your sake,” he said. “And I did not help all day long, while you were exhausting yourself. In the event I did not help at all.”

“But you would have,” she said. “The intention was there. Tom showed me the ring you gave as a gift for the baby.”

He shrugged again. “I am very wealthy,” he said. “It was nothing.”

“No,” she said, still looking at him with her grave eyes, “it was something.”

“Ah,” he said, “then I have impressed you. I have achieved my goal.”

She stared at him silently. He expected her to turn to leave, but she did not do so.

“Do you know how you have affected me?” he asked. “I do not believe I have ever before refused an invitation to bed. That was an invitation you were issuing last night?”

She lowered her eyes for a moment, but she lifted them again and looked at him calmly. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose so.”

“Why?” he asked. “You are not in the habit of issuing such invitations, are you?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes,” she said, “I grow tired of the grayness of life. It was so full of color until a little more than a year ago, but there has been nothing but grayness since and nothing but grayness to look forward to. It is wrong of me to be dissatisfied with my lot, and normally I am not. But I thought this was going to be a disappointing Christmas.”

“And it has not been?” he asked.

“No.” She smiled slowly. “It has been the most wonderful Christmas of all.”

“Because of the baby,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “because of him. And for other reasons, too.”

He reached out a hand. “Come and sit beside me,” he said.

She looked at his hand and set her own in it. She sat down beside him and set her head on his shoulder when he put an arm about her.

“I wanted you last night,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? And why I left you, the deed undone?”

“Because you knew I was inexperienced,” she said. “Because you knew me to be incapable of giving you the pleasure you are accustomed to. I understood. It is all right.”

“Because I realized the immensity of the gift you were offering,” he said. “Because I knew I could not take momentary pleasure from you.

Because any greater commitment than that terrified me.”

“I expected no more,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “That was the greatness of your gift.”