“It was mine, too. It seemed like a dream after.”

  “I’m no dream, but flesh and blood and hungry for you.” Roman settled his hands on her thighs and slowly worked her skirts above her knees. It could have been the work of a moment to bare her legs, yet he took his time. He’d rushed the night of her ruin, but he was done with doing things in a hurry when it came to intimacy with Amity.

  Her legs were slim, the lower half encased in serviceable stocking instead of silk, with short, well-worn boots on her feet. Her pretty knees and thighs were bare. He stroked them with just his fingertips.

  He loosened his breeches as his cock swelled, mostly for comfort, but did not reveal himself to her yet. He slipped his hands under her gown and teased her inner thighs.

  “You should make good use of your husband while he’s here, my sweet,” he whispered as he dotted kisses on her cheek and her neck. “I have much to make up for, and I’ve neglected my wife badly, haven’t I?”

  She choked on a laughed. “I suppose you have. It’s been weeks since I’ve had any attention to my needs.”

  “I’ll never leave you wanting again. I mean to lavish my wife with all my considerable skill in the bedchamber and beyond too.”

  Amity groaned, and he pulled her head down and stole a proper kiss from her lips, all the while watching her expression as he teased his tongue into her mouth.

  She wriggled closer and looped her arms about his neck, clinging to him the way she had in the dark closet under the stairs. But the closer they got, the sooner this tryst might be over.

  He leaned back and strummed his thumb across her nipples lightly. Watching them harden beneath her gown made him harder, too. He wanted to see her body. Since the lacings of her gown were at the back, he settled for tugging her gown off one shoulder to reveal one perfectly shaped breast. Her nipples were a soft brown, pebbling further in the cooler air of the room.

  He blew softly across the peak, making her gasp.

  “Crawford!”

  “Husband,” he corrected.

  “Husband,” she said, sighing with what distinctly sounded like pleasure. “Must you always shock me?”

  He slipped a hand under her dress and cupped her sex, making her gasp even louder than she had the first time. He chuckled softly at her reaction. “It seems your lot in life to have a rake for a husband.”

  She wriggled again on his lap, and suddenly he was the one gasping out loud. Amity had slipped her soft hand between them, into his open breaches, to pull out his cock.

  Roman groaned as she started to stroke him with just enough pressure to curl his toes in his boots. “You seem more educated than last we met,” he managed to gasp out.

  “Wives discuss their sexual conquests,” she whispered in his ear, causing a shiver to race through him, especially when she nipped his ear with her teeth. “I’m keen to put what I’ve heard into practice with you.”

  She’d learned very well indeed. “I’m more than happy to be fodder for your continued stories if this is how you practice the carnal arts.”

  Not wishing to be the only one on the brink of an orgasm, he carefully slid a pair of fingers inside her, making her rise off his lap briefly. When she sank back down, it was with a rather desperate gasp of pleasure and the loss of her hands on his cock.

  She’d forgotten him, and he didn’t mind. Her touch had been alarmingly arousing as she’d stroked him. He kissed her throat, determined to focus on her pleasure first. “Have you been dreaming about me being inside you, sweetheart?”

  “Every night since,” she vowed, rising, only to sink down on his fingers again. He encouraged her to continue. “So much better.” Her movement sped up as she impaled herself, gasping a little louder each time.

  “Better than what?”

  “My memory and attempts.”

  The image of Amity, legs spread in her lonely bed, fingers dipping between her lower lips while she thought of him, was too much. He removed his fingers and fitted her to the head of his cock immediately.

  They both groaned, and as she sank down, he met her gaze. A blush colored her cheeks and her eyes were wide as they started to fuck each other. Though the chair creaked beneath them, Roman was confident it would hold in the face of such blinding lust.

  Amity came first, and quickly, crying out as she shuddered and clawed at his head, pulling him to her bosom.

  Roman tongued her nipple but roared out his release a moment later, unable to stop himself climaxing inside her body. “Amity! Am—”

  When it was over he kissed her fiercely, knowing their first time together hadn’t prepared him at all for the passion to be found in her arms again. He’d never felt like this about anyone ever before. Not even with Melody, and he’d thought theirs was true love.

  He could not walk away from this woman. Not until he had purged her from his soul or claimed her heart entirely.

  Since Amity lay huddled against him on the chair, he pulled her to him properly and rose. Holding her with one arm, and the other hand holding up his breeches, he carried her off to her bedchamber to make love to her until dawn.

  Chapter 10

  Amity was so confused by Crawford. He said he was only pretending to be her husband, but when she lay in his arms, it felt so perfectly natural between them. Is this what a casual fling was supposed to turn into? The talking and tenderness and the wanting that never seemed to end.

  She hadn’t ever imagined it could be like this with any man. Certainly, none her brother had introduced her to in London.

  Crawford, Roman, had made love to her last night and each time she thought it was over she craved to have him again. The first time on a chair, which she now blushed to recall, had been the right beginning. She might never sit in that room again without thinking of it or him. The second time they’d made love had been in her own bed, and Roman had left her weak and trembling and she’d fallen asleep without knowing it.

  She’d expected him to be gone before dawn, but he still slept at her side even now. She glanced over her shoulder at him. Quiet, handsome, everything she craved still.

  Roman slept face down, completely naked under the bedsheet. She remembered making a detailed inspection of his entire physique when they’d first come to her bed. Roman had laughed but indulged her curiosity. He’d lain back, one hand pillowing his head, and let her have her way inspecting his front side. His amber eyes had danced with amusement in the candlelight until the moment she’d asked him to turn over. But he had turned over, his muscles flexing with the effort.

  Unfortunately, he could only bear her kissing down his spine for a few minutes before flipping over, capturing her, and kissing her witless. They’d made love for what had seemed like hours after that. She could hardly recall the evening without her cheeks heating anew. Was her reaction unusual or did all women react this way to him?

  Although she’d like to talk to him about the pleasures they’d shared, she wasn’t quite ready to voice them yet. She had so many questions and thoughts on what they’d done last night, and what they might do next if he wanted to share her bed again.

  If.

  She sighed. It was still very early, and she was loathe to wake him up. Last night had been exhausting—especially for him, given the way he had flipped her this way and that, supporting her body weight as they made love all through the night. There was still plenty of time for him to leave before full sunrise yet, or perhaps he might stay and make love to her again. She’d like him to stay. Perhaps longer than he might want to, though.

  Her stomach suddenly gurgled its need for nourishment, and since neither of them had eaten last night, Amity carefully climbed out of bed and drew on her nightgown and then grabbed her largest and warmest shawl to throw around her shoulders. She crept from the room as silently as she could and pulled the door shut behind her. She wanted a cup of tea and a chance to think about what she really wanted from Roman Crawford before the maid came to start her day.

  She ought to feed Roman too. She wasn’t much of a cook, but she could at least heat water for tea and toast stale bread on the fire if hers could be stirred to life.

  She glanced out the window, just able to make out the shape of the nearest houses. All were dark still and she saw no one out and about, so she let the curtain fall again. By now, the villagers might have heard that Roman was her husband and would likely see nothing wrong with him spending the night. They would imagine they’d made up and resumed their marriage, along with all the usual benefits of one. She had to admit that so far, the benefits had exceeded her expectations. Her new friends in the village would probably approve of their so-called reconciliation. They had all cautioned Amity not to give up on her marriage, or her handsome husband.

  But Roman would leave, and then what would they think of her? She’d be blamed for driving him away. He surely must go, though. He had a life elsewhere to live. Her brother to torment. Another woman to mourn the loss of, even though he claimed to be over her.

  Amity might have found Roman’s revenges alarming in the beginning, but she had seen a certain rightness in them in the end. George had used Melody’s ruin to line his own pockets. He’d claimed her, and she suspected George had somehow managed to extort money from her family, too, to keep things quiet. And George had continued to laugh at Roman’s loss for all to hear in public, setting him up for ridicule by others. All of it within Melody’s hearing but the woman had never once protested or asked him to stop. She remained silent, complicit. Allowing a good man to be maligned.

  It was one of the reasons Amity could never truly think of Melody as a sister. She seemed to enjoy living in the center of a difficult situation. Roman deserved far better, in her opinion. She hoped when he returned to London that he might find other interests one day.

  Amity padded silently through the house. She knew all the spots where the floorboards creaked and protested her slight weight.

  She went to the room where she and Roman had first made love and quickly tidied the space, pushing their chair back in line with the rest. Satisfied there were no clothing belonging to either one littering the floor, Amity headed for the kitchen—but found the maid already there an hour earlier than she ought to be.

  Amity winced inwardly and adopted a happy outward mien. “Good morning.”

  The maid looked up from stirring the fire to life. “Good morning to you, too, Madam. You’re up very early today.”

  “Yes, I couldn’t sleep and came to make tea,” Amity said quickly, feeling her cheeks warming with a blush as she thought of the man asleep in her bed. “Have you been here long?”

  “Not very long but I’ll have tea ready in a moment.”

  “Thank you.” Amity smiled and glanced around discretely. As usual there was bread for toast, and cheese already out, too. Easily enough for one hungry lover.

  The maid straightened and dusted off her fingers, a look of worry on her face. “I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t eat the food I set aside for your dinner last night. Was it not to your liking?”

  “I’m sure it was but I found I wasn’t hungry then.” She’d had her fill of her pretend husband instead. He was all she was able to think about last night. She prayed he did not come stumping down the staircase at any moment, looking for her. She’d be embarrassed and married women were not supposed to be embarrassed by having entertained their husbands.

  The maid brightened. “Would you care for porridge this morning, perhaps? Can’t have you fading away to nothing. You must be famished.”

  She had no idea if Roman liked porridge, but Amity was hungry enough to eat last night’s supper, and porridge, too. “Yes, please.”

  “It won’t take too long.”

  Amity, however, hovered at the kitchen doorway, watching the maid set out a meal and listening, dreading, hearing movement from above or the direction of the stairs behind her. When the maid paused, clearly almost ready to serve her, Amity cleared her throat.

  “Mary, why don’t you take the day off.”

  The maid looked at her in surprise. “What for?”

  “Surely you’d rather be doing something else than scrubbing dirty pots in my kitchen.”

  “Not really. You’re an easier employer than my last,” the maid promised with a broad smile that fell away just as suddenly. “Begging your pardon. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  The maid had come with the house. Fairbridge had hired the local woman, so Amity knew little of her past. “Who did you work for before starting here?”

  “I shouldn’t say, madam.”

  Amity took a step into the room. She absolutely hated it when she didn’t have the whole story spelled out to her. “Mary?”

  The poor woman looked decidedly nervous, but eventually she shrugged. “I’d worked for the Fletchers since I was a girl.”

  “They’ve never mentioned it.”

  “Likely not. Mrs. Fletcher got the idea in her head that I was making eyes at her son, and he with me.”

  “With Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Yes, madam. But it is not true. He would never look at me the way he looks at…” The maid shook her head. “He’s a great man, Mr. Fletcher. Far too far above the likes of me, I know. He would never want me that way.”

  “Mary, who do you think Mr. Fletcher does favor?”

  “You.” The maid stilled and kept her eyes downcast. “He would make any woman happy, I’m sure.”

  Amity moved into the room and sat at the kitchen table. She sensed in the other woman bitterness she knew only too well. Had Mary developed real feelings for Mr. Fletcher over the years of her employment, despite claiming that she had not? “Mary, I’m a married woman.”

  “I know that now.” The maid peeked at her under her lashes, eyes flashing anger. “But in the beginning, it seemed…”

  From that look, it was clear the woman had not ever believed her story. Might never have, actually, which made Roman’s arrival well timed.

  Amity gestured behind her. “For heaven’s sake. My husband is upstairs, in my bed, right this very minute.”

  The maid’s eyes widened. “So, you forgave him?”

  “Not completely. That is why I am giving you the day off. We have much to talk about, my husband and I, before I can forgive him,” she assured the woman. “He did betray me.”

  The maid chewed her lip. “Are you sure you should be alone with him today, madam?”

  “Quite sure. My husband is not a violent man. Unfaithful, yes, and he knows I won’t forgive him easily after the humiliation he dealt me. But what we discuss is between us alone.” She definitely wanted no one to interrupt her and Roman because she hoped to find out how long he might stay and how often they might make love in that time. “I’ll manage everything else on my own, I promise, and see you tomorrow morning as usual.”

  She made a shooing motion with her hands, and the now grinning maid bobbed a curtsey, removed her apron, caught up her shawl and slipped out the back door. When Mary smiled, she was remarkably pretty. How typical of a man like Mr. Fletcher not to notice he was loved from afar in vain.

  Amity heaved a sigh, committed now to this wild tale they’d concocted together. She was the wife with a husband who had to be accommodated, and made to suffer, too. He should probably move his possessions from the inn to her own home sometime today, too.

  She had to admit, she didn’t mind having Roman for a husband at all. He made her crave things she hadn’t known existed. She could easily become addicted to his kisses, and that made her feel decidedly weak around him.

  “Is everything all right?”

  Amity looked up with a smile on her lips, so glad to hear his voice again. She rushed to kiss him. Roman was only partially dressed, standing bare foot in her home. She took in his lean rumpled form and her heart flipped in excitement for what might happen between them today. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving for you.” He captured her and held her close. “I woke to find you gone.”

  “I’m hungry. After last night…”

  “Lovemaking does work up an appetite, doesn’t it,” he murmured before nuzzling her neck, as had become his habit. He moved past her into the kitchen. “Is there any tea?”

  “Yes, and porridge soon, too,” she promised, rushing to the pot to stir it.

  Roman followed and peered over her shoulder into the pot. “Ah, your maid has been here, has she?”

  Amity frowned and stirred some more. “I could have done it.”

  Roman scowled. “I would hope you didn’t have to. That would be the last indignity I could bear if you were forced to cook your own meals. Your cousin should have provided sufficiently that you never needed to toil in any kitchen.”

  Amity laughed at his protest. When she’d first arrived, she had wondered how severe her banishment would be. However, she’d been met by a couple who acted as housekeeper and gardener. They came by once a week at her request. “He did provide me with staff. But I’ve reduced the hours of toil for all he employed, mostly on account of their ages and my lack of need. I want to learn to cook a little, too. Just the necessities, you understand.”

  Roman lifted the heavy kettle steaming over the stove and filled a delicate teapot set on the worktable. Amity stirred the porridge again, but it seemed little improved by doing so. She should have asked Mary when it would be ready before sending her away. It was too late to call her back now though. “I don’t think this is done yet.”

  Roman looked over her shoulder. “Agreed. You’ll have to suffice to satisfy my hunger.”

  He swept her away from the stove and dropped her onto the edge of the kitchen table.

  Amity looped her arms around his shoulders, laughing in surprise. “We could go back to bed while we wait.”

  “Why go anywhere else?”

  “Well, we could talk, or make love there.”

  “Who needs a bed when this table right here seems sturdy enough to hold the two of us.” He kissed her cheek. “What was it you wanted to talk about though?”

  Amity bit her lip a moment and then decided there was no point in waiting for a better time. “Are you leaving today?”