Clayton did. And he wanted it so badly for her that his own rampaging desire was secondary. "Soon, darling," he promised and began to steadily quicken the rhythm of his driving strokes.

The volcano that had been threatening to erupt inside of Whitney exploded with a force that tore a low scream from her throat. Instantly Clayton throttled the scream with his mouth. When her tremors had subsided he took her sweet lips in a long kiss, and with one deep thrust, he poured his shuddering warmth at the mouth of her womb.

Afraid that his weight would crush her, Clayton gathered her to him and rolled onto his side, taking her with him. Lying there, with Whitney cradled in his arms, his body still intimately joined to hers, he experienced a joyous contentment, a languorous peace, unlike anything he had ever known.

He half expected Whitney to fall asleep in his arms, but after several minutes, she tilted her head back and raised shining green eyes to his. Clayton brushed a wayward curl off her cheek. "Are you happy, love?"

She smiled at him; the sated, happy smile of a woman who knew. . . and who knows that she is beloved. "Yes," she whispered.

He kissed her forehead and she snuggled closer against him, while he tenderly caressed the lovely contours of her back and hip, waiting for her to fell asleep. Instead, she lapsed into silence, tracing small circles on his chest, but she did not seem any more inclined toward sleep than he. "What are you thinking about?" he asked her finally.

Whitney's gaze flew to his, then she buried her face against his chest. "Nothing," she murmured unconvincingly.

Tilting her chin up, Clayton forced her to look at him. He had no idea what she could be thinking, but after having just removed the last barrier between them, he didn't want any new ones erected, ever. "What?" he persisted with gentle firmness.

She bit her lip in a combination of shyness and laughter. "I was thinking that if it had been like this-that other time-instead of fleeing from here, I would have stayed and demanded that you do the proper thing and marry me at once!"

She looked so beautiful that Clayton was torn between laughing and kissing her. So he did both. It was heaven to hold her in his arms like this, to be able to talk to her in the darkness and have her bare arms around him. Clayton felt more in the mood for celebrating than sleeping. When he looked down at her a while later and found her still awake, gazing into the firelight, he said, "Do you want to sleep?"

"I don't think I could. I'm wide awake."

"Good, so am I." He grinned. "Will you light all three of, those candles on the table beside you?"

"Your smallest wish is my command," his "obedient" wife told him as she leaned up on an elbow and kissed him full on the mouth, but before she turned over to light the candles, she carefully drew the sheet up.

Clayton's lips twitched with laughter as she modestly clutched it to the luscious breasts he had just fondled and kissed. He propped their pillows up so that they could sit back against them, then he relaxed back and pleasured himself with the sight of her. When she turned from lighting the candles and saw him gazing at her, she self-consciously ran her fingers through her tumbled tresses and gave the luxuriant mass a hard shake that sent it spilling down her back. "Madam," Clayton reassured her with a roguish grin, "you are beautiful en dishabille-if that sheet you are trying to wear qualifies you for being in that fashionable state of partial dress."

"I don't think it does," Whitney mused thoughtfully. "In France and even here, it is all the rage for ladies to receive gentlemen en dishabille, but I'm certain they must be wearing more than this." Then Whitney realized with a rosy blush that Clayton undoubtedly knew a good deal more about that particular "rage" than she did, and the thought made her feel a little forlorn.

Everyone knew that Clayton had had mistresses before, and married men frequently kept mistresses discreetly tucked away, too. It crushed her to think of him doing the things he had just done with her, with another woman, too. Emboldened by her distress and ashamed of her shocking effrontery, Whitney said hesitantly, "Clayton, I think I would have a very difficult time pretending not to notice . . . no, passively accepting… accepting . . ."

"Accepting what?" Clayton whispered, his lips against her temple.

"A mistress!" Whitney blurted.

Clayton's head jerked up. For a moment he stared blankly at her, then he wrapped his arms around her and burst out laughing. But because he knew she was genuinely distressed, he made his face more appropriately solemn-as befitted the lifetime renunciation he was about to make. Then, gazing into her glorious eyes, he said in quiet earnest, "I will not take a mistress."

"Thank you," Whitney whispered. "I'm afraid I would feel very strongly about it."

"I'm sure you would," he said, striving to keep his face straight.

A few minutes later, Clayton remembered the velvet box tucked away in the table beside the bed. Reluctantly easing his arm from beneath her shoulders, he explained, "I have a gift for you."

Whitney remembered that she had one for him, too, and was out of the bed in a flurry of long, shapely limbs and creamy curves. "I asked Clarissa to put yours in my room," she explained as she started away from the bed. Clayton was devouring the sight of her exquisite naked form when she noticed his look, then hurtled herself toward the discarded lace robe.

He presented her with a necklace of square-cut emeralds, each surrounded with a row of glittering diamonds, and a matching bracelet and ear drops. "Fit for a duchess," he whispered as he kissed her.

Whitney laughed as she handed him his gift. "Fit for a duke," she said, sitting beside him with her legs curled beneath her, watching him open it. Clayton snapped the lid up, then threw back his head and shouted with laughter at the sight of the gorgeously made, solid-gold quizzing glass she had given him. In exactly the same tone she had used at the Armands' masquerade, she said, "A quizzing glass is an indispensable affectation of royalty." Then she reached behind her and produced another gift in a small velvet box. As she handed it to him, the laughter vanished from her face, and her whole expression changed.

Clayton looked at her for a long moment before opening the box, wondering why she suddenly seemed almost shy. Puzzled, he opened the lid and beheld a magnificent ruby set in a heavy gold ring. He took the ring from its bed of Mack velvet and it glittered in the dim light. Holding it closer to the candles to admire it, he was about to ask her sentimentally if she would like to put the ring on his finger, as he had placed her wedding band on hers, when he caught sight of a small inscription on the inside of the band. In handsome scroll were two words, the first of which was underlined. "My lord."

He groaned and pulled her almost roughly down onto his chest. "God, how I love you!" he whispered hoarsely as his mouth captured hers.

When the kiss ended, Whitney remained in his arms, and her long fingers lightly stroked the hair at his temple. Between the touch of her hand and the feel of her breasts against his naked chest as she half lay atop him, Clayton was acutely aware that his body was stirring to life with alarming intensity. His senses were alive to every inch of her form languorously stretched across him, but he didn't want to risk frightening her with too much lovemaking their first night. He stirred and Whitney raised herself up on her forearms, bracing them against his chest, affording him a view of bet swelling breasts that made desire pour like boiling lava through his veins.

"Am I too heavy?" she asked him softly.

"No, but I think you ought to get some sleep, my love," he suggested with a tinge of regret.