"Trying to squeeze it is more like it," Ellie muttered. "Ow!"

"What?" he snapped.

"Your elbow."

"Yes, well, your knee ..."

"Are you all right?" came Helen's concerned voice.

"Leave us!" Charles roared.

"Well, really, my lord," Ellie said sarcastically, "I think we're quite alone here in—"

"You should really learn when to stop talking, wife."

"Yes, well..." Ellie's voice trailed off as she heard the door slam. She was suddenly very much aware that she was squeezed into a very tight space with her husband, and his body was pressed against hers in ways that ought not be legal.

"Ellie?"

"Charles?"

"Would you care to tell me why you are standing in a fireplace?"

"Oh, I don't know," she drawled, feeling rather proud of herself for her savoir-faire, "would you like to tell me why you are standing in a fireplace?"

"Ellie, don't test my patience."

Ellie was of the opinion that they had already gone way beyond the testing phase, but she wisely kept that thought to herself. Instead she said, "There wasn't any danger, of course."

"Of course," he replied, and Ellie was impressed despite herself at the amount of sarcasm he managed to pack into those two words. It was a talent, that.

"It would only have been dangerous if there were a fire in the grate, which clearly there wasn't."

"One of these days I'm going to have to strangle you before you kill yourself."

"I wouldn't recommend that course of action," she said weakly, starting to slide downward. If she could just wiggle out before he did, she might be able to buy enough time to make it to the woods. He'd never catch her amidst those trees.

"Eleanor, I—What in God's name are you doing?"

"Umm, just trying to get out," she said, into his belly. That was about as far down as she'd gotten.

Charles groaned. Really groaned. He could feel every inch of his wife's body, and her mouth—her mouth!—was dangerously, deliriously close to his groin, and—

"Charles, are you ill?"

"No," he croaked, trying to ignore the fact that he could feel her mouth move when she spoke, and then trying even harder to ignore the fact that it was moving against his navel.

"Are you certain? You don't sound well."

"Ellie?"

"Yes?"

"Stand back up. Now."

She did, but she had to wiggle an awful lot to get back upright, and after Charles felt her breast against his thigh, then his hip, and then his arm—well, he had to concentrate very hard to keep certain parts of his body from getting any more excited than they already were.

He wasn't successful.

"Ellie?" he said.

"Yes?" She was back to standing, which put her mouth somewhere at the lower part of his neck.

"Tilt your head up. Just a touch."

"Are you certain? Because we might get jammed, and—"

"We're already jammed."

"No, I could wriggle back down and—"

"Don't wriggle back down."

"Oh."

Charles took a deep breath. Then she moved. Nothing big, just a slight twist of her hips. But it was enough. And so he kissed her. He couldn't have helped it if France were conquering England, if the sky were falling in, even if his bloody cousin Cecil were inheriting his every last farthing.

He kissed her, and he kissed her, and then he kissed her some more. And then he finally lifted his head for a second—just a second, mind you—to take a breath, and the confounded woman actually managed to get a word in.

"Is that why you wanted me to tilt my head?" she asked.

"Yes, now stop talking."

He kissed her again, and he would have done more, except that they were wedged in so tight that he couldn't have wrapped his arms around her if he tried.

"Charles?" she said, when he took another breath.

"You have a talent for this, you know."

"For kissing?" she asked, sounding more delighted than she'd probably meant to let on.

"No, for rattling on every time I stop to breathe."

"Oh."

"You're rather good at the kissing bit, too, though. A little bit more practice and you'll be superb."

She elbowed him in the ribs, quite a feat considering he couldn't move his own arms an inch. "I'm not going to fall for that old trick," she said. "What I meant to say before you led me into a digression is that Helen and Sally Evans must be terribly worried about us."

"Curious, I imagine, but not worried."

"Yes, well, I think we should try to get out. I'll be terribly embarrassed to see them. I'm sure they know what we're doing, and—"

"Then the harm is already done." He kissed her again.

"Charles!" This time she didn't wait until he took a breath.

"What is it now? I'm trying to kiss you, woman."

"And I'm trying to get out of this bloody chimney." To prove her point, she began to slide back downward, subjecting him to the same erotic torture he'd suffered just a few minutes earlier. Soon she landed on the fireplace floor with a soft thump.

"That ought to do it," she said, crawling out into the cottage and giving him a nice view of her sooty backside. Charles took a few breaths, trying to get a firm rein on his racing body.

"Are you planning to come out?" Ellie asked. She sounded disgustingly chipper.

"Just a moment." He crouched down—moving was much easier now that she'd left the chimney—and crawled out.