Ellie, who had never been called ugly but had certainly not spent her life receiving odes to her beauty, remained silent.

He kissed the underside of her other breast. "Perfect."

"Charles, I know I'm not—"

"Don't say anything unless you're going to agree with me," he said sternly.

She smiled. She couldn't help it.

And then, just when she was about to say something to tease him, his mouth found her nipple and closed around it, and she was lost. Sensation flooded her body, and she couldn't have uttered a word or formulated a thought if she tried.

Which she wasn't. All she was doing was arching her back toward him, pressing herself against his mouth.

"You're better than I dreamed," he murmured against her skin. "More than I imagined." He lifted his head just long enough to gift her with a wicked grin. "And I have a very good imagination."

Once again, she couldn't hold back a tender smile, so touched was she that he was doing so much to keep this first truly intimate experience from overwhelming her. Well, that was not exactly true. He was definitely trying to overwhelm her, working his magic on every last nerve ending in her body, but he was also doing his best to make sure that she had a smile on her face the whole time.

He was a nicer man than he wanted people to think. Ellie felt something warm and sweet moving within her heart, and she wondered if it might be the first stirrings of love.

Moved by a new sense of emotion, she lifted her hands, which had been lying at her sides, and sank them into his thick reddish-brown hair. It was crisp and soft, and she turned his head just so that she could feel his hair against her cheek.

He held her still for a moment, then lifted his body a few inches so that he could gaze down upon her. "My God, Ellie," he said, his words oddly shaky, "how I want you. You'll never know how much ..."

Ellie's eyes filled with tears at the heartfelt emotion in his voice. "Charles," she began, and then paused to shiver as a chilly wind passed across her bare skin.

"You're cold," he said.

"No," she lied, unwilling to let anything, even the weather, break this beautiful moment.

"Yes, you are." He rolled off of her and began to button her dress. "I'm an animal," he muttered, "seducing you here for the first time outside. Tumbling you on the grass."

"A very nice animal," she tried to joke.

He lifted his face to hers, and his brown eyes burned with emotion she had never seen before. It was hot, and it was fierce, and it was wildly, wonderfully possessive. "When I make you my wife, it will be done properly—in our marriage bed. And then"—he leaned down and dropped a passionate kiss on her mouth—"I'm not going to let you out for a week. Maybe two."

Ellie could only stare at him in amazement, still unable to believe that she could have aroused such passion in this man. He had consorted with the most beautiful women in the world, and yet she, a simple country miss, could set his heart pounding. Then he yanked on her arm, and as she felt herself being dragged back to Wycombe Abbey, she yelped, "Wait! Where are we going?"

"Home. Right now."

"We can't."

He turned around very slowly. "The hell we can't."

"Charles, your language."

He ignored her scolding. "Eleanor, every damned inch of my body is burning for you, and you couldn't possibly deny that you feel the same way. So would you like to give me one good reason why I shouldn't haul you back to the Abbey this minute and make love to you until we both pass out from it?"

She colored at his frank speech. "The tenants. We were to visit them this afternoon."

"Hang the tenants. They can wait."

"But I already sent word to Sally Evans that we would be by in the early afternoon to inspect the work on her chimney."

Charles didn't pause for a moment as he pulled her toward home. "She won't miss us."

"Yes, she will," Ellie persisted. "She has probably cleaned her whole house and prepared tea. It would be the height of rudeness not to show up. Especially after the debacle in her cottage earlier this week."

He thought about the scene in the fireplace, but that did little to improve his mood. The last thing he needed were memories of being trapped in a very tight space with his wife.

"Charles," Ellie said one last time, "we have to go see her. We don't have any other choice."

"You're not just putting me off, are you?"

"No!" she said, loudly and with great feeling.

He blasphemed out loud and then swore under his breath. "Very well," he muttered. "We visit Sally Evans, but that is all. Fifteen minutes in her cottage and then it's back to the Abbey."

Ellie nodded.

Charles swore again, trying not to dwell on the fact that his body had not yet resumed its normal relaxed state. It was going to be a most uncomfortable afternoon.

Chapter 14

Ellie thought Charles was taking this setback rather well, all in all. He was certainly grumpy, but he was obviously trying to be good-natured about it, even if he wasn't always succeeding.

His impatience showed in a thousand ways. Ellie knew that she would never be able to forget the look on Sally Evans's face as she watched Charles down his entire cup of tea in one extremely fast gulp, clank the cup back onto the saucer, proclaim it the finest beverage of which he'd ever partaken, and grab Ellie's hand and nearly yank her out the front door.

All in ten seconds.

Ellie wanted to be angry with him. She really really did. But she couldn't quite manage it, knowing that his impatience was entirely due to her, to the way he wanted her. And that was too thrilling a feeling for her to ignore.