is up to, I also fear to provoke him by saying anything to her that he might get wind of, but somebody ought to say something.” A concerned half-brother, perhaps.
Ash began a slow pattern of caresses to Della’s arm and shoulder. “I found Lady Fairchild near tears the other day. Chastain was also on the terrace. Between sessions in the gazebo.”
“And you think a man who waves his pizzle around like it’s imbued with Excalibur’s magic is somehow more impressive than the husband who holds me while I dream, cuddles with me in the morning, and takes my part when I’m in disgrace?”
Ash dragged her closer. “You are so fierce.”
“I am not fierce. Sometimes, I can hardly speak, I’m at such a loss.” The rest was poised to come tumbling out. I shake, I wheeze, I am terrified for no reason, my mind whirls through dreadful thoughts that feel like the only certainties left in the world.
Ash kissed her, and Della dared to kiss him back—no tongue, for she didn’t want to scare him off.
“I came upon young Lord Tavistock in the stable yesterday,” Ash said, his hand resting on Della’s belly. “His lordship suspected Golding had been making untoward advances on his person. I believed him.”
He kissed her again, shifting onto his side.
“Golding is Mrs. Tremont’s brother?” Della asked, loving the feel of Ash’s morning beard against her palm.
“The same. Spread your legs, Mrs. Dorning. Let’s greet the day like a married couple, shall we?”
Della obliged with inordinate joy, and Ash was soon coming into her in sweet, lazy thrusts. He’d been harder on other occasions, but he was hard enough. Della was soon moving in counterpoint to his rhythm and glorying in the way he used a hand under her bottom to bring them closer.
“Let go, Della,” Ash said. “Be greedy.”
She wanted to be married rather than greedy, to make love rather than simply avail herself of Ash’s morning cockstand—such as it was. His passion was flagging by the moment, and the sense of being once more abandoned washed through her.
“I will save my greed for another occasion,” she said, going still and stroking his hair. “One we can enjoy equally.”
He sighed and levered up onto all fours, obliterating the fiction that they were still joined. “You might have a long wait. I’m sorry.”
“Then we both have a long wait. Freddy Throckmorton was always at me, Ash. Pushing me onto a reading table or bending me over the nearest saddle rack. I was a convenience, a sheath for his sword, nothing more. You are much more to me than a few moments of stolen pleasure.”
He wrapped her in a hug. “I want to be more to you than that, Della, but I also want to be your lover. I get like this, though, as the melancholia descends. My appetites, all of them, desert me.”
That he would speak to her when she could not see his face was frustrating. “What else tells you it’s coming on?”
“I never have much interest in spirits, but as food, physical exertion, erotic joys, and the challenges of running the club all begin to pale, I am drawn more strongly to drink. Drink offers oblivion from my oblivion, if that makes sense.”
She stroked his shoulders, loving the feel of him naked in her arms and loving the trust he reposed in her even more. “Does inebriation help?”
He shifted away and settled on his back. “Decidedly not. Drink is a chimera, a path from one problem to another. It exacerbates my irritability, which is also a hallmark of an impending rough patch. I wanted to plant Portly a facer, for example, when I ran into him in the stable. He was making stupid small talk. My impatience was inordinate, considering my errand was no more pressing than retrieving my riding crop.”
Della snuggled up to Ash’s side and resisted the urge to play with his cock. She had been honestly aroused by Ash’s advances, and she was honestly frustrated not to have found satisfaction.
How much more frustrated must he be, then? Might she ask him for the sort of attentions he’d shown her in the conservatory prior to their wedding? She lacked the courage to make the request.
Ash was being affectionate, and she would content herself with that.
“I don’t know what to make of Mr. Portly,” Della said. “He’s agreeable and occasionally witty, but never cutting. He’s partnering Clarice Chastain in the tournament with every appearance of good cheer, but he keeps company with William. Either