Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,231

believe that you will not tell me more. As your elder sister (by a full year, I should not have to remind you) I am owed a certain measure of respect, and while I appreciate your informing me that Annie Mavel’s account of married love was correct, I should have liked a few details beyond that brief account. Surely you are not so wrapped in your own bliss that you cannot spare a few words (adjectives, in particular, would be helpful) for your beloved sister.

—from Eloise Bridgerton to her

sister the Countess of Kilmartin,

two weeks after Francesca’s wedding

One week later, Eloise was sitting in the small parlor that had recently been converted into an office for her, chewing on the end of her pencil as she attempted to go over the household accounts. She was supposed to be counting funds, and bags of flour, and the servants’ wages, and the like, but in truth all she could count was the number of times she and Phillip had made love.

Thirteen, she thought. No, fourteen. Well, fifteen, actually, if she counted that time when he hadn’t actually gone inside of her, but they’d both . . .

She blushed, even though there wasn’t a soul in the room besides her, and it wasn’t as if anyone would have known what she was thinking, anyway.

But good God, had she really done that? Kissed him there?

She hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. Annie Mavel certainly hadn’t described anything like that when she’d delivered her little lesson to Eloise and Francesca all those years ago.

Eloise scrunched her face as she thought back. She wondered if Annie Mavel had even known such things were possible. It was difficult to imagine Annie doing it, but then, it was difficult to imagine anyone doing it, most especially herself.

It was amazing, she thought, utterly amazing and beyond wonderful to have a husband who was so mad for her. They didn’t see one another too terribly often during the day—he had his work, after all, and she had hers, of a sort—but at night, after he’d given her five minutes for her toilette (it had started at twenty, but it seemed to be getting progressively shorter, and she could even hear his footsteps pacing outside the door during the scant minutes he now allowed her) . . .

At night, he pounced upon her like a man possessed. A starving man, really. His energy seemed endless, and he was always trying new things, positioning her in new ways, teasing and tormenting until she was screaming and begging, never sure whether it was for him to stop or keep going.

He’d said that he hadn’t felt passion for Marina, but Eloise found that hard to believe. He was a man of hearty appetites (it was a silly word, but she could not think of any other way to describe it), and the things he did with his hands . . .

And his mouth . . .

And his teeth . . .

And his tongue . . .

She blushed again. The things he did—well, a woman would have to be half dead not to respond.

She looked back down at the columns in her ledger. The numbers hadn’t miraculously added themselves up while she daydreamed, and every time Eloise tried to concentrate they began swimming around before her eyes. She glanced out the window; she couldn’t see Phillip’s greenhouse from her position, but she knew it was just around the corner, and that he was in it, toiling away, snipping leaves and planting seeds and whatever else it was that he did there all day.

All day.

She frowned. It was actually a very apt phrase. Phillip did spend the entire day in the greenhouse, often even having his midday meal brought in on a tray. She knew it wasn’t terribly abnormal for man and wife to lead separate lives during the day (and, for many couples, at night as well), but they had only been married one week.

And in truth, she was in many ways still learning who her new husband was. The marriage had come about so precipitously; she really knew very little about him. Oh, she knew he was honest and honorable and would treat her well, and now she knew that he possessed a carnal side that she would never have dreamed lurked beneath his reserved exterior.

But aside from what she had learned about his father, she didn’t know his experiences, his opinions, what had happened in his life to make him the man