“No, not like that.”

“Have I hurt you?” He could not stand it if he had. He started to withdraw, slowly, carefully, but she locked her legs around him.

“I didn’t know how it would be.”

He paused, keeping his cheek to hers. “How it would be?”

“I can’t… it’s wondrous. Sweet, dear, so intimate… glorious.”

Ah, God… He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pressed her face to his shoulder. He could feel her crying, feel it with his body, because he was inside her and around her and pressed to her over much of his body.

So intimate, she’d said. Glorious.

“Move with me, love.”

He kept his pace slow, so she could follow his rhythm. Her focus was a palpable thing, gathering momentum as her body learned the give and take from his. When she was moving easily with him, the tempo picking up moment by moment, he dropped his head so his mouth was near her ear.

“Let it happen, Sophie. Take flight.”

He felt the instant she stopped focusing on timing and movement and fell helplessly under the onrush of sensation.

“Vim…” His name on her lips was a whispered plea, one that had him driving into her in tight, hard strokes while she shook and clung and convulsed around him. She gave herself up to it, keening against his shoulder, meeting him thrust for thrust until she was panting and spent beneath him.

When he felt her hands slips from his body, when her legs untwined to rest passively at his flanks, Vim levered up on his arms. By the light of the single candle, he could see a rosy flush on her cheek and tears yet leaving a sheen on her eyes.

She reached up and brushed his hair back. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You say, ‘Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, only better.’”

She blinked, and then a slow, sweet smile bloomed on her lips. He lowered himself down onto her so they were chest to chest, as close as two people could be.

He felt her fingers stroking over the hair at his nape. “Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, but if you do it any better, I won’t possess wits to recover ever again.”

“Then we shall both be loved witless.”

He gave her a minute, but just a minute.

Sophie watched as Vim climbed from the bed. He didn’t tuck the bed curtains closed, but rather, moved behind the privacy screen. She heard the sound of a cloth being wrung out over a basin and wished he were tending to himself where she could see him.

“Stay in that bed, Sophie Windham.” He spoke quietly as he emerged from the gloom and arranged the cloth on the hearth screen. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Naked, firelight gilding his skin, he left the room only to appear shortly thereafter with the cradle in his arms. He set the thing by the hearth, carefully, so it didn’t start rocking.

“Where was Kit?”

“Across the hall.” Vim advanced on the bed, cloth in hand. “Spread your legs, my love.”

“Why across the hall?”

“I can be loud, at certain times.”

“You growl softly, Mr. Vim Charpentier. I like it.”

He was thorough and gentle with her, finishing with a few passes directly over her intimate parts. “You growl too.” He leaned forward and bit her earlobe. “I adore it. Scoot over.”

He tossed the rag toward the hearth, missing the cradle by inches. Sophie scooted, much relieved they’d spend the balance of the night together.

Vim lay down beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and hiked her leg across his thighs. “You should have allowed me to withdraw, Sophie.” He cradled her foot in his large, warm hand as he spoke. It brought the oddest comfort.

“I am not fertile now. I didn’t want you to abandon me.”

She cringed at her own word choice, given that he’d be moving on in the morning once and for all. He made no reply, though, so Sophie turned her attention to collecting memories: the feel of Vim’s hard male chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the bergamot scent of his skin, the slightly salty taste of his shoulder, the transcendent sensation of him joining their bodies so very, very carefully…

“My business in Kent shouldn’t take but a few weeks,” he said, his tone thoughtful. His fingers smoothed her hair back, and Sophie understood exactly what he was working up to.

“You must not worry. I cannot conceive now, or I would not have been so… selfish.”

“You can’t be certain, Sophie. I’ll leave you my direction when I go.” There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, but he was wrong. Sophie was certain their paths needed to separate regardless of any unlikely consequences. She’d waltzed with his very own half brother, for heaven’s sake, and Benjamin Hazlit’s discreet assistance had been instrumental in keeping both Valentine’s and Westhaven’s wives safe from harm.

Vim would learn that—learn she was the daughter of a duke, no less—and think she’d been untruthful with him.

Which she had. He hadn’t asked any awkward questions yet, but it was hardly likely Lady Sophia Windham would have been all alone, unchaperoned, without servants or family in the ducal mansion. She had contrived mightily to make it so. He would feel deceived and manipulated, and it would ruin everything, even the memories.

“Your brain is turning on a greased wheel, Sophie.”

His voice was lazy in the darkness, as lazy as his hand stroking over her hair. If he’d been offering his direction in Kent out of something other than duty and guilt, she might have considered explaining the situation to him more fully.

“I am trying to recall each moment with you in this bed.”

“There could be more such moments. I’ll come back through Town when I’m done sorting out my relatives.”

Ah, damn him. “I have my position to consider.”

More silence, while in Sophie’s heart, the glow of a wonderful sexual initiation and shared intimacy grew chilled by encroaching regret.

“I could offer you another position, one of substantial duration and considerable standing. One I have never offered another woman worthy of such a consideration.”

She closed her eyes, lest more tears give her away. Vim was a good man, the kind of man wishes and dreams were made of, but she’d made such a tangle of things, he could never be the man for her, particularly not if all he was offering was a few years as his mistress between sea voyages.

And if he’d offered not a careful description of a discreet liaison, but marriage? No hope lay in that direction. Even if he proposed, when he learned she’d been dishonest with him about her position in the household and the world at large, the proposal would be withdrawn.

She fell asleep in his arms and did not recall her dreams in the morning.

Vim was learning to read Miss Sophie Windham, learning that despite appearing serene and even sanguine, she was hurting. She was going about her morning routine calmly, her expression pleasant while she tidied up her hair and used her vanity mirror to watch Vim dressing and putting her bed to rights. The heartache was there in her eyes, in her posture, in her silences.

Kit started to fuss but was still in the happy stages of greeting his own toes when Vim picked up the rag he’d tossed aside so casually the night before.

The rag that in the light of another brutally bright day was sporting definite streaks of pinkish brown.

“Sophie?”

“Hmm?”

“Do your courses approach?”

Her hands paused in twining her braid into a bun at her nape, but other than that, she showed no reaction. “They always approach, unless they’ve descended. My mother has a lot of unflattering things to say about The Almighty’s design in this regard. One’s only respite is to carry a child, and that is hardly a fair trade, considering what’s involved in birthing the child.”