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In another hour's time, Arthur and Gwen had exhausted each other.
He stroked her hair, forcing himself to relax and surrender to the simple pleasure of being kissed all over.
Her lips touched his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his belly.
She was as thorough, as she was sweet, covering every inch of him, with tender brushes of her lips.
She didn't manage to heal all his deepest, darkest wounds with her attentions...but she made his mind go blank, which was almost as good.
And when her tongue traced a path from his navel downwards, he reached a breaking point.
"I need you again," he ground out.
He took her by the waist and lifted her above him, trapping his hard, aching member, at the apex of her cleft.
"Take it in your hand and guide me in."
If Gwen felt any trepidation at Arthur's bold request, she didn't show it.
A rosy flush bloomed over her chest, as she reached between them and grasp his rigid member.
She held him in place, as he moved her slowly down, lowering her heat to envelop his full length.
She fit him like a well-made glove, hugging him tight, as he guided her up and down, teaching her how to ride him.
Clever girl that she was, she caught the spirit and rhythm of it, soon enough and started to rock his world.
Gwen braced her palms flat against Arthur's chest, pinning him to the bed.
Her thighs flexed, as she dragged herself up and down, over and over again, causing her pert, delicious breasts to bounce and sway tantalizingly.
If the duke had ever beheld a more erotic view, he couldn't recall it, as his darkened blue eyes drank them in.
"Miss Campbell," he groaned. And Gwen moaned, lost in pleasure.
"Miss Campbell," he said again.
And her eyes opened, drowsy and heavy-lidded, as she looked down at him.
"How long has it been, since you last made love?" he asked.
She bit her lip.
"Twenty minutes."
"Right. Same for me...give or take, thirty seconds."
Laughing, she leaned in and softly kissed his lips, then asked,
"Why do you ask?"
"Because, the first time was shockingly good." He guided her up and down again. "But this...this is extraordinary. Even better. I'm trying to understand...it can't merely be the long drought, can it?"
"Do you always talk this much while making love?"
He shook his head.
"No. I don't. This is different...everything is different with you." 'Tighter, sleeker, hotter, wetter, sweeter. Not dreamlike or perfect, just more real.'
And so damn good, he feared hurting them both, in that mad, frantic race to the end.
Arthur struggled to a sitting position. It wasn't enough to watch.
He wanted to feel the softness of Gwen's breasts' and the heat of her, caressing his bare chest...cushioning the mad beat of his heart.
He wanted to kiss her, as he made love to her.
He brought her close, guiding her legs over his hips and locking her ankles at the small of his back.
With one arm wrapped tight around her waist, he guided her in a brisk rhythm.
He worked the other hand between them and pressed his thumb to her pearl, working the nub in small, tight circles, until she seized and shuddered in his arms.
And he didn't stop.
There would be no laziness with her, no half measures.
This woman was going to get his best.
So, he kept up the same attentions, kissing her neck and murmuring words of praise against her ear, until she reached another, more devastating peak.
"Oh..." she whimpered in the aftermath, clinging to his neck. "Oh...Arthur...oh...God."
Her words made him feel like a god. Or at least a demigod. A pagan, rutting, immortal being of pleasure.
He would have tried to bring her to a third release, but the clasping heat of her womanhood, had pulled him too close to the edge.
So, he lifted Gwen off him, and she reached between them to encircle his erection, with her small, delicate hand.
"Like this," he said, demonstrating. And she followed his lead.
"This?"
"Ah. Yes."
Her grip was gentle, but strong.
Her thumb rubbed perfectly, along the sensitive underside of his shaft, and with each tug, the tip grazed the silky slope of her belly.
Arthur threw his head back in surrender, clutching at the twisted sheets and within moments, she had him gasping, growling and spilling over her fingers, in hot, forceful jets.
Gwen smiled, looking very pleased with herself.
And he was pleased with her, too. So damned pleased, there seemed no room for any other emotion in his heart...in his life.
But it couldn't last.
God, he didn't know how he'd ever let her go. So, he kissed her instead, wrapping his arms around her torso, to haul her close...using their closeness to conceal his weakness.
After lazy, lovely minutes of deep, languid kissing, Gwen sighed against Arthur's lips.
"I should leave."
"No." He gripped her tight. "No, no, no. Not yet."
"I can't risk falling asleep, Arthur. You know I must go to my room. We can't be found here together. The servants..."
He shook his head.
"The servants are servants. Who cares what they think?"
She pulled back and blinked at him. And he winced.
"I beg of you, Guinevere, pretend I didn't say that. Or at least pretend you didn't hear it."
"Never mind," she said.
Moving off his lap, she reached for her discarded chemise. After untangling the shift, she slipped it over her head and pushed her arms through the sleeves.
"I don't want to quarrel."
"Well, that's a new development," he said and tugged at his ear.
"I just don't want to waste what we have."
"What do we have?" he asked. She held his gaze.
"A few days," she said quietly. "And a few more nights together. That's assuming we're not discovered tonight."
He would have liked to argue the point, but in the end, he couldn't.
"I'll see you back to your bedchamber," he offered.
"No, stay and rest." She pushed him back against the bed, with a hand to his shoulder and a firm kiss to his brow. "I won't get lost in the corridors this time."
Gwen gathered her discarded gown and stockings into a bundle, then made her way towards the side door...the one that opened into Arthur's dressing room.
"Are these rooms all connected?" she asked. "If they are and I slip from one to the next, I won't have to travel so much of the corridor. I'll be much less likely to be seen."
Arthur nodded, suddenly drowsy. She'd sapped him of everything.
"Yes, they're connected."
She plucked a candlestick from the night table, then, headed through the dressing room.
Arthur lay back, listening.
He heard Gwen opening the door, that led from the dressing room to his personal sitting room.
From there, she could slip out into the corridor, or cross into...
"Oh, Christ! Wait!"
He launched from the bed, stumbling into his trousers.
As he dashed through the dressing room, in pursuit of her, he snagged a fresh shirt from a hook.
"Wait! Guinevere. Don't..."
Too late.
"I didn't mean to," she said, standing in the center of the room.
The room.
"I'm sorry. I truly didn't mean to invade your..." She swallowed hard. "...your privacy."
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. There was no getting around it now. He'd have to face this at last.
He was seized by the terrible lightness of inevitability. The sense of just having jumped off a cliff.
"Did you paint all these?" Gwen asked, holding the candlestick aloft. "They're...um...they're lovely."
"No, I didn't paint them."
"Oh. Good...I mean...not that there's anything wrong with a grown man painting a room with rainbows and ponies. They are quite nice rainbows and ponies."
"Do you truly think so?" he asked. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
"Oh, yes. How could I not? They're...look, on this wall, they're frolicking, aren't they? Just look at them, frolicking and..." She swallowed hard. "...prancing."
She was utterly flummoxed, trying to find some way, not to give offense.
For no particular reason, she was valiantly striving to spare his feelings and making a hash of it, but the thought was sweet.
"I really admire the way this one's mane, is rippling in the breeze. Quite majestic," she said. Her head tilted to the side. "Are those buttercups?"
Arthur couldn't hold back any longer. He laughed. It felt good to laugh in this room.
It was a place he'd planned to fill with smiles and laughter, but all his careful plans had been torn to shreds.
"The ponies are ridiculous," he admitted. "The artist who painted them, specialized in portraits of Arabian racehorses. He owed me a gambling debt, so I engaged his services for this room and he got rather carried away."
"And what do you do in here?" she asked.
"Not much of anything. It was never finished, as you can see." He waved towards the blank southern wall. "The decor wasn't intended to please me. It was meant to appeal to feminine tastes."
Gwen's expression clouded.
"Oh. I see. So you planned to move a woman into your house. Into your suite. A woman who likes rainbows and ponies."
He rather liked the obvious envy in her tone, and he might have teased it out a bit longer, had the truth been any different.
"Not a woman, Guinevere. A little girl." A knot formed in his throat, and he cleared it with an impatient cough. "My little girl."
Gwen watched him closely, for any signs of teasing, but found none.
"You have a daughter?" she asked.
"No. Yes."
"Which is it?"
"I...had a daughter. She died in infancy."
Her breath left her.
She'd known something was weighing on him, but she'd never imagined this.
He'd lost a child? The other day at the Foundling Hospital...of course, the atmosphere had rattled him. It wasn't any wonder he'd wanted to leave.
And then to have that baby thrust in his arms...'The poor man.' It must have flattened him.
She'd been so insensitive without even realizing.
"Oh, Arthur. I'm sorry. So, so sorry." He shrugged.
"Such things happen."
"Perhaps. But that doesn't make them any less sad."
Gwen wanted to go to him. But when she took a step in his direction, he began to pace the room, being evasive.
"Anyway, that's why the room was never completed." He walked about the perimeter of the chamber, stopping at the window. "Never got around to installing the nursery grate. There wasn't time."
"Your mother has no idea?" He shook his head.
"She was in the country at the time. I've kept this chamber locked ever since...well, ever since it became unnecessary."
"You should tell her the truth. She's noticed there's something going on in here. She thinks you're sacrificing kittens, or living out perverse fantasies."
Arthur chuckled.
"No wonder you looked so shocked at the paintings. I can't imagine what you must have thought."
"I don't really care to admit to it." She swept another glance around the room. "So your little girl's mother was..."
"My mistress," he confirmed. "Former mistress."
'Former mistress.' Try as she might, Gwen couldn't bring herself to express condolences on that part of things.
"Did you love her?"
"No. It was purely physical." He pushed a hand through his hair. "She was an opera singer, and we...it's disgraceful, I know. But it's far too easy for men of my station to get away with such arrangements. It's just the done thing."
"You don't have to make excuses, Arthur," she said. "Not to me."
"If I had any excuses, I would owe them to you first and foremost. But I don't. We weren't close. I saw her less and less, and I was on the verge of breaking it off entirely. Then she told me she'd conceived."
"Were you happy to hear it?"
"I was furious. I've always been so careful, and she'd assured me she was careful, too." He paced the room again. "But I accepted my responsibility. I set her up in a cottage, a short ride into the country, where she could wait out her confinement. I arranged for a maid and a midwife, and set aside funds to support the child. Because, that's what men of my station do, when they impregnate their mistresses."
"It's the done thing," she supplied. He nodded.
"I visited her in the new cottage, to see that she was settled and to make my final assurances of support. And just as I was about to leave, she grabbed my hand..."
He regarded the blank wall, as though the distant memory were painted there.
"That alone was a shock. We never held hands. But anyhow, she grabbed my hand and plastered it flat to her belly."
He held his open hand outstretched in demonstration.
"And the child...my child...gave me a wallop of a kick." He slowly brought his hand to his chest. "So strong. This little life...a life I'd helped create...declaring itself in such fierce, unspoken terms. I swear, that kick split my heart wide-open. Had me reeling for days."
Gwen smiled a little to herself.
"After that, I couldn't stay away. I went back, again and again. Visited her more often, than I ever had in town, just to lay my hands on her swelling stomach. Did you know babies can get the hiccups, even in the womb?"
She shook her head no.
"I didn't, either. But they can. I was enchanted by each little jump. I can't even explain it. For the first time in my life I was..."
'Falling in love,' she finished in her mind. Because he wouldn't say it aloud, but the truth was plain. He'd fallen headlong, irretrievably in love with his own child, and in love with the idea of fatherhood.
The loopy joy of it, was written all over his face...and frolicking all over the walls of this room.
"Her family was in Austria. With the war finally over, she wanted to go home...but she didn't think they'd accept her with an illegitimate child. She asked me to find a family here to foster the babe. I told her no."
"No?" Surprise coloured Gwen's face.
"I decided I would raise my own child. In my house, with my name."
Gwen gazed at him in quiet admiration.
For a duke to raise a bastard child, in his own home, with his own family name...that would be extraordinary. It was most decidedly not the done thing.
"That's when I cleared this chamber and brought in the artist."
He stopped in the center of the room and looked to the ceiling.
"I know nurseries are usually up in the dormer rooms, but I didn't like that idea. I wanted her close."
He stared at the room's lone blank wall for several moments.
"I never had the chance to bring her here. She caught a fever that first week. It's been months now. I should repaint, but I haven't found the will to do it."
"And no one knows of your loss? Not your friends, either?"
He shook his head and her heart ached for him. Naturally, he'd been withdrawn these past months. He'd been grieving. And what was worse, grieving all alone.
The duchess thought him reluctant to have children, and the truth was just the opposite.
He'd been ready to welcome his daughter with an open heart...and then all his hopes were crushed.
Gwen wanted to take Arthur to bed and just hold him, for days and days. But time wasn't on her side.
"So you see," he said, "I truly don't need a fresh-faced young thing, to teach me the meaning of love, or make me want to be a better man. I already found that girl. She was about so big..."
He held his hands just a foot apart,
"...with very little hair and no teeth. She taught me exactly what would give me true happiness in this life...and that, I can never have it."
"But that's not true. In time you'll..."
"No. I can't. You don't understand. My father was an only child. My mother bore three other children after me. None of them survived a week. I was young, but I remember the whole house in mourning. That's why I delayed even attempting a family, until the issue was forced...precisely because, I'm the last of the line. All those generations of difficult childbearing didn't bode well for my chances. But then, that fierce little kick...it gave me hope, that things could be different."
Gwen went to his side and touched his arm. He steeled his jaw.
"I can't go through that again. The Pendragon line ends with me."
"You sound very resolved."
"I am." He looked around at the room. "I trust you won't tell anyone about this."
She knew he wasn't concerned about her telling just 'anyone.' He didn't want his mother to know.
"You have my word, I won't tell her. But I think you should."
"No," he said firmly. "She can't know this. Ever. I'm serious, Guinevere. That's the whole reason I..."
"The whole reason you brought me here. I know. I see it now."
She understood, at last.
It wasn't simply, that he was a rakish libertine, reluctant to marry. He'd decided he couldn't marry, and he didn't know how to break the news.
The duchess wanted grandchildren so desperately. But he couldn't bring himself to tell her, she had one grandchild she'd already lost, and now there'd never be another.
He knew it would break his mother's heart. So he'd kept his grief a secret, determined to manfully shoulder all the heartbreak himself.
"Arthur, you needn't go through this alone. If you won't tell the duchess, I'm here for a few more days. At least talk to me."
"Isn't that what I just did? Talk to you?" 'Not really,' she thought.
Throughout their conversation, his tone had been so calm. Almost eerily matter-of-fact. She knew it was a façade. He hadn't been able to fully grieve.
It wasn't possible to do so in a cold, secret room. He needed to talk, to rage, to cry, to remember. He needed a friend.
"You've been locking all your grief away. Months and months of it now. You can try to keep it secret, pretend it's not there, but, until you open your heart, and give it a good airing out...no sunlight can come in."
She reached for his hand.
"Won't you tell me more about her? Did she favor you or her mother's side? Did she smile and coo? What was her name?"
Arthur remained silent.
"You must have loved her very much," she ended.
He cleared his throat and pulled away.
"You'd better go. The servants will be coming around soon to lay fires."
So that was that. As close as they'd come today, as much as they'd shared...it still wasn't enough.
She nodded, then moved to quit the room.
"If that's what you want."
Stay safe!