At breakfast, Gideon raised his glass. “Powell will not be attending weddings for quite some time. Sentenced to twelve years.”
“For what he did to those women,” Laura said quietly.
“Fraud, extortion, assault,” Gideon said.
Lady Hayward cleared her throat. “And your boxing, Wynford?”
Anthony looked at Caroline. “I have stopped. For good. I no longer need it.”
When the last course was cleared, Anthony leaned close. “Are you ready to leave?”
“Yes.”
In the drawing room, he poured wine. “I have something to show you.”
He pulled out folded paper, and when he unfolded it, Caroline recognized the arrangement.
At the top:Anthony Keating’s List.
1. Enjoy my beautiful wife for the rest of my life.
Caroline’s breath caught in her throat. “You made a list.”
“I did.” He picked up tickets and a map. He had drawn a circle around Paris. There were also marks across Italy, Greece, and Spain.
She kissed him, her pulse fluttering in her throat. “I want to see everything.”
Anthony kissed her back with fervor. “I will show you the world, Caroline.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.” This time, when he pulled back, his eyes were dark with want.
The careful control he had maintained all day was slipping, and she could see the hunger beneath it. The raw need he had been holding back since the moment she walked down that aisle.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice rough.
He led her upstairs to his chambers. It wastheirchambers now. The room was already prepared, the bed turned down. Candles were lit on the mantle and scattered across the tables. The flickering light cast shadows across the walls, intimate and warm.
Caroline’s heart was racing, her breath shallow. She had been waiting for this. For weeks. For months, if she was being honest. Since the night he sent her home with trembling legs and told her he would not take her until she was his wife.
Now she could legally claim him for herself.
Anthony closed the door behind them and turned to face her. For a moment, they simply looked at each other. She could see his chest rising and falling, could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands flexed at his sides as though he was restraining himself from reaching for her.
Then he crossed to her and began unlacing her gown with slow, deliberate care. His fingers were steady, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world. Each pull of the laces was measured, intentional, and she felt the bodice loosen inch by inch.
“You are so, so beautiful,” he murmured as the gown slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her feet in a whisper of silk and lace.
He unlaced her stays next, his knuckles brushing against her back, and she shivered at the contact. Then her chemise fell away, until she was standing before him in nothing but her stockings.
She should have felt self-conscious. She should have felt vulnerable, standing there nearly bare while he was still fully clothed. But the way he was looking at her, the reverence in his eyes, the hunger barely restrained, made her feel powerful. Desired. Wanted in a way she had never imagined.
“Your turn,” she said, and her voice came out breathless.
He smiled, slow and wicked, and began undressing. She watched him shed his coat, his waistcoat, his cravat. Caroline watched hisfingers work the buttons on his shirt until he pulled it over his head and tossed it aside. She had seen him like this before, the night she painted him, but this was different. This was hers. He was hers.
He unbuttoned his breeches and pushed them down, and she let her gaze travel over him. The broad shoulders, the muscled chest, the flat stomach. Then, her eyes dropped lower to where he was already hard for her, thick and ready, and she felt heat pool low in her belly.