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Mariah assured him happily. ‘I have already had the big white wedding attended by the ton,’ she dismissed huskily. ‘Neither it, nor that marriage, brought me any happiness.’

      ‘Apart from Christina.’

      She gave a shake of her head. ‘I have always seen Christina as somehow being apart from that marriage. As if she were only ever mine, to love and to cherish. Does that sound ridiculous, in the circumstances?’

      Darian’s arms tightened about her. ‘Nothing you say ever sounds ridiculous to me. But I hope— I sincerely hope, would deem it an honour, if you would allow me to become another father to Christina once the two of us are married?’

      Mariah’s heart was already full to bursting with the love she felt for Darian, but in that moment she believed it truly overflowed with the emotion. ‘I should like that very much,’ she accepted emotionally. ‘As, I am sure, would Christina. Martin was never a proper father to her anyway.’ She frowned. ‘He took as little interest in her as he did in me.’

      ‘Carlisle was a fool.’ Darian scowled. ‘But his loss is my gain,’ he dismissed firmly. ‘I assure you that I intend telling and showing both of you, each and every day, how much you are both loved and cherished.’

      ‘I know you will.’ Mariah smiled up at him gratefully, before biting her bottom lip worriedly. ‘There are still some things we need to discuss, before we make any more of these wonderful plans. Things you need to know about me—’

      ‘No,’ Darian bit out harshly.

      ‘But—’

      ‘I do not need to know anything more about you, Mariah, than that I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters but that,’ he stated firmly.

      ‘You have no idea how happy that makes me, Darian.’ Mariah smiled tremulously. ‘But these are things you really do need to know, if you are to become my husband.’

      ‘I most assuredly am!’

      ‘Then you must listen to me, Darian,’ she insisted as he seemed about to deny her once again.

      His jaw was tightly clenched. ‘Not if you are about to tell me about the other men who have been in your life. I do not want to know, Mariah. They are unimportant, irrelevant—’

      ‘Non-existent,’ Mariah put in softly, although it inwardly thrilled her to hear Darian dismiss the existence of those lovers as being irrelevant to the two of them.

      Darian’s voice trailed off as he seemed to hear what she had just said, a frown between his eyes now as he looked down at her searchingly.

      A searching look that Mariah returned with a steady gaze as she began to talk again. ‘Seven years ago I discovered, quite by chance, that my husband was a traitor to the Crown. Let me tell all, before I lose my nerve, and then you may speak, Darian,’ she pleaded as he would have interrupted once again.

      ‘Very well.’ Darian nodded slowly; in truth he was still completely stunned at Mariah’s claim that she had taken no other lovers.

      And so he listened. As Mariah told him of her husband’s treachery to his country. Of how she had gone to London, and Aubrey Maystone, with the information. And how Aubrey Maystone had used that knowledge, and Mariah, to garner even more information from Carlisle during the last two years of that man’s life. Of how she had continued her own work for the Crown for these seven years, and the sense of self and self-worth it had given her. The first she had known in her life, apart from being mother to Christina.

      Darian was finally left speechless when Mariah confided in him that there had been no lovers in her life. That she had flirted, cajoled, teased information from certain gentlemen, but that she had never bedded a single one of them. That the rumour and speculation of scandal about her had grown over the years, because pride had dictated that none of those gentleman had ever wished to own to the fact that they had not been, nor ever would be, a lover to the Countess of Carlisle.

      The conclusion this final revelation gave Darian was simply mind-numbing. ‘Then that single, awful occasion with Carlisle, the evening Christina was conceived, was the only occasion—’

      ‘Yes,’ Mariah confirmed flatly.

      ‘My darling!’ Darian gave a pained groan. ‘Then our own lovemaking—the things we did together—’

      ‘Were utterly beautiful,’ Mariah assured him firmly. ‘You could not have been a more gentle, more caring, a more passionate lover, even if you had known the truth, Darian.’

      Darian begged to differ. If he had known, if he had once guessed at Mariah’s innocence in regard to physical love, then he would have taken things more slowly, more gently, been less physically demanding.

      That Mariah had been able to respond so passionately as she had earlier today to his caresses, that she had attained her peak not once but three times, was a miracle!

      Although Mariah’s revelations did help to explain those puzzling moments of innocence he had sensed in her, those blushes that had seemed so out of character with the experienced siren she was reputed to be.

      ‘I trust you are not having regrets about our lovemaking earlier today, Darian,’ Mariah now teased him reprovingly. ‘Because I am dearly hoping that we shall be continuing with my education, in that regard, as soon as we reach London. Christina is away until tomorrow evening,’ she reminded huskily. ‘And we shall have the house all to ourselves till then...’

      Darian would like nothing more than to spend the night with Mariah, to make love to and with her for hours and hours without end. But he would also settle for just being in the same bed with her, of just holding her, as difficult as that might be, if she would rather wait until they were married for them to make love again.

      ‘I would not be at all happy to wait,’ Mariah answered decisively, Darian’s first indication that he had spoken his reservations out loud. ‘Darian, I am simply dying for us to make love again. I have so many years to make up for. So much I have missed. That I want to learn about and enjoy.’ She curved her body seductively against his. ‘You are not going to continue to deny me, are you, Darian?’

      How could Darian ever deny this woman anything?

      This woman whom he loved, and would always love, with every fibre of his being.

      * * *

      ‘Do you know what I thought after we had made love at Eton Park earlier today—yesterday now?’ Mariah realised after a glance at the bedside clock revealed it was well after midnight, her fingers swirling in the darkness of the hair on Darian’s naked chest as she leant up on her elbow beside him in the comfort of her dishevelled bed.

      ‘Earlier today?’ He arched his brows as he glanced down at their satiated and well-loved nakedness.

      ‘Earlier today,’ she insisted firmly. ‘I thought, so this is what poets all write about, singers croon over and lovers will risk anything to possess. But I was wrong, Darian, because this, the absolute joy we have just found in each other’s arms, is what poets write about, singers croon over and lovers will risk everything to possess!’ Their lovemaking had been a revelation to Mariah.

      She had never dreamed such pleasure existed, had never realised how wonderful it was to literally become a part of another person. To be joined to them, body, soul and heart.

      To be joined to Darian, body, soul and heart.

      ‘I love you, Darian,’ she told him achingly, emotionally. ‘I love you so very much, my darling.’

      ‘As I love you.’ His arms tightened about her once again. ‘And I will love you for the rest of our lives together.’

      ‘Promise?’

      ‘Without a doubt. You?’

      ‘Oh, yes!’

      Mariah had absolutely no doubt it was a promise they would both cherish in their hearts

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