by Merry Farmer
“Nobody told him?” Mariah asked as she seated herself at the foot of the table. Peter brought her a breakfast plate before heading back to the sideboard to fix one of his own.
“What’s going on?” Armand asked, suddenly suspicious. His friends all seemed far too happy for a group whose fate had been sealed by their own foolishness.
“The letter has been destroyed,” Malcolm said at last, grinning from ear to ear. “Your charming wife was completely responsible.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Armand shook his head.
“It’s a very long story,” Katya said to baby Peter, as though telling a fairy tale. “You’d best ask your wife for all the details, but the heart of it is that Lavinia was cleverer than any of us. She swapped out the letter to Gladstone with one Marigold wrote to her on similar stationery. What’s more, Gatwick helped her switch the innocuous letter for the incriminating one. I burned your letter,” she added.
Armand’s mouth dropped open, and he glanced around at his friends. “Lavinia did all that?”
“Lavinia saved our bacon,” Peter added as he sat, taking up a piece of bacon and biting it for emphasis.
“Lavinia,” Armand repeated her name, his heart swelling with admiration and love. Of course she would find a way to save them all from their own stupidity. He’d long since figured out that her timidity was only surface-deep. She’d been brave enough to take on Shayles alone while he, Malcolm, and Alex had searched for the letter. She’d seen to it that his household was in top working order within minutes of arriving at Broadclyft Hall as Lady Helm. She’d helped him to see that his life could be more than he imagined it would in the wake of losing his ability to practice medicine, just as she’d hinted that he could still find a way to be a doctor if he wanted to. She was quiet grace and confidence, wisdom and will. His life with her could be perfect, wonderful, if she could only find it in her heart to forgive him.
“I have to go,” he said, standing and tossing his napkin to the table. “I have to go back to her.”
“Sit down,” Peter told him with a compassionate smirk. “It’s barely eight o’clock. You have a full hour until you need to leave for the train station.”
Armand sat, but he wasn’t happy about it. “This is torture,” he grumbled for anyone who would listen. “I shouldn’t be here, I should be with her.”
“None of us are going to argue with that,” Malcolm said with a laugh.
Instead of wanting to throttle his friend, Armand found himself reluctantly grinning along with him. His friends were a trial, but without them, he wouldn’t have Lavinia in the first place. Without them, he wouldn’t have learned half the things he now knew made Lavinia so amazing. Perhaps, once the dust had settled and life had assumed its new normal, he would invite them all back to Broadclyft Hall. But at the moment, all he could think was that he wanted to be at home, alone with this wife.
Chapter 22
As much as a relief as it was to throw everybody out of her house—and she was determined now to claim Broadclyft Hall as her house, no matter what happened between her and Armand—Lavinia was convinced she would never be able to fall asleep.
“I’ll just rest for an hour or so, then I’ll come back downstairs and speak with Mrs. Ainsworth,” she told Sophie as the maid helped her undress and climb between the covers of Armand’s bed.
The last thing she remembered before closing her eyes was Sophie’s amused, doubtful look and her demure, “Yes, my lady.”
One deep breath of sheets and pillows that still carried Armand’s scent was enough to send consciousness fleeing. Lavinia fell into a deep, heavy sleep. Her only dreams were vague notions of peace and silence, with an occasional flash of Armand’s smile from the morning they’d spent in the gamekeeper’s cottage, the way the sunlight had made the grey in his hair shine, the way the lines around his eyes had spoken of good humor and kindness. Her mind might have been in a wretched state over the whole debacle, but her heart clung to what few sweet memories she had.
Those memories took a turn for the ardent when the Armand of her dreams closed his arms around her and stole a long, lingering kiss. Only the dream suddenly felt too real, the heat of Armand’s body too close and encompassing. In fact, it wasn’t a dream at all.
Lavinia awoke with a gasp to find Armand in bed with her, resting on his side, gazing down at her with a smile. He brushed his fingers through her hair and stroked the side of her face. He was the picture of affection, but worry lines pinched around his eyes and mouth, and there was something anxious and expectant about the way he nestled so close without fully touching her.
“You’re awake,” he said in a deep, rich voice.
“You’re home,” she echoed, her heart fluttering. She wanted to curse the wave of longing that swept through her and the impulse she had to snuggle with him. She should be angry with him for everything that had happened and for the way he’d doubted her. But she was the one who had left him, and it was easy to argue that the rest of it hadn’t been his fault. And it felt so unbelievably good to have him in bed with her.
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said, flexing and stretching as though he wanted to pull her into his arms, but didn’t quite think he had the right. “I realized that this is where I belong.”
“Broadclyft Hall?” Lavinia asked.
He shook his head, hesitated for a fraction of a second, then dipped down to plant a light kiss on her lips. “With you.”
Lavinia opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he answered with a deeper kiss, a sensual, probing kiss, that took her breath away. She abandoned whatever feeble resistance the restless part of her wanted to put up and rolled into his arms. Her body rejoiced as it came into contact with his. Only when her hand spread across his naked back did she realize that he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
She pulled back from his kiss. “Did you climb into bed with me naked?” she asked, half tempted to laugh.
Armand grinned like a devil. “I took a chance.” He kissed her again, running his hand down her side and lifting her leg over his hip. His hardening staff pressed against her belly, leaving Lavinia to curse the thin nightgown she wore.
“That was awfully bold of you,” she said, attempting to sound like she was scolding him but certain she sounded eager instead.
“It’s a sign of my contrition,” he said, cradling her backside and kissing her lightly. “I’ve been wrong in so many ways. I’ve cruelly underestimated your brilliance. I’ve behaved abominably toward you. So now I’ve come to you, stripped bare, to beg for your forgiveness.”
She shouldn’t feel so excited by his contriteness, but a shiver of purely carnal anticipation swirled through her, causing her to ache with the need for him. But she was no longer content to lie passively while he took control. She pushed him to his back, rising to straddle his hips and to stare down at him. The flash of pleasure in his eyes at her daring filled her with a sense of power.
“I shouldn’t have left,” she voiced her own regrets. “It was a cowardly thing to do.”
He shook his head. “You were under extreme stress. It was a trying day. I made it worse by not listening to you when I should have. And your mother—”
“Is gone,” she said, laying a finger over his lips. A grin spread across her face. “I kicked her out, told her she was not welcome in any house of ours without my written invitation.”
His eyes lit with surprise and pride, but rather than saying anything, he captured her finger, sucking it into his mouth and licking his tongue across her fingertip. The gesture had her gasping and aching, and she was acutely aware of the heat of his member trapped between her straddling legs, but kept apart from her by a layer of cotton.
“That’s a wicked thing to do,” she said, breathless, as he let her finger go.
“I haven’t begun to do wicked things to you,” he said in a low purr, his hands burrowing under the hem of her nightgown and sliding their way up her thighs. “I’ve set myself a penance for my part in the misery of these
early days of our marriage.”
The way he said “our marriage”, combined with what his hands were doing to hike up her nightgown and remove that barrier between them, left Lavinia giddy with desire. “What penance?” She gasped as his hands reached her bare backside.
“I am more than just your husband now, I am your slave,” he said, kneading her backside and spreading heat through her. “I will do whatever you tell me to, take your advice on all matters.” He paused, and for a moment, the heat of his ardor dimmed to practicality. “It has been brought to my attention that you are far more capable in the political realm than I am, and that I would be a fool not to take your advice on all things once I take up my seat in the House of Lords this November.”
Lavinia blinked, a smile forming in spite of her instinct to care for his pride. “So you aren’t going to find a way to practice medicine again?”
Armand let out a long sigh. “I’ll always be interested in the medical field. I won’t cancel my subscriptions to medical journals any time soon. But everyone who has insisted I’ve been called to a higher purpose is correct.”
“But you love medicine,” Lavinia insisted.
“I love you,” he said. The statement took Lavinia’s breath. She stared down at him with a swirl of emotion that had her heart thundering in her chest and her core aching to join with him. “I love you, Lavinia,” he repeated. “But more than that, you are the thing that has been missing in my life. You are the rudder that my ship has been missing for these past few years. You are the compass I’ve needed to get me out of the woods of confusion I’ve been lost in.”
“I’m hardly all that,” she said, heat rising to her cheeks.
“You are,” Armand insisted. His hands slid from her backside to her sides, pulling the cotton of her nightgown out from between the two of them as they did. The heat of his staff pressed freely against the heart of her. “You give me purpose and direction,” he said, his voice gruff. “I was an idiot not to see that until I nearly lost you, but I won’t be an idiot again.”
“Of course you will,” Lavinia said with a laugh that turned into a gasp as she twitched against him. “We’re all fools from time to time. Especially when we let the outside world interfere with what should be our own.”
“Never again,” Armand insisted. “Never, ever again.”
He gathered handfuls of her nightgown and tugged it up. Lavinia was as eager as he was to dispose of the garment and grabbed it from him, lifting it over her head and tossing it aside. The resulting motion left her naked astride him, her sleep-messed hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back. For a moment, Armand just looked at her, a growling moan of pleasure escaping from him.
“My God, you’re amazing,” he said, reaching to cradle her breasts. He swirled his thumbs around her nipples until they were hard nubs standing out against her pale skin. His penis jerked where it was trapped between them.
The restlessness growing inside of Lavinia was too much, the ache too potent. She wriggled her hips over him, trying in her inexpert way to sheath him inside of her. She didn’t pause for a moment to consider if it was inappropriate of her to crave her husband’s thickness inside of her or to work for that aim. Her mother would have told her a wife’s duty was to lay still while her husband did all the work, and that she shouldn’t enjoy it, but as she leaned forward and finally find the right angle to impale herself on Armand’s staff, she groaned in victory.
Armand sucked in a breath and thrust deep within her with a moan. His hands raked her sides before returning to knead her breasts, but he seemed in no hurry to race toward completion.
“Yes, my love,” he growled. “Whatever you need to find pleasure. I’m yours to command.”
“This,” she gasped, moving inexpertly against him and creating just enough friction inside of her to heighten every sensation. “This feels so good.”
“If you like my cock in your pussy, then I promise you can have it there whenever you want,” he purred, meeting her movements with small, deep thrusts.
A shiver passed down Lavinia’s spine. “I like it when you talk to me like that too,” she gasped, her face hot as a fire to admit it.
Armand’s brow rose over passion-hazy eyes. “If you want me to say naughty things to you, I can do that too. Like how right now I want to watch you ride my cock until you come, and then I’ll spend my seed inside you so hard we’ll have triplets.”
Lavinia didn’t know whether to laugh or moan at what she was certain was the mildest naughty talk a man could come up with. It was beyond mild compared to the foul things Lord Shayles had said to her. But it was perfect in its way. Armand was perfect.
“I think I’m doing something wrong,” she whispered a moment later as her movements failed to do more than make her feel aroused and bothered without bringing release.
Armand laughed, low and seductive. “You’re not doing anything wrong, love,” he murmured, muscling himself to sit while still planted deep inside of her. “You’re learning, and it’s beautiful.”
Lavinia gasped at the shift in sensation and at the press of her body against Armand’s. He stroked her back, kissing her cheek and her neck and shoulder. It felt so good just to be with him that way, her body alive and pleasured, her heart increasingly free of worry and stress.
“I hear we have you to thank for defeating Shayles,” he said as he kissed her. The comment would have befitted a drawing room conversation, but there they were, in bed and intimately joined, his hands and mouth doing amazing things to her.
“Yes,” was all she could manage. Because of their position, he was starting to slide out of her, and her mind was more focused on keeping him inside.
“I plan to reward you for that,” he said, rolling her to the side and laying her on her back.
They came apart, but that disappointment was momentary as he bent to draw one of her breasts into his mouth. Lavinia gasped and threaded her hands through his hair as he flicked with his tongue and suckled her. It was heavenly, and the ache in her core pulsed with more insistence.
“You’re better at this than I am,” she gasped as he kissed his way down her belly, spreading his hands across her thighs.
“I’ve had more practice, that’s all,” he said. “Practice that prepared me to give you everything you deserve.” He kissed lower and lower until Lavinia was tempted to beg him for release. “I may be a terrible husband, but I can be an excellent lover,” he said, parting her wet folds with his fingers and teasing her with feather-light strokes. “You are a brilliant wife,” he went on as the tell-tale signs of orgasm began to mount within her. “You teach me to be a good husband and I’ll teach you to be an amazing lover.”
“Yes,” she gasped, heart-racing. “Whatever you want.”
“No, darling,” he said in a mischievous growl. “Whatever you want, whenever you want it, and for however long.”
He underlined his words by closing his mouth over her and flicking his tongue across her clitoris. The sensation was so pleasurable that Lavinia moaned like a wanton, digging her fingers into his scalp. It took no time at all for her to burst apart, throbbing with release. The pleasure went on and on as her imagination conjured up images of him doing this to her whenever she wanted.
She was only just beginning to float back down from the heights of heaven when Armand muscled himself up her sweat-slick body and thrust inside of her. It felt so good to be joined with him again that she cried out. There was nothing slow or leisurely in the way he claimed her this time. His thrusts were hard and deep, and his breath was ragged. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, urging him on, eager for the moment when he would spend himself inside of her. Hints of all the things that could be between them, all the ways they could make love, had her body on fire, and when Armand finally gasped as he came inside of her, she tipped over the edge into a second, powerful orgasm.
They collapsed into exhaustion together, arms and legs entwined, Armand still inside of her. They were messy, swea
ty, and inelegant, but Lavinia couldn’t remember being happier.
“I love you too, you know,” she panted as he rested his head against hers, his breath heavy and ragged.
“You do?” He found the strength to prop himself up enough to look down at her.
Lavinia nodded, a broad smile spreading across her overheated face. “I think that’s why it hurt so much when you ignored me.”
“I’ll never ignore you again, my love,” he said, kissing her in spite of the fact that he hadn’t yet caught his breath. “Please let me start over. Let me prove to you that you’re all that matters to me.”
“I hope I’m not all,” she said, cradling his face with both hands. “I should very much like you to care about your household and the nation and everyone who depends on you as well.”
“But you first,” he said, kissing her again. “Always you first.”
“I can accept that,” Lavinia said, then giggled as he kissed her once more.
He slumped to her side at last, drawing her into his arms with her back against his chest. “I am in serious need of sleep,” he said in a weary voice. “But as soon as I recover, I’m going to make love to you again and again and again. In every room of our deliciously empty home.”
Lavinia giggled. “I think Mr. Bondar and Mrs. Ainsworth would take issue with that.”
“All right, then,” he sighed. “We’ll just never leave this bedroom again, then.”
“Silly man,” Lavinia sighed, bursting with contentment, and hugged his arms as they circled around her.
She felt his body relax into sleep in record time and reveled in the feeling. More than that, her heartfelt peace at last. Rocky starts were nothing. She had a feeling the lessons they’d learned in the first two weeks would strengthen their marriage rather than ruin it. And as ridiculous as the truth was, she was absolutely certain that she couldn’t have found a more perfect husband if she’d picked him out herself.
Epilogue
