by Lenora Bell
Alice ran to the bookshelves, trailing her fingers along cracked leather spines. So many more books than she’d sent over.
“Why, this is the English translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Charles Wilkins! Where did you find this? It’s quite rare.”
Hatherly made a disparaging noise in the back of his throat. “I found some foreign books on the duke’s shelves. He traveled to India and Nepal more than once collecting orchids.”
She flew to the desk. Such a vast expanse of a desk, with rows of shining new quills, several pots of ink, stacks of parchment—everything she needed.
She’d never had a study of her own.
Stolen moments with Fred’s schoolbooks . . . nights hunched over a desk studying by candlelight, hiding her studiousness from her disapproving mother.
This room was spacious, airy, stocked with the tools she required for her scholarship, and the perfect haven in which to finish her work.
“My lord, I don’t know what to say.” She hugged her arms around her chest. “I simply love it.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you approve.” He sounded embarrassed to have been caught making her happy.
Kali yowled piteously and Alice undid the latch of her basket. Kali hopped out, landing on all fours on the fine woolen rug.
“Poor little beastie.” Alice bent down and scratched Kali’s chin. “I forgot all about you. Just see.” She lifted her and walked to the window. “See all those birds in the trees? You’re going to have quite a feast.”
Kali’s tail switched back and forth as she surveyed her new kingdom.
“What does your cat eat?” Hatherly asked.
“The bird population in your gardens will be sadly decimated, but I usually feed her kippers and a bowl of milk. She’s a very spoiled cat.” She kissed Kali’s head. “Aren’t you, my darling?”
“I’ll have some kippers sent.”
Alice set her down, and Kali bolted away to sniff the corners of the large room.
Alice shook out her skirts, remembering that she was still in her wedding finery. “What time will we dine this evening?”
“We’re not formal here. We dine when we please. The duke mostly takes his meals in his chambers. But we may dine with him tonight if you wish.”
“I would enjoy speaking more with your father.”
“You may revise that sentiment, I’m afraid. He harms no one, but his delusions can be troubling. He likes you immensely. Has a weakness for beautiful women, my father.” His gaze traveled across her body. “As do I.”
The fizzing feeling began in her belly again. She’d been imagining her wedding night for a month now. It couldn’t possibly live up to her imaginings . . . could it?
“I’ll leave you to settle in,” Hatherly said. He turned to leave and Alice had the sudden thought that if he left her here all alone, she wouldn’t be able to undo the complicated buttons along the back of the wedding gown.
“My lord,” she called to his retreating back.
“Call me Nick. I’ve already told you we don’t stand on formality in this house.”
“Please send a maid to assist me since my Hodgins appears to have deserted me in the lion’s den.”
“I have no live-in maids. The hired ones only come on certain days.”
Alice tucked her chin. “No maids today? Well, send the housekeeper then.”
“No housekeeper.”
“That can’t be true.”
“I have difficulty keeping housekeepers. As fast as I engage one, they find a reason to flee.”
“Perhaps Gertrude has something to do with that.”
“Maybe.”
“There are other reasons for servants to run screaming from the premises?”
Lord Hatherly shrugged. “Might be.”
“Well.” Alice drew herself up, ready to shoulder new burdens. “I may have to institute a few improvements during my time at Sunderland.”
Lord Hatherly’s gray eyes darkened. “No changes. The household functions perfectly well.”
“With no housekeeper and only intermittent maid service?” Alice sniffed. “Mama would be scandalized.”
He gave her a seductive smile. “I’d be happy to assist with your toilette, Lady Hatherly.”
Closing the distance between them in two long strides, he placed his large hands on her shoulders. “Turn around.”
Alice’s heart raced as he nudged her shoulders until she followed his instructions.
He untied her bonnet and laid it aside. The pelisse quickly followed.
Then he began plucking hairpins and strands of pearls from her disheveled coiffure.
Could the removal of hairpins make one’s knees buckle? Seemed a commonplace enough procedure. One Hodgins had performed hundreds of times.
But there was nothing commonplace about Alice’s reaction to his strong, sure movements in searching for the pins, freeing them gently without once pinching her scalp.
“Hold still,” he commanded. “One’s caught.”
She held her breath as he yanked on the pin. This was the most intimate contact she’d ever had with a gentleman. Somehow more intimate even than his kiss in her father’s study.
No gentleman had ever seen her with her hair completely unbound before.
When every pin was gone, he gathered up her hair and slid it all over one shoulder, exposing her back. “Now, the gown,” he whispered in her ear.
Alice spun around. “I can’t allow you to remove my gown in broad daylight.”
She’d never contemplated exposing herself in such a way.
She’d imagined candlelight. Moonlight.
“I’ll find a way,” she said. “I’ll manage.”
“Really?” Hatherly folded his arms. “Show me.”
“Pardon?”
“Show me that you can undo the top button.”
Alice twisted this way and that, reaching back and finally managing to undo the top pearl button. “There,” she said, a bit breathlessly, only because she’d been exerting herself.
Certainly not because he was standing so close, watching her disrobe.
His eyes glinted. “Now the next one.”
“My lord, I’m not going to shed my gown in front of you.”
“Because you can’t,” he said smugly.
“Because it’s not proper. Not in the daylight.” She wanted to have her questions answered, but only in the proper, dimly lit setting.
“No, it’s because there’s not even a slight chance you can reach those middle buttons.”
He was right, of course. With no maid, she’d never manage. She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’ll rip my bodice if I must.”
“And ruin your lovely wedding gown?”
He was so close now she could feel the heat from his body warming her. Solid arms circled her, reaching around to work the delicate mother-of-pearl buttons loose. The gown went slack. How was he doing that without even looking at his fingers?
“I’m London’s foremost authority on unbuttoning,” Hatherly said with a wicked gleam in his silver eyes, as if he’d heard her unspoken question.
Alice’s cheeks flushed and her heart thumped an erratic cadence.
Was his heart pounding as well?
Following an urge, she pressed her palm against his chest.
A heartbeat, fast and strong, detectable even through layers of linen.
He stilled, fingers tangled in the back of her gown, brushing the small of her back.
She met his silvery eyes.
I don’t have to wait until tonight.
Here is the moonlight.
Here the answer.
And then his lips claimed hers.
Chapter 9
Kissing is of four kinds: moderate, contracted, pressed, and soft, according to the different parts of the body which are kissed, for different kinds of kisses are appropriate for different parts of the body.
The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāyana
Nick kissed her carelessly
, as he would any winsome, half-clothed woman in his arms, forgetting for a moment that she was his bride, and a virgin, and required special handling.
Special care.
Her lips were so smooth—like fine, aged rum, sliding against him, her tongue, when he discovered it, surprisingly responsive to his movements.
He kissed her casually.
At first.
Content to learn the melody of her sighs. The supple ridge of her spine.
She had full hips and a rounded, high-sprung arse made to fit his palms.
When he pulled her closer, firm breasts molded against him and soft arms twined around his neck.
He kissed her with no deeper design . . . no danger of being carried away . . . until something changed.
Intensified.
He couldn’t have articulated why suddenly the walls of the room expanded outward with a whoosh and a roaring began in his eardrums.
He’d gone a whole month without a woman; that must explain this lifting sensation in his abdomen. The dizzying rush of pleasure.
The same golden haze of oblivion he found after pounding a glass of strong whiskey.
He crushed her full lips beneath his, intoxicated on the woman-sweet scent of her, overwhelmed by the desire to claim his bride.
He tilted her head back roughly, deepening the kiss, opening her for him, his tongue mimicking the act of love.
She moaned, deep in her throat, and the sound nearly drove him past reason.
Heeding only the heat crackling between them, he slid the pearl-studded sleeve of her gown off one shoulder, exposing one of her rosy nipples.
She broke the kiss, the startled expression in her aquamarine eyes stopping him cold.
Nick lurched back to reality. What was he doing?
This was his wife, an innocent lady. He wanted to make the experience memorable for her. Not some sordid, hasty coupling mere hours after the wedding.
He’d planned to seduce her slowly, prolonging the pleasure for both of them.
He could wait a few more hours.
Taking a full breath to steady his racing pulse, Nick replaced her sleeve.
“I think that ought to do it,” he said gruffly. “The gown, that is. I believe it’s . . . unbuttoned.”
The gown’s undone. And so are you. Unraveled by a kiss. Unacceptable.
“I rather think it is.” She gave a short laugh. “I never cared for this gown. My mother chose it for me.”
She plucked at a pearl stitched to her skirts. “Reminds me of a speckled mushroom our cook warned us of back in Pudsey. She called it a Panther Cap but the true name is Amanita pantherina. If you accidentally ingest one, you will hallucinate for—”
“The gown’s lovely,” Nick said. “And so are you.”
She was nervous. Actually, it was rather touching how nervous she was, twisting the silk of her loosened gown, tugging at the pearls and speaking all in a rush about poisonous mushrooms and hallucinations.
It confirmed what he already knew—she was an innocent; a bookish lady who had no idea how close he’d been to spreading her across the nearby bed and having his way with her.
Despite her request for love lessons, she required a leisurely seduction, which wasn’t a problem, because he was the master of control and finesse.
Plenty of time for sun-soaked morning and afternoon dalliances after she shed her inhibitions.
Virgins required velvety darkness and gentle kisses.
Her jittery fingers worried a pearl loose, and it rolled into a dusty corner of the chamber, her cat giving chase.
It occurred to Nick that he might find her pearl years later.
When the lady was long gone.
A luminescent memory . . . pearls glowing in a dark corner like her skin would glow in his mind.
You should leave now. Thoughts like that will get you into trouble.
“I’ll leave you now, Alice. I’ll return in a few hours.”
“But aren’t you . . . that is to say . . .” Eyelashes flicked toward his waist. “I believe you are in a state of . . .” She licked her lips. “. . . tumescence.”
Her gaze caressed him, her voice a husky whisper inviting him to open a few buttons and satisfy her curiosity.
It seemed his new wife was determined to progress to the bedding as swiftly as possible.
“My cock is stiff,” he said, not mincing words, “because I’m thinking about all the things I’ll do to you tonight.”
She pursed her lips and her dimples reappeared to flirt with his heart.
“Cock.” She enunciated the “ck” with a crisp emphasis. “Is that what you call it? As in a male domestic fowl.” She tilted her head. “I think I can surmise why. I have observed cocks on a farm in Pudsey become excited and aggressive when my brother set them to fighting. They swelled all red about the wattles and head.”
Nick nearly choked. “Strike that lesson from memory. I never should have used that crude word with you.”
“I do have married friends, you know. If you give the duchesses a few glasses of wine they wax positively bawdy.”
“Then nothing I do or say will shock you?”
“I didn’t say that,” Alice amended hastily. “I’m quite certain I shall be shocked several times this evening.”
“And awed. Shocked and awed.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m the best there is, Dimples. That’s why you chose me, remember?”
She tipped her head down, perusing his bulge again. “I’m curious . . . how long does this state of swelling last? And how does it begin? Do you require physical stimulation, or would the mere sight of an ankle suffice? Mama always told me the sight of a lady’s ankle could drive a gentleman to commit unseemly acts of lust.”
Nick guffawed. “Ankles aren’t really my choice of incitements. Now your cupid’s bow lips, on the other hand.” Drawing a thumb across her lower lip, he watched her eyes haze over and her breathing quicken. “One touch and I’m drowning in desire.”
“Oh.” She exhaled, her warm breath heating his thumb where it rested in the center of her lower lip. “I think . . . I think I like your lips, as well.” She lifted her hand to his mouth, stroking a finger across his upper lip. “I’ve never seen a gentleman with such a pronounced curvature here.”
This questing conversation had to end, or the consummation would happen here and now, with no more preamble than this.
Nick grabbed her by the waist, spun her around, and swatted her bum. “No more lessons just now, Dimples.”
She smiled at him over her shoulder. “But I have so many questions, my lord.”
“I’ve already bade you call me Nick.” He grasped her hips and pulled her flush against his cock. “Don’t disobey me again.”
She rested her back against his chest, and her rounded bum fit him so perfectly it made his heart gallop and his mouth dry.
“I think I made it quite clear that I wouldn’t be obeying you, Lord Hatherly.”
“You’ll call me Nick tonight,” he whispered, low and hot in her ear. “You’ll moan my name. Again and again.”
He was always in control in the bedchamber. He decided when the bedding would occur. Better to let her imagination run free for now. He wanted her to be as ready as he was to engage in, what had she so quaintly termed it? “The art of sexual congress.”
And so, even though his fingers wanted to slide inside her gaping gown and tease her rosebud nipples until her cheeks flushed a matching pink, he made his escape.
He left swiftly, without a backward glance to see what the inquisitive temptress he’d married was doing now, and he didn’t stop walking until he reached Gertrude’s enclosure, against the far wall of the gardens.
Pigeon, his gardener, was there already, working on repairing the hole.
“How did she escape?” Nick asked.
“Gnawed her way through the wood with those gummy stumps of ’ers. Think she was hungry. I’ll increase her feed portion
.”
Wordlessly, Nick fell into rhythm with Pigeon, hoisting boards and nailing them into place.
The sudden squall was completely gone and the day had turned fine. As they worked, Nick shed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“Pretty bride you have there. Caught a glimpse of her as she arrived. Why aren’t you inside, you know . . .” Pigeon hammered a nail into wood with a suggestive chuckle.
“She’s an innocent, Pigeon. I have to take things slowly. Don’t want to frighten her.”
Innocent, curious Alice required candlelight, rose petals, and French champagne.
She deserved proper wooing.
He didn’t want to think too much about how good it had felt when she thanked him with a wide, delighted smile for preparing her study. Or how patiently she’d listened to the duke’s mumblings.
Nick worked faster, grazing the edge of his thumb with the heavy hammer. The pain cleared some of the haze from his brain.
He couldn’t run about liking his wife. What good would that do him when she left? This was a fascination forged from desire.
Keep everything surface and superficial.
A nice, mutually pleasurable melding of bodies, followed by her father settling all his debts. Adhere to the terms of the agreement, and life would return to normalcy in four short weeks.
Alice sank into a chair, her knees suddenly too wobbly to support her anymore.
“Nick,” she spoke aloud, tasting the short, punchy name on her tongue.
He’d told her she would moan his name tonight. But a nick was what happened when you sliced your finger while peeling potatoes. Her mother had insisted upon Alice learning the rudiments of cookery, in order to ascertain the quality of her cook’s meals.
Alice knew what a nick was.
It was a warning. Stop now . . . or you might draw blood.
Charlene had warned her of the danger.
He did make Alice breathless; she was woman enough to admit it. But that wouldn’t matter in the slightest when there were oceans between them. They had only a few weeks in the same house, after all. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to let him hurt her.
Alice wriggled out of her wedding gown and kicked it aside.
Kali kneaded her paws on the discarded dress, sniffing at a pearl hopefully to see if it could be eaten.
