A True Lady

by Edith Layton

  He shook his head, but before he could answer, she said, “Be ye sure? I wouldn’t want to hurt ye.”

  He kissed her for answer. It convinced her he was well enough. She ran her hand over his chest, reveling in the feel of him. “Oh, Magnus,” she sighed, “you be like a great seal, a lion of the sea, all smooth and velvety and strong and supple, all life, my dear, to me.”

  If he thought it odd to be compared to a seal, he didn’t say, because he was speechless as he kissed her again and again. She lay down with him and took his kisses, and squirmed in his arms. She caressed his chest, but her touch was still tentative, and featherlight. Her hand trailed down his body towards that which obviously fascinated her. Then she looked away, and brought her hands up to his broad shoulders again.

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “I know I’m a big man, but I would never hurt you. At first there may be some pain, but it will soon pass and I—”

  “I know that,” she said quietly. “I’m not afraid of that. I be pirate-bred; I know what is to come, and even so, I could never be afraid of ye. Truth is, I love the look of ye, and wish to touch ye more, but you been so ill, I be feared of hurting ye.”

  “Cristabel,” he said on a broken laugh, “you’re killing me, my love. But please don’t stop.”

  She laughed and turned to him, and he showed her how it felt to be touched in such a place by bringing his hand to her tightly closed thighs and easing them apart to delve into the folds of her own secret yearning. She caught her breath in surprise because she’d only been able to contain her desire by holding herself tightly closed to it. Now she realized she no longer had to contain it, she could give it over to him.

  Her scent was of flowers and the sea, her skin was warm and sensitive, her response a delight to him, but her delicacy was that of a virgin and a lady, and he took slow and patient care not to shock or dismay her. But her passion was full blown and as fully fledged as that of a pirate lass, and he found himself swept away by it. He brought her to some peace with his hands, and held himself hard against following too soon as she shivered and gasped with the surprise and relief of it. But with all his control, he was only mortal and he ached for her. He paused, at the last, above her, hesitant, wondering how to approach this final, needful, moment. She gave him no choice. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and welcomed him, and ignoring the pain, smiled with the joy of it as she felt his great body buck and heave in tumultuous release as she brought him safely down from the height of his passion to the wonder of their love.

  He never let her go, not even when he lost his senses to pure sensation. Now he held her close beside him as she felt his breathing slow and settle to a normal pace again.

  “’Od’s life, wife,” he said in her ear, “but I do believe you’ve killed me after all.” He chuckled with satisfaction. “But where are my wits?” he asked in alarm, rising to an elbow. “Have I hurt you?”

  “No more than was needful,” she said, snuggling closer to him.

  “Cristabel,” he said as he stroked back her hair from her brow, “I have never known anything like this. I do love thee entirely. But tell me something. I thought I was so clever, but which of us seduced the other, do you think?”

  “It were all your fault,” she said comfortably, and then her eyes opened wide. “Magnus, did you hear? Oh my, I never realized…Magnus, when we—when we made love, I spoke like a pirate, didn’t I? Oh no, does that mean all my teaching, all my tutoring, was for naught? Is my breeding only skin-deep?” she grieved.

  “Passion is deeper than the skin, my love,” he said with a tender smile, his big hand cupping her chin, “and thank God for it. I’ll take me brave little pirate in me bed any day, and we can leave the lady to the parlor, eh?”

  She giggled, and called him a wharf rat and a cod’s head, and other pirate-styled endearments, until he took revenge in his own way, a new way, and pleased them both entirely. Although when it was done, she realized he had pleased her more than himself.

  “That was wonderful. But aren’t we going to—you know—again?” she asked shyly, when she finally came to her wits.

  “I know,” he said ruefully, “too well. But I’m trying not to remember—until tomorrow, that is. You’re warm and welcoming, my love, but there is a difference in our proportions as well as our experience. You need to recover a little. I don’t want to hurt you again; there’s time.”

  “I’m ready,” she said bravely. She was, and she wasn’t just being brave. There was pain, to be sure, but there was something more and she was eager to learn the way of it, for his sake as well as her own.

  “Ready isn’t enough,” he told her. “I want you roaring for me and ready to experience exactly what I do. That takes time, and now we have that.”

  She wasn’t so sure she agreed with him, but she was sure she’d never felt anything so good as this, simply lying deep in his embrace, feeling his heart beat as though it were her own. She fell still, and fell asleep in his arms with her head on his wide, breathing chest, as comfortable as if she were rocked on the breast of the wide sea itself. Before she dropped off, she thought with drowsy satisfaction that whether it was for better or worse, at least the worrying and the wondering were over. It was done. There was much that was still unresolved, but at least she was his at last, and nothing could change that now. She was the luckiest female in all England and the Islands together. Tonight for the first time in her life she could almost believe that she was loved for herself, pirate and lady—whichever she was.

  She woke to find morning sunlight on the bed, and only herself in it. She raised her head and looked for him. He was gone from her side and the room, but she heard the house bustling around her. She stepped from the bed, wincing at unexpected pains in intimate places. She marveled at all the unused muscles she never knew she had in her thighs as they complained as she crept to the door and cracked it open. There were many voices downstairs, and Magnus’s deep voice rose above them all. He was greeting guests. They had company in the house, and her breath stopped when she realized who it was. His parents and sisters had arrived.

  CHAPTER 16

  It would be embarrassing to have him come get her and drag her out to meet his family, Cristabel thought nervously, but it would be too horrible to think about if he pretended that she didn’t exist. She was his wife now, but the thought of meeting her new in-laws--an earl, a duchess, and Magnus’s noble siblings—chilled her. He hadn’t sent for her, and so now she wondered if it worried him too. She didn’t know whether to stay in the room and cower there, or march out bold as brass, unasked, and announce herself to his family. So she did neither. She busied herself by washing and then dressed herself in last night’s cast-off clothing. One good thing came of her waiting: When she realized that the whole household probably knew by now that she’d spent the night in Magnus’s bed, her embarrassment was forgotten in the fear of being summoned—or abandoned—by him this morning.

  When she’d finished her toilette, she looked in the mirror and realized she couldn’t go anywhere but to her own room, no matter what he decided to do with her. A lady of breeding didn’t wear an evening gown in the morning, nor a crumpled one at that. A tapping at her door made her turn pale. But she had braved hurricanes and the wrath of her father, and so she picked up her chin and said, “Enter” in as calm a voice as she could summon.

  The little upstairs maid she’d once used to send her messages stood in the doorway, grinning ear to ear. “My lady,” she said, “the viscount, he told me I should help you dress this morning, if I please you, my lady.” She dipped a curtsy and looked up at Cristabel expectantly. “Since you had no lady’s maid yet, he asked the staff who did for you. I once did something for you, even if it weren’t dressing, so I spoke up fast. I hope you don’t mind, my lady.”

  Cristabel grinned. So he had thought of her! Or maybe he just wanted to get her out of his room, she thought nervously. “I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, I was going to ask you mys
elf…” If I stayed, she thought, and bit her lip.

  “Well then, my lady,” the little maid said as she bustled into the room and appraised Cristabel with a knowing eye, “there’s company downstairs, and while that gown is lovely, truly, I don’t think it’s right for morning. I took the liberty of looking in your closet before I come here, and there’s one there that’s much more the thing. Shall I fetch it? I’ve always dreamed of being a lady’s maid, my lady,” she confided. “I think you’ll be pleased with me; I will try, truly.”

  And I have always dreamed of being a lady, Cristabel thought, and said, “I’m sure you will. Let’s get dressed, shall we?”

  Wearing a fashionable soft peach sack gown and with her hair artfully threaded with peach ribbons and pulled into a loose knot on top of her head, Cristabel perched on a chair in her room and waited to learn her fate. She looked lovely, flushed with youth and beautifully gowned as she sat and thought of all the ways she would kill her new husband…after she found why he’d done it, she decided. She couldn’t understand. How could a man seem to be so much one thing and yet be another? How could he make love to a woman, driving her to near insanity—no, driving her clean through insanity into another world, a world where she gave herself body and soul to him—and then forget her? Or remember to forget her. The slowest hour of her life had passed, and he still hadn’t come to see her or called her down to meet his parents. Well, but an earl and a countess meeting a pirate’s daughter, after all, she thought sadly…

  He must have come to his senses, she decided. The sight of his parents, his well-wedded sisters and elegant brothers-in-law, must have made him see his horrible mistake. She’d told him so. And so she’d told herself, too, Cristabel thought with grim triumph.

  She wouldn’t cry, she knew better. That was why she was so angry. It seemed he’d deserted her, after all. Why was she surprised? Wasn’t it just what every man she’d ever known had done to every woman she’d ever known? Except for her mother, of course—who had done exactly that to her husband and her daughter. Well, there’s a tear, Cristabel thought, dashing away the glittering drop that rolled down her cheek—it had no business being there. Magnus didn’t think so either.

  “What is it?” he asked the moment he stepped into the room and saw her. He tilted her head up with one hand as quickly as she’d turned it away from him. “Are you all right?” he asked in alarm, his gray eyes searching her face. “Have I somehow hurt you? ’Od’s mercy! Was I too rough with you last night? Ah, damn me for a brute. I should have known. There was pain; I saw blood on the sheet this morning, perhaps too much… The doctor,” he said with decision. “I’ll call the doctor at once.”

  “That you will not!” she said angrily. “A fine thing that would be. ‘Come see me wife and see if me lovemaking’s kilt her.’ I should die of shame! There was not so much blood; a white sheet makes a speck look like a fountain,” she said, blushing at the thought that he’d seen any at all. It seemed too base and mortal to be part of what they’d shared. “Anyway, no need. Nothing hurts now, thank you very much, ’cept for my feelings, and not even that,” she said hurriedly, ashamed she’d let it slip, “for I be used to lying, cheating knaves who say one thing and do another.”

  He checked, his lips curving as a small smile quirked and was quickly repressed. “Ah. And how have I lied, cheated, and said one thing and done another?”

  “Well,” she said, looking away and twining a hair ribbon round and round her finger, “you kept me out of sight when your family come, that’s what. Not that I blame ye,” she said quickly, “seeing as how I was the one who volunteered to slip away when you saw what a mistake the marriage was in the first place, remember? But why did you pretend it was all right last night? Just to have me?”

  That came out sounding too pitiable to her, so she raised her chin, and before he could answer, she went on defiantly. “There was no need for trickery just to get me in your bed. It’s what I wanted. It made no never mind to me; it was time I learned the way of it. I would—I would have done it just the same,” she lied, holding her head high.

  “Indeed?’ he said gently. “Then I’m very glad I happened to be there at the time. Cristabel, my dear, sweet, idiot wife, you were sleeping when my family arrived, so sweetly that I didn’t want to wake you. I slipped down and met them. They’d heard I was shot, and hastened to my side. It took some time to convince them that I was well. Then they heard I was wed, and were on fire to meet you. So I sent for a girl to help you dress, and settled them in their own rooms first. We’ll see them at dinner.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly, and fussed with a ribbon of her dress.

  “And by the way, we’re moving to my house soon after. I love my parents and my sisters dearly, but they’re hardly the people I wish to spend my honeymoon with. All right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said, and looked up to see him watching her. She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Magnus,” she sighed, “I thought the most terrible things about you.”

  He held an armful of sweetly scented warm and curving womanhood, and she was his wife. He kissed her and then held her at arm’s length. “A beautiful lady—my own willing wife, and a house full of relatives. I have far too much of a good thing. But I think I can manage it if you will just please keep your hands off me, and don’t look at me that way—’Od’s mercy, wife, certainly not that way!”

  *

  Cristabel came down the stairs flushed and rosy and very happy. Magnus came down with her, holding her arm as though she were made of porcelain, though she had just showed him that she was made of warm flesh and blood. It was true, he had stopped before he could find out just how warm, but he’d loved her just enough to give her confidence in herself as a woman and a wife. She needed it, she thought, as she saw the people waiting for her in the hall.

  “Mother, Father, sisters, Lords Jameson and Crewe, may I present my lady, Cristabel,” Magnus said.

  Cristabel curtsied and rose, pale and subdued, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. Cristabel, born Stew, she thought uneasily, bracing herself for the next question and the inevitable answer: Aye, just like the pirate, my lord, aye, happen it’s no coincidence, happen he’s my father, my lady. And prayed no one would ask.

  “Oh, but she’s lovely,” a gray-haired woman all in blue said.

  “Beautiful; well done, Magnus,” a portly man, almost as tall as Magnus himself, said.

  Two tall women, one very obviously with child and the other looking much like a child herself, stared at Cristabel. “Welcome to the family,” the younger one said shyly, as the expectant one said, “Beautiful, beautiful, Magnus. I can see why you hurried to wed before she changed her mind.”

  “Well done,” a foppish gentleman near the younger woman said as he stared at Cristabel.

  “Indeed, indeed, a beautiful lady,” a fattish one standing near the taller sister said.

  They looked at Magnus with approval. And at Cristabel with awe.

  “We never thought he’d wed,” the younger sister whispered to Cristabel as they went into the dining room.

  “Never so well, at least,” the older one remarked.

  And then they sat down to dine, and talked about everything else.

  When Cristabel got over the shock of it, she started to listen. First, the visitors asked questions.

  “How are you feeling, son?” the earl, Magnus’s father, asked.

  “Have they caught the villain who did it?” his mother asked worriedly.

  “Fine,” Magnus said, “and yes, he was dealt with and there’s no more danger.”

  “Well, I wonder at anyone wanting to live in such a dangerous place as London in the first place,” Magnus’s mother said indignantly.

  “Too true,” one of his brothers-in-law agreed. “I’ve heard the most hair-raising tales of the goings-on here, shocking. I wonder at what’s happening to our society.”

  “Yes, cutpurses and thieves, Mohocks and burglars; give me the peaceful countrysi
de anytime,” his other brother-in-law put in.

  “Anyone who lives in such a dangerous place must be mad!” one of the sisters said, and they all agreed.

  “Ah, but we have theater here, and art, commerce, and shipping. London is the heart of England, and so it also beats the loudest here. Sometimes it is dangerous, but so, too, is life,” Magnus remarked as he cut his meat.

  “That’s true,” a brother-in-law agreed.

  “Very educational place, actually,” the other put in.

  “If I were young, why, I do believe that’s just where I would live myself,” the earl said with feeling, and they all agreed.

  That having been decided, his father asked Martin if he and Sophia were ready to come home and take up their responsibilities yet. Martin grew red-faced and started to stammer an answer, when Magnus remarked, offhandedly, “But he’s young yet, Father, just as you say you once were. I think he has time to make up his mind, don’t you?”

  “Just so, just so,” the earl said, nodding his agreement. “But no children yet, Sophia?” the countess asked sadly. “Have you seen a doctor, my dear?”

  Sophia put down her fork and looked like she wanted to cry, and Magnus said, “Mother, that’s hardly a luncheon topic. Besides, her husband has been sailing across the world on business matters lately, and the thing can’t be done by letter, can it?”

  They all laughed, and teased Magnus for talking so warm, then reminded, started to ask about Martin’s Caribbean adventures.

  Cristabel stiffened and grew cold. Magnus put his hand over hers and held it tight. He smiled at her with something beyond sympathy. In fact, as the meal went on, she saw him become even more secretly amused.

  “Well, so do you think he’ll have to travel again soon?” his father asked Magnus when Martin was done with his highly inventive and abridged story of pirates and escape.

  “Only if he wishes,” Magnus said smoothly.