He wanted her. Wanted nothing more than to satisfy the ache in his loins. Instead, he pushed another finger into her body, and bit down on her. She screamed, her orgasm sending a shock wave through her body, and then his.
And when it was done, he sat down on the bench, gathered her up in his arms and held her close while she sobbed out the rest of her pleasure. Held her until she quieted.
Then he rearranged her skirts, made sure that her hair was in place.
‘I cannot possibly go back in,’ she whispered.
‘Why not?’
‘I... Not after... You...’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have no such qualms.’
‘How nice for you. But that was singular for me.’
‘It was singular for me,’ he said, tracing his thumb down the side of her face. ‘You are extraordinary.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were right. You are mine. And...’
‘I never said I was yours. You have said it. Frequently.’
‘All right. You were right in that this is your life. And as I have some measure of control over it... Dammit. Beatrice, I like to see you happy. I did not like the idea that once we left here tonight the joy that I saw on your face here would end. And selfishly... The way you look in this dress...’
‘You like the dress?’
‘I am bewitched by it.’ It was nothing less than the truth. Except, perhaps it was. Because perhaps it had less to do with the dress and more to do with her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, restless.
‘Thank you,’ he said, feeling amused. ‘That’s your response?’
‘I am flattered,’ she said.
‘Beatrice...’
‘What now?’
‘Tonight? Tonight we will go back inside, and you will enjoy this ball all the way to the finish. We will go home. You will sleep. Tomorrow morning, I will have your favourite breakfast made.’
‘You would not ask what my favourite breakfast is?’
‘What is it?’
‘Eggs. Bacon. And I like pastries and jam.’
‘All of them will be delivered to your room. Where you will take it as a queen. Then you and I will talk. And I will explain to you what will happen. What we will do. What I enjoy. And what our limits must be. And then... Tomorrow night after supper, when William is settled... I will show you.’
‘Briggs...’
‘Do you want this?’ He could hear the intensity in his words, but this was the most important thing. That she was giving this freely. With no reservation.
For he would lay out his every desire. His very soul.
And he had to know she would accept.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You don’t even know what I offer you yet.’
‘Because I trust you, Your Grace.’
The words sent a surge of desire through him.
‘Wait until I tell you everything. And then you may agree to it. Or not.’
‘I want more of this.’
‘It will not all be this, little one.’
‘Will it be more of what we had in the garden at the town house?’
‘Yes. And more.’
‘I enjoyed that.’
‘Good.’
‘What if I wanted...? Tonight. What if I wanted more tonight?’ She leaned forward, placing her palm flat on his chest, and he nearly felt dizzy with desire. He felt nearly overcome by his need to have her, and that was... Unusual. Typically, he had much better control over himself than this. But she was doing something to him.
Something he could not afford to allow her.
‘No,’ he said, keeping his tone gentle.
‘You wanted me to be honest with you. And I feel... Wonderful, but... Unsatisfied.’
He could relate.
‘It is of no consequence what you feel. You will learn to wait. And you will learn to wait until I tell you that you may have more. You must prove that you are able. You will prove your strength by waiting.’
‘I have always known I was strong,’ she said. ‘It is others who have assumed that I am weak.’
‘Then prove it. Prove to me that you are strong enough. To wait. And take whatever I have in store for you.’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
* * *
When she woke the first thing she became conscious of was the smell of bacon.
She opened her eyes slowly and looked to see a tray beside the bed. A massive tray. Absolutely laden, not just with bacon, but with a near mountain of pastries that exceeded her every expectation, and certainly her every request.
The second thing she became conscious of was the fact that this meant he had kept his end of the bargain.
And that meant...
That meant the rest would be coming too. The rest. She still didn’t know what all of it was. But he said that he would explain it to her.
A rush of giddy joy filled her as she sat up in bed and reached out for the bacon.
She felt both lighter and more carefree, and more mature than she ever had in her life. What had happened last night had been a fantasy brought to earth. The sort of garden she had found escape in as a girl.
She had now found true desire there as a woman. Had found the truth of dreams fashioned into reality.
A need created in her, and satisfied so thoroughly she would never be able to forget either.
He was giving her what she wanted. He was. This was a real life. This life with Briggs.
It was hardly like Emma.
Okay, perhaps not. Perhaps it was not like Emma at all. He was, of course, an older man who had known her for quite some time, but there was no... It was not love, this thing between them.
And she would not claim to have had great expectations of love, not in her life. Not when she had spent so much of it being so desperately aware that she was broken.
There were some similarities of course, between the novel and her life. In that Briggs was a long-time friend of her family, and several years her senior.
But... She could not help but think about all the qualities that she had always liked about Mr Knightley. He was assured in his authority. And that was what she liked about Briggs.
His certainty. His authority. It had been what had always drawn her to him. Like a magnet. It was not simply that he was the best-looking man that she had ever seen, though he was. It was more.
A strange sort of twist happened low in her stomach.
It was an odd thing, what he’d said to her last night. That he liked to give out pain.
But then, she supposed she liked to receive it, and if there was a person in the world who seemed made to receive pain, ought there not to be someone who enjoyed giving it?
It was as if they were two halves of a whole. Though that she and Briggs were each other’s half seemed...
Overly romantic.
She did not know how to reconcile the soft romance of books she had read with what seemed to exist between herself and Briggs. Last night he had done things to her that she had not been aware existed. Exactly as he had done to her in the garden here only two days earlier.
He was teaching her, without ever saying so, that there was a dimension of life she was not conversant in, and she desperately wished to be. But he had promised that she would be so. After this.
After tonight.
The thought made her nearly wild with nerves.
It was also somewhat pleasing.
She did wish that Eleanor was here. She would like very much to speak to her. To warn her about the sorts of intimacies that men like to take. Eleanor would be shocked.
For the first time in quite some time, she thought of Penny. Her friend who had been engaged at one time to Hugh.
Had her Highlander done these things to her? That stra
nge group who had carried her off?
Penny, by all accounts, was happy. At least, she had indicated as such in her letters, when she had arranged for them to find help for a young Scottish girl called Mairi. Hugh had generously provided a reference for her to get into a very good school. Even though he was not ever going to forgive Penny for what he viewed as a transgression, he would not pass on any sort of harm to an innocent girl.
And once he had heard of Mairi’s plight, of the violation she had endured that had left her with child...
She sat there, stunned for a moment.
She had been left with child by a man who had... Taken something from her.
She had only vaguely understood these things, and her brother’s fury. But now she understood slightly better. She had wanted everything that Briggs had done to her, and she wanted to get more. One thing that was evident when he held her was his strength. And how greatly it overpowered her own. How easily.
If a man wished to force his attentions on a woman, there would be nothing she could do to stop it. How terrifying. How utterly horrible to have such intimacies taken when you were not desirous of the touch.
Oh, yes, she was discovering new pieces of the world.
She looked out at the pile of pastries, and the great brick of butter on the platter.
She smiled as she thought of Briggs.
He was... He was not gentle. It was what she enjoyed about his touch. It made her feel strong. He did not treat her as if she was breakable. When she was in his arms, she felt like a warrior. Like what she had always longed to feel like. But he was purposeful. Never once did she feel as if he might push her beyond that which she could stand. He seemed a man innately in touch with her limits. She trusted him implicitly.
* * *
When she had finished eating, her maid came into the room and told her that His Grace had requested she have a bath.
There were new scented oils to put in the water, and she luxuriated in them for a long moment, until she emerged soft and smelling like a rose garden. She was perfumed down beneath the first layer of her skin, and there was something about it that thrilled her. Because Briggs was preparing her for his touch. And she wondered... Would he strip her completely bare tonight? Press his body against hers. Would he be...?
She had yet to see him naked, and she wished greatly to do so. She had thought him beautiful all these many years, and to see the promise of all that beauty fulfilled...
It was a prospect that sent a thrill of need straight down between her thighs. She did not enjoy feeling cosseted, not usually. Because she associated it with being put away. Kept cloistered in her childhood bedroom.
This was different. She was being exceedingly pampered, but it was in aid of being presented to him tonight. And so she allowed herself to revel in it in a way she never had.
She took her lunch on the terrace that overlooked the garden, the solitude beginning to press in on her. And she wondered when he would arrive to speak with her.
She did not fully realise when she began to understand. That this too was part of it. This anticipation that he built. The way that he positioned her, so that she spent these many hours wondering when he would appear, and exactly what would happen. The way that she obeyed him, even though nothing was stopping her from going wandering through the house and searching for him.
It was practice. For tonight. For the ways that she would need to obey. Because as he had said earlier, if she could not trust him in these sorts of things, then she would never trust him enough for the two of them to engage in greater intimacies.
She read, and lounged, and found indulgence in the act. Did not feel like a prisoner. Rather, she felt like royalty. She tried to see to her usual tasks. Spent some time with William and coaxed conversation from him about the sights he had liked best so far in London.
And all the while the anticipation built, excitement twisting her stomach, and also firing up that space between her legs.
Briggs.
His name was like her heartbeat. And, oh, how she wanted him.
* * *
Finally, at four o’clock, he came into her room.
He looked positively disreputable with his shirt collar open, and his strong chest visible there, a smattering of dark hair sprinkled over his muscles.
She was transfixed. By that white shirt, the tan skin beneath, the tight, black breeches, and his leather belt.
‘You’ve been enjoying your day?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Good. You did exactly as I asked, which is also good.’
She felt replete with joy beneath his praise.
‘Have I pleased you?’
‘You have not begun to please me.’
He walked over to the bed. ‘Explain to me all you know of the mechanics of what a man and woman do together.’
‘Only what you have said. Only what we have done.’
‘I see. So you do not understand that a man puts his cock inside of a woman and spills his seed in her and gets her with child?’
‘I... I did not. No.’
‘Where you were wet for me.’
She shifted. For she was wet. For him.
‘I see.’
‘That is the limit. We will not do that.’
‘Oh,’ she said, feeling hurt and disappointed, even knowing that she shouldn’t.
‘Last night, you were satisfied, were you not?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We will continue to endeavour to find your satisfaction, it is only that we will not fully consummate the union. Out of deference to your health.’
‘I find that greatly disappointing.’
‘We will recover. You may have my mouth there. Fingers. Mine and your own. I will pleasure you. And you will pleasure me.’
‘And how might... How will I do that?’
‘I will teach you to use your mouth on me.’
‘You said... You said you might punish me.’
‘Yes. Most especially for this situation we find ourselves in. I find that should be appropriate. You will tell me if it becomes too much.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘I am not jesting. I will take you under my hand, and I will do so firmly, but if you do not tell me when you have been pushed to your limits, there can be no trust between us. And if there is no trust between us these games do not work. You and I must have the utmost respect for your limits or we cannot push you to them at all.’
‘I promise,’ she said, thrilling at being able to offer him this promise. At telling him the truth. He was very proud of her for all of the times that she had been truthful with him before. And she would continue to please him in this way.
‘Then we will see one another again at dinner.’
She wanted him to stay. She wanted it to happen now. To push forward and get it over with.
She wanted the mystery unlocked. She wanted all to be revealed.
But he was going to keep her suspended in the rapture of anticipation, and she could not decide if it was brilliant, or a sort of torture. Perhaps both.
‘Your brother cannot know,’ he said.
‘Do you honestly think that I’m going to speak to my brother of such things? He cannot even speak to me of the sorts of medical procedures that I have endured. For it all involves breaking open my skin and bleeding and things of that nature. And I dare say he does not wish to know so much about his own sister’s body. He would not like to know what his friend wishes to do with it.’
To her surprise, Briggs chuckled. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s true. But I have no wish to be called out.’
‘You’ve married me.’
‘Your brother knows what I am. He knows how I am. He tolerates me, though he finds me to be debauched beyond what he personally would ever...’
‘My brother is no sai
nt, though he might conduct himself as one in public. I’m not a fool, Briggs. He could not maintain a friendship with you and remain a spotless lamb. It is only us ladies that are expected to be so.’
‘By comparison to your father, Beatrice, believe me when I tell you that Hugh is exemplary.’
He defended her brother with great ferocity.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I apologise. I should not have spoken out of turn about your father.’
‘It is true, though. My father was a libertine. And perhaps... If I’m very honest, Briggs, I believe that there was more than enough information to be found around my house, and if one looked too deeply into the nude nymphs in the books at Bybee House, to educate me well enough.’ She saw the real truth in that now. She had brushed against it earlier, but it hit her deeply now. Along with the reality of what her mother must have felt.
I want him and despise him in equal measure...
That made her ache, for she knew what it was to want now.
What her mother had lived with, always, was the reality of what she’d felt when Briggs had abandoned her for the brothel.
But Beatrice had been too sheltered then to know.
Her mother had known.
No wonder Beatrice had done her best to shield herself then.
She breathed out, a shaking sigh. ‘But when it came to anything my father was involved in, I did not want to know. I sensed somehow that whatever capacity he... He disrespected my mother greatly. He disrespected the title. It is something that Hugh has worked a great deal to undo.’
‘You are correct,’ Briggs said. ‘He has worked very hard to fix what your father has done, but it is not why I hold him in such esteem. I went to school late, as you know.’
‘Yes.’ She confirmed this with some hesitance, for he had mentioned it before but she could see now that she had missed something.
Something of what he had been trying to tell her.
‘I did not know the other boys. I was the son of a duke, it was true. But I had not been raised around children, and I did not... I did not find it easy.’
She could not imagine that. Briggs was one of the most charming men she had ever known. At least, when he was intending to be. He could also be hard, and frightening, it was true. She liked him that way, if she were honest. But when he was engaged in discourse in public, he was nothing if not the consummate rake. Witty and delightful, and jolly good company.
Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 36
