Harlequin Historical September 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Merrill

  ‘But you...’

  ‘Yes. I do well now. I learned. A bad combination of isolation and my natural self, I believe, made it harder for me for longer than it might have. If not for your brother, I would never have found my way at school. I’m certain of that.

  ‘But it does not matter.’

  ‘It does matter. It hurts you still.’

  ‘My obsessiveness served me well in places in my life. In school, when it comes to managing the dukedom. With women.’

  She flushed. She did not want to hear about him with women.

  ‘I might always be the spare in the eyes of my father, the son that meant less to him. That he loved less. But... I have found other ways to gain appreciation. He used to punish me. When I could not speak on the topics he wished me to.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. And of course she thought of the way that he had punished her. Of course she thought of that. How could she not?

  ‘You feel out of control when you’re a child.’

  ‘You like to feel in control.’

  ‘Yes. And I also like rare flowers. They are complicated. And one must know just how to care for them. You must take great care to observe, take into account every aspect of the environment. It is not so different than what I do with women. Finding the perfect balance of pleasure and pain. Watching your breathing. Your eyes.’

  He took another step towards her, and she took a step away, her bottom hitting one of the platforms that held all the plants. That section was empty, the surface clear.

  ‘You are like an orchid,’ he said. ‘You are in my care. And if I fail you, if you begin to lose your colour, the fault is with me.’

  She could see. She could see it. He took total control, total responsibility, after a childhood spent feeling as if he had none. And she had felt... Insecure. Unsafe. She had wanted nothing more than to feel safe. As if she could trust all those in authority over her. But her father often acted in his own self-interest, her mother was distracted—even though it was her father’s fault—the doctors... She simply had to trust that their training was as good as they said.

  And all the while, things were simply done to her, and none of it... None of it with her permission.

  While Briggs made her feel safe, taken care of. When he put his hand on her, she knew that it would be with the right kind of care.

  She was his orchid. And he the master gardener.

  ‘He said he wished I were dead,’ Briggs said, his mouth now nearly pressed against hers. ‘He said that he wished I were the one who had died.’

  ‘Briggs...’

  ‘And look at me, have I not done well? I’ve done better than him. It’s only a shame that he’s dead and he cannot see it.’

  ‘Briggs.’ She closed the distance between them and kissed him. Kissed him fiercely. And he wrapped his arms tightly around her, kissing her as if she were the source of all life. As if... ‘I want to know you,’ she said, moving her hands to his cravat and undoing it, pulling his shirt open. She knew that this was outside the realm of their games. That she was not permitted to take his clothes off. She was not directed to do anything of the sort, and if she was not directed to do it, she did not do it. But she was lost in this. And his kiss. In her desperate need for him.

  She opened his shirt, pushed it down his shoulders, and he tore at the front of her dress, exposing her breasts and pinching her ruthlessly. She cried out, arching against him. She reached desperately for the falls on his breeches, bringing his cock out and wrapping her fingers around it. She squeezed him, an answering desperation building between her thighs. By now, she knew what she wanted. He would respond by pushing his fingers into her, but he never gave her what she wanted. What she craved.

  She was not an innocent. Not any more. She knew exactly what she wanted from Briggs. She knew exactly what he could make her feel. And she needed it. She did not know how to reconcile all that they were with what they both had to have. His desire to protect her. Her desire to be free. The honour that he felt when it came to his relationship with Hugh, and her desperate need to comfort him. To be all that he could possibly desire and more.

  He pushed her skirts up her thighs, his fingers going between her legs as he stroked her.

  ‘Please,’ she whimpered. ‘Please.’ She arched forward, and he set her up on that platform, her thighs spread wide. He pressed the head of his arousal to her slick folds, stroked her, made her mad with her need for him. He was teasing her with what she wanted. Him. Inside her. That thick, masculine part of him. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Inside me. Please.’

  He didn’t. He was still.

  And something stirred in her. A need.

  His name.

  She felt the head of him against her entrance, stretching her. He pushed in, a fraction of an inch and she gasped.

  ‘Please,’ she begged him. Because she was desperate. ‘Philip. I need you.’

  He growled and surged forward, and she cried out, his strong hands gripping her hips in a bruising fashion, the hard length of him pulsing inside her.

  Whatever remained of her maidenhead was torn away by his invasion, and she revelled in the pain.

  This new pain. This new closeness. Him. Inside her. So deep she could scarcely breathe.

  And when he began to move, it was not gentle. His thrusts were hard and wild, the platform she was on hitting dangerously against the glass walls, the sound mingling with their laboured breathing. With her gasps of pleasure. The surface of the table was rough, biting into the delicate skin of her thighs, and the sensation mingled with the feeling of him in her, and took her breath away. She was lost in this. In him. His every thrust electrifying that centralised source of her pleasure. He reached behind her, grabbed her hair and pulled as he thrust in hard, sending her over the edge, her release an endless wave that went on and on. Then he pulled away from her, stroking himself twice and finding his own release outside of her.

  When it was through, he held her there, his breathing fractured. ‘That should not have happened,’ he growled.

  She reached up and touched his cheek, a tender, swelling sensation overtaking her chest. ‘But it was always going to happen,’ she whispered. ‘There was never anything else. Briggs, I was always going to need you like that.’

  ‘It is not safe enough,’ he said.

  ‘You do not get to decide the level of risk I take with my life,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are mine.’

  ‘I am not an orchid,’ she said. ‘You do not get to keep me in a glass case. I am not that fragile.’

  ‘You were fine with the metaphor when it brought you pleasure,’ he bit out.

  ‘And it is a fine metaphor for pleasure,’ she said. ‘But not for my life. I ache for you. All night long. I want to be held by you, skin to skin. I wish to have you inside me. Are we not past these games? That I am an innocent and I must be protected from you. I am not an innocent. I cannot be a convenient release for your demons, and yet never receive any relief of mine.

  ‘Do not treat me like a child,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Do you not see? This is not treating you like a child, this is treating you as if you are mine, as if you matter. When I was a child I was not treated with such care. My father destroyed the flowers I spent years on. Everything. I was thirteen. He delighted in destroying my obsessions, but only after I had put enough work into them that the loss would be deeply felt. Nothing in that house was mine. Not really. I would hear my name. Echoing off the halls with rage every time he decided I had fallen short.’

  His name.

  His flowers.

  His father had made every part of him into something he hated.

  She put her hand on his face. ‘I do not pity you because of the way your father treated you. I pity him. I pity that he did not know you. And what a great tragedy it would be if I did not know yo
u either. Can you let someone know you? Just know you?’

  ‘He knew more than anyone.’

  ‘I should know more than anyone. I am your wife.’

  ‘That is not what being a wife is, little one,’ he said, touching her chin. Reflexively, she looked down. ‘Serena did not wish to know every aspect of who I was. She wished only to be kept comfortable, to have her child...’

  ‘You would deny me a child.’

  ‘I am not the one who is denying you.’

  ‘Can we not speak to physicians? Must we take the word of a man who has cared for me since I was a child, who made endless amounts of money from treating me? There must be someone else that we can speak to. At least try.’ Her eyes met his, and suddenly her stomach went tight. ‘Unless you do not wish to have a child with me.’

  ‘Beatrice...’

  ‘Is that it?’ Her breath released on a jagged note. ‘You do not wish to have a child with me.’

  ‘I never intended to marry again. And my intent was to take you as my wife and never touch you. So perhaps you should just give me a moment to contend with the changes that have occurred since we initially took vows.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Can we speak to a doctor?’

  ‘Beatrice...’

  ‘Will you take me to bed then? Take me to bed. Spill your seed outside of my body. But be with me.’

  The look on his face was like torture. ‘Please don’t ever touch another woman.’

  He picked her up from the table, then grabbed his coat that had been draped over another one. He wrapped it over her body, and carried her from the room. And then he took her into the house, up the stairs, and for the first time, into his bedchamber.

  He laid her down in the centre of the bed and began to strip his clothes from his body. And she realised that she had never seen him fully naked. He never undressed entirely for their sessions.

  She removed her own clothes, and lay back. Waiting. Then he joined her on the bed, the length of his naked body pressed to hers. And she thought she might weep. From how wonderful it felt. From how much it was... Everything. Everything that she needed. And then, for the first time, they slept together.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Beatrice felt something like a tentative happiness over the next few days. Briggs had made love to her the same as he had done in the greenhouse several times now. She found it thrilling each and every time. It was a revelation. Having him inside her. And while she wished that he did not have to withdraw when he found his own pleasure, she was determined to continue working on him regarding a second opinion.

  But today, Hugh and Eleanor were arriving in London, and while Hugh was seeing about business with Briggs at the House of Lords, she and Eleanor would take tea.

  She was very excited. To play lady of the house and dress for her friend.

  She wasn’t even playing. She really was the lady of the house. And properly now. She was truly Briggs’s wife now.

  Truly.

  She wanted to call him Philip again, but he had let that one time pass without comment and she had a feeling that would not be true again, and she did not want to shake what they shared together.

  She held that little spark of happiness close to her chest as she examined herself in the mirror. The mint-green gown that her maid had selected for the tea was wonderful. It made her feel fresh and beautiful. Or perhaps that was sleeping in Briggs’s arms at night.

  The door opened and the housekeeper arrived. ‘Your Grace, Miss Eleanor Hastings is here to see you.’

  She walked out of the bedchamber and went down to the morning room, where Eleanor was already seated.

  ‘Eleanor,’ Beatrice said, and her friend stood, crossing the room quickly and embracing her.

  Eleanor was as delicate and beautiful as ever. The pale blue silk she was wearing suited her eyes and complexion perfectly.

  ‘How are you?’ Beatrice asked. ‘Please tell me that Hugh isn’t being an ogre.’

  ‘No more so than usual,’ Eleanor said, looking away.

  Beatrice looked hard at her friend. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’m here for the Season. I will find a husband. That is a good thing.’

  ‘Yes,’ Beatrice said. ‘If it is what you want.’

  ‘I’m not like you, Beatrice. I do not have an assured place in this world whether I marry or not.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That was not a kind thing to say. I know that Hugh demanded you not marry.’

  Beatrice shook her head. ‘I’m not angry.’

  The doors to the room opened and the maid came in with a tea service on a rolling tray. She laid it out before them, lovely sandwiches and cakes, and two pots of tea, along with two ornate teacups.

  Beatrice smiled. ‘I like being married.’ She thought about Briggs, and the things that they did together, and her face went hot. ‘I mean... I like... I’m pleased that I get to host you in my own home.’

  ‘And what of Briggs?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘He is... I care for him a great deal, Eleanor.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Eleanor said. ‘You always have.’

  There was so much she wanted to say to Eleanor, but there was... She wasn’t sure she could say it. Eleanor cared so deeply for Hugh that it might put her in a difficult position. But no, she would never speak of such things to him.

  ‘I want to speak to a doctor again,’ Beatrice said. ‘About having a baby.’

  Eleanor looked shocked. ‘But they said you could not.’

  ‘I know. But I...’ She felt the colour mount in her face. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it. ‘I have been with him. Intimately.’

  ‘Beatrice...’

  ‘It could not... We could not... You don’t understand, Eleanor. He is the other half of me. I...’

  ‘You’re in love with him,’ Eleanor said softly.

  The words struck a chord deep inside her that echoed like a bell in her head. Made her teeth ache, made her chest hurt.

  Oh, no.

  What a terrible thing to realise.

  ‘I had hoped,’ Beatrice said, slowly, ‘that love would feel nicer.’

  ‘Is he not nice?’

  ‘He is... I cannot explain him. But please don’t tell Hugh about us.’

  ‘You are married,’ Eleanor said. ‘If he honestly thinks that he is going to control the way that you and Briggs are with one another now that you are... Now that you are married.’

  ‘Just please do not tell him. He wanted Briggs to act as his stand-in, but it is not... That is not how we are with one another. I am not his ward. I’m his wife. I do not know if I love him. I... He makes me feel as if my heart is being cut out of my chest sometimes. And like I might die if I can’t be near him.’

  ‘As I understand it,’ Eleanor said softly, ‘that is love.’

  ‘You are in love with my brother,’ Beatrice said.

  Eleanor looked at her. ‘It is impossible.’

  ‘It is only impossible because you think it is, and there is nothing that can be done once my brother decides something. That is the only reason, and it is not a very good one.’

  ‘I should hope that you will tell him that. Maybe you can tell him while you proclaim your love for his best friend. And speak to him about your quest for a child.’

  ‘You know that I can’t. Once something is in his mind you cannot change it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eleanor said. ‘I do know that.’

  ‘What is between Briggs and myself is very private. I think it is love,’ she said, suddenly feeling upset. Because she had imagined that love would be more like the novel she’d read, and not this bright, sharp thing that stole her breath and made her feel like she was dying.

  There was no sweet romance when they were in his bedchamber. Or hers. Or the greenhouse. It was fraught an
d desperate. And it contained everything. Exultant joy, deep sadness, pleasure and pain. They were a collection of their most shameful, messy parts when they were together. On full display and with nothing to conceal their sharp, jagged parts. They were... They were not a couple anyone would wish to write a novel about. For it would be unseemly. Too dark. Too hard.

  And yet, so much of her life had been dark and hard and she had never thought that anyone could possibly find a way to make the sting of it make sense. To make all that she’d been through into something real. Into something that mattered. But he had done it. He made her feel.

  ‘Maybe I will fall in love,’ Eleanor said. ‘With someone I can have. Maybe there will be a nice second son of an earl.’

  ‘You do not want a nice second son of an earl.’

  ‘No. Not because he is the second son of an earl,’ Eleanor said. ‘Simply because I don’t know how to love someone other than... Other than His Grace.’

  ‘Since when do you call him that?’

  ‘I must. We are in London. And there is propriety to observe.’

  ‘Has he scolded you? Has he put you in your place?’

  ‘He is correct,’ Eleanor said, her cheeks going pink. ‘We are in society, and we must behave as if we are. I am not his sister.’ Beatrice looked hard at Eleanor, and tried to see if she... Had something happened?

  Beatrice knew that Hugh would find that sort of connection to his ward appalling. There were several reasons that Eleanor could never be suitable for him. But she wondered...

  Because one thing Beatrice had learned was that unsuitable or not, it did not matter. Not when you desired someone. Not when they desired you. Not when you fit together in ways you had not even known were possible.

  Love was inconvenient. And if there was one thing that she could learn from Emma, she supposed it was that. But it was often the person who infuriated you. The person who you least wanted to need.