‘I know.’ She lifted her head to meet his eyes, smoothing his tousled hair back from his brow. ‘But I’m pretty certain I was wrong. I thought that making love would turn us into my parents, tearing each other’s clothes off one minute, then tearing each other’s eyes out the next. No, don’t laugh, you know exactly what I mean.’
‘I do. What has made you think differently?’
‘You.’ Wrapped in his arms, smiling into his eyes, the world felt as if it had been righted. She knew that they were meant to be together. She knew now what it was she was feeling. ‘You made me look at my parents in a very different light, for a start. They couldn’t possibly have loved each other. Loving someone means being kind and gentle. They were never kind. And they never cared about hurting each other. While you and I, we can’t bear to hurt each other.’
‘I have hurt you, though.’
‘Mainly due to an understandable but misguided desire to protect me. You’ve taken a huge step today, in trying to put that right. I know how difficult that was for you, it was painful enough to listen to. Thank you, Aidan.’
‘I want to make us right.’
She laughed. ‘Not only does that sound like something I’d say, it’s almost exactly what I was thinking.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do.’ She was almost giddy with the emotional turmoil of the last hour. Aidan had finally managed to put their marriage first. There was an us. It seemed imperative to her that they prove it. Right now. ‘Has it occurred to you that the reason we can’t resist one another is because we’re not meant to?’
‘That’s a very interesting way of looking at it.’
‘I’m serious, Aidan. I think the time has come to stop resisting and try submitting.’
He smiled, the slow, sensuous smile that made her insides melt, a smile she hadn’t seen in weeks. ‘You’ve no idea the image that has conjured up.’
She smiled back, the wicked smile she knew had the same effect on him. ‘I don’t, but I’d like to find out.’
* * *
Aidan gazed at his wife in awe, teetering on the brink of something that felt extraordinarily like it might be happiness. ‘You are irresistible.’
She laughed, the breathy laugh that made his stomach clench. ‘You’ve been doing a remarkable job of resisting so far.’
‘Ah, but for how much longer?’ He slid his hands down to cup her bottom, pulling her up against him. He was already hard.
She blushed, but then she wriggled, and when he groaned she wriggled again.
‘Temptress,’ he whispered into her ear, nipping her lobe.
She slid her hands under the skirts of his coat, mirroring his hold on her, curling her fingers into his behind. ‘I warn you, I’m at the limit of my knowledge. You’re going to have to tell me what to do next.’
‘I don’t think you need any instructions,’ he said, and he was right, for she was already lifting her face to accept his kiss. Their kiss. She kissed him back just as fervently, just as passionately, just as deeply, as he kissed her. Her tongue darted into his mouth and his shaft throbbed.
If they hadn’t left it so long, he thought hazily, if they hadn’t denied themselves, they wouldn’t be so inflamed. But all that simmering anticipation, all that frustration, had led to an inferno. He should stop. But when she sucked his bottom lip like that, he couldn’t stop. He really should stop, but she was making that little panting sound that meant she wanted him to touch her nipples, and he absolutely had to touch her nipples.
They were in the library. Someone could come in. No one would come in. He had lost his coat. Her hair had come undone. He’d unfastened her gown, just enough to be able to kiss the tops of her delicious, delightful breasts, but not enough. He kissed her, she kissed him, and they sank on to the hearth rug. The hearth rug! But it meant he could unfasten her gown, and she was wriggling free of it, and her corset was easy enough to unfasten and dear heavens, how could he resist taking her nipple into his mouth when she was almost begging him to, and how could he resist sliding his fingers inside her when it made her gasp like that, when she tightened around him like that, and she was so hot and so wet and when she pulled his face down, her tongue pushing into his mouth as he touched her, and she came with such abandon, with such overt delight, he could die of pleasure himself, just watching her. Though he wanted to do more than observe her abandon. Now really was the time to stop.
‘What now, Aidan?’
Estelle, her hair falling over her breasts, her gown twisted half off and half on, rolled towards him, flattening her hand over his chest. He didn’t even remember losing his shirt.
‘Are you not satisfied, you wanton woman?’ he teased.
She laughed. She kissed him. ‘I am, but you’re not.’
‘Estelle...’
‘I want to, Aidan. It’s not fair.’
He laughed. ‘It’s not about fair.’
‘Tell me what to do. I want to do to you what you just did to me.’
He tried, he really tried, to resist her entreaties, but somehow he had placed her hand over his erection. He still had his trousers on. So technically...
‘You still have your trousers on.’
‘Estelle, you’re pushing me to the brink.’
‘You have made me tumble over the brink. Three times now, to be precise. You’re not breaking your promise, Aidan, I’ve already released you from that. Don’t you want to?’
‘I think it’s very clear that I do want to.’ He had unbuttoned his trousers. She slid her hand inside. He groaned. ‘Estelle, that is so...’
‘What should I do now?’
‘Nothing.’ He covered her hand, curling her fingers around him. He must not come. Not yet.
‘Aidan?’ He opened his eyes to find her gazing at him, that smile on her lips, her eyes glowing. ‘You look nothing like the statues in Florence, in fact you put them utterly in the shade.’
He laughed, a low growl. Her fingers tightened around him and he groaned. Then she kissed him, and he rolled her on to her back, covering her, and she parted her legs so that he was between them, and he was aching to be inside her, pressing against the hot, soft flesh of her inner thigh. He summoned the last of his resolve. ‘Not this. We can’t.’
‘Yes, we can. Would it be so wrong?’ She wriggled under him. ‘We’re married, Aidan.’
‘We’re married, Aidan. This is why we married. What is wrong with you?’
The memory Estelle had unintentionally evoked had an instantaneous effect. He felt himself falter, physically diminish, emotionally shrivel. He rolled off her, mortified.
‘Did I do something wrong?’ Estelle was still smiling. ‘I did warn you you’d have to coach me.’
He pulled on his clothes quickly, but not quickly enough to cover the evidence of his shame. Estelle’s smile faded. ‘Aidan, what’s the matter?’
‘Do you know why I could be so certain she wasn’t pregnant? Because I hadn’t been near her in months. And do you know why I stopped trying? Because I couldn’t perform my duty as a husband. Because each time I tried, this was the outcome. So I think it would be best if we resumed our policy of resisting, don’t you? That way neither of us will be disappointed.’
He knew he was being unfair. He knew he was being cruel. None of this was her fault. But at this precise moment, all he wanted was to get out of the room and as far away from Estelle, and the source of his shame, as possible.
Chapter Eleven
Estelle stared in disbelief at the closed door of the library which Aidan had just stormed through, trying to make sense of what had just happened. One minute they had been kissing passionately, he had been fully aroused, they had been about to make love, and then the next minute—what had changed?
Shivering, she tried to wriggle back into her dress only to realise when she had that it was back to front. Tear
s splashed on to her hot cheeks as she stood up to try to right it and caught sight of her corsets wrapped around the leg of the table. Where were her shoes? Her hair had come undone. Where were the pins? What the hell would she say if one of the servants came in and caught her in this state? The challenge of putting her corsets back on defeated her. She managed to put her dress back on the right way, but the effort drained her of energy. She slumped on to one of the fireside chairs, staring at the spot on the hearth rug where she and Aidan had almost made love.
What had gone wrong? What had she done? Or not done? Had she hurt him?
I hadn’t been near her in months.
I stopped trying.
I couldn’t perform my duty as a husband.
Each time I tried, this was the outcome.
Whatever had happened, had happened before, so it couldn’t be her fault. If only it had been. Aidan’s face had been a mask of abject shame and horror.
Aidan couldn’t make love. Why couldn’t he make love? It seemed to her, until the very last moment, that he had been very ready to make love, but what did she know of such matters? Until she met Aidan she hadn’t even been interested in making love. She’d thought she would never want to make love. She’d resigned herself to the fact that it was necessary in order to have a baby, but she’d never imagined it would be a pleasure. Then she met Aidan, and from the first kiss they’d shared, all those months ago in the piazza in Florence, making love with him is what she had wanted to do, even though she hadn’t actually admitted as much to herself. And the reason she wanted to make love with him now, which she might as well own up to, was because she had fallen in love with him.
Her hand went to her heart. She was in love with her husband! It shouldn’t be such a shock. From the moment they’d met she had been drawn to him in a way she’d never been drawn to any man. She liked him. They were friends. The more she came to know him, the more she cared, and the more remote and unhappy he became, the more she ached to make him better. She loved him, it had simply taken her a very, very long time to put what she felt into words. She was in love with her husband. And her husband was...
Her mind skidded to a halt. She didn’t have a word for what Aidan was suffering from, and even if there was a word, she didn’t want to apply it to Aidan.
Each time I tried, this was the outcome.
Aidan hadn’t been able to make love to his first wife. Slowly, her dazed and shocked mind began to sift through the implications of this, and her blood ran cold. From the very first, he had insisted that the childless state of his first marriage was his fault. He had failed, she distinctly recalled him saying that, because she’d been quite indignant about it. It took two to make a child, she’d thought. But Aoife blamed Aidan. And Aidan blamed himself.
She tried to recall exactly what he’d said. They hadn’t been blessed at first, she was sure he’d said that, and the medical people had told them to keep trying, which meant they had been able to try. No, she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think of Aidan making love with anyone save herself.
Or not making love.
She covered her ears, for it truly felt as if the jumble of emotions might explode from her head. She was far too overwrought to make any sense of it at the moment. She loved Aidan. That was what mattered, and that was what she must cling to. She loved Aidan, and Aidan had fled from her, mortified, unnerved and unmanned. She half got to her feet, then sank back down again. Best to leave him alone to recover. She’d see him at dinner. After today, and those tragic revelations he’d made of his own accord, there was no longer an invisible barrier between them. He wouldn’t retreat from her again, she was sure of it.
He had run away just now, admittedly, but that was different.
I want to make us right.
And she so wanted there to be an us. She loved him so much, and she was almost certain he loved her too. Surely that was all that mattered. If they had each other, they could overcome anything.
Two weeks later
Aidan sat on the grass verge on the edge of the lake, his hand cradling the rusty iron mooring ring. Three years ago today he had made his last journey out to the island, on a day not unlike today, with sullen skies and a gusty breeze. Aoife’s family hadn’t wanted her remains returned to them. They hadn’t sent a single representative to the funeral, for fear that the shame would contaminate them by association. The local vicar had been deeply embarrassed, but word had come down from well above him in the hierarchy. Given the circumstances, the church wouldn’t accept her being interred in hallowed ground. He was immensely touched when the poor man defied his superiors to preside over the ceremony.
When Aidan had first suggested the island as her final resting place, Finn had been horrified, not at the idea but by the difficulties it presented in terms of practicalities. Desperate for any form of distraction, he had thrown himself into the task of designing a barge to transport her on her final journey. There had been far fewer mourners than she deserved. Finn had ferried them across in three trips on the little yacht his father had used to teach him and Clodagh to sail. He had followed the barge across in her little rowing boat. They could hear Hera howling plaintively from the shoreline all the way through the service. He’d had the barge broken up for firewood afterwards.
‘Just do it! Put us both out of our misery.’
The heavens opened, soaking him through in an instant, but Aidan didn’t move. She’d been dead three years. He had to work hard to remember her face, yet he could recall every single word of that fraught last conversation, could pinpoint every single stage of it where he might have said something different or said nothing at all. He hoped that her suffering was at an end. He hoped that all the words the vicar had said that day about her finding peace were true, but unless she’d been handed a babe in arms in the afterlife, he doubted it.
Her death had given him no solace, no sense of peace, merely catapulting him into a different corner of hell. How many times since he’d met Estelle had he tried to escape that wretched state of mind? How often had he fooled himself into believing it was possible? But each fresh start had been destroyed almost before it started. His guilt was a living, growing entity, forcing him to look back and back and back over his shoulder. He didn’t give a damn that it was destroying him, but he couldn’t bear to see what he was doing to Estelle as a consequence.
What would have become of them, he and Aoife, if things had been different? If she had accepted they couldn’t have a child, would they have been able to fashion an alternative life together here at Cashel Duairc? Would they have drifted apart and eventually separated? Would his inability to be a proper husband have merited an annulment? The very thought of what they’d have had to endure in order to prove that made his face burn, but if she’d thought that it would give her the freedom to find another husband, a potent husband, he didn’t doubt that Aoife would have put them through it.
With an exclamation of disgust, Aidan got to his feet. Rain streamed down his face, but there was no point in going back for a greatcoat now, he was already soaked through. Digging his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders, he set off in the direction of the river, with the vague intent of trying to revive his interest in the new bridge which was intended to span it.
He stared at the plan for hours on end every day, but he made no progress with it. Some days, the time went by in the blink of an eye, and he’d find he’d done nothing but stare at the drawings or at the account books. On those days it was all he could do to sit opposite Estelle at dinner, to pretend to eat something, then to fall on to his pillow exhausted, falling into an abyss of unconsciousness that wasn’t sleep, waking just as exhausted the next morning. Other days, it seemed to take a year to get from morning until night, and then another year to get from nightfall to the next morning. Today was one of those. All he wanted was for it to be over.
Three years. Could today finally
be the day he drew a lasting line under it all, and would tomorrow finally be the fresh start he craved? The first day of the rest of his life with Estelle. Why was it so damned difficult to make something happen when it was what he wanted more than anything in the world!
He loved her. It had crept up on him, the love he felt for his wife, growing with every passing day, so imperceptibly that he’d scarcely noticed until the day he decided to show her the contents of the east attics. They were all gone now, and the hope that had flared that day, that he and Estelle would find happiness, was gone too after his spectacular failure, though his love, contrarily, still continued to grow. Estelle was a part of him, bedded deep inside of him, entwined around his heart. He’d do anything to keep her there. Anything to be able to tell her, and to hear the words repeated back, for he knew that she loved him, just as much as he loved her. But the words remained unsaid, and he was beginning to wonder if they ever would be spoken aloud. Love was supposed to conquer all. It was no match for deep-seated guilt.
Looking back on those golden days in Florence, Aidan couldn’t believe he’d been so naïve. His desire for Estelle had been so utterly different from anything he’d ever felt for his first wife, it hadn’t occurred to him that his body would fail him. It hadn’t failed him, not once, when he was intent only on her pleasure, on satisfying himself by satisfying her. But when they had been on the brink of making love he had failed dismally. Even now, weeks later, the memory was excruciating, all the more so because this time, he’d failed even though he wanted, desperately wanted to succeed.
Since then Estelle, his lovely, brave Estelle, had tried to talk to him about it numerous times, had begged him to explain, then had begged him to forget it and to try again. And each time, he’d simply refused. Refused to discuss. Refused to act. They had agreed to a platonic marriage for her sake. He wished to hell that they’d kept to it for his.
Which left him where? At a crossroads. The end of the road, or a new direction? Could he try again? He was terrified of failing, but if he didn’t try, what would be left of their marriage? Living without Estelle was an even more terrifying prospect. Tomorrow, he’d think of a way of making a real fresh start.
The Truth Behind Their Practical Marriage (Penniless Brides 0f Convenience Book 3) Page 18
