Tonight the newly wedded couple who hosted the event would dance alone. Virginia reconciled herself to the necessity.
Until the dance began, Virginia had forgotten the other function of the minuet, until she had performed the first curtsy. When she rose and met his gaze, she saw a man in love. So did everyone else in the room. A murmur went around; fans fluttered as she rose.
She paused before he gave her fingers a minuscule tweak, reminding her to move.
They went through the steps of the dance. Virginia had never performed a minuet like this one, and she’d entirely forgotten that it was a dance of courtship. Until now. Francis made her remember it. Every step was a declaration of love. Every time his gaze met hers, he repeated the message. She could do nothing but respond and then make a declaration of her own.
When she sank into the final curtsy, she made it deep, far more than the dance required. At any other time that would have been seen as gauche, but not tonight. Everyone would know what that final obeisance meant.
The music ended, and a pause fell, so profound they could have heard a pin drop. Or a fan.
But none dropped, and the quartet began to play again as Francis led Virginia off the floor.
“That was rather bold,” she ventured, keeping her voice low in case it shook.
“I felt I should make some kind of declaration,” he said mildly, plucking two glasses from a passing waiter’s tray and handing one to her.
“You did.”
“So did you. Or am I imagining it?”
She sipped the cold white wine before she spoke again. “No. I love you, Francis.”
He closed his eyes and laughed. “Best of wives.”
With a graceful gesture to the dance floor, she answered him. “I told you there as well. What else could I do when you declared your love for everyone to see?”
His smile was somewhat smug. “I did, didn’t I?”
Angela had reached them. She fanned herself vigorously. “Goodness, everybody is agog! After this, nobody will ask if this is a love match. You realize the word will be passed around the whole country in the next few weeks?”
“Good,” Francis said calmly. “Let whoever is here tonight who wishes us harm know what they are up against.”
“Francis?” A thread of worry wove itself through Virginia’s happiness.
He raised a brow. “I want to bring matters to a head. If we continue in the same way, we could be years hunting down the people we seek. I want it finished, done with.” The smugglers. “They know we’re united, and now they know why. We’re united. I’ve sent gossip around, saying we know who organized the smuggling gang.”
She gasped. “You’re making yourself a target?”
“You could say that. Someone will do something.”
He turned her, and the three of them strolled toward the music room, which was acting as a card room tonight. The state rooms had been thrown open so that anyone could see from the entrance right to the end, to the state bedroom, where nobody ever slept.
People moved aside as if they were royalty, but that would not last for long.
“I’m expecting somebody to approach me and ask me to join them. Which, of course, I will not do, but I will at least know where to look.”
Virginia sighed in exasperation. “Francis, they’ve tried to kill you twice.”
They had reached the music room, so they continued through. People were sitting at the tables, playing cards and conversing. A few looked up; the rest continued in their play.
“They will not do that now,” he said confidently. “Even if someone does, I am prepared. But they will want me on their side, will they not? And they will be anxious to recruit me before the authorities do. They have been asking me for years to play more of a role in the fight, but I have always maintained that the fight should be in Parliament.”
He stopped, facing both women. “However, with the danger to my wife, I’ll no longer stand aside. They will suffer, and they will do it soon.”
As if he had flicked a fan across his face and then closed it, his expression changed. As quick as that. His easy smile returned, and he addressed Angela. “I must claim a dance from you, ma’am. If you will permit?”
And after escorting them back to the large drawing room and taking Virginia to his cousin, Francis did just that.
* * * *
With relief, at the end of the dancing and supper, none of which he really wanted, Francis escorted Virginia to their bedroom. They occupied a suite away from the state rooms, and of course the state bedroom, where nobody had ever slept.
Virginia was his, and nobody had the right to take her from him.
Francis couldn’t quite believe it. He had always loved her. And he’d had to wait a long time for her.
That was before he’d learned what Ralph had done to her. Knowing she had spent her marriage dreading the man would have spurred him to approach her sooner, if only to offer his help. Not as a lover but a protector. She’d needed a friend, and she’d had none. That knowledge hurt.
Ralph’s taking a young, innocent woman merely because he wanted to mold her into his creature was more than wrong. As well Virginia had resisted in a way that had retained her character and strength. Francis would never treat her so, although he doubted every day of their married lives would be like this one.
Barely able to wait, he led her upstairs, but outside her room, he paused. “Half an hour. No more. I can’t wait any longer than that.”
Smiling, she leaned in to kiss him but moved back after a brief kiss. “Half an hour.”
As she turned to go inside, he added, “Come to me.”
She paused before she went in, telling him she knew what that meant. She would have to be the person to leave after they had made love. Every night since they’d arrived at Wolverley, he had visited her. True, he had not left until morning, but the choice had been his. This time he would let her decide. If she wanted to leave him and sleep alone, she could. Otherwise, he would happily keep her captivated all night.
After half an hour, as the clock on his mantelpiece chimed the half hour, a soft tap came on the door that linked their chambers. Francis hurried to it and threw it open, finding his wife on the other side.
He held out his hand. “Welcome to your domain, my love.”
“But this is your room.”
“Ours,” he corrected her. “Always. I want you here in sickness and in health. Remember?”
She could hardly have forgotten what they had sworn to each other in the presence of God. “I remember,” she said softly. “This morning I had the most beautiful wedding ceremony in the world.”
He felt the same way.
The grand lady of this evening had gone, replaced by a beautiful, desirable woman. Her hair streamed unfettered down her back, in glossy black waves, and her light ivory silk robe skimmed her body, delineating every mouthwatering curve. He put his hands on her shoulders, gazing down at her, still afraid to believe that at last, after all this time, this woman was his. Just as he was hers.
Outside, someone stumbled past, presumably on their way to bed. All the guest rooms in the house were occupied, and some guests, like Angela, would remain for a visit. But only the people he liked, the ones he wanted.
He took the step that brought his body flush with hers. He was not wearing much more than she was. The heat of their bodies joined as he bent his head to kiss her. She cupped his cheek as their lips met, a gesture he loved, and one she was in the habit of doing.
Her mouth opened easily, and he tasted her, the unique flavor that was Virginia flooding him with desire, as if this time was new. Every time they came together was new, their hunger as keen as ever. He would never tire of her.
Francis tasted her, adored her, wrapped his arms around her and pressed her against him, their bodies melding, her curves melting against
him in lush promise. He could have kissed her all night, except there were more pleasures he ached to share with her.
Easing away, he took her to the bed. His valet had already turned the covers down, so whisking her out of her robe and night rail, then lifting her onto the sheets, took less than a minute. In another minute he was naked too, and he wasted no time in joining her.
Propping himself up on one elbow, he stroked her, curving his hand around her breasts, plumping them to bring his mouth down to taste and arouse her.
Her nipples, already peaked, hardened even more against his tongue. First one, then the other, taking his time, reveling in the way she stroked his shoulders, ran her hands over his arms, murmuring to him. “Francis, I love you.”
He would never tire of hearing that. He kissed down her body, paused to tease the sensitive spot on the inside of her hip, laughed when she flinched and gasped. Her stomach was satin smooth, tightening when he teased her and licked around the sweet indent of her navel. “Every part of you is mine. Every inch. Say it.”
“I’m yours, Francis. All of me.”
He loved the easy way she could say that, as if finally she had let him in, without stint. “And I am yours. I’ve been yours for a long time.”
Before she could say anything, he nuzzled between her legs, finding what he sought. At the first touch of his tongue, she cried out. Glorying in the sound, he gripped her hip to stop her moving too much, and feasted.
Her babble of cries and encouragement drove him on, and by the time he pushed himself back up the bed to lie over her, she had come twice. He gazed at her. Her eyes were dark, the pupils almost black, despite the candlelight turning her body into a golden goddess. And she laughed, a sound of sheer happiness.
“I want to hear that often,” he told her. “Not just in bed, not only when we are making love, but all the time.” He dropped a swift kiss on her lips. “Now turn over.”
Her luscious lips fell open, but she did as he asked and didn’t demur when he raised her lower body and helped her to spread her legs, opening her body completely to his possession. He had never done this with her before, but he’d ensured she was ready.
If he had to make her more ready, he would disgrace himself, and that was not going to happen. Although his shaft was big, straining with his need for her, there was little natural resistance when he slid inside her body.
“Oh, my love,” he murmured as he set to work.
A hard slam had her crying his name. He loved her response so much that he did it again. And again. She was soft and silken inside, all he needed to drive himself to oblivion. But that would not happen until—yes.
She shivered and cried out, her body contracting around his. Francis, experienced though he was, had to stop moving, else he would have finished there and then. And he wanted her to come at least twice more before he did.
Touching the most sensitive parts of her body, the nub between her legs, her nipples, and bending to lick and suck the juncture of neck and shoulder, where he had learned she was particularly responsive, made her jolt under him, her backside colliding with his groin and sending him into paroxysms of joy.
Virginia buried her face in the pillow and screamed.
The next time she would scream into his mouth. But he had emptied himself inside her.
“I meant to make you come twice more. I only managed once.”
* * * *
Francis said that with such a disgusted tone that Virginia laughed. Snuggled into his body, held close and safe, she had never known such joy. Even though they had made love many times over the last few weeks, tonight was special. Not just because she experienced his lovemaking in a different way, but because tonight they had, in the words of the poets, plighted their troth.
Consummated their marriage.
“You can do it next time,” she said, stroking her hand down his chest, relishing her right to do so. Curly chest hairs tickled her palm, and she turned her head to stifle her yawn against his shoulder. “You seem bigger out of your clothes than in them.”
“A good tailor will do that.” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger and smiled down at her. “God help me, Virginia, I will kill myself making love to you. But you’re tired.”
“Aren’t you?”
His shoulder moved. If she hadn’t been using it as a pillow, he might have shrugged. “I’m still keyed up, excited. We should go away. I have a neat little manor house in Nottinghamshire, well away from the sea. We’ll go there.”
“Anywhere,” she murmured as sleep swept over her in a great wave.
* * * *
The click of the door alerted her. The job door, where the servants entered. The sound of footsteps, heavier than she would expect a maid to make, crossed the floor, softening when the person reached the thick rug.
Next to her, Francis snored softly. They had separated sometime in the night.
Virginia slitted her eyes so as to appear undisturbed. Francis stopped snoring.
A person stood at the end of the bed. Not a servant. A man in shirtsleeves and breeches. He raised his arms. He was holding a pistol in each hand.
Virginia cried out as Francis shoved her hard, pushing her off the bed.
The first explosion rocketed around the room, but Virginia did not wait to find out if she was hit. No pain, which was a good thing.
Someone fired, but she didn’t know who. Someone crashed to the floor, rocking the boards under her.
A voice from outside the room called out, “I have him! Put the guns down!” Cocking had kept his promise.
Virginia got shakily to her feet. Only when she was standing did she turn her head, dreading what she might see.
If the assassin had killed Francis, then he was a dead man.
But Francis was standing on the other side of bed, a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, a saber. Its long, curved blade gleamed wickedly in the light of the wavering candles being held in the doorway. Behind her the job door stood open.
“Virginia! Are you all right?” Francis’s voice, tight with shock, boomed out.
Her voice wouldn’t work at first. She coughed and tried again. “Y-yes.” Trying to think of a way to reassure him, she came up with, “Not hurt.”
His long sigh of relief was enhanced by a groan. Heedless of his nudity, he strode to the chair, snatched up her robe, and walked around the bed to stand in front of her. She shrugged into the garment and clutched it around her body as shouts came from outside and people raced up to their room.
Taking his time, Francis caught the robe someone threw to him, wrapped it around himself and belted it, before turning and helping Virginia to her feet. He studied her from head to foot before paying any attention to anyone else.
Cocking took a look outside. “Colston Magna and a few other men are preventing anyone coming in.” He gazed down at the figure on the floor.
The man was screaming. A high-pitched, uncomfortable scream that hit her eardrums at exactly the wrong pitch.
With a long-suffering sigh, Cocking pulled off his neck cloth and bent to the man. “Hold still,” he said after a moment. “And stop that noise. You won’t die. That is, you won’t die just yet.”
“Who is he?” Virginia demanded. She took a step forward, but Francis held her back, pulling her against his body. She shook him off.
Cocking sent her a warning glare, then addressed the man on the floor again. “If you don’t hold still, you’ll bleed to death.”
A low rumble was the answer, but after that Cocking worked swiftly and soon had the man’s arm bound up. He hoisted him to his feet. Francis dragged a wooden chair over, and they threw him in it.
Sir Bertram was still conscious, but at least he’d stopped screaming. In fact, he was totally silent, although his breathing was somewhat ragged.
“We should move him into another room,�
�� Francis offered, shooting Virginia an anxious glance.
She waved his concerns away. “He’ll only soil another rug. That one is beyond saving.”
Francis grunted. “So he has. So, Sir Bertram, we’d appreciate knowing why you tried to murder us in our beds—bed,” he corrected himself. “And how on earth did you plan to get away?”
Sir Bertram growled and glared at Francis. “Easy. Once you’re dead, I get away in the melee.”
Yes, there would have been a melee.
“Or he could have claimed to find us,” Virginia pointed out.
Hurst came in, accompanying Angela. “She refused to leave,” he said. “I sent the others back to bed.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That nobody was hurt, my lord. An accidental discharge.”
Angela wore a quite magnificent Chinese-style padded robe, which she lifted fastidiously to step over the mess on the carpet. “You’ll have to burn that,” she commented. She took in the prisoner on the chair. “Damnation,” she said calmly. “I thought you had more sense, Sir Bertram. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to investigate the suspiciously large increase in your income.”
Sir Bertram glared at her and growled, then whimpered in pain as Angela patted his shoulder on her way past him to stand at Virginia’s side.
“Why?” Francis repeated. “What do you have to gain by this rash act? I had thought you would try to persuade me at a more civilized hour.”
“What good would that do?” Sir Bertram grumbled. “You intended to wrap up the orphanages, to report everything to the authorities. We couldn’t allow that, could we?”
So Henderson had told him. That answered another of her questions.
If they died, there would be no more argument. The trust, where presumably Sir Bertram had a seat, would control the orphanages, and the smuggling. A few years more and the chain would have been set up and almost impossible to break.
Francis leaned over Sir Bertram and dragged his watch out of his waistcoat pocket.
There, dangling as a counterweight, was a gold token.
Virginia And The Wolf Page 28
