The Lady's Deception

by Susanna Craig

  Too soon, they stood before Tavisham Manor. She’d hardly grown accustomed to thinking of it as her house, and now it was his, according to the law. She glanced up at him, her husband, whose eyes were taking in the squat stone building as if he were seeing it for the first time. Stillness had settled over everything. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, and she thought of the enormous adjustments this match would also require of him. He looked down at her and smiled. “Will you show me around our home?”

  Our.

  As the dining and drawing rooms must already be familiar to him from their earlier celebration, she began on the opposite side of the wide central staircase, with her least favorite room. At Mr. Burke’s encouragement, she had ordered the walls repainted a soft rose color and the furniture recovered with cheery patterns, but it was still rather too easy to picture Mrs. Sloane seated at the large work table or pretending to doze on the sofa, like a watchful old bulldog waiting to sound the alarm at any sign of mischief.

  Even now, Rosamund could not quite bring herself to cross the threshold. Nevertheless, she had already had her books and her needlework moved into the room; this was the lady’s parlor and it would be her proper place as the lady of the manor. From the doorway, Paris’s dark eyes took in every detail, though he made no comment.

  Adjacent to that room, though not adjoining it, was the library, with its stout oak desk and dark paneled walls lined with bookshelves. She loved its masculine warmth, the deep leather chairs and the welcoming window nook, where she had often hidden herself to read for hours. But she loved Paris more, and when he’d sent two trunks of books and papers from Dublin, she’d placed them in this room with her own hands, eager to show him that he’d at last have a gentleman’s study of his own. “When the door is closed, you’ll have all the quiet you could want,” she told him as they stepped inside.

  Again, he took it all in without speaking. Then, releasing her hand, he walked out the door, returning a moment later with his arms loaded: plump floral cushions, her workbasket, and a stack of novels. “There’s such a thing as too much quiet,” he said, as he distributed her things about the room. “I didn’t come here to be alone.”

  “I love you.” The words rushed from her, and her own eagerness caught her off guard. She’d not spoken them before, though they were true and had been for quite some time.

  His eyes danced with wry humor. She felt certain he was about to tease her. To say, “I know.” And it would be fair enough, for he’d known her, known her heart, even when she had been trying desperately to hide it from him.

  But then his expression softened, and he took her hands in his and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I don’t deserve it,” he whispered against her ear. “But I shall endeavor to be worthy of you, my dear. Now,” he said, straightening, “what about the upstairs?”

  “It’s just bedchambers.”

  “Yes.”

  The heat of her blush would have taken the chill off the house, if any had remained. He threaded her arm through his and together they climbed to the floor above, which contained another four rooms. Rosamund had always been relegated to the smallest of them, which overlooked the privy. The master’s suite—or at least, the room which Charles had commanded whenever he had deigned to visit—had an expansive view of the gardens at the back of the house. This room she was ready to reclaim.

  Her fingers trembled only slightly as she opened the door and they stepped inside. Mrs. Coats, the housekeeper, had made everything fresh after last night’s visitors—the crisp white bed linens had already been turned down, and the two large windows had been left open to invite the spring breeze. “This is where we’ll be tonight,” she explained, and blushed again.

  Paris nudged the door shut with the toe of his boot. “Must we wait?”

  Sunlight filled the room, filtered through the bright green leaves of a spreading oak tree just outside. “But it’s broad afternoon!” No cover of darkness to cloak them, no softening haze of candle or hearth.

  He lifted one hand to trace the curve of her heated cheek. “There’s no shame in it, Mrs. Burke.”

  Mrs. Burke. She’d never grow tired of hearing it, though she supposed a part of her might always be prickly Miss Gorse.

  He’d sensed her hesitation. “But it’s just as you please.” The same words of reassurance he’d spoken that night at Laurens House. The promise that the choice would always be hers.

  Twisting, she brought herself against him and reached up for a swift kiss. Yes, he’d see every inch of her in this sun dappled room. But she would see every inch of him, too. “Oh, Paris. I’ve missed you so.”

  “I’ve missed you too.” He spoke between kisses, as if he needed to learn her lips all over again. One strong arm curled around her waist, one hand cradled her head. “Do you need me to call your maid to help you undress?”

  “I haven’t a maid,” she confessed breathlessly. Sally, who swept and dusted and made up the fires, would doubtless find it odd to be summoned at this hour. “I can manage.”

  He caught up her hands and kissed them. “Let me.” With nimble, careful fingers, he unpinned her new dress of china blue muslin and slipped it from her, then gently turned her away from him to unlace her stays. When they fell away, he swept his hands up her arms and over her hips, taking in every lightly-clad curve with an appreciative murmur.

  Not to be undone, she turned and slid her palms over his chest, pausing to feel the pounding of his heart. Hungrily, she pushed his coat over his shoulders and let it join her gown on the floor, then set to work on the too many buttons of his gold waistcoat. At her hiss of frustration, he took up the task and made swift work of it, while she proceeded to tug his shirttails free from the band of his breeches.

  “Here,” he grunted, bending and lifting her in his arms. “I forgot about the threshold bit. This will have to do.” Softly, he laid her in the center of the bed before removing her shoes and stockings. Now, only her embroidered cambric shift shielded her from his dark gaze.

  When he leaned his backside against the mattress to shed his boots, she knelt and reached around to unwind his cravat, then slid her hands down to the buttons of his fall. “I’ve been thinking about that night at your sister’s,” she whispered into his ear before nipping at his earlobe. “And I wondered…”

  “Yes?” he hissed as the first button slipped free with a soft pop.

  “Can a lady”—pop-pop—“please a gentleman”—pop-pop—“as you”—pop-pop-pop—“pleased me?”

  His breeches slid to his ankles and he kicked free of them before turning to face her. “I believe I’m supposed to say that a gentleman would never ask a lady—to say nothing of his wife—to perform such a lewd, lascivious act.” With every few words, he prowled closer, and she scooted backward beneath the force of his gaze, until she lay beneath him, pinned to the mattress by his welcome weight and delicious heat.

  “But you didn’t ask,” she pointed out. She’d never felt so marvelously naughty in all her life. “I did.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers, withholding the promised pleasure of his lips to say, “Then by all means.” She opened herself to his plundering kiss, clinging desperately to fistfuls of his shirt and canting her hips to meet his.

  By degrees, he gentled the pressure of his mouth, eased his weight from her. “But not just now,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I want—ah, love. Will you let me come inside you?” The tiniest flutter of nervousness traveled from her chest to her belly. Had he felt it? Softly, he kissed her again. “I’ll be so gentle, love. I just need—”

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “I need it too.”

  His previous frenzy all but forgotten, he rose from the bed to shed the rest of his clothes, and she greedily studied the lean planes of his body. Then he urged her once more onto her knees so he could lift her shift over her head. In that moment of blindness, she heard hi
s sharp intake of breath. At last, she laid down and he came beside her, nothing between them now.

  “You’re perfection,” he said, his gaze roving over her. “I’m almost afraid to touch you.”

  “Don’t be. I…” She didn’t have words for her desire.

  But he understood her, all the same. His fingertips began their slow erotic journey in the hollow at the base of her throat. She watched the progress of his hand, mesmerized, as he brought her skin to life with his touch. Brushed the pad of his thumb back and forth across the tips of her pink-peach nipples until she whimpered. Trailed sparks over the curve of her belly and into the honey-brown curls between her legs. Light, playful touches, so different from the sensations that had brought her to a swift peak once before. Eagerly, she parted her legs, welcoming the glide of his fingers between her folds as he teased her nub, hearing her own wetness as he dipped a finger into her, slipping from one sensitive spot to the other, until she thought she might go mad with the pleasure of it.

  As his hand explored her, his manhood nudged repeatedly against her thigh, hot and more than a little forbidding. But when he levered himself onto one arm and came over her, distracting her with soft, sweet kisses, she forgot to be nervous. He fitted himself to her with such care, entered her with such easy, gentle thrusts, that she felt no pain, just the agreeable ache of being stretched and filled at last. And all the while his clever thumb continued to work its magic on that little pearl. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth to stifle her panting cries.

  “No.” It was almost a growl, and his eyes were fierce. Feverish. “Not this time. I want to hear you. I want to see you.” He thrust deeper, and her answering gasp escaped, mocking her feeble effort to muffle the sound. Giving up, giving in, she reached up to brush the hair from his damp brow instead. “Come to me, Roisín,” he pleaded.

  She couldn’t deny him, couldn’t deny herself. Pleasure burst, then rolled over her in waves as his seed flooded her womb with heat.

  Afterward, he rolled onto his back and she curled against his side. They lay, breathless, tangled in the sheets. She luxuriated in the rise and fall of his chest, the rhythm of his heart as it returned to a steadier pace. In all her wildest imaginings, she had never dreamed of such deep contentment, the certainty that their union would be stronger than the fragile pieces from which it had been made. Because she’d wanted a man who was good and loving and just, and she’d found him in an Irish rebel. Because she was prim and proper and English, and he was her perfect rogue.

  A few minutes later, his palm began to rub circles over her bottom. “Oh.” To her amazement, her need surged again in response to his touch and she pressed herself eagerly against his hard thigh. “You were so quiet, I assumed you’d fallen asleep,” she said as she glanced up at his face.

  But it wasn’t drowsiness that made his eyes heavy-lidded and warm. “It’s broad afternoon, Mrs. Burke,” he teased, smiling down at her. “And I’m not one bit tired. What say we make a little more noise?”

  Epilogue

  December 24, 1800

  “Babies,” Daphne declared loftily as she peered over the edge of the crib, “are boring.”

  “When they aren’t crying,” Bell agreed. “Or stinky.”

  Arthur James Rowan Laurens, Marquess of Hawes, raised one tiny fist at his young aunts and scrunched up his face. His father swooped in to forestall the inevitable eruption. “Or hungry,” Tristan said, settling the baby in his mother’s arms.

  Though the Duke of Raynham had lost the sunburnt color he’d first sported upon his return from the West Indies several months ago, Erica’s face was still more freckled than ever. Her husband didn’t seem to mind, however. He dropped a kiss on the ones scattered across the bridge of her nose as the baby began to emit greedy smacking noises.

  “Come,” said Paris, shepherding his youngest sisters from the room before they began to complain again.

  “If I were you,” Erica spoke after them, “I’d use this time to build my arsenal. Because once I’ve laid Arthur down for his nap, the snowball fight to end all snowball fights will begin.” Her voice had a newly soft, maternal note to it Paris hardly recognized, but the words themselves could belong to no one but his middle sister.

  “I don’t see why they couldn’t have at least chosen one of the names from the list we sent her,” Daphne complained as he closed the door behind them.

  “It’s traditional to give the heir a family name,” Paris explained. “Rowan to honor our papa, and Arthur James in memory of Tristan’s father.” The late duke had been an avid student of the Arthurian legends. Paris suspected, however, that the baby’s first name was equally a nod to Arthur Remington, Tristan’s secretary, who had demonstrated yet another surprising set of skills when the little marquess had insisted on making his appearance before the Seaflower could dock in Liverpool.

  Daphne considered the matter, then shrugged. “Well, that means all the best ones are left. You and Rosamund can have your pick.”

  “If the baby is a girl,” he pointed out. The list of names Daphne and Bell had labored over was predictably one-sided.

  Bell frowned. “What else would she be?”

  Paris laughed. In truth, he wanted a daughter—despite having grown up surrounded by sisters. Or perhaps because of it.

  Cami met them at the bottom of the stairs holding a dark-haired toddler by either hand. The girls were dusted in white. Not snow, as he’d first thought, but flour. “Oh, there you are,” she said, sounding relieved. “Eileen chased Elf into the kitchen again, and surprised Mrs. Riggs in the middle of rolling out piecrust. Did I—?” There was flour in Cami’s hair too. “Did I hear something about you girls going outside?” she asked hopefully.

  At almost two years of age, Lady Phoebe and Lady Chloe Finch, in addition to the decided advantage of being girls, could perform all sorts of tricks that boring babies could not. They ran and played pat-a-cake and babbled words that sounded suspiciously like “Daphne” and “Bell.” Or near enough that the young aunts were gratified by the attempt.

  “Let’s make snow angels,” suggested Bell as she took one of the twins by the hand and the four trundled off to get into their wraps.

  “Take Elf with you,” Cami called after them, sinking into the first chair she found, which happened to be in Paris’s study.

  Since Paris and Rosamund’s marriage, the Burke family had continued to grow, while Tavisham Manor—a modest little house, just as Rosamund had once told him—had seemed to shrink. Now it was full to the point of bursting. Erica and Tristan had intended on making only a brief visit on their way from London to Hawesdale Chase, Tristan’s family estate, which they had not seen for more than a year. Paris’s parents and Daphne and Bell had been traveling northward with them, planning to return to Dublin. No one could have predicted the heavy snow. The same weather that had stranded the lot of them in Berkshire had also forced Cami and Gabriel and their daughters to take refuge before they could reach London, where they had been expected at an important event being hosted by Cami’s publisher in her honor.

  “I’m sorry we all just descended on you like this,” Cami said, “especially at Christmas.”

  “I’m not,” Paris insisted. Frankly, he welcomed the distraction. The new year would usher in two of the most momentous events in his life: the birth of his first child and the first parliamentary session of the new United Kingdom, at which he would take his seat in the House of Commons. Two awesome responsibilities for which he would have sworn he was unfit, if not for the strength and assurances of his wife.

  As if his thoughts had summoned her, Rosamund appeared in the doorway with Eileen, now a sleek cat, curling sinuously about her ankles. “There’s such a thing as too much quiet,” she said, echoing the words he had once spoken to her in this very room.

  Before any reply could be made, a deep woof! reverberated through the house, followed by a clatter of
dishes from the direction of the kitchen and a girlish shriek. Eileen’s back arched and her tail puffed to twice its normal size before she scooted off—running towards the fray, rather than away from it. “Too much quiet?” Cami sighed and heaved herself from the chair. “That’s one problem we’ve got sorted, at least.”

  Paris took Rosamund’s hand and led her to the window nook, her favorite spot in the house. Whatever changes the next weeks would bring, he knew that her cleverness and her genuine concern for others would show her to be both an excellent mother and an ideal politician’s wife—no, partner.

  “You’ve been helping in the kitchen, haven’t you?” he chided as he brushed his thumb through the smudge of flour on her cheek. She looked radiantly lovely, though if he’d told her as much, she would have tried to make him see her mussed hair and calico work dress and most of all her ungainly belly, swollen with his child. So he simply took in every inch of her with greedy eyes, plumped the cushions before she sat, and counted his blessings. “You’re not supposed to be on your feet, you know.”

  “I wasn’t,” she insisted. “Much. Your mother is helping Mrs. Riggs with the baking. I was only observing.”

  Once she was settled as comfortably as she could be, he knelt on the floor beside her, one hand resting lightly on the curve of her belly, the other hand still holding hers. Silence settled over the house, humming in his ears. He broke it only to whisper, “I love you, dear Roisín.”

  He told her every chance he got. But if he spoke those words a hundred times a day, every day for the rest of his life, it still would not be enough.

  And no matter how many times he said it, it still elicited the sweetest gasp from her. “Oh.” She laid her hand atop his where it cradled her abdomen. “Paris, I—”