That had gone well, Reed thought. He knew his wife was worried, but at least no one had objected to his joining them tomorrow. He must be overwrought to have imagined they might be keeping him captive.
As for the Scot, he was an anomaly. Reed was convinced the man was there more as a guard of some type. He purported to be a friend of Talia’s brothers but Reed didn’t believe it for a minute. Mason was in “on duty” mode at all times. And there was awkwardness in every line of his wife’s body and expression when she spoke to the man.
Reed swallowed a grin. She really was the world’s worst liar.
“Shall we proceed to the drawing room?” she suggested.
Chapter Seventeen
Talia sat there reading to him from old newspapers they’d found in the library. Mason had cried off, so they were just the two of them sitting in armchairs in front of the fire in the drawing room. After each piece, she looked at him, dark velvet eyes opened wide in inquiry. Had he recalled anything? But so far, nothing much. A few vague flickers of memory jiggled over certain political falderal, but nothing worthy of note.
Even so, this little exercise was a good idea. It made Reed feel he was doing something to help recapture his former life. Talia was looking more hopeful too. They should have been doing this from the start.
More interesting to him than the news was his lovely wife. Her reading voice was low and mellow and made it difficult for him to concentrate on the stories. It was no hardship to listen to her, or to watch her while she read.
“Too bad we didn’t think of doing this sooner,” she voiced his very thought, after he’d recalled that the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, having burned down, had been re-built and opened again. He couldn’t remember the exact year it happened, but it was another glimmer of recollection that gave him hope.
This time when she looked up, he noticed weariness in her eyes. She was tiring. Well, what a surprise, you dolt! She’s been reading for over an hour and in this poor light too.
He stood up. “I thank you, lady wife,” He offered her a courtly bow of thanks, “for your patience with me and for ruining your poor eyes to humor me. I think I shall go up to bed now. My mind is beginning to feel like sludge.”
“I was pleased to do it, sir–.”
She cut off her speech and he realized she always avoided calling him by name. Was she so upset with him for involving them in a dangerous situation that she was no longer willing to say his name?
“You’ve done too much for your first day up. Come, I’ll go up with you.” She stood and moved to his side, silently offering her help should he need it.
Entering his room moments later, he felt near to collapsing. She was right, he had overdone it. Fatigue blanketed him but his shoulders were aching and he knew he wouldn’t sleep easily tonight.
“I wonder…” He hesitated to ask. She was fatigued too. In the end, his pain won out. “My neck and shoulders are quite sore. I don’t know why, perhaps it is from lying in bed so much. Would you be kind enough to rub them for me?” He sat on the bed, noting the infernal glass of hot milk sitting on the small bedside table. Hot chocolate milk, lately, which would have been a slight improvement, if he were still taking it. He hadn’t decided yet if he should tell her he no longer needed it.
Damn his suspicious mind! He couldn’t shake the impression that something in this household was not right. Until he knew what, he wasn’t volunteering information without a good reason.
By now, he’d have expected to be feeling better. He had improved a little since stopping the milk, but still wasn’t as alert as he should be.
It must be the lingering effects from having ingested opium for however long he’d been like this. He still had moments of confusion and found it difficult keeping track of time. Then again, his lack of memory could be the culprit for those problems.
He kneaded the back of his neck with both hands. “If you just squeeze the muscles hard, it will help.”
She was taken aback, he could see. He must not have asked her for this favor before. Yet some woman had bestowed it, he recalled. The memory was maddeningly lodged in a cloud of vagueness. Who was it, if not Talia? Images of a woman plying his muscles with strong, sure fingers turned over in his head. Unfortunately, her face remained hidden in the shadows of his mind.
Had he been unfaithful to his wife? In just three weeks of marriage! Perhaps he’d given Talia reason to doubt him. Or were those images from an earlier time before he was married? He preferred thinking that to believing he was a dishonest scoundrel.
He watched her from beneath lowered eyelashes. Her face showed indecision, then resolve, followed by determination.
Good. His shoulders truly did ache.
“Turn over onto your stomach, please.”
“Aren’t you going to use liniment?”
“Oh. I’ve never… I suppose that would help.” Looking uncertain, she paused. “Just a moment.” She spun around and left the room at her usual speedy clip. On her way out, she said, “I think Foster has some.”
He had to hurry because at the pace she moved, she wouldn’t be gone long. He grabbed the cup from the small table, moved to the open window and reaching his arm out, tipped the contents. He set the cup back on the table and, for good measure, shut the window. He hoped no one was checking the vegetation.
He sat back down on the bed and was removing his shirt, when his wife returned to stand beside him with a dark brown bottle.
Her eyes took in the empty cup with a swift, satisfied flicker. Then they caught sight of his bare torso and shot open. A bright red suffused her skin. He chuckled to himself. She wasn’t nearly as calm about viewing his shirtless body when he was awake, as she had been when she used to come into his room during the night, thinking him asleep, to bind his wound. She was such a shy little thing. How had they ever made it to the altar?
“Did you have trouble finding some?” he asked, trying to put her at ease.
She looked grateful for his question and shook her head with a self-conscious smile.
“I apologize for causing you so much trouble.”
“I don’t mind,” Tally answered. And she didn’t — she was quite looking forward to putting her hands on his lovely bare skin, for once while he was awake. But Foster minded. He didn’t think it seemly for her to rub this man’s back. Nor did she, to tell the truth, but what else was she to do? He believed she was his wife and this was what wives did, she supposed.
If Foster’s hands weren’t so crippled by arthritis, he’d have insisted on doing it, but since he couldn’t, that left only her. Surely it wouldn’t take too long to rub Reed’s back and neck to offer him some relief.
A skittish flutter jumped in her stomach when she was about to place her hands on his magnificent shoulders. “Can you tell me what you want me to do? I’ve never done this before.”
“I never asked you to do this? I wonder why I seem to recollect having it done to me.”
Probably had women fighting each other to do it! she mused sourly.
“I must have dreamed it.”
“You’ve been living abroad. Perhaps you procured such treatments there,” she suggested.
“Perhaps that’s it,” Reed agreed. He bit his lip against the laughter that threatened to erupt at her use of the word ‘procure’. Her tone made obvious what kind of women she was alluding to. The kind of women he likely had frequented prior to their marriage. Her petite, perfect nose in the air told him her opinion of that!
Then he remembered that perhaps he truly had dishonored his marriage vows and that was why she was behaving so coolly towards him. He felt like a churl and was glad he’d stifled his laughter.
He stood and moved to sit backwards on the only straight chair in the room, leaning his arms along the top rail. “Now you can easily reach my back and neck.” When she’d moved to stand behind him and was ready to begin, he said, “Just pretend I’m bread dough and knead my neck and shoulders with a lot of vigor.”
She
laughed, a light tinkling chime.
He loved the sound of her laughter. It burst from her and she always looked surprised by it. It was so rare, he mined it like gold, and when he was rewarded with a particularly delightful gale of it, a warm syrupy feeling of satisfaction flowed through him.
“Not that you’ve ever done such work yourself, but surely you have witnessed it in your kitchen.”
Tally grimaced. If he only knew! Feeling less intimidated, she set to work. Being careful to avoid his wound, she laid her hands on his bare skin. A hot flush surged within, from tip to toe. She was glad he couldn’t see her. Her face must be peony red. As much as she craved this experience, she was mortified. What if Grandma Lawton were to walk in at that very moment?
Shoving that uncomfortable notion aside, she set to work. She poured some liniment into her left hand and, placing the bottle on the side table, she smoothed the liquid over his skin and began to “squeeze” his taut shoulder muscles just as he’d directed.
He groaned.
She jerked her hands off his back, as if scalded. Then she laughed nervously at what a scared rabbit she was. Placing her hands back on his shoulders, she began again and, this time when he groaned, she left them there. It must be his way of telling her it felt good.
“Your hands are astoundingly strong,” he marveled. “What do you do that has made them so strong?”
“Am I doing it too hard? I don’t want to hurt you.” She deflected his question with one of her own. Her hands were strong because of all the gardening and sculpting she’d done but she was not accustomed to talking about her life, and especially not about her art, with anyone. And she didn’t want to be disappointed in him if, like so many men, he believed women weren’t capable of being serious artists. She’d rather not know.
“No! Don’t stop. That’s perfect. It feels so good.” He grunted when she touched a sore spot. “I can’t understand why my arms are so sore. All I’ve done is stay in bed for days and slept.”
She knew why. Anybody who climbed a wall up an ivy vine, had to have exerted a lot of force. No doubt his muscles were belatedly protesting the effort that had required. The laudanum had probably staved off the worst of it until now. How ironic that she was standing here, trying to relieve him of pain that was caused by him breaking into her bedroom, perhaps wanting to cause her pain!
She soon realized that working on one muscle for awhile caused it to slacken, so she applied herself to loosening each muscle one at a time. His skin was smooth and brown. He’d clearly spent a fair amount of time outdoors without a shirt on. What had he been doing?
So many questions. She shook her head. So few answers.
“It feels like sculpting.” She molded his skin with her agile fingers. Not that his body needed changing, in any way.
“You sculpt?” His query was drowsy.
Dio! She’d spoken without thinking. Surely by tomorrow, he wouldn’t remember what she’d said. He was falling asleep. “Yes, although not so much anymore. It’s hard...” getting the material and hiding the end products from prying eyes. Aloud, she said, “on one’s clothes. Now, I paint.”
“Ah, that’s right, I forgot, my wife is an artist,” he teased. “What do you paint?”
She stiffened. Don’t look for hidden meanings, Tally. “Oh... the usual, people’s faces, animals...” Dramatic landscapes of storms on the moors, of ocean waves curling into endless eddies as they reach shores, of mountains, majestic and powerful, looming over villages, dwarfed by their presence… “like ducks waddling across the yard, dogs wrestling together, pastoral scenes.”
Her hands swept down his back. His body was strong and lithe. He had the most beautiful male torso she’d ever glimpsed and, contrary to most young women of her age, she had seen a few.
The male models her twin brothers used looked nothing like Reed. They were thin, with few visible muscles at all. His strong back muscles reminded her of paintings she’d seen of galley slaves’ backs from the Helenistic era, many centuries ago. Solid yet smooth, his skin was–
She felt him jerk and his head lolled forward.
He’d fallen asleep! Leaning down, she peered into his face. My heavens! She didn’t think she could have fallen asleep had he been rubbing her shoulders!
But… how was she going to get him into bed? Contemplating her dilemma, she continued kneading, though with a lighter touch. She could go get Foster to help her, but she’d sent him to bed and the poor man needed his sleep. He wasn’t getting any younger and worked far too hard. In any case, she was remembering that first night. They’d dragged Reed to this room and struggled to get him into the bed. It had taken Herculean efforts and a long time to manage it. He’d be sure to wake in the process.
Maybe if she tried to lift him, he’d stand up in his sleep and she’d be able to lead him to bed. She remembered servants doing that with her when she was a child and had fallen asleep in the library or drawing room. She bent forward, leaning against his back, and scooped her arms under his. She pulled him backwards against her and tried to lift him, with little success. He was a deadweight. Far heavier than he looked.
She had no choice, she had to wake him. “Mr. … um… Reed! Wake up. Please.”
Grabbing his shoulders, careful not to touch his wound, she shook him. He seemed to wake a little, so she coaxed him, “Come on, stand up.”
She lifted again and he rose. “That’s it. Now let’s move to the bed.”
She shuffled him along and when they reached the bed, she turned him around to stand with his back to the bed. His legs wouldn’t bend to sit, so she pushed him like a felled tree and let him drop straight back onto the bed. Tittering nervously, she bent to remove his slippers, lifted his legs up onto the bed and pulled the spare cover from the bottom of the bed over him. She was just about to straighten up when his hand reached for her neck and pulled her down on top of him.
“For goodness sakes!” She pushed against his chest with both hands. “Let me go, you big… clod!”
He mumbled something incomprehensible and nuzzled her neck, sending shivers shooting straight to her nether region.
She froze, stunned by her body’s powerful reaction to his sleepy caress. He rested his head in the crook between her head and shoulder. His warm breath settled to an even rhythm that told her he was asleep again.
His breath was tickling her… not exactly tickling, so much as inciting a riot inside her stomach that was suddenly a mass of busy butterflies flitting madly about.
She struggled to untangle his limbs from hers. Getting away from a sleeping man was no easy task. He foiled every attempt she made to escape his octopus’ hold.
She was desperate enough by now to poke him to make him let her go. She was no longer sure if he was really asleep or if he was teasing her. It was hard to believe he wasn’t aware of all her struggles to free herself.
On the other hand, she was the one administering laudanum to him each day, so she knew his deep sleep might well be genuine.
His leg was nestled in between hers. Such an embarrassingly intimate position! Her breath was coming fast and sounded harsh and ragged in the quiet room.
His arm slid around her waist, while the other hand settled on her buttocks.
She gasped and wiggled to free herself. So he wasn’t asleep.
Slowly his hand drifted back and forth igniting sparks of arousal. She ceased her struggles. Hot liquid pooled in her woman’s core. She bit her lip to stifle her moans as tremors shook her body. He startled her by rolling them both over and pressing her back into the mattress, his hard body covering hers in every way.
It felt so good, so right.
He squeezed her bottom one last time before moving his hand around to fit in between them and caressed her softly where she ached to be touched.
Still, she didn’t protest. Couldn’t protest. She was no longer in control of her own body. He was like a magician, making everything he touched quiver with excitement and swoon with bliss. She never even
noticed her skirt lifting until his fingers skimmed up her bare thigh, reaching past her woman’s fold to rub against the sensitive little nub there.
She thought about protesting, but when she opened her mouth to object, her voice emitted only moans of pleasure. The more he stroked, the less she wanted to complain, the hotter she became. Now, lifting to his touch, she was almost begging for surcease. Up on her heels, arching higher into his magical fingers.
“Settle down, dear heart. You don’t have to work so hard. Let it come.”
“I…” She didn’t know what she was doing or thinking anymore. She could only feel. Suddenly, the most wonderful buzzing… numbing sensation began in her toes, rapidly gaining momentum to thunder through all of her. The center of the quake was in that one spot where his bold and breathtaking caresses played her like a piano, coming to the final crescendo. And when she wanted to scream and sob out her joyful release, he claimed her mouth in a deep kiss that vibrated to the tips of all her limbs.
Deeper she fell, as he plunged her into a world of pure sensation. His knee nudged her legs apart and he fit himself between them. He guided her hand to touch his rigid arousal. She wondered vaguely when he’d freed himself from his trousers, but was more fascinated by the soft texture of hot skin moving over what felt like hard bone. She ran her hand from base to tip and the shudder that shook him sent a thrill of excitement skating up her back. He raised himself above her, preparing to join with her, to fill her where she ached for him to be.
Suddenly, he cursed and halted abruptly. He cocked his head. Some sound had disturbed him.
She listened with him, annoyed at the interruption. Loud footsteps trudged up the stairs.
Footsteps. The halting gait told her who it was. Foster! What was he doing up? She’d told him to get some sleep.
Suddenly realizing what he was about to witness when he came through the door, she stiffened beneath Reed and pushed frantically, palms against his chest. Foster might even have his blunderbuss and shoot Reed dead! They had to stop!
“What the blazes!” Reed rarely cursed in front of her, so she knew he was incensed at yet another untimely interruption. “How does he do it?” he groaned hoarsely
The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife Page 22
