by Ingrid Hahn
Her eyes widened on him. “What?”
He paced close to her. “What that vile gutter scum did to you…that sin is his, my lady.”
“If only that were true. But it’s not. I am to blame. At least partially.”
“You were fourteen.” How could he make her see? That she had carried the blame for so many years renewed his rage. That she saw herself at all culpable in it—that made everything far, far worse. Jeremy didn’t just want to kill the man who’d done this to her. He wanted to make the bastard suffer. “He preyed upon you. He saw your tender heart and your loneliness and he twisted it for his own…”
Jeremy couldn’t finish the thought. That there were such evil men in the world made him hate his entire gender, which wasn’t right or fair. But he wasn’t interested in being either. What had happened to Eliza wasn’t right or fair. The world wasn’t right or fair. Why should he bother?
“I suppose you don’t want an heir from the likes of me now, do you?”
“How can you say that? Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve said? It wasn’t your fault.”
“How can you not hate me for what I did?” Her voice was small. “I’m not…pure for you. You can’t possibly want a woman like me to be the mother of your children.”
Quite the contrary. “You’re going to have to believe me when I tell you that I couldn’t care less about the state of your virginity. You could have been with a regiment. I wouldn’t care, so long as you are faithful to me now.”
In body and mind.
A piece of the puzzle that was Eliza slipped into place in his head. Something he’d overheard about her flashed in his mind… “It’s why your previous engagement came to an end, isn’t it?”
She bowed her head and gave a slight nod. “I thought—I thought because he loved me…”
“He didn’t love you. I’m sorry if that’s painful for you to hear, but that’s the truth of the matter. I know nothing about the subject of love myself—except that. Upon hearing a story like yours from a woman he loves, no man of any character would cast her aside.”
For the briefest of moments, her lip wobbled, and her face flashed with the heartache she must have been feeling. Witnessing it cut Jeremy to the core. “Do you still love him?”
If she said yes, Jeremy didn’t know what he’d do. Even the possibility that she did stirred a possessive rush of jealousy. She was his.
“Captain Pearson? Oh, good gracious, no. I haven’t for many years.”
Jeremy let out a breath. That was something, at least. It was bad enough that there was one man he wanted to kill.
There was an awkward pause. What was he supposed to do with himself now? “I suppose I ought to allow you to get some sleep.”
“Oh.” Her mouth opened and closed as if she were searching for words. “I thought maybe…well, I mean”—her next words came out in a rush—“you still want an heir, don’t you, my lord?”
The heir. The damn heir. He was instantly half hard in a needy rush of blood. His cock had had quite enough, and half begged for the satisfaction of finally sliding between her legs.
His voice came out in a strangled growl. “Of course.”
“We need to get it over with.”
Get it over with. Just what every man wanted to hear from a beautiful woman at the prospect of being taken into her bed.
But he was beyond being able to say no. Tonight, the last step in solidifying their marriage would be complete.
“I’ll just…go behind the screen and make myself ready, shall I?”
He took the opportunity to go back to his room and remove his clothing. When he returned in his banyan, all the candles except one had been extinguished. Eliza sat on the side of the bed, knees tightly together, hands in her lap twisting around each other. Her hair was still up, which was a pity.
Jeremy cast Daisy a glance. All things considered, he didn’t much fancy the notion of being in flagrante delicto with his wife while the dog supervised the affair. And in flagrante delicto with Eliza was precisely where he would end up.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eliza’s cheeks burned, and her pulse beat wildly. The one thing she’d thought she’d never do again—it was going to happen. Heaven help her. It was going to happen. And with him.
Just when she was about to try to say something, the earl took Daisy in his arms, shutting her in the other room. “Can’t very well manage it with a dog watching the proceedings, can we?” Then he came to the side of the bed and pinched out the candle.
At the closed door, Daisy whined and scratched.
In the darkness, there was the sound of fabric fluttering to the floor. His banyan falling away, no doubt.
Which meant…
Oh, Lord. He was nude.
Eliza went warm, a delicious tightness pulling between her legs. It was unexpected, this, but welcome. He was, after all, quite the specimen of a man—with self-assurance, power, and that ineffable quality of maleness that made her remember she was a sinner.
“Lie down.”
She worked herself down on the bed until she was flat on the mattress. Her breath was coming shallow and hard.
The two times she’d done this before had been painful. The first time, he’d tried being gentle with her and said he understood when she’d cried. The second time, though, he had said it was her fault he was angry—her tears provoked him, he’d said—and he’d hurt her. Which had caused her to cry harder. She’d felt so foolish. So childish. So alone.
There had been no third time.
He’d tried to tell her that it was too late. That she couldn’t say no after saying yes. But her mother had returned to London suddenly, taking Eliza with her. That had been the end of it.
She squeezed her eyes shut, desperate for the old memories to evaporate into nothing. Lord Bennington was a different man. When they did this, it wouldn’t be fornication. They were married and had the church’s authority to be together.
Although thinking about it in those terms didn’t increase the appeal of the task. It rather made it feel like leathery old men would be peering in and nodding their approval.
Lord Bennington eased himself down, pushing up her shift and brushing her bare thigh as he went. The air was cool on her skin.
He ran his hand down her body, his touch gentle. Reverent. Which was altogether lovelier than expected. A simple caress shouldn’t have done this to her—made her want more. Want things she didn’t know she was capable of wanting. It all came back to him. To how it was going to be: his body with hers.
But then he stopped. She wanted to tell him not to but didn’t have the words. “Are you all right, my lady?” His voice was strained.
Uncertain, she gave a tentative nod. It was something, having him so close. The room was black as coal, but the smell of him made her eyes close so she could inhale.
His lips found hers and held for a moment as he eased himself between her legs—but not inside her. He skimmed his hand down her body. “You feel…good.”
Oh, and so did he. The warmth of his closeness. The intimacy between them as they shared the same bed. She needed him to come closer.
“Thank you, my lord.”
Thank you, my lord? What were they, in a drawing room discussing the rain over tea?
Manners and rules and proper ways of behaving had been drilled into her as far back as she could remember. How to walk, how to dance, how to converse. How to sit, how to pour, how to smile prettily and let a man talk so he wouldn’t be threatened by any hint of female intelligence.
But there had been no schooling for this scenario. They were together. In bed. Nude. Skin against skin. Or at least, nude enough for what they were about.
Lord Bennington held himself above her. His…well, he brushed against her inner thigh. Then he settled against her most intimate place. And pushed. After an initial resistance, her body gave for him. He sank inside her.
He was big. Far bigger than anticipated.
Except inst
ead of being frightening or uncomfortable, it was…well, it was quite wonderful, actually, the way he filled her. The way his body tensed as he slid deeper and deeper still, easing himself back and forth, back and forth, until he was fully planted.
He moaned. “You feel—oh, dear lord, my sweet wife, you’ll be my undoing.” He pushed up on his arms to place a kiss on her neck, his breath hot on her skin. “You’re still all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I can stop any time you want.”
“No. Don’t stop.” It was as close as she could come to admitting that, quite surprisingly, she liked this with him.
He moved with such tender gentleness, made all the more endearing by the way his body trembled as if shaken by the force required to hold back.
Then he thrust deeper—deeper than she would have ever imagined possible—and his body went rigid. Suddenly he was pulsing inside her.
With that, he collapsed atop her.
…
Jeremy, deeply seated inside his wife, panted for breath. It was the first time he’d ever been inside a woman without a barrier between his skin and hers. And it was a thousand times better than he could have ever imagined. Eliza was soft and wet, warm and snug…he shook with the effort of keeping himself in control. Of all the hellish improbabilities to come to pass, this had to be by far the sweetest.
Yes, he desired her. Yes, he well knew he was a man of unusual appetites. Yes, women were his most heinous vice. But of all the many couplings he’d given in to when he was weak and could no longer withstand temptation, none could compare with what he’d just had with her.
And yet, relations had never been so bloody awkward. He’d called their intimate relations “proceedings,” for heaven’s sake. Aloud. To her. What an ass he was. Were he one to rank his interludes objectively—and he wasn’t—this one would fall near last. This was far closer to “exercising his conjugals,” as he’d overheard a stuffy old viscount term it once, than he’d ever wanted to come.
But it had done one unexpected thing. It had lit a fire in him. All those other times… Well, they didn’t matter, did they? And this one had.
With no small measure of regret at the loss of her body, he slid out of her.
He was eager to have another go. Hard, too. Surely that would frighten her. With her he would not lose control. Could not. He liked her too much. And he wanted her to like him. Maybe even more, though it was difficult to say in the relaxed haze after intimacy. He wanted to couple with her again.
It wasn’t enough for her to allow him into her bed. He needed her to want him in her bed. Which meant…hell, it meant he was going to have to seduce his own wife.
Wasn’t a half-unpleasant prospect, that.
Unsure of what to make of these confused thoughts, Jeremy found his banyan on the floor and slipped back into his room.
He’d forgotten about the dog, though, and had to act on fast footing to avoid the tiny beast tearing out the moment he opened the door. The dog yapped once, as if to chide him, then went silent, presumably curling up in a warm spot against his mistress.
Jeremy closed the door with the lingering sensation that he hadn’t done things quite as well as he ought. It was her first time after that good-for-nothing rotten bastard had tricked her into allowing him to…
A burst of rage pushed his heartbeat hard and fast. Lord help that lowlife Sir Domnall. It was all Jeremy could do not to leave immediately to hunt the bastard down and demand blood. He’d never known the thirst for vengeance like now, after learning what had happened to Eliza. How wretched it was to be powerless to avenge his wife for the pain and hurt inflicted upon her when she had been but a vulnerable innocent, desperate for love.
His thoughts gleefully murderous, he slipped into his own bed—cold and alone—with no small sting of jealousy. Of the dog.
Jeremy tried to settle back. He turned his head one way then the other, trying to release the tension. After being with a woman, he was supposed to be relaxed. Sated. Instead, there was a knot in his stomach.
She’d been naught more than a child when that lowest of the low blackguard had exploited her. And what had he—Jeremy—done? He hadn’t shown her that relations could be much better. It hadn’t been his finest attempt. With Eliza it seemed like so much more was at stake.
If this had been a test, he wouldn’t want to see his marks.
Pushing back the covers, he righted himself and drew a deep breath. That dratted door stood between them. Again. It was a theme with them. One he wanted to smash. All he had to do was open it. Seemingly so simple. In truth, there remained far greater barriers between them.
Sod it. If he was going to change things between himself and his wife, there was no time like the present. And he had to do a damned sight better than what he’d displayed, or she’d never want him in her bed again.
He still needed to break through her defenses. It didn’t follow that he could do so by way of getting under her skirts. But it seemed as good a place to begin as any.
For the second time that night, Jeremy knocked on his wife’s door. He waited until he was bidden to turn the knob.
By the light of a single candle, her face shone out of the darkness, pale and beautiful. Her eyes were huge, her cheeks pink. She was sitting up in bed, in the middle of all those rumpled covers, her hair down at last, one side of her shift fallen to expose a smooth shoulder.
The intimate sight settled the enormity of his responsibility on his shoulders. This woman was his wife. She deserved the best of everything. Including what they did together in bed. And he’d sooner see himself in hell than fail her.
“I came to apologize.”
“Apologize?” She looked at him as if he’d gone mad.
“I didn’t…” Dash it all. Must this be so awkward? All he wanted to do was give her the bedding she deserved. To show her what it could be like between a man and a woman. “I want another chance. If you’ll allow me.”
“Another chance…” She shook her head. The dog yipped. Eliza pulled the creature close and scratched his ears. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean between us. I’d like another chance to come into your bed.”
“You may have all the chances you please, my lord.”
“I meant tonight.”
There was a pause. “So did I.”
For the second time that night, Jeremy plucked the dog off the bed and banished her to the other room. This time, however, he had the sense not to speak. And when he slipped between the covers—wearing nothing but what he’d come into the world with—he didn’t waste a single moment. Awkwardness could be damned. He wasn’t going to allow that monster to reprise its ugly role between them. It had no place here. He was in charge. He had a duty to his wife to open her world to the pleasures of lovemaking. He would not fail her.
Her skin was nearly flawless. Smooth and even, with an occasional tiny dark-brown beauty spot like a constellation emerging in the dusk, star by star. By the light of the single candle, she veritably glowed.
Jeremy started at her neck. His mouth followed the curve, inhaling her uniquely feminine scent as he went, and smiling when she shivered. Her shift was still between them. He sat back and helped her to sitting, tugging the material from down about her legs, up and over her head, then turned his attentions to the small breasts pouting for his attention.
“What do you think, my lady?” He stroked a circle around a pale areola. “Shall I lick them? Suck them? Bite them?”
“I—I hardly know.”
“Guess. If we guess wrong, then we’ll have to try something else. Simple as that. Between us when we’re here together, there will be no mistakes. I will never do anything you don’t wish to have done.” He forced himself to focus on what needed to be said. “You must promise me one thing. If you are ever uncomfortable, you will ask me to stop. I will always honor your needs—that is my promise to you.”
She gave a nod. “I can agree to that.”
“So which will it be, my lady?”
“Why don’t you…do what you will and I’ll tell you whether or not I find it…good.”
“Good isn’t enough. It must be pleasurable.”
Her color heightened, and she dropped her gaze. “I don’t know how I’ll make that distinction.”
“If you don’t, banish me from your bed forever, my lady, for I won’t be doing right by you.”
He’d made vows before. Vows to himself. To his family. To his lineage. But never had he been more serious about anything in his life.
They tumbled back on the bed together. For the second time that night, he didn’t reach for a sheath before thrusting himself between a woman’s legs. It felt odd not to do so, but the wet heat of their skin-to-skin contact felt so very right. His teeth clenched together. It was taking all his strength to hold himself back.
More than anything, he needed to feel her come all over his cock. But he was too far gone. Helpless under the command of all his pent-up desire to do anything but continue as he was—moving, thrusting, touching her, kissing her.
It came too soon. His bollocks pulled up against his body, his abdominals tightened. And an excruciatingly powerful release dominated him. He pushed himself as far into her as her body would allow…
…and let everything go.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Eliza lurched into semiconsciousness, still knotted in the ropy vestiges of a nightmare. She was back at her mother’s house, in her old room, and she’d avoided Domnall at a ball…but then had seen him at Corbeau’s musical gathering…and smelled cherries…and…
And…
Oh, no.
She moved and came against an unexpected hard lump in her bed. A warm hard lump. A nude warm hard lump.
She blinked her eyes open. Beside her, Lord Bennington stirred just enough to take her into his arms and pull her close, her head settling in an unimaginably perfect place in the cradle of his shoulder. His body was hard and delineated with heavy musculature.
Her eyes fell shut again as she inhaled the scent of his skin. A bit of soap. A bit of musk. And with it, the memory of their…marital intimacies. They’d been together in Eliza’s old bed. In her mother’s house. Her cheeks singed with scorching heat. The way he’d felt against her…the way he’d tried so hard to be restrained…the hardness of him so deep and full within her. The way he’d left and returned again, determined to do better. To see her pleasured. It had all been infinitely better than expected.
