by Lauren Royal
She gasped.
“On it, not in it.” She couldn’t see him very well, but she thought he raised a devilish brow. “There’s a difference.”
“Of course there is.” And there was nothing for it, really. There were men outside on the deck and no room in the cabin save for that broad expanse of bed. If she didn’t join him there, they might as well sail for home.
And she did want another kiss. She’d been waiting all through supper for a kiss, and the one he’d just pressed to her lips hadn’t been satisfying in the least.
Her gaze locked on his, and they moved as one toward the bed. The table was shoved up against it. She sat primly on one side of it, he sat heavily on the other.
The barge rocked gently, a soothing motion. Violin music drifted through the shutters. Ford’s gaze trailed over the bodice of her new blue moiré gown, which she suddenly realized was cut much lower than it had seemed at her last fitting. Again. She made a mental note to have a talk with that seamstress.
All at once there was a flurry of movement, and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back.
Shocked, she tried to struggle up, but Ford hovered over her, his hands gently pressing her shoulders to the mattress. The look in his eyes made her heart leap. “I just want to kiss you, Violet. May I?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded.
And when his mouth met hers, everything changed.
He had kissed her before, but never like this. This was wild, primal, a meeting of lips and teeth and tongue the likes of which she’d never even imagined. And she’d never imagined the effect such a kiss would have on her, either.
Desire shot through her, stole her breath, her thoughts, her will to resist. Her spirits became brisk and inflamed, and her blood was most surely stirred to venery.
She threw her arms around him, her hands frantically wandering his back, and he broke the kiss long enough to rise and tear off his surcoat. And then his cravat. He leaned closer, his fingers working at the laces at his collar until they loosened, exposing a neat V of bare chest.
Skin. Her heart racing, she reached to touch it. Her fingertips first, and then her whole hand flat against him. Warm, impossibly warm. Her thumb felt the pulse in his neck. Strong and fast.
His blue gaze darkened. With a groan, he lowered himself, his lips meeting the sensitive hollow of her throat. She tilted her head to allow him access. Deprived again of his skin, her hands moved to tug at his shirt, pulling and pulling until the whole long thing finally slipped free of his breeches and she was able to slide her hands up underneath.
He gasped at her touch, as though he’d been unaware of what she’d been doing. Her fingers skimmed his back, his sides, his shoulders, feeling his strength, the softness of his skin over the hardness of sinew and bone. He smelled of soap and patchouli, the warmth of his flesh emitting a fragrance uniquely his. His muscles twitched beneath her questing hands, and his mouth trailed lower, tracing a warm, damp pattern down to her cleavage.
Thank goodness scandalous necklines were in fashion. She revised her mental note about talking to the seamstress—the lower the better.
“Violet,” he breathed, one of his hands following his lips. He slipped a finger beneath her bodice and rubbed the tip of her breast, and she gasped so loud she was sure Harry had heard it.
“Faith.” She’d never dreamed her body was so sensitive. She was feeling those short breathings she’d read of, and tremblings of the heart, and—
Suddenly his fingers were fumbling with the tabs on her stomacher.
She knew she should stop him. But oh, she burned to feel the things the Master-piece had promised. She burned to feel them with Ford. Before she could even think it through, he’d dropped her stomacher to the floor and loosened her laces. He spread her bodice wide.
Instinctively, she arched, as though she were a wanton offering herself for plunder. But she felt no shame. And when he fastened his lips on one peak, tasting her through the gossamer fabric of her chemise, her short breath got even shorter, her heart trembled even more, and—
He tugged down on the chemise, and suddenly his mouth was on her bare breast. Hot, wild, wonderful, he licked and nibbled and suckled until she was certain she’d go out of her mind. Her arms clenched around him, her body straining for something she couldn’t put a name to.
Pleasure, delight…extreme lust.
Even the Master-piece’s words failed to describe it.
Thrilling at the new sensations, she shifted restlessly against him. Oh my, she could feel…well, apparently when she hadn’t been watching he’d eaten quite a lot of parsnips and asparagus.
And part of her—that part of her that would receive him like a sheath—wanted him. There. Now.
“I want you,” she whispered.
His head shot up, his eyes hazy and disbelieving. “Are you sure?” he asked in a broken whisper.
She was sure. She was breaking through her modesty to satisfy herself in unlawful embraces, but she couldn’t have cared less. Tomorrow she’d become a spinster, but at least she wouldn’t be a lifelong virgin. She’d experience the Master-piece’s mysteries before she resigned herself to lonely years studying philosophy.
Oh, forget all those rationalizations. She wanted him.
“I’m sure,” she said. “I want you.”
FORTY-EIGHT
I WANT YOU. The one phrase Ford had despaired of ever hearing from Violet’s lips, whispered in a tone so fierce, he had no doubt she meant it with every fiber of her being.
He thought—he hoped—her parents approved, regardless of his dismal financial situation. He was positive her mother liked him, at least, and her father had smiled when he’d seen them holding hands. He knew he was taking an enormous chance, but if Violet herself wanted him…
His heart soared as though it glided above the Earth on da Vinci’s flying machine. He’d brought Violet here hoping to convince her he loved her, but this was more, much more than he’d dared hope for. She would be his. His wife. Mother of his children. And if they joined together tonight in anticipation of their wedding, it couldn’t be wrong. Nothing that felt as perfect as this could be wrong. She was already his wife in his heart.
When had that happened? He didn’t know. He knew only that, slowly but surely, she’d woven her way into his life, until she was as much a part of him as his hands and his feet and his analytic brain. Until he found himself building distilleries as an excuse not to leave her side.
He gazed into her brandy-wine eyes, which were glazed with passion. For him. The thought made something squeeze painfully in his chest.
“My love, are you very, very sure?” Though the ladies at court thought nothing of sharing their bodies for sport, he knew Violet had been raised differently. And he knew, too, that was one of the things he loved about her. Her differences.
Besides, this wasn’t sport. Not even close. This was something that transcended sport to a degree he’d never imagined back in the days he’d considered bedding women a pleasant diversion.
This was a melding of hearts.
He buried his nose in her hair. She smelled of flowers, sweet Violet flowers…
“Are you sure?”
She arched toward him. “Oh, yes!”
He crushed his mouth to hers as his hand made its way down to her shoes. He wanted to make this first time slow and special for her.
He feared he couldn’t.
Like in her dream, Violet seemed to be floating. But this was so much better than the dream. Slowly, slowly, Ford drew off her shoes and rolled down her stockings, his fingers leaving fiery trails along the length of her legs. She clenched his shoulders to keep from crying out.
He raised her skirts, and his hand skimmed her calves, her knees, her thighs, raising goose bumps in its wake. She slid her fingers into his hair, kissing his temple, his cheek, his nose. Frantic. And then his mouth covered hers, and his fingers were there.
At her seat of womanly pleasure.
They teased
her, so gently she wondered she could even feel it. But feel it she did. The most exquisite sensation ever. The rocking of the barge added to her dizziness as he stroked her until a whimper escaped her throat and her hips shot off the bed.
“Has no one touched you here?” he asked in a whisper tinged with amusement.
Was he jesting? She shook her head wildly, incapable of forming words at the moment.
“Good,” he grated out and jerked away, rising on his knees to struggle out of his clothes.
Yes, it was good. Even better when his elegant clothing had hit the floor.
He was magnificent. And it wasn’t a yard. Plenty long, but—thank goodness—nowhere near a yard. She didn’t have much time to muse on that, because he hurried to help her rise, wiggled her out of her gown, and pulled her chemise over her head.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed, his hands reaching out to skim her sides, her hips, her legs. In the glimmer of the candles his eyes looked the deepest blue, and for that moment, she believed him. And then they were together on the bed, skin to skin.
She’d never imagined such perfect bliss. His hands went everywhere, tantalizing and teasing while he kissed her so thoroughly she thought her head might spin off and fly away. Near her seat of womanly pleasure, an ache was building, and a heat, an exquisite heat.
He stroked where she ached, kissing her, kissing her, kissing her until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. The violin music grew faint as the blood rushed through her ears. Her hazy mind seemed to remember the Master-piece saying a man was exquisitely sensitive, which meant she should be able to give him the same incredible pleasure he was giving her.
She reached down. His gasp made her pulse leap as her fingers closed around hardness encased in soft velvet. Warm velvet. She stroked experimentally—
“No,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “This time is for you. I cannot—No—”
Alarmed, she let go. And he slipped a finger inside her body.
Her world tilted.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to tell him how he was making her feel. But no words came out.
The externals are designed to receive, and by their swelling, cause titillation and delight in those parts.
Unbearable delight, the book should have said.
Her desire to carnal embraces was absolutely, positively insuperable.
“I need you,” she whispered.
“I know. I need you, too.” He still seemed to be gritting his teeth. “Are you sure?” he asked again
When she nodded, he raised her knees and moved over her, settling himself between her thighs. She felt him there, at the neck of her womb, and it was indeed of an exquisite feeling. And then she felt him slowly pressing, herself stretching, opening…
Attended with some little pain…
She sucked in a breath, but the Master-piece had been right. The little pain was fading already. Her sisters would be relieved to hear it, except she would never, ever tell them.
Then he moved in her, and her sisters were the last thing on her mind. Her entire world was filled with him. He moved again, and she moved with him, learning the rhythm of love. It built and built, until she was certain she couldn’t stand more. The great heat, the friction, and yes, the considerable quantity of moisture, which being expunged in the time of copulation—
She cried out, lost in the wonder. Then suddenly she felt herself convulsing around him, wave after wave of spectacular pleasure. She’d thought it would be a momentary thing, but it went on, intensifying when he groaned and shuddered and she felt him spill inside her.
He collapsed against her, and she held his dark head, stroking his hair while she struggled to catch her breath. The barge was still rocking, and the violin was still playing, a lazy, lilting tune that matched the utterly exhausted bliss she was feeling. The Master-piece hadn’t prepared her. Or maybe she hadn’t quite believed it. But “greatly delights the woman” struck her as an abysmally weak description for what she’d just felt.
It had been so much more than that. She actually felt tears of emotion prick behind her eyes.
“Is it like this for everyone?” she wondered.
“No.” Not knowing how to explain, Ford shook his head, feeling her fingers slide in his hair. “It’s hardly ever like this. At least it’s never been like this for me.”
He kissed her eyes, her nose, her forehead. She was everything he hadn’t known he wanted in a woman. And she wanted him. He was the luckiest man in the world.
“Violet?”
“Hmm?” She stretched beneath him, warm and languid.
He kissed her chin, her cheek, brought his lips close to her ear. “I cannot wait to get married.”
He felt her stiffen and lifted his head to meet her gaze.
“I never said I would marry you,” she said, her brandy eyes filled with confusion. “Why…you haven’t even asked me.”
“Oh.” Of course. She wanted to be romanced. He rose to his elbows, brushing fingers alongside her face, fingers that had brought her such pleasure minutes earlier. Then he gave her his famous smile. “Will you do me the greatest honor I can imagine and become my wife, Violet Ashcroft?”
Her eyes looking bare without her spectacles, she blinked. “No.”
“What?” It had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t wed him after surrendering her virginity. She was no courtier, but a sheltered country miss. And the only woman he’d ever met who didn’t make him feel thickheaded.
Until now.
He must have heard her wrong. “I…I thought you said you wanted me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He saw her jaw set and felt a pit opening somewhere in his gut. “Did you do it on purpose, then?” she asked. “To secure me as your bride?”
“No!” He sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. “I didn’t intend for this to happen. You said you wanted me, Violet, and I couldn’t resist you—because I love you. That’s what tonight was all about.”
“Seduction,” she said.
“Well, yes. But not this far. Just supper, candlelight, music…and then I meant to propose.”
“I’m not angry, Ford.”
The words were said much too calmly. After what they’d just shared, there ought to be passion in her voice.
He turned to face her, his gaze sweeping her lush body, still aglow from their lovemaking. “How could you not be angry? I misunderstood you, and I…I’ve ruined you. And now you won’t let me make you an honest woman.”
“I’m a bit more enlightened than to believe that. Honesty has nothing to do with this. I honestly wanted you. And I don’t regret what we did. But I’m not prepared to say I’ll marry you.”
At least I’m not prepared to say I’ll marry you wasn’t an outright refusal. But he couldn’t understand, would never understand, how she could not regret their lovemaking and yet not want to marry him now.
Even though he’d felt that way with other women.
This had been different. This had been more than mere lovemaking. And with every fiber of his being, he was sure it had been as special for her as it had been for him.
“Question Convention,” he quoted woodenly.
He was beginning to understand what she’d meant when she said the Ashcrofts weren’t a conventional family…but he wasn’t at all sure anymore that he liked it.
FORTY-NINE
FORD WAS SITTING at his desk the next morning, struggling to make sense out of a mound of Lakefield’s neglected paperwork, when his family showed up.
And showed up, and showed up—three carriages worth of them.
He’d known, of course, when he’d ordered Colin and Amy not to visit or bring the rest of the family, they were going to ignore him. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Especially on a day like this.
Lucky for him, most of them stayed outside while his twin, Kendra, came into the study, wearing an all-too-cheerful yellow gown.
“We’
re here!” she announced, as though they’d sent notice ahead.
“I deduced as much when I heard the children shrieking.” All seven of the precious angels. For the first time in weeks, he was pleased with the sorry state of his garden—at least there was little they could do to harm it.
Kendra stopped beside his chair, her dark red hair glimmering in the too-bright sun that streamed through the window at his back.
He scowled up at her. “Who invited you?”
She leaned down to give him a hug. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“Right,” he grunted without rising.
Backing off, she went to find a seat. He’d piled ledgers on the only extra chair, so she perched on the old iron chest he’d never managed to open.
“How was Scotland?” he asked her grudgingly.
“Beautiful. Hamish is in good health, and Niall has done wonders with Duncraven.” He’d never met these people—her husband’s family—but felt he knew them from her lively descriptions over the years. “And Cait’s family is well, too. Cameron and Clarice had another baby.”
“That’s good.” And no surprise. Everyone connected to the Chases seemed to have plenty of babies. Assuming it would be the same for him, he thought amidst another round of shrieks that perhaps Violet’s refusal had been for the best.
“Well.” Kendra crossed her legs, the foot on top swinging up and down with its red-heeled shoe. “We’ve come to meet Violet, so enough of the pleasantries.”
“Have I been pleasant?” Ford wondered.
Her green eyes flashed with all-too-familiar annoyance. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Besides the fact that the woman I love won’t agree to marry me?”
“Colin said you were over Tabitha,” she said, frowning, and then, “Oh. Oh! It’s this Violet, then, isn’t it? Oh, my God. I cannot believe you admitted that. Ford Chase in love, wanting marriage.” The annoyance faded from her eyes as they flooded with compassion instead. “Why on earth won’t she have you?”
“Look around,” he said, gesturing toward the peeling walls. “I believe you’ll begin to get the picture.”
