by Lydia Joyce
Fern shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “It is nothing.”
His look was keen. “Apparently not to you.”
She shrugged again and looked away. When he said mon ange, she felt like blushing, but when he called her by her name—well, that woke a very different part of her, one that was more fundamental to herself. But she could not explain to Colin what she meant.
“I would like to wash and change clothes,” she said, to switch subjects. “I am covered with dust, though not so thoroughly as you.”
“Fair enough,” Colin said. He rose and began to arrange the peat on the grate as Fern packed the scanty remains of their dinner back into the hamper.
“I hope we don’t start a chimney fire,” Fern said nervously.
“Only one way to find out.” Colin took the jar of lamp oil. Fern backed away, getting the wide circumference of her hoops well clear of any splashes. He quirked an eyebrow at her caution and poured a good measure onto the peat. Taking the matches from Fern, he struck one and flicked it into the fireplace with the same motion. Fern yelped and recoiled.
The flames did not roar up as Fern had feared but swiftly formed a hot, straight column of flame. Colin stood beside the hearth, holding the bucket at the ready with an expression of complete self-possession. Fern watched him—watched his penetrating attention, the way his jaw worked slightly as he anticipated the worst—and a hand rose automatically to the quiver in her stomach.
After a moment, Fern cleared her throat. “We haven’t begun to smoke ourselves out yet.”
“The draw seems good,” Colin agreed, setting the bucket down and swinging a hook over the fire to hang the kettle on.
Fern watched the flames a moment more. Their cool, capricious yellow tongues danced across the peat, eating into it slowly—too slowly. She sighed.
“What is it?” Colin asked.
She smiled ruefully. “It will be fifteen minutes or more before the water is ready.”
His eyes narrowed. “They needn’t be wasted.”
Fern’s heart stuttered at the note in his voice. “I don’t know …” she said. I don’t know if I should want this. I don’t know what it means between us, and I am afraid to find out. But she did not say those words aloud. When she did not have to think—or could not think—she could give herself up to her … her other side. She was thinking now, though, and not simply reacting, and she found that she could not make herself consciously choose.
“Come here, Fern.” Colin’s eyes were as green and fathomless as the sea.
Fern stepped forward, one hesitating step at a time.
“I have been your maid since last night. Now it is your turn to be my valet.”
Fern’s mouth went dry as she realized what he meant. She looked at him for a long moment, but he simply stood there, as if he could wait forever. Slowly, she raised her hands to the top of the fastened buttons of his coat. The first one resisted for a moment, then released at a slightly stronger tug. The second soon followed. She slid her hands underneath its fabric, up to his shoulders. She could feel the contours of his muscles under his waistcoat. She raised her eyes to meet his. His face was set, as impassive as always, but his gaze burned her. Breath quickening, she pushed the coat off his shoulders and down, so that it slid off his wrists. She caught it before it hit the ground and draped it on the nearest chair. Still trapped by his gaze, she loosened the buttons of his waistcoat mechanically. When she put her hands against his shirt to push it off, the heat of his skin startled her, and she jerked away as much at her body’s own swift reaction as at the initial surprise.
“Do it,” Colin whispered hoarsely.
She nodded, swallowing, and obeyed. The shirt followed. She stood, staring at the shape of his chest beneath his fitted undershirt. A sparse V of curly black hair disappeared beneath it, almost familiar now yet still fundamentally alien. And arousing, for it stirred a flutter of awareness deep in her center, the instinctual recognition of his consummate maleness.
“You must take it off,” she said, her voice raspy and shaky in her own ears. “I cannot reach over your head.”
Colin raised an eyebrow slowly, and even more slowly, he pulled his shirt over his head. Fern closed her eyes for a moment, swaying. She could feel the heat from his skin, and it made her body ache and itch. He was looking down at her when she opened them again, standing half-naked with a brazenness that couldn’t be right. He was not kissing her or caressing her or pulling at her clothes. So why, then, did she feel so suffused?
His chest was covered with a fine tracery of red scratches—her work from the night before. They scared her and fascinated her at once. She extended a hand, placing her palm over one of the marks across his chest. She could feel his heart beating against her hand.
“Do they hurt?” she asked.
“No more or less than I want them to.”
Colin’s even reply sent a shiver across her. “I should not want to really harm you.”
“And I should not want to be harmed.” He paused. “I have heard of a place in London where some go to be beaten and whipped for their pleasure.”
Fern pulled back. “Do you want that?”
He shook his head. “No. Only this much. Enough to remind me that I am alive.”
“I don’t understand,” Fern said. “I don’t understand any of this at all.”
“You have never been the heir to a viscountcy,” Colin replied. He captured her hand and placed it over his heart again. “A peer is a thing, not a person, and I learned to be the perfect future peer.”
Fern just shook her head again. Colin slid her hand across his lightly haired chest and belly to the denser curls above his belt line.
“Finish it,” he said.
Fern hesitated for a moment and then ducked her head over his belt, unfastening it even as she could not help but notice the distinct bulge just below her hand. She pulled the end of the belt loose.
“The trousers,” Colin said.
With mounting trepidation and burning cheeks, Fern unbuttoned the top of his fly. She reached out to unfasten the second one, but she yanked her hand back after brushing against that hard bulge.
“I can’t,” she said, unable to express the combination of humiliation, fascination, and arousal that battered her.
“You shall,” he countered. “It is nothing to be afraid of, Fern.” He captured her hand again, and though she tried to pull away, he placed her hand flat against the hard ridge of flesh.
“It’s so hot,” Fern blurted. She bit her lip. “What … is it called? Your private part?”
Colin chuckled, a sound so strange coming from him that Fern jumped slightly. “The medical term would be penis. Most men use more vulgar terms.”
“Oh,” Fern said. “You do not want to tell me what they are?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Colin said flatly.
Fern stared at her hand where it touched him. “Does it hurt when it gets so … swollen?”
“Do you hurt when you are swollen with wanting me?” At Fern’s automatic exclamation, Colin quirked the corner of his lips. “I am in a position of some knowledge of your reactions, just as you are in a position of knowledge about mine.”
“I think I understand what you are saying,” Fern said, blushing furiously.
“You did not answer my question.”
Now he was baiting her; she was sure of it. “If it shall make you stop talking, I will do what you want!” She unbuttoned his fly the rest of the way as quickly as she could. “There. Now, I am quite sure your valet doesn’t do that for you.”
Colin did not reply, instead taking a step away from her and bending over to pull off his shoes and socks. He straightened, and knowing what was coming next, Fern averted her eyes, licking her lips nervously.
“Fern.”
She turned back around to see him standing naked before her, his … his penis jutting from between his legs in a way that should have been ridiculous. Yet somehow, it was anything but. A little frightening, yes. A litt
le threatening, even. And certainly titillating in a way that made no sense to her, for it was not a beautiful part of his body, as his back and shoulders and thighs were. Fern wrapped her arms around herself as her skin prickled with awareness.
“Now it is your turn,” Colin said.
Fern did not move, and after a moment, Colin closed the distance between them. Fern found herself staring at the shadow in the base of his strong throat as he deliberately loosened the row of buttons extending from her neck to her belt. The cool air slid through the lengthening gap in her bodice, insinuating itself between the folds of the fabric to brush the skin of her arms. He unfastened her belt with a quick twist, and it slid across her belling skirts to the floor.
He stepped back. “Now you must undress for me.”
Chapter Eleven
“What?” Fern stared at him.
“Undress,” he repeated. “For me.”
Awkwardly, Fern raised her hands to the open throat of her bodice and pulled it down across her shoulders. She grasped one cuff with the opposite hand and slid it over her arm, then pushed the other off. She dropped the garment on top of his pile of clothes and then looked at him in mute question.
His eyes seemed to burn in the darkness, devouring her, and a spiral of heat twisted out of her center and down her limbs, making her skin tingle and her muscles ache in its wake.
“No more,” she whispered. “Please, Colin.”
“Your skirts, now,” he said.
She hesitated, then reached behind herself for the hooks that held her skirt on. It took her a moment to unfasten them—she was not used to undressing herself—but she managed to free them one at a time. She pulled the rustling fabric upward, over her head, moving as quickly as she dared because she did not trust Colin to fail to take advantage of her momentary blindness. But when she emerged from the stiff silk folds, he had not moved. Fern laid the skirt aside and began untying her petticoats, first the one of lace-edged silk, then the light linen one beneath. She took both layers at once and dragged them swiftly over her head, adding them to the growing pile of clothes. Her bare arms prickled in the slight draft from the open window—she knew the breeze was not cold, but her skin seemed superheated. Without waiting for Colin’s next order, she untied the tapes on her crinoline and let the steel contraption clatter to the ground. Now she stood in nothing but her corset, her pantaloons, and her stockings and shoes.
“I think I like you just like that,” Colin said. “Pink against white, softness and hardness together.” He stepped forward.
Fern backed away, stepping on her crinoline, the light in his eyes making her uneasy. “I need to bathe, Colin,” she said. “I am tired; my clothes are not fresh, and neither am I.”
Colin did not react to her words. “Did you know that some husbands have such admiration of their wives’ wedding corsets that they do not allow them to be unlaced for the duration of the honeymoon?”
He was making fun again. She knew he was, and yet there was no hint of humor in his face, and Fern’s heart began thudding hard against her chest. Who was this man? she wondered yet again. They were at least a mile from the nearest living soul, and no one but a coach driver knew where they were … What could he do, this man who laughingly helped her wrestle a mattress though the doorway and then, a mere hour later, threatened her for his own amusement?
Fern scrambled for something to say, something to break the farce. Pretend you are Elizabeth or Mary, she told herself, fixing upon the image of her brash, fearless friends for an appearance of strength. The words came to her. “Those wives must have been very uncomfortable, and those husbands must have had a very poor sense of smell.”
Something flared in the depths of Colin’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly for Fern to identify it. She retreated another step—and sat hard as the back of her knees struck against the bed.
Before she could react, he was on top of her, pressing her into the musty mattress, his mouth coming down hard on hers. Cornered, she felt panic well up in her throat, and she swung out automatically, striking him in the temple with all her strength. He pulled back, breathing hard, his weight still pinning her to the bed.
“Make me release you from your corset, then, Fern,” he said, his eyes as dark as windows into another world. “Hurt me.”
Hot with lust and ire, she put both hands against his chest and pushed—not straight up, but to the side. He rolled off of her, and she followed, so that he was lying beneath her. She could feel the hard muscles of his stomach against her thighs, and the harder, hotter weight between them.
“Stop it,” she said through clenched teeth. “Stop these stupid games. We’re not playing at anything here. This is real! As real and as important as anything in our lives, and we don’t even know what we’re doing yet. If you need this”—she tweaked the skin over his bicep hard, digging in her nails—“then you need it, and I will not demand a reason. But I will not allow you to make this into a joke.”
Colin looked at her steadily. “Sometimes, earnestness is dangerous.”
“It is real,” Fern insisted.
“And some things are hard to ask for.”
That quiet addendum silenced Fern, the anger flowing out of her at once. “Then do not ask again,” she said gently. “There is no need. I already know.”
“Give it to me.” The words ground out of his throat.
Fern leaned over him, the busk of her corset digging into her abdomen. She found the sensitive place just behind his jaw and kissed it gently. “If you wish me to be cruel,” she whispered with a boldness that came from that unruly corner of her mind, “you should deal more generously with me.” And she took a piece of skin between her teeth and nipped it sharply, crushing the delicate layers.
Colin grunted, his pelvis lifting hard against her as his hands clamped down on her thighs. His erection slid between her pantaloons. She steeled herself and moved deliberately downward along his throat and bit him again, and he came hard into her. The sudden heat of him sheathed fully inside her made her gasp, clutching the bedclothes on either side of his head as her body accepted him. For several seconds, she could only hold on as he thrust under her. Then, with a shudder that shook her whole being, she gripped his shoulders hard, her fingernails digging into his flesh, and seized the rhythm from him. She felt the tightness building within her, winding into a taut ball of anticipation, and she steered him closer, pushing toward it as the roar of blood grew louder and louder in her ears. She felt the impossible edge, the one that she had tripped over almost by accident the night before, and she reached …
Her body tightened in waves of jagged-edged pleasure that jolted through her brain, until it seemed as if her mind were attached directly to a sea of raw nerve endings. Distantly, she heard a noise that she knew must be Colin, calling out a command, but she could understand no words. Her senses blazed, blinded and alive. She couldn’t breathe—the corset was suffocating her—her brain was going to explode, and she couldn’t hold on …
Gradually, the sensation receded, the waves drawing back, ebbing away. She was left hollow and spent, just like the first time.
Except that it wasn’t like the first time. She was hollow, yes, yet it wasn’t the vacuum left where something had been stolen but the emptiness after something had escaped, bursting into freedom.
Fern opened her eyes. She was slumped against Colin’s chest, his scent still making her head spin. They were both panting, out of rhythm now, that incredible unity shattered.
He shifted, rolling them both so that they lay one next to the other. “A considerate lover,” he said breathlessly, “does not smother her partner.”
“Oh,” Fern said. For a long moment she said nothing else, staring at his throat, unwilling to look at his eyes and see the intimacy that she knew must still be there—knowing that hers would be the same. Coward, a corner of her mind whispered. But another warned more loudly: Do not trust this man until he’s shown himself worthy of your faith. So she kept her eyes down a
nd her soul locked inside her own skin.
The fire snapped on the hearth.
“I think our water is ready,” Fern said.
Her voice roused Colin from his half stupor. “I only hope that it has not boiled dry.” He disengaged himself from their embrace with a gut-deep reluctance that disturbed him, leaving his wife’s loose-limbed form sprawled upon the bed.
Ignoring his unexpected reaction, he wrapped his hand around his discarded undershirt—with a silent apology to his valet, who would have been highly aggrieved—and lifted the kettle from its hook. He blew as much dust from the nearest washbasin as he could before pouring half the kettle’s water into it. He returned the kettle to its hook and added a generous measure of cool well water from the wooden bucket, sending up a thick cloud of steam.
“I found some washcloths and towels in the linen press.”
Colin’s lungs pinched around his breath as he turned to look at his wife. Fern had pushed upright and was now sitting on the bed, her light brown hair voluptuously tumbled and her eyes still smudged with passion. The complete lack of seductive content in her words somehow made it worse, and he wanted to take her all over again with a strength that made him ache—a desire that went far beyond the physical joining into something else that he did not care to examine. He pushed down that feeling.
“I see,” was all he said. “I suppose you could not have told me that before I ruined my shirt?”
The high color of her cheeks deepened even more. “I was distracted.”
Colin hid a private twist of his lips as he retrieved the towels from the linen press. Distracted, she called it. She was driving him to distraction, for certain, and beyond … Driving him to stubbornness, foolishness, ridiculousness, to find himself in an empty, half-rotten manor house with her when they should both still be in Brighton.
This place was proving as intractable a problem as she was. Wrexmere. The name itself was becoming a bane to him. His father, never loquacious, had been particularly taciturn about their ancestral home, shuffling it off to Colin as a part of his allowance with almost unseemly eagerness when Colin reached his majority. The income was paltry, after the quantity set aside for the maintenance of the place, so absurdly small that it had bothered him since he’d been given control. He’d asked his solicitor to look into it, unleashing an abrupt flood of incomprehensible, half-literate, and menacing letters from the steward’s wife that had made the situation intolerable.
