Indiscreet

by Mary Balogh

  He was being the scrupulously honorable gentleman, she realized, protecting her name, taking the consequences of his own indiscretion. She understood all that and was grateful for it. And resentful of it. How helpless women were. The pawns of men. To be tripped up and pitched headlong into the dirt by men, and then to be picked up by them and dusted off and restored to uprightness.

  But that was the way of the world.

  Everyone stayed until evening. There was the garden outside to be strolled in on such a beautiful day, and there was the drawing room to sit in for conversation and tea. There was even some impromptu dancing in the ballroom to the music of the pianoforte, though the room had not been decorated for the occasion.

  When darkness began to fall, it was time to leave. Time for bride and groom to leave. They were to spend their wedding night at her cottage and leave for Stratton tomorrow.

  Claude’s carriage, still decorated, waited outside the main doors to take them away.

  Daphne was crying and laughing as she hugged them both very tightly. Claude hugged his brother wordlessly for long moments before turning to Catherine and smiling kindly and kissing both her cheeks.

  “Take care of him, Catherine, my dear,” he said quietly. “He is very precious to me and not entirely a blackguard, you know.” His eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

  She wished absurdly that it were possible to marry a family rather than an individual. She loved Claude and Daphne.

  Clayton and Clarissa kissed her too, the former with a wink, the latter with smiling tenseness.

  Other people smiled and nodded—there seemed to be dozens out on the terrace.

  And then Lord Rawleigh was handing her into the carriage and jumping in beside her. Someone on the outside closed the door and suddenly they were enclosed in near darkness and in quietness. The carriage jerked into motion.

  Lord Rawleigh! She could already think of her in-laws by their given names. She could think of this man only by his title. Rex. She was not sure she would ever be able to say his name aloud. Her husband. Despite the late-morning wedding and the afternoon and evening of celebrations, it suddenly seemed unreal again. Her husband. He was leaning back against the squabs, his eyes closed.

  “Well, Catherine,” he said after a while, “restitution has been made. You are respectable again.”

  She sat very still. If she had moved, she would have smacked him. Hard.

  “Catherine Adams, Viscountess Rawleigh,” he said. “Now the question of whether it was Winters or Winsmore is of no consequence.”

  And so the vestiges of her identity disappeared. She had none apart from him. She had his name and was his property. His possession. One he did not want. Except perhaps in his bed for his pleasure and for breeding. She breathed slowly and evenly, trying not to allow herself to be entirely engulfed by bitterness. In bitterness lay only self-destruction, as she knew from experience.

  When the carriage turned at the bottom of the driveway to pass through the village, he spoke again. He still had his eyes closed.

  “Tell me, Catherine,” he said, “do I have a virgin bride?”

  She had expected that he had drawn his own conclusion from the facts that she had been living alone and incognito. It was something she would have expected him to ask before marrying her if he was not sure. His sense of honor, it seemed, knew no bounds. But then, for years he had been an officer in the cavalry. Of course honor would mean more than life to him.

  “No,” she said, so determined not to whisper and seem ashamed that the word blurted like a defiance into the closed confines of the carriage.

  “As I thought,” he said softly.

  • • •

  HER dog had been inside alone for most of the day, though Miss Downes apparently had come to let him out for five minutes during the afternoon. He greeted them with barking enthusiasm, almost demented with joy, jumping up against Catherine and licking her face when she bent to hug him.

  “He needs to go outside,” she murmured, and the terrier raced ahead of her to the back door, woofing with excitement. She did not only let him out. She went outside with him and was gone for all of ten minutes.

  He lit a couple of candles in the kitchen. He did not bother to light the fire. It was really not a cold night and they would not be remaining downstairs.

  He was feeling annoyed. Not so much over the fact that she was not virgin. He had suspected as much. He would have been surprised if she had answered his question in the affirmative. Indeed, there was some relief in knowing that he would not have pain and tightness and blood and skittishness to cope with tonight.

  No, it was not her lack of virginity that annoyed him as much as the fact that she had steadfastly denied herself to him while she had opened herself to some other man—or men. It was a blow to his pride, perhaps, that with him she had remained unseducible.

  What had happened to her was as clear as day now, of course. She had fornicated with a man who for some reason had not married her, and she had been banished by her family to live out her disgrace in a country backwater. The family must have been supporting her for as long as she remained where she had been placed.

  He hated the fact that she had been happier with such a life than with what he had offered her. He hated the fact that he was taking her from this cozy home of hers almost by force and certainly against her wishes. He hated the thought of rape, even if it was legalized by the fact that he had just married her.

  Devil take it! He had laughed at Nat’s narrow escape earlier in the year and at Eden’s. There had been no escape for him. He wondered if they would make merry over his fate. He had written to them at Dunbarton to announce his coming nuptials. He did not think they would laugh, though. They would understand his predicament and his feelings. They would sympathize.

  Damn it, he wanted no man’s pity.

  The back door opened and Toby came trotting into the kitchen. Catherine came more slowly behind him. Her satin gown shimmered in the candlelight and looked incongruous with her surroundings.

  He blew out one candle and picked up the other. “Show me to the bedroom,” he said. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, even though it was still only midevening. He thought back on the last time he had made that request of her, just over two weeks ago. He had burned for her then. Well, he burned now too. But then he had thought their hunger for each other to be mutual.

  She turned without a word and led the way up the narrow wooden stairs to the bedroom. It was surprisingly spacious and noticeably feminine. The ceiling was high over the bed. It sloped with the roof downward to the wall opposite. It must seem strange to her, he thought, setting down the candlestick on the dressing table, where the mirror reflected and magnified the candle’s light, after inhabiting the room alone for five years to have a man in it with her.

  She turned and looked at him calmly enough. She was a woman of some courage, his wife. But then, of course, she was no virgin bride.

  “Come,” he said, beckoning with the fingers of one hand. She came. “Turn.”

  There must have been two dozen tiny pearl buttons down the back of her gown, each of them hooked into even tinier buttonholes. He undid them all with methodical care and removed all the pins from her hair before pushing the gown and her chemise from her shoulders and down her arms. She shivered as he turned her and the garments shimmered down to her feet. He knelt to pull down her stockings. She lifted her feet one at a time for him and stepped away from her garments. He straightened up to look at her.

  She looked unblinkingly back at him, her features shadowed by her dark hair. It waved almost to her waist, as he had known it would.

  “If there is one imperfection of form,” he said, “I certainly cannot see it.”

  “Since you are bound to me for life,” she said, “it is a good thing that you are pleased with your possession.”

  He rais
ed his eyebrows. “Yes, indeed,” he said, and lifted one hand to run the backs of his fingers lightly down one side of her jaw to her chin.

  He closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her lightly with lips that were only just parted. He was in no hurry. There was all night. He touched her with his hands, setting them at the sides of her small and shapely waist, moving them up to cup her breasts. They were warm and silky. They were not large, but they were firm and uptilted. Enticing. Her nipples hardened instantly against the light pressure of his thumbs. He moved his hands behind her, sliding them lightly down her back to cup her buttocks. He kept a little distance between their bodies.

  She shuddered violently and he drew her against him, the fingers of one hand spreading wide to hold her where she was, the other moving up to bring her breasts against him. He deepened the kiss.

  There was something almost unbearably erotic about holding a naked woman to his fully clothed body. He savored the feeling, determined not to rush, though instinct would have had him tearing at his own clothes, bending her back onto the bed, and mounting her for release.

  Despite her nakedness in a room without a fire, he felt her grow warmer over the next few minutes. He felt her arms come about him and her mouth relax and yield and open to his. Her body arched against his even when he eased the pressure of his hands.

  At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that she wanted what she was going to get. It was not rape, even if such a thing were possible within marriage.

  “Onto the bed,” he said against her mouth eventually. “We can better complete the consummation there.”

  She lay watching him as he undressed. He did so unhurriedly, feasting his eyes on her beauty and his mind on his own desire. She watched him without any pretense of modesty or timidity. He decided against blowing out the candle before joining her on the bed.

  She had become passive. She did not resist him in any way. Neither did she display any eagerness to explore or experiment. There was warmth and compliance in her but no excitement. It had been five years for her. He set himself patiently to arousing her. There was no hurry. He was experienced at holding himself in check. He always enjoyed foreplay almost as much as the main feast. He liked his women hot and panting by the time he put them beneath him.

  It took a great deal of time.

  He raised himself on one forearm eventually and looked down at her with half-closed eyes. Desire was heavy in him. He ran the tip of one forefinger lightly across her moist and swollen lips.

  “How many times?” he asked her.

  She looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.

  “Once?” he asked. “A dozen times? A hundred? More times than you can recall?”

  She understood him then, though she did not answer immediately. She stared back at him. “Once,” she whispered finally.

  Ah. She was as nearly virgin as made no difference, then. And it had happened five years ago.

  He slid his free hand down between her legs and probed there with light fingertips. She closed her eyes. She was unexcited, but her body was ready. He moved on top of her, keeping his weight on his forearms, and pushed her legs wide with his own. Her eyes shot open.

  “Easy,” he said. She was skittish after all. “Relax. Let it happen.”

  He watched her face as he pushed inside her, slowly, to his full length. Her teeth came down on her lower lip, but she gave no other sign of distress. Inner muscles contracted about him, causing exquisite pain, and she closed her eyes.

  He moved in her slowly, rhythmically, giving her his full length with every stroke, forcing himself to take his time. Let her relearn the basics of intimacy. She could learn on future occasions what else he would expect and even demand of her as a bedfellow.

  He stroked her for many minutes before she slid her feet up the bed on either side of his legs and lifted her knees to hug his hips. She whimpered once and then again. He stopped at her entrance, waited for the tension of anticipation in her body to reach its peak, waited for the moment that his body recognized by instinct, and then thrust hard and deep into her and held there.

  She whimpered once more and shuddered against him.

  He waited for the tension to go from her body, for relaxation to take its place. He waited until her feet rested on the bed again. And then finally, blessedly, he took his own swift, fierce pleasure and released his seed deep in her body.

  He was exhausted. That was his first conscious thought. He was also lying heavily on her. He must have dozed off—he hoped not for long. He was no featherweight. He disengaged himself carefully and rather regretfully and rolled to her side. He felt that he could sleep for a week. It was a comfortable bed and she was a warm and enticing woman. It was going to be a pleasure teaching her and enjoying her in the weeks and months to come. She did not know a great deal. He was curiously glad of it.

  He reached for the bedclothes to pull them up, intending to slide his arm beneath her and turn her against him. But she moved faster, rolling over onto her side to face away from him.

  He looked at her in the long shadows cast by the flickering candle—it had almost burned itself out. She was not sleeping or even relaxed. He could not see her face. He could not even hear her breathing.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Did I offend you?”

  “No.”

  He had the curious sensation after that that she was crying, though there was no telltale shaking of her shoulders and there were no sobs or sniffles. After a minute of hesitation he reached a hand around her and touched her face. She turned it sharply to hide it in the pillow but not before he had felt the wetness of tears.

  He turned cold. And furiously angry. He clenched his hand. Too angry. He was too angry.

  He got out of bed, scooped up his clothes, picked up the candle in passing, and went downstairs.

  Toby, on the rocker in the kitchen, wagged his tail.

  “Get down from there, sir,” the viscount ordered sternly as he dressed again in his best wedding finery.

  Toby got down.

  Lord, he was angry. He could cheerfully break every cup and saucer and plate in the kitchen. He had taken care with her so that she might have some pleasure, so that there would be no semblance whatsoever of rape in what he did to her. Yet she had ended up in tears.

  And they were stuck with each other for a lifetime.

  But devil take it, he was ten times more exhausted than he was angry. He yawned until his jaws cracked. He looked about hopefully, but the only thing resembling a pillow in the room was the embroidered cushion on the seat of the rocker, and the only thing resembling a blanket was the tablecloth.

  He tried to find a comfortable position on the rocker with the aid of both. He failed to find it, though he was at least slightly warmer once Toby had jumped onto his lap and curled up there. Somehow he dozed his way through the night.

  15

  SHE slept by fits and starts. She was surprised that she slept at all. She knew as soon as he left the room that he would stay downstairs, that he would not come back. She knew that she had made a terrible mistake.

  It had been so very unexpectedly wonderful. Despite the shock of its beginning, when he had removed all her clothes and given her no chance to don the nightgown she had chosen for the occasion, and despite the fact that she had been as ignorant as a virgin and had not known quite what to do—despite everything, it had been the most wonderful experience of her life.

  She had desired him from the start, of course, and felt a woman’s need for the intimacy of his body ever since that first evening visit he had paid her. But she had not really expected that the act itself would be so achingly beautiful. Or that it would last for longer than a minute or two at the most.

  She lay on her back, staring up into the darkness long after he had gone, taking the candle with him, a
nd long after her tears had dried. Her thighs were aching from being spread wide. She was sore inside, though it was not exactly soreness. There was a slight throbbing there still. When he had come inside her, she had thought she would die of the shock of his size and hardness. And yet it had been the shock of wonder.

  She had lost reality in the long minutes that followed. Not the reality of him. At every moment, perhaps more intensely as the moments passed, she had been aware that it was he who was loving her so expertly and so intimately. There had been no one in the world but him and her for those minutes and nothing but what they did together. Nothing at all. Everything else—all the series of events that had brought them to this moment—had fallen away from her consciousness.

  He was her husband and she was his wife and they were in their marriage bed on their wedding night. It had been as simple and as profound and as wonderful as that.

  Except that it had ended. There had been unbearable tension, the single, almost panicked moment when she had felt that she could bear no more. And then suddenly—she did not know how he did it—he had opened up some door to her and all the tension had gone flooding through, leaving her feeling so totally at peace that she thought it altogether possible that she would never want to move again. And then he had moved again, and relaxed and uninvolved, she had enjoyed the powerful thrusts of his body, and she had felt the hot gush of his seed.

  Then his relaxed weight bearing her down into the mattress.

  She had held him, feeling his weight and his heat, smelling the strangely enticing mixture of musky cologne and sweat, watching the dancing shadows cast by the candle on the familiar walls and sloped ceiling of her bedchamber.

  And she had known reality again. He—Lord Rawleigh—had just finished consummating a marriage that neither of them had wanted. She did not like or respect him as a person. His only interest in her—he had never made a secret of it—was her body. He had tried several times to persuade her to give it or to sell it to him. He did not want to be married to her, but since he had had no choice in the matter, he would at least take advantage of the fact that her body was now his.