Aurora might have whimpered; she couldn’t be certain. But Lord Quinton shifted her in his arms, turning her head further in to his shoulder, effectively blocking out the offending sun.
Blissful darkness enveloped the main hall of the second floor. He turned a corner and passed through a doorway. More light, not as harsh as before, pulsed against Aurora’s pinched eyelids.
“Draw the curtains,” Lord Quinton commanded in a soft tone. He sat on the edge of the bed with Aurora still tucked neatly in his arms. Once again, the pulsing light left, leaving her with only the intense throb at her temples.
She felt weak—too weak to lift her head, to open her eyes, to speak. Strong fingers went to work removing her bonnet from her head, soon accompanied by a more delicate hand.
“My lord, allow me to see to her ladyship.” Rose’s voice. “Mrs. Gaffee and I can make her more comfortable if you will allow us”
“Leave us,” he ordered. His voice was quiet, but firm. It brooked no argument.
The whispering swish and sway of their dresses moving across the room to the door seemed more like a long, deafening clap of thunder in Aurora’s present state.
Lord Quinton laid her on the bed. She instantaneously felt bare, once she was bereft of the warm cocoon created by his arms. This time, she did whimper, though it sounded to her ears more like a scream.
“Hush, love,” he said, removing her shoes from her feet. Though his hands were large and cumbersome, he performed the action with a deft skill Aurora often could not manage. Then, just as smoothly and gently, he slid off her stockings.
Oh, dear good Lord. He could not be doing this. Not now. Not when she was more wretched and in more pain than she had ever been in her entire life. He could not expect to take his marital rights now.
She would die. She would kill him.
Either way, someone would die.
At least, someone would die once she could convince her body to function again.
When he rolled her to her side and worked at the buttons lining her back, Aurora let out a muffled whimper into the pillow. He was really doing it. And she was absolutely powerless to stop him, even if she felt she could. It was his right. She’d married the bastard and said ‘I do’, hadn’t she?
How on earth had she gotten herself into such a mess?
But when he pulled her gown free of her body and she was left in only her shift and drawers, Lord Quinton lifted Aurora off the bed and pulled back the counterpane. He settled her back into place and tucked the sheets in all around her.
“Rest, now,” he said, placing a tiny, chaste kiss on her forehead. Then his weight lifted from the side of the bed and he stepped across the room, gently clicking the door closed behind him.
Dark stillness overcame her. Sleep won out in mere moments.
Chapter Ten
3 April, 1811
Weddings, when one is one of the two primary participants, can truthfully be rather dismal affairs. It is lucky indeed that most people only go through them once in their life. Somewhere between listening to the vicar drone on about obeying and sickness, and standing up there with no one to look at but the vicar and Lord Quinton, I found my mind wandering. Shocking, I know, since my mind has never been prone to such fits of wanderlust. Pun intended.
~From the journal of Miss Aurora Hyatt Lady Quinton
Where was she? Aurora sat up in bed—not her familiar bed—and looked about in the dark. A few rays of sun tried peeked around the edges of heavy drapes. Sitting up sent her head to spinning for a moment. A muted ache remained as a reminder of the intense headache that landed her in bed in the first place. She walked over and pulled the draperies back, allowing enough sun to fill the room.
In the center of the room stood a large four-poster bed, covered in a Pomona green counterpane that matched the draperies. Very simple, quite elegant. An armchair sat near the fireplace, a vanity near one of the three doors.
If only she had been able to pay attention when Lord Quinton carried her in. Then she might know which of those doors would lead to her dressing room. She couldn’t very well go out into the main house clad only in her shift—particularly not with any number of unfamiliar servants out and about. Not to mention a husband.
But a glance around the room didn’t reveal a bell pull, so she would have to take a chance. Common sense would place the vanity next to the dressing room. She tried that door first.
Aurora had guessed wrong. Blast.
Lord Quinton sat in a rosewood armchair with striped silk-satin cushions near a large picture window, reading a newspaper and facing her. An empty glass and a decanter of brandy lined the table beside him. As soon as the door opened, he stood.
How was it possible for the man to look so enticing after the way he’d trapped her into this marriage? She should loathe him, or at least be repulsed by him.
But he’d removed his greatcoat and waistcoat and cravat, and his shirt hung loose from his pantaloons and gaped open at the top, much like it had done when they first met. And kissed. Aurora flushed again with the memory. His Hessians gleamed in the bright sunlight.
“Do you feel better after your rest?” he asked.
The words drew Aurora’s eye to his lips, his strong, square jaw. The ever-present growth of stubble was back. She thought, unless her memory was more muddled than she realized, that he had been clean-shaven that morning when they married. She preferred this—the roughness of it, the wildness of it.
She could get lost staring at his jaw line.
“Yes, my lord. Thank you for asking,” she finally managed to respond.
His eyes darkened at her response. Oh, dear good Lord. What had she done now?
“You are my wife, now,” he said. “We need not be quite so formal.”
Which only served to remind her of how very little she knew this man. “What, then, should I call you?” Surely the vicar must have said his name during their wedding, but she hadn’t the slightest memory of it. Nor did she recall what he might have signed upon the register.
For that matter, she didn’t know what her new name was. Aurora what, precisely? Lady Quinton she knew. But the rest? It was all a blur. An overwrought, bitter blur.
He half smiled, half grimaced, though it fell short of reaching his eyes. “My friends call me Quin.”
“I will call you that if you’d like.” Though she had the distinct impression he would prefer to be called something else.
“You may call me anything you please, Aurora.” The way he said it sent shivers of anticipation coursing along her spine. “Are you cold?” he asked. “You must be, with only your shift on.”
Oh. Oh, my. How had she forgotten such an embarrassing detail as that? She tried to cover herself with her arms, but they could only cover so much. Blast, he could see her through the thin material. But she most certainly was not cold. Far from it, in fact. Aurora could be no less cold if she were standing on the sun.
Quin picked up a blanket that had been draped over another armchair. When he stood before her with it, she trembled. But not from cold. Nor from embarrassment. No, she trembled from the intensity of his gaze as he wrapped the blanket around her. The tips of his fingers brushed against hers as he pulled it closed in front of her, tickling and burning, all at once.
Aurora needed to pull herself together like the silly blanket. Easier said than done, of course, with this man—her husband—standing so close before her that she felt she’d melt in his heat.
He raked a hand through his long hair. Her fingers itched to do the same. What on earth was coming over her?
She had to regain her wits. Speak. She should speak. “What is your name?” she blurted out. Now she truly sounded like a dolt. He would think he’d married an imbecile. He had, after all, just requested she call him Quin.
He smiled then, and not in a manner that appeared like laughter. “My given name? Niles. Niles Thornton.”
“Niles.” Aurora smiled. There was something pleasing about saying his name alou
d, about the way it rolled off her tongue.
There was something infinitely more pleasing about the manner in which he slid his thumb along her lips just then, tracing the lower lip first, and then the upper lip, and then moving back to the lower. Not to mention the almost inhuman growl sounding deep in his throat. He settled his thumb in the center of her lip and pulled it down, just a touch, until his thumb slipped through and touched her teeth.
Gads, her body did inexplicable things in his presence. Just from that minuscule contact, her breath came in short, heavy bursts like she’d just swum the length of the Thames and her heart pounded so loudly he must hear it.
Her mouth felt like a desert. She licked her lips and tasted his essence—salty and heady and masculine.
Almost as soon as her tongue returned to her mouth, his tongue followed it inside. He tasted of brandy and sin.
He left her mouth and nibbled along her jaw and ears and throat. Every little bite elicited a sigh or a moan. His coarse whiskers scraped against her tender flesh until Aurora thought she would fall straight to the floor from shock.
She let loose the blanket, wrapping her arms about his neck and allowing her fingers to roam through his hair. When the blanket pooled at her feet, his hands were instantly upon her, kneading her derrière and pulling her close. So close. Too close.
That wonderfully fascinating length throbbed and pulsed against her belly, then lower, against the core of her womanhood, when he lifted her by her thighs and pulled her legs apart, wrapping them around his hips. Her shift and drawers were made of such a sheer material, there might as well have been nothing between them save his breeches.
Oh, dear good Lord, this body part fascinated her, with the way it pushed against his breeches as though fighting to be set free. She moved slightly, rolling her hips, and could have sworn she felt it grow.
She wanted to touch it. To see it. Her curiosity knew no bounds under ordinary circumstances, and this entire situation was far from ordinary at least in terms of her life. “Will you teach me now?” she asked, though she knew not how she’d found her voice. She’d simply die if he wouldn’t.
Quin didn’t answer her.
For that matter, Aurora doubted him capable of formulating an answer. He was too busy with lifting her up and tossing her over his shoulder and practically darting from the sitting room into another chamber.
His chamber.
Quin tossed her on the bed on her back and peeled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside without a care. Those hairs she had seen peeking out over the top trailed down the center of his bare chest, darker than the hair on his head, curling and crawling their way to disappear in a thin line below the top of his breeches.
She wanted to touch him. She wanted to feel the power of his arms beneath her fingertips, those same arms that lifted her with seemingly no effort at all. She wanted to trail her fingers along the path of hair, following them beyond where her eyes could see. She wanted to spread her hands over the wide expanse of his shoulders and marvel at the fact that her entire body could fit over just one of them.
Just from looking at him, a strange tautness came over the tips of her breasts as though they were pulling closer to him. Her womanhood—that same part of her that had rubbed against him only moments before—heated to the point of melting. What else could explain the sudden, embarrassing wetness accumulating between her thighs?
He sat on the edge of the bed and ripped his Hessian boots off, tossing them blindly over his shoulder. Before she knew what to expect, he threw himself on top of her, his weight pinning her to the mattress.
She felt glorious with him atop her, like a goddess, despite her vulnerable position.
His hands—those strong hands—moved over her, laying claim to her, branding her everywhere they touched. Possessive. And they touched her everywhere.
He pulled the sleeves of her shift down, exposing her bosom to his gaze. Aurora’s breasts stood at attention, the tips hard and straining—for what she didn’t know, until his mouth landed upon one. Then she knew very well, indeed.
Quin nipped and stroked and suckled and blew until she was half mad with need. Then he did it all over again to the other breast. The coarse prickles covering his jaw scraped against her sensitized flesh, pushed her beyond the limits of reason.
And still, she wanted more. Needed more. She arched her back, pressing her breasts into him, drove her hips against him, searching, moaning, sighing. But instead of doing whatever he must do to satisfy her need, Quin lifted himself off her.
For God’s sake, he would be the death of her.
Without his considerable weight pressing her down into the mattress, Aurora felt exposed. Empty. Cold.
She reached for him, only to have her hand impatiently brushed aside. “This is far from over, love,” Quin said. He stood at the edge of the bed, impatiently fumbling with the buttons holding the flap of his breeches in place. Before he had them all undone, he pulled them down and stepped free.
With the afternoon sun pouring in through the window, she wanted to look at him, to revel in the beauty that were his thighs, to gape at the sheer strength displayed by his muscles. He had to look like an Adonis, with all his muscular perfection and arrogant swagger.
Aurora could not. All she could see was that thing at the junction of his thighs. Big and protruding, and drawing her eye there and nowhere else. “Oh, dear good Lord,” she breathed.
Never in a million years would she be able to dream up what he intended to do with it. Her imagination was vivid, and entirely too overactive, but God had to have a sense of humor to have created such an object. A sick sense of humor. A very sick and deranged and fiendish sense of humor.
Her mind screamed at her to flee, to run back to her own chamber and lock the door. Instead, she laid there ogling him.
For just a moment too long.
Quin sat next to her on the bed, and his hands were on her again—this time pulling her shift and her drawers down her length, tossing them aside before she could stop him. Then he smoothed his hands over her, starting at her breasts and trailing a painstakingly torturous path over her stomach to her thighs, and then back up again.
Still, Aurora could not remove her eyes from him. Or more specifically, from that one part of him.
His hands never stopped moving over her, stroking her, building a heat inside her that she felt would burn her alive if he didn’t stop soon. His eyes laughed down at her. “You look terrified. It will only hurt for a moment.”
Hurt? There would be pain involved in this? Why had no one told her any of this? She silently cursed Aunt Sedgewick for her prudishness. But that wasn’t enough. Then she cursed her mother for having the effrontery to die and leave her alone to fend for herself against this thing, before Aurora had the opportunity to ask all the questions which required answers.
“What do you intend to do with that?” she asked, her voice shaking a bit more than she would have liked.
He didn’t answer her. At least not with his words, but with his hands. Or more specifically, with his fingers.
They moved over her woman’s part, cupping and stroking. Aurora’s eyes felt like they would fall out, they were open so wide. Was this even legal? She wasn’t entirely certain. But even though it scandalized her, she could not bear the thought of stopping him.
His fingers slipped inside her, moving in and out and about. “Oh, God. You’re so wet,” he said, moving faster, more urgently.
“Is that bad?” Aurora asked. She hoped not. She didn’t know what had caused the moisture, let alone how to prevent it. Especially since the more he stroked her, the more the slickness built.
Quin smiled at her then, a devilish smile. “No. Stop thinking.”
Stop thinking? Blast, the man had no idea what he was asking of her. Once her mind was traveling down a certain path, there was no stopping it.
Then he stroked against her with his thumb, light pressure at first and then rough, still sliding his fingers i
n and out at a rapid pace, and it suddenly became impossible to think at all. Her hips rose to meet him and her hands fisted in the sheets. “I need…I need…” She didn’t know what she needed. But if she didn’t get it in the next five seconds, someone would have to answer to her. Likely Quin.
He answered before that came to pass. “I know,” he said, his voice gruff. His mouth again came down upon her breast, grazing his teeth against the tip.
Aurora nearly came off the bed. She surely ripped the sheets from beneath her. Every nerve in her body, from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet, sang out. It was almost operatic. Her moan, however, was most decidedly not. Operatic, that was. It sounded like a tortured animal finally giving in to death. But oh, how that death had been worth it.
Twice a Rake Page 12
