“Because,” Joseph said, feeding her another bite of pear, “it is the stated purpose of Oxford to ensure the sons of the Beau Monde form generational solidarity with one another.”
While he pronounced judgment on his alma mater, Louisa slid the fork from his hand and speared another bite of pear.
“Because,” she said, holding the fork to Joseph’s mouth, “they are of an age. Valentine sent you a warning.”
Joseph closed his lips around the dessert and tasted pear, cinnamon, and brandy in an explosion of sweetness on his tongue. “What is this warning?”
He did not relieve her of the fork.
“Grattingly was involved in several duels at university. Valentine seconded two of his opponents.”
As Joseph swallowed another bite of pear and heaven, he let his gaze travel over Louisa’s hands. Pretty hands, and despite what he faced tomorrow—maybe because of what he faced—he wanted to feel those hands on his person.
“I’ve been a second myself. Life on the Peninsula seemed to breed displays of bravado like an army bedroll breeds fleas.”
She paused, feeding herself a bite of pear from the fork they’d been sharing. She had a pretty mouth too. “You’ll tell me about that sometime, won’t you?”
“About the fleas?”
“About campaigning under Wellington. Bart’s letters made it sound like a jolly lark, but a jolly lark does not explain why Devlin came home in such a deplorable condition.”
“One hears St. Just is doing much better now, but yes, Louisa, I will tell you whatever you wish to know about army life. What was Lord Valentine’s warning to me?”
Between gorging himself visually on her beauty, letting her feed him a subtly decadent dessert, and awareness of what awaited him in the morning, it took Joseph until the pears were gone to understand something: Louisa Windham—soon to be Louisa Carrington—was afraid.
For him. Fear put the pallor to her complexion, the shadows beneath her eyes, the tension around her mouth. Seeing this, the anger Grattingly’s behavior had provoked bloomed into a simmering rage.
For her. For the lady who closed her eyes for a moment every time Joseph fed her a bite of pear.
“Valentine said for both duels Grattingly provided the pistols, and both of Valentine’s friends said they did not aim true. They pull left, both men were wounded too, one seriously, while Grattingly suffered not a scratch.”
“Interesting.”
As if he were already married to her, Joseph draped an arm around Louisa’s shoulders and tugged her back against his side. “So if I’m to use Grattingly’s pistols, I will compensate by aiming slightly right. I expect we will delope, my dear. You will try not to worry about this.”
“I can’t help but worry.” She remained stiff, as if trying to keep some semblance of authority over her person even as she permitted him his half embrace.
“I’m flattered, you know.”
His intended turned to regard him. “You could be dead this time tomorrow, and you’re flattered the woman who has agreed to marry you is worried? Joseph, you must not allow that man to do harm to your person.”
He kissed her, lest she work herself into a fit of the vapors over something neither of them could control. Rather than turn the kiss into a display of disregard for her anxiety, he offered her a kiss of comfort, of reassurance, and even gratitude for her concern.
“Joseph…” Her hand, no longer cold, cradled his jaw. “This solves nothing.”
He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It settles my nerves and distracts me from the looming ordeal.”
“Is it an ordeal?” Concern made her green eyes lambent. Joseph turned his cheek into her palm lest his gentlemanly restraint drown in those eyes.
“Of course not. It’s the merest nuisance, but I’m pandering to your tenderhearted nature.”
“You’re not lying to me? Not trying to set my nerves at ease with prevarication? You must not lie to me, Joseph. Not ever.”
“Louisa, I was a marksman for Wellington.” He kissed her palm. “I can handle any firearm, crossbow, long bow, or dart you put into my hands, and I give a good accounting of myself with knives, swords, and bare knuckles too.”
Her gaze searched his face. “You are very fierce. One would not suspect this, watching you with your daughters in the churchyard.”
“That requires an entirely different ferocity.” And the ability to withstand a pang of homesickness that even included Lady Ophelia.
“I’m going to like your girls, Joseph.”
“And they shall adore you.”
This earned him a small but genuine smile. “I had tea with Her Grace.”
He wanted to kiss her again, and she was discussing domestic trivialities. “Perhaps that was an ordeal?”
“I think Her Grace was giving me advice, or her blessing.”
Joseph kissed his fiancée’s cheek, catching a Christmassy whiff of cloves that did nothing to settle his unruly imagination. Rather than establish some distance, Joseph lingered near enough to run his nose along Louisa’s jaw. “What manner of advice?”
“Kiss me, Joseph Carrington.”
With pleasure. He kissed her sweetly and gently, until she was a warm, boneless weight of softly groaning female against his side, and then she kissed him sweetly and nowhere near gently.
By the time she had arranged herself flat on her back beneath him on the sofa, Joseph was neither missing his pet pig nor concerned about any duels. He was, however, in the last corner of his mind capable of rational thought, mightily troubled that Louisa had asked him to not lie to her—not ever—and he had been unable to respond with the promise he longed to give her.
Nine
“Where could she have gone?”
Only acts of God inspired Esther Windham to audible worry, and His Grace made it his business to know when such cataclysms were in the offing. Fortunately, there were none scheduled for the evening.
“Drink your tea, my dear. It’s a fine blend, and it will settle your nerves.” He picked up her teacup and held it out to her with his most husbandly smile, though how she could swill so much of the wretched stuff defied explanation.
“Percival Windham,” she replied frostily, “you patronize me at your peril.”
Much better, though he affixed a chastened expression to his features. “You say Louisa took a footman and headed north?”
Her Grace picked up an embroidery hoop and stabbed the needle through the fabric. “The shops are closed at this hour, Percy, and Louisa is not one to make last-minute holiday purchases. Why would she be heading toward Oxford Street?”
“My love, could she be headed for Sir Joseph’s town house? His morning might prove eventful.”
“Good God.” Her Grace tossed the embroidery hoop aside. “You think she’s gone to anticipate her vows? To indulge in melodrama that could leave her in a worse scandal than the one that’s afoot if Sir Joseph dies?”
“No, I do not. I believe she’s gone to spend some time with her fiancé, a man she’s increasingly fond of. Sir Joseph cares far too much for her to put her in harm’s way. Let’s collect Eve and Jenny and enjoy a pleasant evening meal.”
Her Grace rose from the settee, a determined light in her eye. “Louisa’s sisters will know where she’s gone, and they’ll not keep such a thing from us.”
The duke patted his wife’s hand when she accepted his escort. Her Grace worried about Louisa more than others, having once confided that Louisa was the child she did not understand.
Perhaps mothers seldom understood the offspring who most closely resembled them.
His Grace paused at the parlor favored by his daughters and rapped on the door. “Come along, my beauties. We must away to the banquet.”
Jenny opened the door. “It is time to eat already?” She was sporting the smile that likely fooled everybody in merry old England except her parents.
“I’m famished,” Eve said, appearing at Jenny’s side and wearing a comparably
mendacious, cheerful expression. “Cold weather always makes me hungry.”
“Where’s Louisa?” Her Grace asked. To her husband’s ear, there was a telltale note of imperiousness in the duchess’s voice.
“She has the headache.”
“It’s a slight stomachache.”
Louisa’s sisters had spoken simultaneously and then looked anywhere but at each other.
“What a shame,” His Grace murmured. “To be brought low by both miseries. We will save her a piece of cake in hopes of her speedy recovery. Come along, my dears.”
He ignored the consternation momentarily flaring in his wife’s eyes, knowing Her Grace would never take him to task before the children. With her youngest daughters trailing docilely behind, the duchess went in to dinner on His Grace’s arm, and true to His Grace’s prediction, the meal was quite pleasant.
The duke knew a spark of pride when his duchess even recalled to have a piece of chocolate cake sent up to Louisa’s chamber when dessert was served.
***
“This is not what I had planned for dessert, Louisa Windham.”
Sir Joseph murmured the words near Louisa’s ear, though she was too enchanted with the feel of his weight above her to argue. “I’ve never wrestled with a grown man before.”
“You had the element of surprise to aid you. When you are my wife, I will not be so easily subdued as to end up on my own hearth rug, regardless of the astonishing pleasures to be found there.”
Louisa concluded she’d subdued him thoroughly, for he did not move off her where she lay on that rug.
“Joseph, did you just use your tongue—?”
“I’m tasting you, seeing if you savor of the Christmassy scent you’ve teased my nose with on so many occasions.”
His voice had taken on a purring quality, the sound of it curling straight down beneath Louisa’s belly to places low and sweet. “I believe I will enjoy being married to you, sir.”
“Hush.” He traced the curve of her ear with his nose, which made her shiver wonderfully. “I’m wrestling with my conscience—and, madam, I intend to emerge victorious from at least one struggle this evening—though be assured you shall enjoy certain parts of being married to me a great deal.”
“One hoped that would be the—oh, Joseph…”
He’d shifted, wedged his body more tightly into hers so she could feel his arousal.
“The lady falls silent. Surely, the season of miracles is upon us.”
Louisa closed her eyes, the better to appreciate the marvelous sensations Joseph’s hand on her breast evoked. He knew what he was about, handling her gently but with an assurance that had heat streaking in all directions inside her.
“I want my clothes off,” she said, squirming into his weight. “I want your clothes off.” Abruptly, the idea of marriage—marriage to Joseph—had developed a compelling appeal.
Joseph lifted up a little, onto his forearms and knees, and Louisa wanted to screech over the loss of him. “You frighten me, Louisa Windham. Remind me to remove all bindings, knives, riding crops, gags, and blindfolds from our bedroom for our wedding night.”
She heard the smile in his voice as she opened her eyes to peer up at him. “You find this humorous? I’m in a passion for a man for the first time in my life, and you’re amused?”
The smile died, but the warmth in his eyes did not. “For the first time, Louisa?”
She hid her face against his shoulder. “You heard me.”
He cradled the back of her head in one large palm and rose up over her, a comforting, arousing abundance of healthy male that blotted out Louisa’s awareness of everything else.
“I can give you pleasure, Louisa, but my conscience will not allow me to entirely anticipate our vows.”
Louisa strongly suspected Joseph was being decent. She wanted to wallop his dratted conscience halfway to Scotland. “Why not?”
“Because Grattingly uses crooked pistols, and because I esteem you too greatly.” He delivered these declarations so gently, they sounded to Louisa like the concluding couplet to a poem, for all she resented the truths they spoke to. The last thing her parents needed was the illegitimate grandchild who could result from a night of passion.
From a single moment of passion.
“What is this pleasuring you refer to?”
She felt him chuckle. “You sound so suspicious, Louisa. I allude to the intimate pleasure a man brings to a woman he cares for, a pleasure you can bring yourself, if you’re so motivated, and one I will visit upon you often once we’re married.”
While he made his threats, Louisa stroked her hand over his hair. She had the odd thought she was glad he was dark like she, not a perfect, shining blond god, and though even his voice was dark, his hair was soft beneath her fingers.
“Do not lecture me, Joseph. Kiss me.”
He fell silent, and Louisa closed her eyes, expecting the pleasure of his mouth on hers. Instead, he used his lips on the place where her shoulder met her neck, a tender, vulnerable location that bloomed with warmth at the touch of his mouth.
“Do not be impatient, Louisa.”
She’d been born impatient, born having to wait for those whose brains could only dawdle and stumble along, but when Joseph used his mouth on her neck again, it was Louisa’s brain stumbling.
“I do like that, Joseph.”
“How convenient. I rather enjoy it myself.”
He sounded smug. She didn’t care. While a slow, sweet warmth purred up from her middle, Louisa tugged Joseph’s shirt from his waistband.
“In a hurry, Louisa?”
When had a man ever put so much lazy warmth in a simple question? “If you don’t want me undressing you, then take it off yourself.”
He lifted up, pulled his shirt over his head, and resumed nuzzling her neck in the time it took Louisa to draw a breath.
“Better.” Much, much better. To feel the warmth of his skin, the exact contour of his muscles and bones beneath her hands was better indeed.
“Then you won’t mind some turnabout.” He moved again, this time shifting to her side. “Shall I blow out the candles, Louisa?”
He lounged beside her, head propped on his hand, surveying her with a peculiar light in his eyes. She wanted to see all of him but realized he’d then expect to see all of her. Her bold pronouncement about removing clothing had been made by desire galloping well in advance of her courage.
“Yes, please douse the candles.”
He moved around the room in just his breeches and boots, leaving Louisa a moment to simply watch him. She beheld abundant muscle, a kind of prowling grace despite the slight unevenness of his gait, and she beheld evidence of his arousal behind his falls.
Or so she suspected. There had been some phrases and words she hadn’t been able to translate from the Latin, and her useless, idiot, twitting brothers had found her requests for assistance uproariously funny.
“You can still change your mind, Louisa,” Joseph said, lowering himself to the rug and tugging off his boots. “A few days from now, we’ll be married, and there will be nothing of the illicit about intimacies even greater than these.”
Louisa watched the firelit shadows play over his features. “That always struck me as ridiculous. The same act is a sin in the morning but a sacrament at night, provided you say some magic words and wear the right dress.”
“I am marrying a radical and a blasphemer.” Joseph tossed pillows down from the sofa and stretched out beside her. “We’ll have very lively discussions.”
He began to unbutton her dress, which as luck would have it fastened down the front. His hands were large, in proportion to the rest of him, and he had an ink stain on the heel of his right palm.
“I like that you aren’t put off easily, Joseph. We will have some lively discussions.”
“We might even argue, Louisa.” He smiled, then leaned down over her breastbone and inhaled through his nose. “I intend to be married to you for quite some time and have not such
a store of gentlemanly manners as most of the fellows you socialize with.”
“Will we raise our voices to each other?”
He drew a finger slowly over the swell of Louisa’s breasts. “I will never raise my voice to you in anger, Louisa Windham, soon to be Louisa Carrington.”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and felt a lump rising in her throat. As Joseph slowly, almost reverently loosened her clothing, Louisa had a vision of them both aging amid a houseful of children, rousing discussions at the supper table presaging tender loving in the privacy of their quarters. She had not looked for this, had not thought it could be hers, but lying there while her intended gently acquainted her with his intimate touch, she felt something lovely and sweet stirring along with desire.
She felt hope. Hope for herself, hope for this unlikely marriage.
“Louisa, my dear, your intimate apparel is a revelation.”
He was staring at her chemise, a red silk creation embroidered along the border with green, gold, and white thread in a holly pattern.
“Jenny makes them for us, and these stays are her design too.”
The stays laced up the front, an old-fashioned construction not usually considered appropriate for Town wear. With some maneuvering, they could be put on and taken off without the assistance of a lady’s maid… Or with the assistance of a fiancé.
Joseph began undoing the laces, causing little pulls and tugs Louisa had felt many times before, though never in a context that made her attend the sensations.
“I wonder if His Grace knows his womenfolk are so enterprising. Lady Jenny could make a fortune with these.”
Louisa ran her hand through his hair. “Are you talking to settle my nerves?”
He pushed her stays aside then started on the bows of her chemise. “Is it working?”
“I’m not nervous, Joseph, I’m… restless. Inside.”
He kissed her on the mouth. “The things you speak aloud, Louisa. The things I want to do with you…”
She hadn’t lied, she was restless, but also uncertain of how to go on, which state of affairs she loathed. Joseph finished untying the bows of Louisa’s chemise, and for the first time in her life, Louisa felt the weight of an adult male gaze on her naked breasts.
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