His Forsaken Bride (Vawdrey Brothers Book 2)

by Alice Coldbreath

  Fen had no idea why she was panting, although her husband’s lower body was pressed into her own in a somewhat suggestive manner. He probably didn’t intend it to be, she told herself, trying to think calming thoughts. One of his legs was pressed between hers in a way that was quite depriving her of all breath.

  “I was just-”

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” Despite his controlled manner of speaking, it occurred to Fen that he was not calm. Not at all. There was a small tic in his jaw that she had not noticed before.

  “If you want to ask me –” he broke off his words and stared fixedly past her ear a moment, before taking a deep breath. “There are some things that should be said between a man and a wife,” he said tersely. “Without an audience.”

  “What things?” asked Fen, realizing that despite his dominant stance, her husband was definitely on his back foot. She relaxed against the door, but he immediately crowded further into her. Fen took a deep breath.

  Again, he seemed to struggle for words. “If I can tolerate Thane’s existence on the face of this earth, then I don’t think you have any reason to feel ill-used,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  Fen considered this. “I suppose that’s fair,” she said. “Though after you jilted me, you had several other betrotheds, or so I heard. And now I find there were other women as well.” Her voice rose on the last four words.

  “Other women?” There was a definite edge to his voice now. Fen had no idea why she was pushing this, but she was feeling reckless. Like pulling a lion’s tail, or perhaps it should be a panther’s, she thought, thinking of the Vawdrey crest. “There have been no other women,” he said in a softly menacing voice. “Are you trying to deliberately provoke me?”

  “Enid Jauncey!” Fen flung at him.

  His expression flickered a moment. “A neighbor and friend of my sister-in-law,” he said. “What has she to do with me?”

  Fen found she was breathing hard now. “How should I know? I’ve heard precious little of your exploits over the years.”

  “Exploits?”

  “And why did Lady Sumner lend me her clothing when I first arrived?” asked Fen, her color mounting. She hadn’t even realized that still rankled. “Did you buy them for her?” she asked wildly. “Is she your –?”

  “Don’t you say it,” warned Oswald softly.

  “Mistress!” yelled Fen defiantly.

  Both of them were breathing hard now. Oswald stepped back so fast that Fen startled to topple forward, then she found herself yanked over toward the bed, his hands gripping her waist and hauling her without effort. Her feet left the floor and she was flung unceremoniously down onto the mattress, face first. As she struggled to sit up, he was on her, shoving her flat, and tugging at the lacings that ran down the back of her dress. Fen squirmed and wriggled, but it made no difference. The bodice of her dress went slack, but to her surprise, he didn’t drag it off her. Instead his weight briefly left her, and she felt her skirts being flung up exposing her legs and backside. “What are you doing?” she squeaked.

  “Can’t you tell?” he asked, settling behind her. “We’ve done it this way before. Like the beasts. Remember? I’m going to mount you from behind.”

  Fen gasped, stiff as a plank, but it made no difference as his warm hand slid around to her tummy and then dipped lower to cup her between her legs. He was lying on top of her now, pinning her in place. “Open your legs wider.” She felt his voice vibrate deep in her stomach and turned bright red.

  “I can’t, you’re squashing me flat!” she lied, mortified at the view he must be getting of her fleshy backside. He hadn’t even removed her stockings! She had lost one shoe in the tussle in the doorway, but she fancied the other hung off her foot. She kicked her leg and heard the shoe fall to the floor with a dull thud.

  “No matter,” said Oswald calmly. He shifted over her, so he was straddling her waist, but facing her feet.

  She stiffened at the outrage. “What are you doing?”

  “Just enjoying the view,” he said lightly and ran his hands over the twin globes of her buttocks. He leant down and brushed a kiss first on one and then the other.

  Fen gasped. “Y-you’re the wrong way round!”

  He laughed softly. “You sound so outraged, Fenella. But if you feel so strongly about me not having a mistress, then there is a certain price that has to be paid.”

  “What price?” huffed Fen, feeling his hand rest on her behind and then lightly trace down the crack until his questing fingers slid right into her secret female place, that ached and tingled and was already embarrassingly wet. “Oh!” Fen dropped her face onto the mattress and bit her lip as she tried not to react to the wicked fingers which probed and stroked and slid, until she found herself opening her legs of her own accord to give him better access. Her cheeks burned, finding herself acting the wanton.

  “It doesn’t seem you’ll mind overmuch,” he said lightly teasing.

  Fen felt her forehead break out in a light sweat as she started to move desperately against the slide of his fingers. She whimpered.

  “There?”

  She nodded her head desperately, forgetting he wasn’t looking in the direction of her face. “Please!” she burst out.

  He re-doubled his efforts and Fen felt an explosion behind her eyeballs. She shouted hoarsely, and he shoved his fingers deep inside her, his thumb still rotating lightly against the little bead that was so sensitive. As the euphoria subsided, he flexed his fingers, prolonging her tremors and drawing them out until she was nothing more than a shimmering, melted puddle of bliss. Fen’s eyes drifted shut, and she was barely aware of the fact she was being rolled onto her back. She groaned, and felt him resettle over her, but she kept her eyes resolutely shut. Mayhap, he would take pity on her and realize her legs were too weak to hold her up right now if he wanted to do it like the beasts of the field. She needed a breather at least. Then she felt his hair brush her thighs and her eyes sprang open, at the precise moment she felt his warm breath against her most intimate place. “Husband!”

  He glanced up as he rearranged her limbs, so that her knees were over his shoulders. “You’ve a price to pay, remember?”

  Fen gazed at him. “A price?”

  “For my not employing a mistress,” he answered.

  Fen huffed out a breath, as her mind reeled. Her position was most indecent. Somehow her green stockings and red garters intact made it even worse. She could only imagine the picture she must present to his eyes. She looked back at him uncertainly, but his rapt gaze was between her open legs.

  “Gods, you’re so-” he said thickly, and then lowered his mouth to her. Fen sucked in a shocked breath. He had done this to her before, of course. But she hadn’t been fully dressed. And she hadn’t had her legs flung over his shoulders. And she hadn’t known what to expect. This time felt very different, as she clutched the bedsheets and writhed like a snake against the mattress. He took a lot longer over it this time. Almost an indecent amount of time. With embarrassing speed he brought her to the brink of the cliff again and again, only to avoid the crisis and then try a different approach which grew and grew until she was back on the precipice again. In this position, there was no escape from that tormenting mouth which seemed to have learned her every weak spot and secret delight. She shivered. She shuddered. She started to rock herself against his mouth. She was so close. So, so close. When he lifted his head and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, Fen stared up at him in speechless indignation! Before she could complain at such treatment, however, she noticed the molten heat in his eyes.

  “Up!” he said, his voice gravelly. “I need to be inside you. Now.” He was unhooking her legs and rolling her back onto her stomach. He deftly unfastened his crotch and Fen’s eye was drawn to his angry looking manhood which sprang forth. It stood pointing almost straight up and looked more swollen than ever. He didn’t bother to remove his long black chauses or undo his tunic. “Up on your knees,” he urged her, hi
s hands at her waist. Fen scrambled to her knees, but her skirts were getting in the way in the front. “Wait,” she panted. “My dress…”

  But he was past waiting. As she fumbled, trying to drag the caught-up material from under her knees, he was lining their bodies up, behind her. She felt the swollen head of his man-root at her needy entrance and whimpered. The next thing she knew, he had driven its full length into her and was so deep her eyes watered. “Oh, my lord!” she shrieked, and he stilled.

  “Fen? Are you-?”

  She lowered her head and wailed as her shuddering body was engulfed in wave after wave of sensation.

  He groaned, “That feels so good. You’re going to make me reach it too soon.” Then he slammed into her again and again, his hard hips pummeling against her soft, cushiony body. Fen’s arms gave out partway through and she turned her face to the side, so her cheek rested against the mattress as he hammered his way right through her own rapture and loudly achieved his own. He lay a moment, covering her back as he recovered his breath. Then he peeled himself off her with a reluctant sigh and turned her over. “Let’s get this off you,” he murmured.

  Fen’s eyes fluttered open. It was a good job he’d loosened her gown at the start, she thought. Or she wouldn’t have been able to catch her breath once he’d started with her. She looked down in dismay at several rents at the front of her dress from where the front of her skirt had torn away from the bodice. Whatever will Trudy think?

  “I’ll buy you a new one,” said Oswald seeing the direction of her gaze.

  “I’m sure it can be mended,” she said, as he lifted her gown up and over her head.

  He dropped it over the side of the bed, straightened her shift, and then palmed her cheek, looking into her eyes. “Was I too rough?”

  Fen felt her color flood back again. “No,” she said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure,” she said turning from him self-consciously to pull back the covers.

  “Fen.”

  She looked up.

  “You know those things I said about paying prices and mistresses was all just bullshit, don’t you?”

  She hesitated. “Previously, you did say you’d lived a celibate life for many years,” she said, looking to him for confirmation.

  He nodded. “That’s right, I did.”

  Fen thought this over as she slipped under the covers. She had been a fool to overreact the way she did about Lady Anne. She was ashamed of herself. That lady had done nothing but act kindly toward her, even if she wasn’t very friendly.

  Oswald was re-fastening his crotch and to her surprise, apart from some hectic color in his face, looked otherwise completely unscathed from the encounter.

  “Are you not joining me in bed?” she blurted, watching him straighten himself.

  “I certainly am,” he said with a faint smile. “But I’ll go and see about some hot water first. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  Fen pressed her thighs together and acknowledged that a wash would be good. She hugged her knees as he went out the door and shut it behind him, her feelings in a tumult. She had never thought herself a particularly jealous woman before. If she wasn’t careful, she’d give him a disgust of her she thought anxiously. Men hated jealous women, or so everyone said. She was just experiencing a severe dip in her emotions when the door re-opened and Oswald himself came in carrying a jug of hot water.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s have you.”

  Fen slipped from the bed and joined him as he poured some into a bowl for her and handed her some sweet smelling soap leaves. She quickly worked up a lather and gave herself a thorough wash under her shift. Oswald made no comment about her modesty, just handed her a drying cloth and when she had finished, stripped down and washed himself. Fen got back into bed and he joined her mere moments later, sliding right across into her space and taking her in his arms.

  Her husband settled against her back, kissing her shoulder and holding her close. A comfortable silence stretched, when to her surprise, he suddenly broke it. “Lady Anne Sumner is in my employ,” he said quietly. “She’s a spy for the Crown. I never felt anything for her. Any time we spent together was just business. Since you and I have been reunited, Bryce has made sure she receives any orders from him. He’s made it clear it offends his sense of propriety for me to be in a room alone with her.”

  Fen considered this for a moment. “I do like Bryce,” she sighed. “It was foolish of me to bring Lady Anne Sumner up like that that,” she said, hanging her head. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t show you up too badly in front of your family. I will apologize to them all on the morn.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” he told her firmly. “It’s really not necessary. You should have seen the way Mason carried on when he first wed Linnet. He was always flying up into the boughs about something or other.”

  Fen thought about this a moment. He was kind to make excuses for her, but she had been out of order. “It shouldn’t have bothered me,” she said. “But it did. The Queen said that she thought Lady Sumner would be the sort of person who would be ideally-matched with you.” She paused while Oswald made an irritated noise. “But she meant no mischief by it.”

  “Oh, didn’t she?” he said grimly.

  Fen carried on in a rush. “I know I shouldn’t care about that your association with Lady Anne, now I know she’s protecting the realm. But I can’t help but be glad that Bryce is a stickler for propriety,” she admitted wretchedly.

  He lay very still a moment. “Say that again, Fen.”

  “I never thought of myself as a petty, jealous wife before,” she said in a small voice. “But it appears that’s what I am.”

  To her surprise, her husband loomed over her a moment, before rolling her on her back and taking her under him. “I don’t mind you being jealous, Fenella,” he said, taking her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss. He pulled back. “You can be jealous all you want. It only seems fair. After all, I won’t be able to rest until I’ve run that bastard Thane clear out of Aphrany.”

  Fen opened her mouth to respond to his astonishing news, only to find her lips taken again in a strangely tender, yet erotic kiss. His tongue danced against hers, and daringly, she responded in kind. He made a strangled noise into her mouth, then his hands were running up her thighs, bunching up her shift.

  “I’m going to get you all dirty again,” he warned.

  Fen huffed out a breath as she felt his manhood, hard and heavy against her stomach. “So…no mistresses?” she said, biting her lip as he hooked her knee and drew it up.

  “None,” he said simply. “I only want you. Wrap your leg around my waist.”

  Fen breathed out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. I only want you. It was strange to think her jealousy had so inflamed him, but it seemed that was indeed the case.

  This time their coming together was slow and thorough. Fen ran her hands up and down his back and sides, and if he wasn’t kissing her lips, it was her throat, or her breasts.

  “You’re so beautiful, Fenella,” he told her, his mouth against her ear. “And you’re all mine.”

  Afterward, as they lay entangled and depleted, Fen drifted off into a dream about a small wooden bridge she could not cross because a man had hold of her hand and would not let go. She frowned in her sleep until she recognized the ring on his finger bore her family crest of the Bernard bear, and then she relaxed. For some reason, she could not raise her eyes to his face, but she was content to let him lead her away from the bridge, toward an oak tree that stood on a hill.

  **

  “Fenella.” Fen’s eyes opened, even though the word was spoken quietly.

  Oswald was dressed and stood by the side of the bed. “Come and break your fast with me,” he said, and held out his hand imperiously.

  Fen rose at once and he enfolded her in his peacock blue robe and led her into the adjoining shared room.

  Meldon was stumping round, setting down plates of food
from a tray. “Shall I fetch more?” he asked squinting at them and then the contents of the table.

  “I’m sure that’s ample,” said Fen, who wasn’t really hungry. She yawned.

  “I should have left you in bed,” said Oswald ruefully. “It’s only that I’m going to be very busy over the next few days.” He hesitated. “With this whole Blechmarsh princess matter coming to a head.”

  “Oh,” said Fen, sitting down beside him. She wanted to press him for more details, but did not quite like to.

  “I’ll be rising early and returning late.”

  Fen’s face fell. “Oh, that’s a shame.”

  “It feels like I never get to spend any time alone with you, these days,” he added with a faint frown.

  Fen smiled and propped her chin up with her hand. “I’m glad you woke me.”

  “Good.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

  Meldon cleared his throat disapprovingly as he set down a jug of water and a jug of ale.

  “What are you about today?” Oswald asked her, ignoring his manservant.

  “Mathilde Martindale said she would accompany me this morning as I sit for Signor Arnotti. We have to finish our tapestry design and I thought I would teach her how to play that card game Livelihoods.”

  Oswald nodded, tucking into some toasted bread.

  “It’s exceedingly dull sitting on that window seat,” admitted Fen. “If my friends hadn’t rallied around I don’t know what I would have done.”

  Oswald took a sip of water. “Hopefully the result will be worth it,” he said.

  Fen spared a glance for her adolescent portrait, and heartily seconded that wish. “If it is even half-decent, at least we can consign that other portrait to a dark cupboard,” she said hopefully.

  Oswald frowned. “I’m rather fond of that other portrait,” he said, and reached inside his tunic to touch something. Fen remembered his chain and wondered if it was a talisman. “There’s no rule that I can’t have two portraits of my wife, that I’m aware,” he said lightly.

  “What about you?” asked Fen. “Are there any boyhood portraits of you at Vawdrey Keep?”