The door of the dining room opened and Mrs. Durham sailed out. “Melicent!” she called. “Where are you? I need you!”
Alex raised one dark brow. “So do I,” he whispered. “And my claim is the more urgent.”
He turned her smartly around before her mother could see her state of undress and grasped her wrists together behind her back. He held them in a light but firm clasp and gave her a little gentle push toward the stair, his body shielding her from view. He did not let her go as they mounted to the first floor, and with each step Melicent became more and more burningly aware of his grip on her tender flesh, the promise of it, the caress of his fingers against her pulse, the way the dark urgency grew between them until she opened the door of her bedchamber and he kicked it shut behind them. Only then did he let her go, spinning her around, ripping the buttons from her bodice and the neck of her chemise with it.
Melicent gave a gasp. “My clothes!”
“I’ll buy you more.” He sounded impatient. He was already kissing her again, deep, dark kisses that stole her soul, even as he slid the clothes down her body with impatient hands. She was shocked at his haste. When she had been his virgin bride he had treated her with gentle consideration. There was none of that now. His touch was greedy on her. He bent his head and sucked the tip of her nipple, and the pleasure lanced through her, spiraling down through her belly, molten and unspeakably delicious. She whimpered and her knees buckled. Alex picked her up and dropped her onto the bed, coming down over her so that his insatiable lips could once again take her breasts and draw them, hot and wet, into his mouth. Sensual bliss rippled through her at the unremitting assault. She arched to the demand of his lips, tongue and teeth, feeling her body swell with need and unfurl, lush and hot, for him.
Alex stripped off his own clothes, and she gasped at the sight of his magnificent and unabashed nudity. She had never seen him naked before. When first they were wed he had come to her room wearing a dressing gown and she had screwed her eyes up very tightly when he had divested himself of it. She had never dared look at him and even less had she reached out to touch him. Now, though, having thrown caution and modesty to the winds, she stared openly at his glorious masculine beauty, at the long legs, the hard, flat stomach, the muscular planes of his chest and shoulders, the honey-colored skin. He was hugely aroused and he looked enormous. Remembering the acute embarrassment and pain of her wedding night, Melicent felt a momentary pang of fear, but then he joined her on the bed and the delicious friction of bare skin against bare skin drove all anxiety from her.
He reached for something from the nightstand and Melicent saw that he had one of her quill pens in his hand.
“The tools of your trade,” Alex said. “How appropriate.” His eyes had narrowed to a dark glitter, heavy with lust. He took the quill and brushed it over her breasts, and Melicent was so shocked that she fell back, boneless with lust, on the bed. The touch of the plume was soft and sensuous, and the stealthy, subtle sweep of the feather over her nipples caused them to harden further. Melicent gave a gasp and arched helplessly, and Alex made a sound of satisfaction deep in his throat.
The feather danced its teasing way down the curve of her stomach, making Melicent’s muscles tense and the goose bumps play across her skin. It was soft and tantalizing, making her squirm in sensuous torment. She felt Alex spread her thighs wide apart and push a pillow beneath her bottom, raising her, exposing her. Before she could form either question or protest, the naughty lick of the plume began again, stroking the impossibly vulnerable skin of her inner thighs, flicking upward against her cleft in a sly caress until she writhed, her fingers digging into the covers. The gentle brush of the feather became firmer and defter, back and forth across the very core of her, fierce, fast, wicked, working over her, until the tip of it found the center of all pleasure and the coiled desire within her burst and she tumbled over the edge in rapturous delight for the very first time in her life. She bucked, and immediately Alex held her hips down and his mouth replaced the feather, his tongue flicking relentlessly against her until the hot sweetness swamped her again, driving out all rational thought, and she lay limp and ravished, stunned and silent, on the bed.
“Turn over.”
Melicent barely had the energy to move and Alex had to roll her over himself. She felt the pillow press into her stomach, and then Alex was lifting her onto her knees and his hands moved over the curve of her bottom, raising her, canting her body to exactly the right angle to take her. He slid inside her and they both cried out as he started to move within her in thick, hard strokes. She felt so tight and so full and so impossibly pleasured, but even as she was sure she could take no more, the ripples of ecstasy started deep in her belly.
“Not yet.” He had felt it, too. He withdrew until there was little more than a tantalizing inch of him still inside her. “You owe me more than that.”
Melicent did not know what he meant, nor did she care. His hands came around to toy with her breasts and she instinctively pushed back against him, wanting the penetration, wanting him deep within her. She could sense his control and his desperate desire to possess her, but he merely laughed and held back, taking her with quick, sharp, shallow movements that only left her wanting more. The ruthless invasion of her body went on and on, her breasts rubbing provocatively against the cover with each thrust until, tormented beyond bearing, she felt the rapture build inside her for a third time.
“Not yet,” Alex said again, holding back.
“I can’t help it!” Melicent wailed. Her entire body shook with spasm after spasm of helpless ecstasy and she fell forward onto the bed, her legs shaking too much to hold her up. Alex followed her down, still inside her, and they lay, she quiescent beneath him, whilst the tremors racked her and she sobbed her pleasure.
She could not understand what had happened to her. Starved of physical enjoyment for so long, she seemed utterly at Alex’s mercy. To desire and be desired was so heady. The discovery of this wild, wanton passion within her was intoxicating, driving out all other thoughts and needs.
She was not sure how long they lay there, she twitching with the aftermath of passion, he still hot and huge and heavy inside her. Her mind reeled as he tumbled her over and took her still-shuddering body with his again. His strokes were hard, measured and deep, raising an echo of feeling in her that Melicent would have sworn was impossible after the bliss her body had already experienced.
“I cannot,” she begged, even as the muscles in her belly trembled and jumped again in response to the demand of his body on hers.
“You can.”
“Oh, yes…” Her word ended on a whimper of pleasure as Alex licked at her mouth and took her lower lip between his teeth, biting gently.
“I want to take you back to Beaumont with me,” he whispered as his tongue took her mouth much as his body was taking hers, “and make love to you all the time, Melicent. Before breakfast when you are rosy and warm and soft from sleep, and when you have dressed, so that I can strip you naked again, and when you are getting ready for dinner wearing nothing but the jewels I will give you—”
His licentious words were too much for her, and Melicent climaxed tight and hard about him and he drove himself furiously into her, and finally the world shattered about them both and they fell together and shattered into bliss and eventually into peace.
Alex woke as the winter dawn light started to creep into the bedroom. Melicent was curled up against him, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder. Alex moved slightly and she burrowed closer to him. Her hair was spread across his chest just as he had imagined it in his dreams. She was deliciously warm and soft, and she smelled faintly of apples and honey. Her face was serene in sleep.
Alex had never woken like this before. When first they had been wed he had always left Melicent’s room immediately after making love to her and had retired to his own chamber next door. He slept alone and woke alone. He had thought that he liked it; he had always been a man comfortable in his own
company.
Now he looked at Melicent, so vulnerable and trusting, and he felt a sense of peace and protectiveness so profound that it shook him to the depths of his being. He had been driven by anger and lust and possessiveness the previous night, and it would have been easy to see Melicent’s response to him as the brazen behavior of an experienced woman, the sort of woman he would expect the erotic writer Lady Loveless to be. Yet he could not believe Melicent had been unfaithful to him. Although she had met with equal passion every one of the sensual demands that he had made on her, there had been no artifice or calculation in her. The sweet honesty of her response to him had touched him profoundly. She had been as open and generous in her lovemaking as he suspected she was in every other aspect of her life. She was simply a very candid and giving person.
Alex felt a sudden pang that he had never taken the trouble to get to know his wife properly before. He had thought himself the injured party when his father had blackmailed him into marriage. But Melicent, too, had deserved better. Now, though, he could make up for the neglect and the hurt of the past. He would court her, cherish her and show her how important she was to him. He felt supremely satisfied at the thought. He was even prepared—most magnanimously—to overlook her ventures into literature. Her work as Lady Loveless had been rather unorthodox, of course, but she had been doing it for the right reasons. Mrs. Durham was greedy and extravagant. It was easy to see from whom Aloysius had inherited his profligate ways.
Alex turned his head and saw that Melicent was awake. She had pulled the sheet up to her chin and was watching him with a mixture of shyness and wariness in her eyes. His heart turned over to see it. He pressed a kiss against the silken softness of her hair.
“Good morning, my love.”
“Alex,” Melicent said. Her eyes grew even bigger as she looked at the rangy length of him taking up most of the space in her chaste single bed. “Did I dream it,” she began hesitantly, “or did we…”
“We did,” Alex said, smiling, and saw the color deepen in her cheeks.
“Oh!” She scrambled away from him as though she had been scalded and climbed out of the far side of the bed, taking most of the bedclothes with her. The room was icy cold. Alex’s erection, which had been swelling most enjoyably as a result of his memories of the previous night and the effect of having Melicent’s yielding body pressed against him, dwindled rapidly in the chill.
“Melicent,” he said, “please come back to bed.” But she shook her head. She was backing away from him with something that looked like horror in her expression. Alex suddenly felt chilled by more than the cold room.
“I don’t know how I could have done that,” she said in a rapid undertone. “I must have been mad, when you care nothing for me and never have done! To have humiliated myself and behaved like such a wanton—”
Alex grabbed her wrist to stop her rushing from the room. The bedclothes fell to the floor, leaving her naked. She gave a little wail and tried to cover herself, but he was too quick for her, scooping her up and pulling her back to the bed.
“Melicent,” he said. He was not sure if he was more concerned by her words or by the look of blank misery on her face. “I don’t understand. You did not humiliate yourself last night. It was wonderful, perfect—” He tried to find the words but stopped in dismay as he saw a tear squeeze out of the corner of her eye and run down her cheek into her hair. She lay quite still, making no attempt to cover her nakedness now. She looked distractingly lovely, all lush curves and creamy skin—and tormented misery. Alex gathered her close in his arms, wanting only to comfort her.
“Tell me what is wrong,” he said, his lips pressed against her hair.
He felt a sob shake her, but she repressed it. “I am so angry with myself for making love with you,” she said. “I did not want to want you, but it had been so long and I… I am not sure quite what happened to me.”
She sounded so lost and miserable that he hastened to reassure her. “Sweetheart,” he said, “there is no shame in it. It was wonderful. And we are wed—”
She pulled herself abruptly from his arms and her eyes flashed with fury. “Yes, we are wed, Alex, but for all of our marriage you have paid no heed to me at all! You might as well have been a bachelor for all the difference it made!” She drew the blankets about her and sat looking at him with a sort of defiant, disheveled dignity. It made him want to kiss her, but he judged that this was not, perhaps, the moment.
“Oh, I always knew that it was your papa who desired the match, not you,” Melicent said bitterly. “I knew you preferred Beaumont to me! Whenever you came to me you touched me as though you hated me! And when I left, you did not trouble to follow me, or even to write. I had more correspondence with your agent than I did with you, and I would have given everything for just one letter from you!” She swallowed hard. “I was so angry. But then last night I forgot all of that and was so shameless and so… so brazen!” She made a small, infuriated noise. “I cannot forgive myself,” she finished, a little forlornly. “Not when I know you have never cared a rush for me and never will.”
Alex was staring at her as though she had hit him over the head with a saucepan, Melicent thought. He ran one hand through his hair, disordering it thoroughly. He looked baffled and upset and so damned handsome that Melicent swore on the spot that she was not—she really, really was not—going to forgive him and fall straight back in love with him in the same foolish, immature and pointless fashion that she had done when she had been a nineteen-year-old bride.
Alex took her hands in his. She allowed them to stay there because it felt right, even though it should have felt wrong.
“Melicent.” He sounded wretched. “Sweetheart, I had no idea. I thought that you did not realize…” He stopped.
Melicent’s heart sank like a stone.
I thought that you did not realize…
Even though she had known he had not cared a ha’porth for her, it felt devastating to have the matter confirmed. She bent her head and stared at their linked hands.
“I realiszd from the start,” she said. “Your father forced you to wed me, did he not? I do not know how or why, but I know he did.”
“He threatened to take Beaumont away from me,” Alex said simply. “He pointed out that I had no right to run the estates, and he was correct, of course, for he owned them and after him my elder brother, Harry, inherited. I had no claim at all.”
“But you love Beaumont with all your heart,” Melicent said. She felt cold with shock. So this was the threat the duke had used to coerce his son—taking away from him the one thing that gave his life meaning. “You are the only one who has ever cared for the land and the people,” she said. “Without you the whole place would have gone to ruin long ago!”
Alex looked at her. His dark eyes were tired. “Papa wanted to ensure the succession of the title. He knew Henry would never wed. Put plainly, Henry’s affections are not for the female sex. So he decided to coerce me even though I was young and was not ready for marriage.” He looked rueful. “I was too wrapped up in my books and too in love with Beaumont to have space for anyone or anything else, Melicent. I am sorry.”
“You were angry,” Melicent whispered, “and now I understand why.”
“I tried not to let it show with you,” Alex said. “I knew it was not your fault.” He shook his head. “But you are right—whenever I saw you, whenever I touched you, I felt such anger over my father’s blackmail. It was inevitable that you should feel it, I suppose.” His fingers tightened on hers. “I must have hurt you very badly. I am so very sorry, Melicent.”
Melicent’s throat tightened with tears. She was not going to say that did not matter, because it did. It mattered a lot. But with understanding came forgiveness of the fury and frustration of a young man who had been put in an impossible situation.
“Do you still feel angry with your father?” she asked.
Alex shook his head. “When he died, so did my anger. I realized I had been consumed w
ith a fury that was futile and senseless.” He raised her hand to his lips. “After he died I came to find you, Melicent—I was going to tell you everything and suggest that we should start again, but then you told me you were leaving and I thought it was too late for us. In my pride and my misery I let you go.”
Melicent leaned forward and kissed him gently. “And I left because I could bear no more of our estrangement,” she said. “I knew almost from the first that it was a mistake to come here to Peacock Oak, but in my pride I could not admit it.” She sighed. “We have both been very foolish, but perhaps it is not too late for us after all. I would like very much to start again.”
“I think,” Alex said, wicked amusement in his eyes now, “that we already have.”
“We started the wrong way around,” Melicent said, trying to sound severe. “We should get to know one another properly first, before…”
Alex tumbled her into his arms. “Before we make love?” he said.
“Absolutely,” Melicent whispered as her lips met his.
Chapter 4
The Night Before Christmas
Getting to know her own husband over the past fortnight, Melicent reflected, had been a delightful experience. Christmas this year was far exceeding her expectations. Together she and Alex had collected holly and mistletoe to decorate the house. They had visited the nearby village of Fortune’s Folly to buy fuel and candles and a Christmas turkey (a great improvement on the pickled scrag end of mutton that Mrs. Lubbock had been planning to serve on Christmas Day), they had taken long walks through the snowy countryside and they had attended church together, where the gossip about the arrival of Lady Melicent’s handsome husband, and his clear devotion to her, had barely died down sufficiently to allow the rector to deliver his sermon. They had taken dinner with the Duchess of Cole and with Major and Mrs. Falconer and had been very merry in company, for Mrs. Durham was so miraculously restored to health that she was even prepared to indulge in a game of Christmas charades. Alex, on seeing Melicent’s raw and chilblained hands, had bought her some rose- scented hand cream and a pair of exquisitely soft kid gloves, and had offered to help her with her household chores, which Melicent considered a sign of true devotion.
The Unmasking of Lady Loveless Page 3
