Had all the pleasure she felt been only the result of the opium sailing through her veins? But she had hated every moment of her captivity. There had been no pleasure then, and she had been drugged to the point of near-unconsciousness.
There had to be some sort of sensible answer to the mystery. But what?
Althea got a clue one day when she came upon her husband in the library sleeping. She knelt to kiss him, deepening the contact until she parted his lip with her own, and slid in her tongue sinuously. Her flesh and spirit soared. All of the old delight had come back to her in full measure
She could feel the moist heat building between her thighs. He angled his head to deepen the kiss, and his hands came up to tease her nipples, feather the sides of her throat, stroke around and behind her ears.
He was about to lift her skirts when the butler interrupted, telling him Philip had called. That put paid to their lovemaking in an instant, and with one last peck on the cheek he left her.
Their meeting that night was slightly better, but the grinding sensation was still there, and left Althea exhausted and tearful, completely at a loss as to what to do to improve her lot.
Matthew was even more despairing, convinced she hated him touching her, believing that because he couldn't get the night in the brothel out of his mind, that she reproached him bitterly too. The afternoon in the library had been lovely, but one simply didn't toss one's wife on her back on the carpet or sofa. He had to act the gentleman, even if his thoughts were in the gutter.
He stood or sat far away from Althea now so he could be sure there would be no accidental touching. If he did go to sleep, he did so behind closed and locked doors, he was so fearful he might lose control in his slumbers as he had so many times before.
But sleep brought no relief. Even when it did come, he did nothing but dream of his wife's luscious body, rendering himself enflamed, and thus even more terrifying to himself. If he offered himself ease, a vision of her panting under him was enough to set him off in an instant, yet leave him desperate for more.
Thus the third month of their marriage passed with each young person more confused and worried than ever, but with no one they felt they could confide their deepest feelings to.
Althea was willing to try to talk to Matthew, but he looked so grim and forbidding, she shrank into herself, and could only peep at him shyly at meals, until he wanted to hang himself from the highest tree for ever having made her so miserable that she scarcely dared look at him because she was so terrified.
Relief from some of their marital problems came from a completely unexpected quarter. The news of his marriage gradually filtered out from his nearest circle of friends into the neighbourhood, and from thence to London.
It wasn't long before his aunt, the redoubtable Society hostess Lady Pemberton, came to call, and expressed in no uncertain terms her delight at the news. Delight, and confusion.
"But my dear boy, I don't understand. Everyone in the Ton would be absolutely thrilled. Why all the secrecy?"
He did not dare meet her gaze. "I feel badly about the elopement, and I'm afraid her solicitors might make a fuss, try to separate us," he said, standing in the corner far away from his aunt, feeling utterly trapped.
Lady Pemberton laughed off his concern. "There is no need. She obviously consented. She's always loved you."
He sighed. "She says that, but things change."
His aunt frowned. "She would never have married you if she didn't love you, no matter what might have happened before you were wed."
He started. How on earth could she know... "What do you mean, Aunt?"
Lady Pemberton chuckled in a worldly way. "Simply that if you had been cavaulting beforehand and Althea was caught, so to speak, she would have been distressed, true, but she has courage. She would never have married you just for the sake of a baby, no matter what anyone said. If she married you, Matthew, it's because she wants to be a good loving wife to you forever."
He shook his head. "Forever is a long time, and I'm not so sure I really believe in love. Or that if it does exist, it can be found in marriage."
The older woman looked appalled. Her grey-silk-clad back stiffened and her sharp blue eyes narrowed. "What on earth are you saying? That you only married her because you thought it was high time to set up your nursery? That you're just going to treat her like a brood mare? Deposit her here in the country once she's safely breeding and go back to London to resume your, er, recreations?
"I forbid it, do you hear me! You are not to step foot in London without her for the next six months. And if I find you you've been quiddling your cod with Matilda or any of the other light-skirts you've wasted so much time with in the past two years, so help me I shall cut you off without a penny. You've married Althea, and she loves you. Be a man and take responsibility for your marital happiness. It's in your hands."
"I hope so," he said with an unmistakable air of dejection.
She stared at him, never having seen her ebullient nephew look so dejected in his life. "Well, it's not in mine. And it won't be in yours if you make her so unhappy she seeks consolation with another. Think about it, and stop being such a damned prideful fool. Do something before it's too late. Whatever you think is wrong with your marriage, try to solve the problem, don't just sweep it under the carpet."
"I would if I could!" he said, running the fingers of one hand through his hair, before flinging himself onto a chair in abject despair.
She stared at him once more, completely puzzled by the change in him since they had last met. The two cousins has always adored each other. What could have brought them to such a pass? "If you're kicking against your loss of freedom as a bachelor, consider of all you have gained. None of the hobbyhorses you've ever had can even come close to the beauty of Althea's person and character. What on earth would ever give you cause to doubt that yours can be a love match? Love isn't weakness, you know. It can be strength. What are you frightened of? Your parents loved each other. Whatever else went wrong, you can be sure that they did love each other more than life itself."
"How do you KNOW? How can one ever know?" he asked, his emotions surging so powerfully they threatened to choke him.
His aunt sighed. So THAT was it. "It's no one single thing. It's a million things, little and great. The life you build together with each other. The nights of joy and the sharing, tenderness, even when intimacy isn't possible. Holding hands, putting your arms around each other, being affectionate and devoted, aware of the other person. Desiring to please her instead of only yourself. Your parents had all that and more, until your father destroyed his marriage by refusing to trust your mother. I can tell you for certain, she was never unfaithful."
"Then why-"
Lady Pemberton sighed. Matthew had been a self-centred man for a long time, but perhaps he was ready to hear the whole truth now. Hear it, and listen, and understand. And open his heart to be able to love completely and truly at last.
"Your mother adored you, wanted a whole house full of children. Alas, it was not to be. Years passed with you as the only one. Not even a false pregnancy or miscarriage. Then one day, just after you went off to boarding school for the first time, she suspected she was pregnant. Was overjoyed, but fearful she might have made a mistake, or that she might do something to provoke a miscarriage, lose the chance of such a huge blessing. She withheld herself in the marital bed because of that. She didn't tell your father because she was afraid he would make a huge fuss, be upset, treat her like an invalid. She was also afraid of disappointing him if it turned out that she was wrong, or that she lost the child.
"She never lost interest in him as a husband, never came to London to see a lover. She came up to see a specialist. She was staying with me, told me all about her bright hopes of another son. She adored you so. Worshipped you. Raised you like a demigod, which is why you were always a little spoilt and wilful, though you have a good heart." She bestowed upon him a fond smile.
"But I digress. Your mother wen
t out the following day to buy your father a gift, to make up to him for what she felt was her neglect. To tell him what the doctor said, explain everything. Share the wonderful news. Whilst out, she ran into an old school friend, and agreed to take tea with her.
"Her friend met up by chance with a male acquaintance. The friend went across the street to buy something in a shop and left them alone. Your father had followed her up to Town hoping to surprise her, and saw she and the hapless chap together admiring the gift your mother had bought for your father, a lovely new fob watch.
"I'm ashamed to admit that my brother misread the whole thing completely. He banished her from the house, forbade her to ever see you, filed for divorce. Named the chap as having had a criminal conversation with her."
Matthew leaned forward on the settee, all ears as he finally learned the truth about how his parents' marriage had actually ended.
"Everyone tried to reason with him, me above all. Your mother was as close to me as any sister could ever have been. But your father said that even if she had been blameless in London she had been up to no good for months at home. He refused to believe the child was his.
"She died in childbed, with the twin girls farmed out to a decent family down on the south coast. I begged and pleaded, but they were not permitted to be brought up with you, though I can honestly say, having seen them, that they could not have looked more like him if they had been stamped at the same mint.
"I wanted to raise them mysef, but your father forbade me to interfere, and I'm afraid to say my husband, God rest him, insisted I stay out of it.
"But never mind about your sisters now. It's you we need to concern ourselves with. After your mother died, your father was never the same after that, as you know. He became a religious fanatic, saw depravity everywhere. He no doubt told you you were full of base desires, which probably goaded you into committing even more rakish excesses. I understand young people only too well, their spirit of rebellion.
"But what was even worse than his fanaticism was his coldness. Her supposed infidelity made him second guess himself, see treachery everywhere even when none existed. He doubted that you were his, though you were as alike as two peas in a pod. He should have trusted her. They were so happy. Why could he not believe it was true love?"
"Perhaps he felt he didn't deserve it?" Matthew said softly.
"And what would ever give you the idea that you didn't?"
He sighed, poised on the brink of a momentous confession, something he had dared not admit even to himself before. "I wanted to be a good, virtuous man. I wanted to wait, I really did. I couldn't help myself. Then I was polluted and undeserving, and just kept right on raking, looking for love, but not feeling I was worthy of it. Of her."
She fiddled with her fan impatiently. "I don't understand, Matthew. Wait for what?"
"For marriage. To Althea."
His aunt stared at him in surprise. "You mean-"
"Yes, I've always loved her," he confessed at last, wondering even as he did so why the admission did not make him feel better, only worse. "I wanted her for years, even when she was playing with her little dolls and kittens. She was my soul mate, the other half of myself. She would hug me in that tender way of hers, and I could feel our hearts beating as one.
"I came up from a trip to the country to see her and missed her so badly, her smile, her voice, her eyes, that I got drunk. My friends and I. They took me to a whorehouse in Oxford and I lost myself in a feast of the senses. And then it was too late, and I woke up hating myself. Ruined my chances of ever being the kind of man she deserves, as good and pure as she was. I corrupt and ruin everything I touch. And I don't know how to love her as she deserves."
She shook her head. "My dear boy, I may be an old woman, but I know how compelling the desires of the flesh can be. And if you're telling me you were in love with Althea all that time, you couldn't possibly have been expected to wait so many years. There are ten years between you in age. Even if you had wed her at sixteen you would have been twenty-six. It would not have been impossible, but for a virile man like yourself, a bit harsh and exacting.
"Virginity is the Church's ideal. No one thinks ill of you for indulging, only for indulging so indiscriminately and selfishly. Your mistresses are certainly not discreet. Especially not Matilda. But then, she was trying to wheedle your head into the noose, to use the slang of the day."
Matthew sighed heavily. "But the point is, Aunt, I wanted to wait for Althea, really I did, however difficult it was. However scorching were the hot coals in the pit of my belly, my loins. But part of me told me I was wrong to have loved her, to have dared to think of her in those terms. She was only a child. I wanted her to grow up her own woman. I didn't want to play Pygmalion to her Galatea. I wanted her to have her own thoughts and feelings and character even if she was the woman I loved, my wife.
"Yet even as a child she was the only woman for me. Her eyes, her sweet voice, that fresh clean lemon verbena smell. I was a grown eighteen year old and I worshipped her. But now I've destroyed her with my lust."
Lady Pemberton shook her head impatiently. "You're making no sense. What could make you think you destroyed her? You haven't given her some horrible disease, have you? Or she is having trouble with a pregnancy?"
He looked candidly into her frowning face. "No, nothing like that. I give you my word. I've always been very careful in both those regards. No by-blow can ever be laid at my door, I swear it. Nor have I ever had the clap."
His aunt snapped her with an impatient click. "Then I can't understand this excessive concern for her, and self-reproach. She looks a bit tired, true, but happy, truly happy. You must allow her some grief over her father. Just because she might seem in a blue funk at times doesn't mean you've caused it."
At his hopeful look she continued, "Women sometimes get like that, before and during their monthlies, for example, or when they're with child. All these things get stirred up inside her, just as they do in you when you are libidinous, or feeling moody and restless."
He considered these possibilities for a moment, and felt slightly mollified.
"Althea loves you. Please trust that. Don't do anything to dent the fine warmth and confidence you've always had in each other. You were friends and companions long before you became husband and wife."
"I would like to remain friends with her. The passion, the sexual pleasure, is fleeting. My duties as her husband are not."
"Fleeting, you say?" She chuckled and shook her head. "I don't think so. I may be an old widow now, but I'm not so old that I can't recall long torrid nights with my husband that lit up my days as I went about my daily chores. You can't separate one from the other, Matthew. You can't just relegate your love to some dark shadowy place at night only. It should be joyous, exuberant, whenever and wherever, as long as you don't get caught. Though sometimes that's part of the whole thrill."
Matthew gaped.
"Oh, aye, indeed. For example, if there's no one about to find you, you can pretend to hear a footstep, someone rattling a door latch, or about to draw aside the curtain." She chuckled knowingly.
He looked horrified. "Aunt, really! Bedroom games from you?"
She laughed at his shocked expression. "Better for me to give you some sound advice than for you to become embroiled with that strumpet Matilda again. The latest on-dit tells me that she's been seen in the district looking for you. She's been tracking you down for months, apparently. She's not going to be so easy to get rid of, even when she discovers you're wed. Please don't even give her the time of day. You don't even like her as a person. I never thought you would stoop to treating her like nothing more than a convenient."
Matthew winced. "It wasn't like that. Well, not exactly, anyway," he acknowledged with a rare flash of candour. Now that he knew what making love with a woman he cared about was like, he could see he had simply used his mistresses as outlets, nothing more. It had always been only Althea.....
"It WAS, and you would do well to remembe
r it," his aunt rejoined with a disapproving sniff. "Matilda is nothing if not determined. But she's not worth ruining your marriage over. Once fidelity and trust are gone, they can NEVER be replaced. Ever.
"You think I didn't have dozens of offers in my day? I was quite a beauty, I'll have you know," she added in response to his wide-eyed look. "I was no saint, any more than you are. But I was always, always faithful. Because I knew if I wasn't, I would be damaging my marriage irreparably.
"Even if my husband had never found out, I would have been taking something away from him. Keeping some part of myself guarded, secret. Withholding a part of myself I would never be able to share for fear of the consequences. And don't flatter yourself that you can keep it a secret forever, Matthew. Someone always finds out, and in any case, you can't lie to yourself."
The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection #4 Page 61
