by Mary Balogh
“Am I unhappy?” he asked her. “Or brooding?”
She nodded and lifted a hand to cup his cheek.
“I think,” she said, “you have been unhappy for a long time. I am going to change that.”
Bold, rash words. He did not love her. She was not even sure he liked her. But she was not talking about love. She was talking about affection and companionship and compassion and … well, love. But not romantic love. She was going to love him. For her own sake she was going to do it. She had never been able to contemplate living with someone she did not love.
He set his hand over the top of hers and she swallowed.
“Are you?” he said.
She nodded.
Somehow his head had moved closer to hers. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.
“How?” He was almost whispering. It was hardly surprising. Half the air had suddenly disappeared from the room.
He, of course, being a man, had immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was talking about the marriage bed.
“Oh,” she said, her voice breathless, “I do not know if I can make you happy in that way, Duncan. You may believe I am experienced because of what I told you about my past, but really I am not. It was a long, long time ago, and even then—”
His lips pressed against hers. They were parted, and she instantly tasted warmth and moistness and wine. Her hand trembled against his cheek, and he held it there more firmly. He drew his head back a few inches.
“If I wanted experience, Maggie,” he said, “I would go to a brothel.”
Which was not at all a nice thing to say. She was not sure she had even heard the word spoken aloud before. But—He was not like Crispin, was he?
“Have you often been to one?” she asked, and bit her lip at the same moment as his eyes leapt to life and she was surprised to see laughter in their depths.
He was like Crispin. Oh … men! If she gave him half a chance, he would start babbling on about loneliness and needs, which women were fortunate enough not to feel.
She did not give him a chance to answer her question.
“But you will not go ever again,” she said. “I shall cut up very nasty indeed if you even try it.”
His eyes were still laughing—and they were a warm brown now, the color of a cup of hot, rich chocolate. It was really quite disconcerting, especially when they were only inches from her own.
“I will not need to, will I?” he said. “You have promised to make me happy. And if your lack of experience is making you a little anxious, then we had better see about getting you that experience, had we not? The sooner the better?”
Oh, goodness!
“Yes,” she said, and then she cleared her throat and spoke more firmly. “Oh, Duncan, this is very ridiculous. I am embarrassed. I am thirty years old and embarrassed. We ought to have gone upstairs as soon as everyone left. By now it would all be over.”
The laughter in his eyes, far from fading, actually deepened. He turned his head to plant a kiss on her palm before releasing her hand.
“All over?” he said. “As in forever and ever, amen?”
“And now I feel stupid as well as embarrassed,” she said, “and I do not like the feeling one bit. I am going to bed whether you are ready or not.”
She got firmly to her feet and shook out the folds of her wedding dress.
“Maggie,” he said, getting up to stand before her. He took both her hands in his and set them against his chest, palm in. “You were not ready when our families left. Neither of us was, actually. We needed some wine and some conversation. We have had both, and now I believe it is time for sex.”
Oh, she wished he would not use that word. Did he not know that it was not an everyday part of a lady’s vocabulary? She could feel her cheeks grow hot. Her inner thighs were aching, and something was pulsing deep inside her.
And it was all the fault of that word.
“Yes,” she said coolly. “Yes, it is.”
And she lifted her face and kissed him on the lips. Open-mouthed and none too swiftly. She darted the tip of her tongue across his lips.
The pulsing became a throbbing.
“Come, then,” he said, and he offered her his arm.
It seemed strange—oh, very strange indeed—to walk upstairs with him, to stop outside her private apartment and have him open the door into her dressing room—her inner sanctum, her private world. No longer private, though. There would be no private space for her ever again. Even her body would no longer be her private sanctuary.
Her wedding day had turned into her wedding night.
“I shall return in fifteen minutes,” he said, stepping back to allow her to enter the room and then closing the door behind her.
Stephen had given him the use of a guest dressing room. His bags had been taken there earlier.
Her apartment already seemed different, Margaret thought as she undressed and her maid unpinned her hair and brushed it out—though nothing in it had changed. There were, of course, her trunks and bags, almost completely packed and standing against the far wall.
This was the last night Merton House would be her home. Yet even tonight her rooms were not her own.
She was waiting for her bridegroom.
For the consummation of their marriage.
For sex, to use his disturbingly graphic word.
She dismissed her maid with a few of her fifteen minutes left and went into her bedchamber. Two candles burned on the side tables. The curtains had been drawn across the window—usually she left them open. The bedcovers had been turned back—on both sides.
Margaret clasped both hands about one of the bedposts at the foot of the bed and rested a cheek against it.
She was a married lady. She was Margaret Pennethorne, Countess of Sheringford. It was quite irrevocable now.
This one day, which had seemed quite wonderful as she lived through it, had changed her life for all time.
Oh, let her have done the right thing.
There was a light tap on the bedchamber door and it opened.
18
A WONDERFUL day!
Had it been?
It had certainly had its high points, Duncan conceded. If it had not restored him to complete favor with the ton, at least it had allowed him back into the fold. No one could attend his wedding today and then refuse to receive him tomorrow, after all.
It had certainly delighted his mother. He could not remember seeing her as genuinely happy as she had been today. It had restored the belief he had taken for granted as a boy, before his father died, that she loved him totally and unconditionally. Perhaps he had been right then and wrong more recently to think her merely vain and shallow.
And today had brought his grandfather out of Claverbrook House. He had looked quite his old self too—older, it was true, and just as fierce as he had ever been, but with that indefinable look in his eyes that was almost, but not quite, a twinkle. He had never used to be a recluse. Duncan wondered suddenly if his running off with Laura and abandoning Caroline had had anything to do with making him into a hermit. Perhaps he had done more than disappoint his grandfather on that occasion—perhaps he had crushed his spirit. Perhaps his grandfather loved him after all.
Perhaps tomorrow morning, his grandfather’s birthday, he should tell him at least as much about that elopement as he had told Maggie. Perhaps he should tell his mother too. A promise made to Laura was one thing. His family—and their bruised love for him—was another.
Make sure you cherish her, his grandfather had said when he was leaving.
… cherish …
And that brought him back to the original thought—a wonderful day. He had not married her in order to cherish her. And of course he felt guilty about that even though he had been almost completely frank with her about his motives. What he had not told her—what he had deliberately withheld—did not really matter.
Even so, he felt guilty, for there was more to tell. And she was his wife.
/> I wanted the whole world to look at me and rejoice with me.
Those words had given him a nasty jolt.
And now he was jolted again when Smith cleared his throat.
“Do you want a nightshirt, then, m’lord?” he asked. “Or just your dressing gown?”
Duncan gave him a hard look. He supposed he possessed a nightshirt or Smith would not have offered it. But when had his valet ever known him to wear one?
“The dressing gown,” he said.
“The new one, m’lord?” Smith asked.
“Of course the new one,” Duncan said, getting to his feet and checking his jawline to make sure his face was smooth—not that Smith ever left any stubble behind when he shaved him. “Do you think I bought it just to sit in a wardrobe until the moths get at it?”
He was feeling irritable, he realized as he pushed his arms into the sleeves and then slipped out of his breeches and drawers. Irritable and lusty. Irritable because he was lusty. It did not seem right somehow. One ought to feel more than just lust for one’s bride.
Did he? He searched hopefully in his mind for some tender feelings and discovered with something bordering on relief that indeed there was something there. He had grown to rather like her as well as admire her. He could perhaps grow fond of her if he tried—and try he must and would.
If the truth were told, he had felt something like a lump in his throat when she had spoken those words earlier—I wanted the whole world to look at me and rejoice with me. He had wanted to gather her up into his arms—rather as he always did whenever Toby, during his insecure moments between play and mayhem, tugged at his breeches and asked him if he really, really loved him.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he told his valet, his voice abrupt and still sounding irritable as he left the dressing room and made his way back along the corridor to Maggie’s bedchamber.
He was certainly feeling lusty. Guilt had not affected him there. She was delicious even when she did not taste of wine. But when she did—as she had in the drawing room a short while ago—she was quite intoxicating. He did not suppose she realized how close she had come to being tumbled on the drawing room carpet when she had kissed him and traced the seam of his lips with her tongue.
He had not been expecting it. He had always found her rather inhibited, even prudish, sexually. The typical and perfect lady, in fact. But she had kissed him downstairs, and it had been a definite invitation.
Dash it all, he hoped she would not live to regret this marriage.
He was going to have to see to it that she did not, was he not? He owed her that much. And even apart from that, he could not really contemplate a marriage that he made no effort at all to make into a decent one. He had not wanted to marry, it was true, but he had done it and now he must live accordingly.
He was still feeling that curious mingling of irritability and lust as he tapped on her door and let himself in—it would be mildly absurd, he thought, to wait for her to answer his knock.
She was standing at the foot of the bed, hugging the bedpost. She was wearing a white nightgown, which shimmered in the light from two candles and looked somehow more gorgeous than the most elaborate of ball gowns. And—oh, Lord!—her hair was loose down her back, and it reached almost to her bottom. It was dark and thick and shining. And that gorgeous nightgown, though perfectly decent, did absolutely nothing to hide her even more gorgeous curves.
He fought the advent of an early arousal.
“The canopy will not stay up without your assistance?” he asked.
She gazed blankly at him for a moment, looked at the bedpost to which she clung, glanced up at the canopy over the bed, and smiled as she dropped her arms to her sides. Then she laughed and looked more vibrantly beautiful than ever.
“I daresay it will,” she said. “Perhaps it was I who could not stay upright without the bedpost’s assistance. I did drink that glass of wine.”
“I thought,” he said, “that perhaps you would be fast asleep from its effects.”
“Oh.” She laughed again. “No.”
“I am delighted,” he said.
“Are you?”
He was delighted that she was awake so that he could bed her, though he had not really expected she would be asleep. Was he also delighted to be here with his wife? With the woman who would be his companion for the rest of their lives? Was he delighted that tomorrow morning, his lust sated, he would not simply walk away from her and forget her but would take her with him to Woodbine and into the future?
Would he ever be able to forget her even if he were free to do so? Now that was an interesting question.
“What is it?” she asked, and he realized that he had been standing there staring at her for several silent moments.
“You are almost too beautiful to touch,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows. “But not quite, I hope.”
“Do you hope so?” he said, and he walked closer to her and set his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arms’ length while his eyes roamed over her. “But you are beautiful, Maggie. I am a fortunate man.”
He lowered his head and kissed her at the base of her throat.
She tipped back her head and sighed softly.
“I am not embarrassed any longer,” she said. “It is so foolish to be, is it not? This is the most natural thing imaginable. I want it, Duncan. I want it more than anything else in the world, in fact.”
He wondered what the words had cost her in courage. Though he could tell from the heat radiating off her body that she did mean them.
He slipped his thumbs beneath the shoulders of her nightgown and moved them partway down her arms. He kissed one bare shoulder and moved his mouth over the swell of her breast, lowering the nightgown further as he reached the nipple and took it lightly into his mouth. He touched it with the tip of his tongue and felt her shiver. With heat.
He stood back a little and released his hold on the nightgown. She was pressing it against her stomach with both hands and could have kept it there if she had chosen. Instead, she let her arms fall to her sides and let the flimsy garment slither and slide downward to pool at her feet.
Her cheeks flamed and her eyes held his—until he looked away to see all of her.
Full breasts with rosy tips, small waist, curvaceous hips, long, slim, shapely legs—if there was any imperfection in her, he could not see it. She was every man’s sexual dream come true.
Then one of her arms lifted from her side and pulled on the sash of his dressing gown until it came loose. The garment fell open and she pushed it off his shoulders so that it too fell to the floor.
He was surprised—at her nakedness, at his own. He had been prepared to be far more … what? Decorous? Considerate? Gentle? She was not a virgin, it was true, but if his guess was correct—and he would wager on it—she was as close to being a virgin as it was possible to be without actually being one.
“More beautiful than ever,” he murmured.
“Duncan.” She set her hands on his shoulders and moved them down his arms, looking him over frankly as she did so. “You are beautiful too. Is that an inappropriate word? I am sorry if it is. But it fits. You are beautiful.”
He took her hands in his and wrapped them about his waist, bringing her full against him as he did so.
God in heaven!
He touched his lips to hers, opening her mouth with them as he did so and thrusting his tongue deep inside. She moaned and arched in harder against him. His erection pressed against her belly.
So much for gentle discretion.
“May we lie down?” she asked against his lips when he withdrew his tongue. “I don’t think my legs will hold me up much longer.”
He bent and picked her up and carried her the short distance to the bed. He lay her down on the bottom sheet and kissed her openmouthed again. She still tasted of wine. She smelled of lavender soap. Siren and lady all rolled into one.
“Do you wish me to blow out the candles?” he asked her. “
I would prefer to leave them burning—I want to watch what we do. But it will be as you wish.”
Watching them have sex by candlelight had not been part of his original plan either, by Jove.
Her eyes opened and widened.
“Oh,” she said. “Leave them burning by all means, then.”
He lay down beside her, slid one arm beneath her back, and moved the other hand over her body in a light caress, tracing her curves, feeling the soft heat of her skin, breathing in lavender and wine. He really must slow down. His hand roamed over her breasts and lifted one in his palm, feeling the soft, firm, magnificent weight of it as he rubbed the nipple with the pad of his thumb and lowered his head to take it into his mouth again. This time he sucked firmly.
She inhaled slowly and audibly, and her fingers twined tightly in his hair.
“Oh, please,” she said, but did not elaborate.
He moved on top of her and pressed his knees between her thighs, pushing them wide until he could kneel between them. He gazed down at her with half-closed eyes. She was gazing back at him, her hair a riot of dark glory over her shoulders and breasts.
Candlelight flickered over her face.
She lifted her arms and spread her hands over his chest before moving them in slow circles there, her fingers bent back, smoothing the light hairs with her palms in one direction and ruffling them again in the other. She looked back into his face and smiled.
He could feel the soft smoothness of her inner thighs against the outsides of his legs. He could see the heavy fullness of her breasts. He could smell lavender and wine and woman.
And his erection was so taut that if he did not bury it inside her soon, something very embarrassing was going to happen.
“Forgive me,” he said, lowering his head and kissing her lips, “I cannot wait any longer.”
“Good,” she said, still smiling. “Neither can I.”
He could have stretched out on top of her then and taken her with swift, urgent strokes. He would feel that whole lovely, curvaceous body beneath his, and the feeling would further ignite the fire in his loins.
She had said she was ready.
