“Easy, love…Impatient, are you?” Raleigh asked. “I’m so glad, Jane. So…glad.” His last words came out in a slow exhale as she arched against him. “Let’s try this,” he said, rising onto his knees. Kneeling between her legs, he raised them slightly until she felt exposed, vulnerable, and yet highly charged and erotic. She turned her head away, but he called her attention back in a coaxing whisper. Then, as she watched, breathless and wild, he took himself in hand and touched her.
Jane heard an odd, whimpering sound that she realized came from herself when she felt the slow glide of him against her skin, moist, hot and hard. She dug her fingers into the sheets as he leaned over and slid himself along the very heart of her. Back and forth, he rubbed against her until she was frantic. No longer the plain Trowbridge sister, she had become an exotic creature of sweltering passion in Raleigh’s hands.
Arching toward him, Jane felt the nudge of his entrance into her body, along with his harsh exhalation. “Oh, Jane, my love, so eager, so lovely, so delicious…” And then he was inside her, and all her fantastic sensations erupted into a stretching ache that bordered on pain.
“Oh, no! Stop! Oh, you are too large,” she cried.
“A small prick, Jane, no matter what my size,” he whispered, soothing her with his voice and his hands and his mouth. “Just let me get past…” But as soon as Jane began to relax, he surged into her in one long thrust that left her gasping and horrified. She lay still beneath him, shivering with the loss of her pleasure.
For a long moment, they both were still, and Jane might have concluded that the entire business was finished but for the low humming sound coming from Raleigh. “Ah, Jane, love, you feel so good, so delicious, so beyond anything. Are you…Tell me you’re all right, lovely wife. My passionate, eager lover.”
Jane stifled a sniff, for she felt anything but passionate now. Hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, she wished only that he would leave her, but to her horror, she felt him move forward inside her, deeper.
When Jane squeaked in protest, he kissed her mouth, sucking on her tongue until she felt dizzy once more. “Yes, there’s my Jane. Oh, love, can you take all of me?” Slowly, she felt him withdraw only to return in a slow glide that ought to alarm her, but, oddly, did not. “All of me, Jane,” he whispered. “Take all of me.” Shivering at his husky plea, Jane looked up at him, his head thrown back, his eyes bright with intensity, his mouth tight, and suddenly she would do anything for him.
“All of me, Jane,” he said, and she felt no more pain, only a bright, hot excitement as he sank farther inside her. “Yes, oh, yes, Jane, love,” he whispered. And when he ground against her at last, Jane felt more powerful and more beautiful than any other woman.
At first she took delight only in his obvious pleasure, but as his pace increased, so did her own delirium. Sensations built and surged once more, as if to engulf her only to hover just out of reach. “Come with me, Jane,” Raleigh whispered in that coaxing voice of his. “Let yourself feel. Do you feel it? Tell me you feel it, too…”
Breathless, Jane could not answer as she clung to him, the smooth slickness of his skin carrying her with him. She felt his mouth and hands, soothing, caressing, arousing, and then his palms beneath her, his fingers curling into her as he lifted her to meet his thrusts, and she was with him, greedily gasping for air as her entire being shook with ecstasy.
“Yes, love, that’s the way. Oh, Jane, so delicious, so good, so much better than anything…” Raleigh’s whisper trailed off, and then he lifted himself high above her for one final, heavy thrust. “I…love…you,” he gasped before slumping against her, his perfect body damp and heaving with the force of the pleasure she had given him.
A bee buzzed nearby, and Raleigh opened one eye to watch it circle before flying away over the moors. Stretched out on a thick quilt, his head pillowed on his arms, he had nearly fallen asleep after the picnic he had shared with Jane. Turning his head slightly to catch a glimpse of her gathering wildflowers, he sighed at her indefatigable energy. Lud, his formerly prim and proper wife had completely worn him out!
Raleigh grinned at the memory of exactly how she had depleted his energies. When he had found her in the crypt unharmed, he had been suffused with such relief and joy that he wanted her then, needing to celebrate her life by savoring every inch of her. And after dispatching the villains and taking her to his room, he was more than ready to sate his raging desire on her lovely body.
But still that niggling doubt about her feelings held him back—until she tended his ridiculous scrape. Then she had looked at him differently, in a way he had never expected any woman to look at him, especially Jane. Her gaze was sweet and hot and so full of admiration, it bordered on hero worship, and when he saw it, Raleigh had never felt so wonderful in his life.
Finally, he had earned her respect, and he cherished it more than the opinion of his peers or the ties of his family or even the affection of his friends. And when he had made love to her he felt as if his whole scapegrace existence had been but preparation for that one glorious moment.
Smiling at this sudden spiritual bent, Raleigh turned his thoughts toward the less esoteric part of their union and felt his weary body stir once more. At first, he had wondered if Jane could trust him enough to let go of her formidable restraints, but she had surprised him with her passion and eagerness.
Unfettered, she had taken him to heights he had never imagined each time they came together, for Jane, as he had well discovered, was not like other women. His once stiff, disapproving wife had bound him to her, body and soul and heart; against all odds, he had come to love her.
Grinning at the knowledge, Raleigh rose on one arm to watch her. She wore a yellow-striped silk gown that matched the ribbons on the straw hat that had fallen down her back, and she had taken off her spectacles earlier when lying beside him. As she stood in profile, her hair loose, the deep golden strands lifted by a stray breeze, Raleigh sucked in a sharp breath. Surely anyone who saw her now would agree that she was a beautiful woman…
The possessiveness that surged through him was surprising, as was the desire to keep his treasure here, away from other men’s prying eyes or evil intentions. Lud, he did not want to share his secret. When they returned to London, he would dress her in nun’s garb—except that wouldn’t be fair to the young woman who was finally coming into her own.
His suspicion was proved when Jane slowly turned around, her arms open, as if reveling in a new sense of freedom. Unrestrained. Impassioned. “I love the moors!” she said, turning to let the wind take her hair, reaching out to encompass all of Northumberland. “I love it here! I love…” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked into the afternoon sun.
“For someone who doesn’t believe in love, you are doing a lot of it,” Raleigh drawled, afraid to consider what her awkward pause might mean. Studiously avoiding his gaze, she reached for a long stalk of grass.
“I just never thought…I never dreamed that any of this was possible for me,” she admitted in a low voice, and Raleigh swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “In a world where your face is your fortune, I was penniless. A millstone around the neck of my family, I was that worst of all things, a daughter who would never redeem the cost of her keep by marrying well.”
Her bitterness made Raleigh’s stomach twist painfully, for he saw more clearly than ever before the sad, vulnerable girl who had grown up uncertain of her own worth. He wished he could go back in time to that unhappy child and tell them all that she would be beautiful. That she was beautiful inside, where it counted. Unfortunately, he couldn’t change her past, or even his small part in it. But he would try his best to make up for it.
“I’m sure that your family never saw you as a burden, Jane,” he said. “Lud, your sister Sarah is plain, and she has a husband and two little ones who worship her. They love her, and that’s what life’s about—not money or looks.”
“How easy for you to say,” Jane said, peeling away the layers on the green
stem she held. “It’s always been easy for you—born into luxury, with nothing to do but wallow in excess and dress in fine clothes.”
“You think my life was so simple?” Raleigh choked on a laugh. “While you were being coddled by a loving father and all those wonderful brothers and sisters in your cozy little vicarage, I was brought up in that mausoleum of Westfield Park, relegated to tutors and then sent away to a series of schools, where I always had to hold my own against older boys who wanted to abuse me—or worse.”
He dragged in a deep breath, as words he had never thought to utter spilled forth. “Half the time they didn’t give us enough to eat, Jane. And unlike many of my peers, I didn’t have the blunt to buy extra. The earl doesn’t believe in coddling, you know. My humor became my protection, my famous good spirits the only way to survive in those wretched hells.”
Jane stared at him wide-eyed, but once begun, he could not stop. “Unfortunately, it did little to please my parents, who wanted me to be as sour and unloving as they were. While you were wondering what color roses to plant along the south wall, I was bearing the weight of the future earldom, of expectations of relatives and the ton, of keeping up appearances without enough money to do so.”
He shook his head, trying to laugh at himself, but failing. “I was always hungry—for food, wine, fine clothes, laughter, affection. I cadged the former as best I could, the latter I got from my friends, a bunch of odd volumes like myself, but now it isn’t enough. Now I want love, Jane, love. Can you give it to me?”
Rolling to a sitting position, Raleigh rested his wrists on his knees as casually as he could, considering that he had just bared his soul. He had told himself that it would take time to woo his prim Jane, to melt away all her defenses and bring her around to his way of thinking and feeling. And, yet, here he was impatiently issuing an ultimatum that she might not be ready—or able—to meet.
He opened his mouth to take it back—to tell her that he would be happy with whatever crumbs she would throw him—but it was too late. She was already turning toward him, her expression grim. “I…I…” She looked away once more, tossing aside the remains of the stalk she had shredded, and Raleigh held his breath.
“I want to…to try everything, everything you want to teach me and give me. It’s all so wonderful and new and exciting, and yet frightening, too. I trust you, I do, but sometimes it’s hard to believe that Viscount Raleigh, the most beautiful, most perfect of beings, the man whom I have adored forever, could possibly care for me.”
Raleigh released his pent air with a sigh, but Jane was not finished. “I can’t help wondering if you’ve treated all your…tendres this way. Do you really love me for me, as I am, or would you feel this way about any woman you married?”
Relief warred with indignation, and Raleigh lifted his brows. “I believe I shall have to take exception to that, love. Do you think me such a ninny?”
Jane smiled ruefully, and Raleigh rejoiced in the sight. “No, you are not a ninny. I am.”
“I beg to differ,” Raleigh said, reaching for her hand. He clasped it loosely as he looked up at her. “I don’t know how or why we are together, Jane. Maybe it was destiny that decreed we take the same bed at Casterleigh, but I know that all my life I’ve yearned for this feeling. I’ve watched it happen to my friends, with no little envy, and now that it is here, I am greedy for it.”
He paused to show her, with his gaze, what was in his heart. “You must squawk and sniff if I become too voracious, but please believe that it is only because I have never felt this way about anyone else. You are the only woman I have ever loved, and I don’t know how else to convince you, except to prove it to you every day and every night.”
When he saw that her exotic green eyes were bright with tears, Raleigh felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him, freeing him as surely as his wife’s buried passions had been unleashed last night. “Come here,” he said softly. “I’ll prove it to you right now,” he said.
Pulling her down beside him, Raleigh took her hat and set it aside before drawing her into his arms and kissing away her tears. “Hmm, delicious as these taste, I would never wish you to cry,” he whispered.
He heard her shaky sound, something between a moan and a laugh, and he took heart as he pressed her into the quilt, covering her with his ardent body. She seemed to fit him perfectly, the soft brush against her slender curves whetting his appetite for all of her.
He took her mouth, reveling in the banquet that was Jane, a feast for his starved senses, and he rejoiced as she answered him with growing heat. Only after he had his fill of her lips did he move lower, tugging at her bodice.
“Not here!” Jane objected, a trace of panic edging her voice.
“Why not?” Raleigh whispered as he slid one of her smooth shoulders free.
“Someone might see!”
“Who?” Raleigh asked, with a chuckle. The tall grass surrounded them, leading only higher up into the hills. He dipped his tongue lightly into her ear and licked the tender flesh of her throat Delicious.
“Someone…from the…house,” she answered, breathless now, and Raleigh smiled against her shoulder. Craven Hall was behind and below them, tucked into its grove of trees.
“They can’t see us,” he assured her as he slid her gown lower, revealing the lacy edge of a shift that his mother must have sent her. Nuzzling against the soft curve of a breast, Raleigh drew in a deep breath. Clean linen and wildflowers and Jane. No perfume could ever smell as sweet.
Her nipple beaded against his cheek, and Raleigh turned his head to taste it through the supple fabric. Jane squeaked in response, making him grin even as his body hardened. He adored those little sounds she made. Half protest, half encouragement, they made him feel as if he were seducing the woman who had married him against her will, and he knew a thrill of victory along with the love that coursed through him.
“Oh, so delicious, love,” he whispered. He suckled her through the fine linen until she was arching against him and he was hot and aching. He had discarded his coat before the picnic, and now he reached for the buttons on his waistcoat, laughing when one popped away in his haste.
“Lud, we’ll be the death of Antoine, yet,” he whispered to Jane, who tugged at his shirt even as he tossed his waistcoat aside. He nearly strangled himself trying to undo his cravat and cursed the once highly esteemed Exceptional knot. By the time he lifted off his shirt, Jane was giggling, a delightful sound that he would never grow accustomed to hearing, should he live to be a thousand.
“You do reduce me to a fumbling clod, love,” he admitted, though he did not seem to care at the moment. He looked down at her, her gown pushed to her waist, her shift damp from his mouth, and he wanted to taste every inch of her. Swiftly, he vowed that he would.
Jane shook her head, denying his gracelessness, while eyeing his chest with what could only be described as an avid gaze. Placing her palms on his skin, she slowly slid them upward, and Raleigh wondered how one small touch could engender such rapture. Holding himself on his arms, he remained still and unresisting under her questing caresses, but when she lifted her head to kiss the places where her hands had been, he gasped and shuddered.
“Lud, Jane,” he muttered. “Just so. Hmm. Like that.” Suddenly, there was too much material between them, and Raleigh pushed her gown lower until she was free of it. Gliding his hands up her slender legs, he reached the tender flesh above her stockings, and easing the hem of her chemise higher, he nibbled there.
“Delicious,” he whispered as she squeaked in protest. Undoubtedly, she would do a lot more squawking before they were finished because he intended to have all of her this time. Kissing the smooth skin of her thigh, Raleigh made his way to the delightful nest of soft curls that drew him. Nuzzling against them, he felt the vibration of her gasp.
“Raleigh!” she cried.
Ignoring the protest, he put his lips to her, savoring her like a fine wine. Sweet, but not too dry. Indeed, not dry at all, he thought, h
eady with pleasure. Delicious Jane. He licked at the soft folds, his tongue stroking until she arched against him, making soft whimpering pleasure sounds.
No more squeaking, Raleigh thought, smiling as he sucked gently. Then, sliding his hands beneath her, he lifted her off the quilt to his eager mouth, questing, laving, giving her everything that he could until she twisted, slick and breathless in his hold, calling out her love for him.
Chapter Seventeen
Although not a particular admirer of the moors, Raleigh suspected he could lie here beside Jane, indolent and sated and staring at the vast expanse forever—or at least until his body returned to life. A swift glance downward told him that event was well into the future, and he sighed, remembering long afternoons spent in bed with women whose faces he could not even recall. Indeed, his stamina was one of the things that drew them, but now…
As Raleigh was continually reminded, Jane was entirely different, and when he made love to her, it wasn’t just an amusing romp or even a tender union, but a coming together of everything. With Jane, each inch of him—inside and out, brain, body and soul—was involved, and to depths that he had never imagined. He was entirely wrung out, but it was the most pleasant exhaustion he had ever known, he thought, lazily tracing a pattern on his wife’s back.
Unfortunately, his energetic bride was not content to spend the day dozing. After a brief nap, she had gradually become restless, and knowing her as well as he was beginning to, Raleigh fully expected her to leap up to take on some task at any moment Sadly, he was in no condition to stop her.
“Dev?”
He grinned against her hair at the speech he knew was coming. “Hmm?”
“Oh! Don’t do that. It makes me tingle,” she admitted, sighing softly.
Ah, this was even better than he thought! Raleigh wondered how long that particular effect had been going on. “Do tell,” he whispered, planning to hum long and often during the years ahead.
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