A Wedding by Dawn

by Alison Delaine

  India stared at the papers in his hand.

  “Or perhaps you didn’t contemplate doing that much work,” he commented.

  She took the papers. “Of course I did.” She leafed through them the way he had, as if she was skimming through the words. But her heart was pounding, and all she could think of was whether he could tell she wasn’t really skimming. Her nerves stretched tighter and tighter, and reading was impossible now—even the words she did know, of which certainly there must be some.

  “Mark everything off as you find it,” he told her. “If the numbers are different—forty forks instead of thirty-five, for example, make the correction.”

  India nodded, still staring at the paper, terrified now that something in her demeanor would give her away. There was nobody here but Nicholas and Emilie—nobody she could secretly go to for help. Except, possibly, Miss Ursula, and it was too easy to imagine her booming voice announcing India’s failings to the entire county.

  Ye want me to read this to ye? Can’t ye read it yerself?

  She inhaled, looked up and tried to smile. And Nicholas was so handsome that her heart ached just looking at him, wishing he wanted to keep her half as much as he wanted to keep Taggart.

  * * *

  THERE WERE A few words on the list India did know. Fork was there, and spoon. Perhaps a dozen others—short, single words. The kind that were easy to remember. But there were so many other longer ones she wasn’t sure of. She could guess, but what if she was wrong? If only there’d been more time for visits to the young Mr. Wiggins in London.

  It would have been so much easier to help with the linens, or perhaps packing away whatever Nicholas planned to take with him, or even helping Miss Ursula outside.

  A letter had arrived from Paris. India had recognized Millie’s handwriting. She was able to hide the letter away before Nicholas asked her about it—thank goodness Miss Ursula had been the one to receive it. But there hadn’t been time to do more than study it and apply a few of the techniques the young Mr. Wiggins had begun teaching her. Her priority was the inventory list.

  Over the next day, India started with the things she could read. Emilie followed her from room to room, helping her count. And the more time she spent inside this house—old as it was, and in so much need of care—the more she wished they could stay here.

  She sat now in a storage room on the very top floor, counting sheets. Small windows overlooked the grounds. From here, she could see the treetops, the pond, the flower garden at the front. It was perfectly quiet.

  Safe. Peaceful.

  And then...footsteps. Heavy ones that she recognized instantly as belonging to Nicholas. She stepped away from the window and resumed her work, but lost count immediately, focused entirely on the thump-thump-thump of his approaching footsteps.

  And then he was there, in the doorway. He had to duck through the door, and his head nearly touched the low, slanted ceiling.

  “How is the inventory coming?” A hint of roughness touched his voice.

  “Well.” He seemed to fill the room, watching her with troubled eyes, green like the sea on a stormy day. “Very well,” she added. He wasn’t close enough to touch her, but she felt him on her skin as if his hands pressed into her flesh.

  “I need to check something on the list,” he said.

  “Oh.” She looked down at the pages in her hand. Held them out to him.

  He stepped forward and took them, and now he was even closer.

  He studied the list, leafing to the second page. She watched his hands—those strong, sure fingers that had touched her so intimately in France. And it was impossible not to imagine, now, what might happen if he touched her again. Perhaps even here. Now.

  Her breathing turned shallow.

  “The candelabras are in the dining room,” he said suddenly, looking up. “I saw them only this morning.”

  Candelabras? Her attention shot to the list in his hand. “Yes...I saw them, as well.” Candelabras.

  “You inventoried the dining room yesterday,” he said. “You didn’t count everything?”

  “I must have forgotten to mark them.” She kept her eyes fixed on the pages he held. “I’ll check them again as soon as I’m finished here.”

  Her insides felt suspended while he glanced over the list. “I saw the silver braziers, as well. And—for God’s sake, India. No wonder this is taking so long. You didn’t finish the pantry, either, or the downstairs linens.”

  Oh, God. She backed up a step.

  “Now look here,” he said with irritation.

  Numb. She felt herself going numb.

  “I expect this finished by the end of tomorrow. If you’re not going to do this efficiently—”

  Then you’ll stay here without any supper until you do.

  “—then return the list to me and I’ll do it myself.”

  She stared at him.

  He frowned and held out the papers. “Are you feeling unwell?”

  Was she— “No. No, not at all. Of course I’ll finish by tomorrow,” she said, taking the list and setting it aside. “I told you I would do it.” Now she raised her chin, even as a knot twisted on the inside. “But of course if you would prefer to do it yourself, you have only to say the word, and I’m quite certain Miss Ursula can find a way to keep me busy in the gardens. Or the kitchen.”

  “You’re not going to work in the goddamned kitchen.”

  She couldn’t even do the one task he’d given her. Only think how much more he would regret her staying when he found out how little help she really was.

  Then suddenly he looked past her, toward the small window. “A rider.”

  * * *

  INDIA EXHALED WHEN he left, shaking with relief. She counted the rest of what she knew to count in the storage room, then returned to the dining room and counted the candelabras and silver braziers, writing the numbers very small on the bottom corner of the list since she didn’t know exactly where to put them.

  The rider had left, but India had heard nothing of what he wanted.

  Just as India was leaving the dining room, Emilie came from downstairs. “Where is my brother?” she asked.

  India didn’t know, so they looked in the library and walked out to the stables, but he wasn’t there, so they decided on a visit to the pond.

  They spotted him through the trees, standing where the path broke into the open, with his arms hanging at his sides. Motionless. Saying his goodbyes, she supposed, to this beautiful place he must love more than anywhere on earth.

  She slowed, held Emilie back, suddenly feeling as if they were intruding. But he must have heard them, because he turned.

  Emilie waved at him.

  He smiled a little at her—at Emilie, not at India—and they started forward again, joining him in the sunshine. India hardly dared look at him. Her mind raced for something appropriate to say, something that would not make it all worse.

  Emilie took his hand. India glanced down, watched his large fingers curl around Emilie’s small ones. Her own fingers tingled with wanting to take his other hand. She made a fist instead.

  “Could we go in the boat?” Emilie asked, pointing to the rowboat.

  “Bit windy today,” Nicholas told her.

  “Only think if we had a small sailboat,” India said, “what fun that would be.”

  Nicholas looked at her. Too late she realized her thoughtlessness. “Of course, a toy one would be much better,” she said quickly. “One would never get wet, and it could be the most magnificent ship ever, with three masts and fifty little guns, and you could take it wherever you go—even to a cottage.”

  He was staring at the water again. A muscle in his jaw flexed.

  “Must you sell this place?” Emilie asked him in French.

  “Yes.” He looked down, touched Emilie’s cheek. “I must. But we shall have a cottage of our very own, snug and safe. You needn’t worry.”

  “Only think how much fun a cottage will be, Emilie,” India said. “Perhaps
there will be a giant tree, and Nicholas will fashion you a swing, and you can glide for hours upon hours watching the birds play in the branches. And we can plant beautiful flowers all around the house, and you will have a room all your very own where the sun will shine in. And on gloomy days, the smell of bread baking in the kitchen will fill every room.”

  “Really?” Emilie said, looking up at Nicholas.

  Can India come with us? India imagined her asking. But Emilie didn’t know India would not be joining them—Nicholas hadn’t told her yet.

  And now he was looking at India with an expression she couldn’t quite identify. Perhaps she’d made another mistake, describing cottage life that way.

  But he put his arm around Emilie and rubbed her shoulder. “Yes, really. The cottage will be great fun. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  LATE IN THE night, Nick stood in his bedroom in his shirt, breeches and stockings, rereading the note the rider had delivered, wondering what the devil his solicitor could want so urgently.

  There wasn’t time for a trip to London, but he would have to make one tomorrow. He would go on horseback in the morning—early—and be back by evening.

  Another wasted day, on top of so many others.

  The business here needed to be finished quickly. Two days hence at the latest. Then they would return to London, and he would begin looking for a cottage, and India—

  God. India.

  She made cottage life sound so fantastical he almost believed it himself. Any other young lady would have been horrified by the state Taggart was in. Mortified by the task at hand and what it meant. Any other young lady would have wanted to stay at James’s house in London—would probably be begging for them to live there, just to keep up appearances.

  But India had helped Miss Ursula change the sodding linens on the sodding beds.

  India wanted to help.

  And Nick wanted her so badly he’d considered shutting the door to that damned attic room and taking her right then, right there. And he wanted it even though he knew bloody well she didn’t want to be here. Even though he could see her fading before his eyes, just as he’d known she would.

  Wandering about the house, taking a haphazard inventory hither and yon?

  He thought about her blank stare when he’d questioned her about her methods. And perhaps she didn’t want to help at all. Perhaps she was only trying to find some way to occupy herself, absent the busy labor aboard a ship.

  A sailing boat on the pond. Good God. Only imagine if he did have one, and if they were going to stay here. Only imagine her trapped forever on his little pond in a tiny sailboat.

  But they weren’t staying. She wasn’t staying. She would return to Paris, and if nothing else, she could have excitement there. He might have the legal right to stop her, but he had only to think of her trapped in some gloomy cottage to know he could never, ever do that to her.

  She was sunlight and freedom.

  And he was a man with no home, no place, no name.

  Yet somehow, now, he found himself tossing the letter onto his dresser and lifting a candle. Opening his door, padding barefoot across the corridor, knocking on hers...looking for some of that sunlight, even if only for right now.

  Her door opened, just a little—just enough for him to see a long section of billowing white nightgown—and she looked up at him. Her eyes were so huge, so blue. And her lips—his tongue remembered her taste.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “No.” He barely recognized his own voice, thick with desire and need. “I’d like to come in.” Even though he knew better, even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t touch her again because he shouldn’t—not after he’d ordered her to leave.

  But he had to. He had to.

  In the candlelight glow, comprehension darkened her eyes. Those lips parted, and—acquiescence. She stepped back, opened the door wider.

  He stepped through it. Set his candle on a side table and faced her. She looked more like a virgin now, in her billowing nightgown and braid, than she’d looked that night she had been a virgin and he’d so mindlessly plundered her.

  And it was wrong—so bloody wrong—but he wanted to make love to her with nothing between them.

  He wanted to feel her bare skin against his.

  He wanted her to part her legs for him, even knowing everything about him—his heritage, his financial embarrassment, his hopeless future.

  And so he reached for her.

  Kissed her.

  And Christ—now she was kissing him back, not like she’d done at Madame Gravelle’s but more sweetly, more thoroughly, more...

  Everything.

  He framed her face in his hands, drinking deeply of that sweetness. Her arms came around him, and she was so damned soft and pliant, pressing herself against him with an intoxicating little sigh, and he may have ordered her to leave but right now he was so bloody glad she hadn’t.

  Stay, he wanted to say. Stay with us. With me.

  Instead he hooked her under the knees and lifted her into his arms. Kicked the door shut behind them and carried her to the bed. Laid her across it and stretched over her, kissing her harder now, deeper, filling his hands with flesh covered by soft cotton.

  He rolled with her so she lay on top of him and he could pull her braid apart, shaking her golden hair loose to fall over her shoulders and onto his chest. Touched her face, brushed his thumb across her lips, dug his hands into her hair and pulled her down, kissing her with a need so strong it scared him.

  He pulled at her gown, needing to touch bare flesh. Felt her pushing his shirt up—Christ, he wanted her touch. Craved it. He pulled at her gown, pulled at his own shirt, and then—

  Yes.

  God.

  She was naked. Full, uninhibited breasts. Pale, curving hips. Smooth belly above the softest patch of dark golden curls that he already knew hid a channel that would accept him with a slick, hot resistance.

  He pulled her to him. Felt her breasts against his bare chest, her hard nipples pressing against his skin. She was all softness and curves, and he touched her everywhere—breasts, belly, hips, thighs.

  He slipped his fingers into her folds and found them already damp with anticipation.

  And touching her wasn’t enough. He trailed his lips down her neck, across her collarbone, while he filled his hands with her breasts and pushed them high, kneading, glorying in the beauty of those pink crests.

  He took one in his mouth. Savored the tautness of it between his lips and pulled. Heard her cry out, felt his cock pulse in response. He took the other.

  Turned her again so she lay beneath him. Pushed her breasts together and suckled each in turn, then began teasing her with his thumbs, knowing a deep satisfaction when her thighs parted and her hips strained upward.

  He kissed his way down her belly. And God—God—her petals were so pink, so open. He pushed her thighs wider, dipped in for a taste, and her ragged response inflamed him. Made him want to devour her more than he’d ever wanted anything, and he did—his tongue circling over her pleasure, dipping into her channel, finding her tight bud once more. He gripped her hips, but she strained hard, panting, gasping, signaling that she was climbing closer to climax, closer, closer....

  And she was there, fisting the covers in her hands, throbbing and pulsing around his tongue as she peaked, and it was too much.

  He had to be inside her.

  Now.

  Immediately.

  He stripped off his breeches. Rose up over her, let his erection find the sweet spot where his tongue had just been. And her hips surged upward, and he slipped to her opening, entering her, and he drove himself forward—

  * * *

  OH. OH! INDIA felt him thrust into her, tasted her own musk in his kiss, sighed as her channel stretched full and tight around him the way she’d longed for it to do ever since that night in Paris.

  Nicholas.

  Her husband.

  Her love.

  H
er heart seemed to swell as he moved powerfully between her legs, pushing himself inside her again. Again. Again. She tangled her tongue with his, felt him dig his fingers into her hair, welcomed him with open thighs and tilting hips that she pushed up, up, up to meet him.

  He was so beautiful—eyes dark, lips gasping against the intensity of the pleasure. She kissed them, and he responded instantly, and she tried to press herself closer, hold him tighter, bring him deeper.

  I love you.

  Each thrust drove the fact more deeply home.

  I.

  Love.

  You.

  And oh, heaven, he was rolling with her now so that she lay on top of him again. His hands guided her hips up...down... Oh. And she moved on him that way harder, faster, watching him strain upward to take one of her nipples into his mouth, and pleasure spiked below.

  Spiraled higher.

  And she felt him fully inside her—all of him—and now the intimate muscles between her thighs clenched him, seized, pushed her over the edge into sweet oblivion that left her panting and calling his name.

  Nicholas.

  He was there, holding her hips, taking over, straining up into her.

  And she collapsed onto him, breathing hard against the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent while her thighs still straddled his body. For the longest time they lay there, before he finally turned with her to the side, and she felt him slip from her body. She looked into his face—his beautiful green eyes, his perfectly sculpted nose, his firm lips.

  His arms came around her, holding her fiercely as if he would never let her go.

  If only it were true.

  * * *

  NICK SLOWLY CAME awake and opened his eyes, feeling India next to him with her arm draped across his bare chest. It took a moment for the memories to come, but they did.

  Lovemaking. Never in his life had he done anything like what they’d done tonight. He hadn’t known it was possible to be that...close to a woman.

  He turned his head on the pillow, looked at her lips curving peacefully in satisfaction and slumber.

  At least, for now.