by Mary Balogh
“Has this always been your place?” he asked her.
“It was my father’s before his death,” she said. “Now it is yours.”
He set himself to charm her while they ate. He told her about London, with which she was not at all familiar, and recounted lively and humorous stories from his experience—ones that were suitable for the ear of a gently nurtured woman. They both laughed a great deal.
He wondered if she was in love with him. She had claimed to have some regard for him, nothing more, on the day when he had made his offer. It seemed like half a century ago. He hoped she did not love him. He would not hurt her for worlds. He wanted to show her kindness as far as he could. After all, she had already done him a great service. Once he had got past all this strange tension of a wedding day, he was going to feel enormous relief at the knowledge that soon he would be debt-free. It was going to feel as if a heavy load had been removed from his back. He owed that feeling to her.
He was going to be kind to her. Because he wanted to be. Because he owed it to her. Because perhaps it would soothe his conscience somewhat. His conscience had been badly battered recently, what with that business with Jule and this deception with Clara.
And he needed to be kind to her. His mother and father would expect it of him. And he needed to prove to that tight-lipped little ice maiden of a companion that he was no ogre. And there was Archie. He had said nothing, of course, but there had been a look in his eyes after the wedding—part amusement, part sympathy—that had told Frederick that he understood perfectly. Sympathy! No, he did not need anyone’s sympathy. Sympathy for him meant insult to Clara.
He would let no one insult Clara. She was his wife. He would prove to everyone that he knew how to care for a wife, even a plain and crippled one.
“Shall I have Robin summoned to take me back to the drawing room?” she asked when they had finished eating. “I used to leave Papa to enjoy his port alone.”
“Not tonight,” he said, setting a hand over hers and curling his fingers beneath it. “This is our wedding day.”
And so he carried her back to the drawing room and sat beside her on a sofa, her hand in his, telling her more stories at her request until the gaps between them became longer and he could feel her growing agitation and his own. It was still early. But there was no point in torturing themselves for another hour or two. This was something he wanted to get over with. A wedding night should be something eagerly anticipated, he knew, especially if it was to be with a woman he had not had before. But not this particular wedding night.
“Would you like me to carry you up to your room, my love?” he asked gently when she had failed to respond to one of his funnier stories.
She turned her head sharply and looked up at him.
“I shall summon your maid when we get there and leave you to her services,” he said. “Is that how it is usually done?”
“Yes, ” she said.
“Clara.” He raised her hand to his lips. “I must know. Do you wish this to be a normal marriage, my dear, or one in name only? It must be as you wish. I do not want to distress you.”
For once there was color in her cheeks. A whole arsenal of roses. “I am your wife, Freddie,” she said.
He searched her eyes and nodded, Ah, so she wanted it, then. She had not married him for the mere respectability of marriage. He just hoped... Oh, God, he hoped she was not in love with him. He would feel a worse blackguard than he already felt, if that were possible.
“You will become my wife fully this night, Clara, my love,” he said, intensifying his look before getting to his feet in order to take her up into his arms again. He could not quite imagine himself making love to this thin and apparently frail body. “It has come at last. I have thought in the past few days that time had transformed itself into a snail just in order to torture me.”
She set her head on the arm she had wound about his neck and laughed.
She lay on her bed after her maid had left, staring upward, trying to breathe steadily and slowly, wondering how long it would be before he returned. Half an hour, he had said after setting her down on the chair in her dressing room and summoning her maid. Half an hour. That must have almost passed already.
She should have had her hair braided, she thought. There was far too much of it to lie loose over her shoulders and down her back. Her father had never allowed her to cut it. Perhaps he had thought that as with Samson in the Bible the little strength she had lay in her hair. She smiled at the thought. She should have braided her hair, except that braids seemed very juvenile and virginal.
Virginal. Her cheeks grew hot at the thought.
It would be strange to have a man in this room. In this bed. This had been her room ever since Papa had started bringing her to Bath after their return from India.
It had been a wonderful day. She had not expected the day itself to be wonderful, only the fact of her marriage. But it had been lovely. Everyone had been warm and kind. Everyone had seemed genuinely happy for her. Lord Bellamy had welcomed her into his family. He had said they were proud to have her as a member. She had believed him. Lesley—dear Lesley—had told her that he liked her. He had called her his sister. And Freddie had been charming—even after they were married and after all their guests had left and it might have been expected that he would lower his mask and put an end to the charade.
She had very much enjoyed dinner, despite the feeling of near-panic she had felt when his parents had refused her invitation to dinner and had left. Freddie had been charming and amusing and interesting. She liked his laugh. It was an amused chuckle.
She wondered how long he would continue to be charming. Until the morning perhaps? Until after the marriage had been consummated? Her stomach performed something of a somersault.
He had given her the chance to avoid this. Perhaps he had thought her health would make a normal marriage impossible. Perhaps he had welcomed the thought. Perhaps he had no wish to make a proper marriage out of it. But she would not be able to bear that. This was why she had married him. It was perhaps a shameful admission to make even in the privacy of her own heart. No lady surely would admit as much. But she had not married him just for the sake of being able to say she was a married woman. She had married him because she wanted him. Because she wanted a man. A strong and virile man.
She had paid dearly for Freddie. Twenty thousand pounds, and perhaps more in the future. Perhaps he would drain away large portions of her fortune if she found herself unable to refuse him. And she knew what it was she had paid for. It was this. This that was about to happen to her. As a man might pay dearly for an extraordinarily beautiful courtesan. She did not expect that he would continue to charm her or to keep up the facade of calling her his love. She did not really expect his friendship or much of his company. Just this, occasionally.
Yes, it was a shameful admission. But it was the truth, and she had been alone with herself long enough to know that only the truth to herself was comfortable to live with. She had bought Freddie’s beauty and strength and virility.
There was a tap on the door. It opened before she could gather herself together sufficiently to call to him to come in.
Chapter 5
It felt like a new experience. But then it was a new experience. He felt almost as if he were the virgin, not knowing how to approach her, what to say to her, what to do to her. He did not know quite what she wanted apart from the consummation. He had never been with a woman under circumstances even comparable to these.
He smiled as he approached the bed. “I almost forgot the way to my own room when I left yours,” he said. “All the doors looked the same.”
“Oh.” She laughed.
She looked younger when she laughed. And with her hair brushed out loose. It was thick, shining, healthy-looking hair. He sat down on the edge of the bed and twined a lock of it about his fingers.
“I should have had it braided,” she said.
“No,” he said. “It is lovely as it is.” It
was rather lovely, too. It looked better loose than piled on her head. She was looking at him with wary, questioning eyes and he realized that there was nothing in his experience to carry him through this moment. It was all new to him, this consummation of a marriage with a woman he found in no way appealing. And yet he owed her kindness, loyalty. What did she want? He wished he knew.
He lowered his head and kissed her. She was warm and apparently relaxed. Her closed lips trembled slightly beneath his closed lips and then pushed back against them. Ah, she was beginning to answer his unspoken questions. He smoothed back the hair from one side of her face and ran one knuckle of the other hand along her jawline, over her lips, along her nose.
“My love,” he said, setting his lips to hers again, “you must tell me immediately if I cause you pain or discomfort. Will you?”
But she was pressing her lips to his again, and her hands were first on his shoulders and then about his neck. He felt the fingers of one of her hands twine in his hair. She wanted it, then. She was not merely going to endure for the sake of duty or in order to make the marriage more real. She wanted it. There was a restrained and inexperienced eagerness in her embrace.
So be it, then. He would give her what she wanted. He owed her that.
He got to his feet to remove his brocaded dressing gown and watched her eyes move over his form, clad only in a nightshirt. God, there was heat in her eyes. Desire. With some relief he felt the stirrings of arousal. There was something slightly erotic about being wanted when he did not want. He drew back the bedclothes, snuffed the single candle that stood on the table beside the bed, and lay down beside her.
“My love,” he murmured to her, sliding one arm beneath her and leaning over her to find her lips with his again. He parted his own, wondering how she would react. But she followed his lead almost immediately, her mouth opening beneath the teasing of his own. She was warm and moist. She tasted good. And smelled good. There was a clean soap smell about her hair and her skin. He could feel her hands lightly exploring the muscles of his back and shoulders.
“Freddie,” she said when he moved his mouth to kiss her eyes and her temples and her throat. Her voice was low and husky.
It was going to be easy to make love to her after all, he thought. She was inexperienced, but she was not shy. He just hoped that his weight would not cause her harm when it came time to cover her. He ran one hand lightly down her side. She was so very slender. He spread the hand behind her and brought her over onto her side against him. Slender and warm and surprisingly supple. And more shapely than he had noticed. Strange, really, that he had not done so. Perhaps it was because he had never really looked at her as a woman, as any sort of sex object.
His hand verified the impression his chest had given him. Her breasts were not large, but they were firm and well-shaped. He caressed them through the filmy cotton of her nightgown and set a thumb against one hardening tip.
“Mmm,” he said, finding her mouth with his own again, both open this time. He licked at her lips with his tongue, teased it up behind the tender flesh of her upper lip. “Beautiful.” He was fully aroused at last. It was not going to be an impossibility after all. Or even difficult. He was infinitely thankful. Her mouth and her hands and her body told him that she wanted pleasure. He was glad he was going to be able to give it her.
He stretched down with one arm, grasped the hem of her nightgown, and raised it. He intended to raise it only to her hips, but there was no resistance in her, no shrinking. He drew it up to her waist, to her breasts, and then she raised her arms and he pulled it off altogether and tossed it over the side of the bed. And then to his surprise—not totally unpleasurable—he felt her hands dragging at his nightshirt. He helped her and threw it to join her nightgown somewhere on the floor.
Her legs were thin as were her body and her arms. He could feel her ribs with the hand that explored, but her skin was warm and silky. Her breasts were taut with desire. Her kiss demanded, and he gave, moving his mouth over hers, deepening the pressure, darting his tongue inside. One of her hands was spread over his chest. The other was moving over his back, her palm pressing against the muscles there and moving down even to his buttocks.
It was time, he thought. She was ready and somehow he had persuaded himself into desiring her. Perhaps it was that he felt pity for her and gratitude for what she had unknowingly done for him. But whatever it was, he was ready for her. Ready to give her pleasure. And afraid of giving her pain. She seemed so fragile, so thin as he turned her onto her back again and came over on top of her.
“My love,” he murmured against her mouth, “I don’t want to hurt you. But I fear I must in a moment. It will not last. It will be for a moment only. Am I too heavy for you?” He could have taken her on top of him, but she would have been unable to kneel over him.
“No,” she whispered. “No, Freddie.” And then she moaned a little as he positioned himself at the entrance to her and began to push slowly inward.
Small. Warm. Virginal. An untraveled path. And soon the barrier. He did not want to hurt her. He nudged forward when instinct would have had him plunging. And then the barrier gave way at the same moment as she gave an almost inaudible whimper, and he mounted all the way into heat and wetness. Into woman. She was as much woman as the most voluptuous courtesan of his experience, he thought in some surprise.
He was afraid that his weight was squashing her. He was afraid that her legs would be paining her from being spread wide by his own. He raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. God, he thought, she was enjoying this. She looked to be in near ecstasy. He felt a totally unexpected rush of tenderness for her. She opened her eyes. They looked huge and dreamy in the dimness of the room.
“Am I hurting you, my love?” he asked.
She shook her head and reached up her arms to his shoulders, drawing him down to her again.
And so he began to move in her, withdrawing and thrusting slowly until he was sure that she felt no pain, and then pleasuring her with a firm, steady rhythm. He was doing something he had never done before, he realized. For several years, ever since he had developed some expertise, he had prided himself on giving pleasure to his women as well as to himself. But he had never concentrated more on his woman’s pleasure than on his own. Not until now. This was not for his pleasure. It would have pleased him better to have accomplished the consummation with one swift inward thrust and a speedy spilling of his seed.
He worked to give pleasure to his new wife, stroking her until she relaxed and rocked to his rhythm, slowly building speed and depth with a skill of long practice to bring her toward climax, moving his hands to her buttocks, holding her steady while he finally held deep and hard and still in her once, twice, three times before all the tension shuddered out of her with one long, satisfied sigh. He held still in her until she was totally relaxed again and then finished swiftly before disengaging from her and moving to her side.
She turned her head and nestled her cheek against his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, he could see. There was a half-smile on her lips. The smile of a woman who had just enjoyed good sex. He was used to seeing it in the faces of the courtesans and whores he took frequently to his bed. There was something strangely moving about seeing it on the face of this woman. His wife. She was as much woman as they, he thought again. It was not her fault that she looked less alluring. And yet, strangely, beneath the bedsheets she had felt not a great deal less desirable than they. And she had been flatteringly eager.
“Well,” he said, his voice low against her ear. He kissed her cheek and her mouth softly. “Now you are in every way Mrs. Frederick Sullivan, Clara. For life. Any regrets?”
Her eyes fluttered open. “No, Freddie,” she said. “None. And you?”
He kissed her again. “I love you, my darling,” he said. He wished he meant it. He tried to mean it as much as he could. He wanted her to be happy. He would make it one of the goals of his life to make her happy.
She closed her eyes again, made a sound that was almost like a purr in her throat, and was asleep. She had not responded to his words, he noticed.
He had not gone back to his own room. That was the first thought she had when she woke up. She had been afraid that he would. She had expected that he would. As far as she knew, most husbands and wives slept in separate rooms. But he was still there beside her. He was not holding her, but her cheek was pressed snugly to his shoulder and all down the length of her body she was touching him. All that splendid warm maleness was against her.
Naked maleness. She remembered suddenly their unclothing each other, the shock and wonder of his firm, bare flesh beneath her hands and against her own equally naked flesh. Strangely, there had been no terror, no embarrassment. Only an exultation in his muscled strength and an almost swooning desire to be possessed by him.
She could almost have believed during those minutes that she loved him, that the desire she felt, the desire that surged at his touch, was for Freddie himself, not just for his body. She even whispered his name more than once. And indeed, she thought now in her own defense, it had not been all purely carnal, what she had felt. She had been aware at every moment while the strange, delirious new delights were happening to her body that it was Freddie with whom she was doing those things. Not just any man, but Freddie. Freddie’s splendid body.
Not Freddie himself, but only his body? Clara turned her head so that her lips were against his shoulder, and her nose. He smelled good, partly of soap, partly of sweat. But there was nothing unpleasant about the latter smell. It was masculine and virile. It reminded her of how that sweat had been generated.
