My Wicked Marquess

by Gaelen Foley

  She gazed earnestly into his eyes. “I’m going to be an excellent wife to you.”

  “I have no doubt of that.”

  “No, I really mean it. I fought this for a long time, but now…it’s full sail ahead,” she whispered, toying with the single button on the neckline of his shirt.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Smiling, she leaned closer and pressed another kiss to his lips, closing her eyes with a soft chuckle. “Hypatia Glendale, indeed. You’re mine now, all mine. Your lips. Your nose, your eyes, your cheeks…” She kissed each part, in turn. “Your chin, all of you. Your neck…What’s this?” she exclaimed all of a sudden, halting and staring at the pale scar on the side of his neck beneath his ear.

  “Oh, that? That’s nothing,” he said. “Just where some unfortunate fellow tried to kill me.”

  “Kill you?” she cried. “What for?”

  “Fun and profit, in the main. Tried to rob me, too. Rome, it was. Don’t worry, it was long ago.”

  “Darling, you could’ve been killed!”

  “No, Fate had better things in mind for me, my pretty lady. Namely, you. Don’t worry! I was faster.” He pulled her close and kissed away her astonishment.

  She forgot about the scar, clutching breathlessly at his shirt. “Max?”

  “Yes, my bride?”

  “You really don’t need this anymore, do you?”

  She saw the flash of startled delight in his eyes. He stared at her in fascination. “You’re right.” He nodded vaguely and quickly pulled his shirt off over his head.

  “Mm, lovely.” Cuddling on his lap, she rested her head against his bare shoulder and amused herself with walking her fingers up his splendid chest.

  But then, all of a sudden, once more, her strolling fingers stopped. “Max,” she said firmly.

  “Yes, love?” he answered, his deep voice gone slightly scratchy with desire. It seemed her playfulness was having a curious effect on him.

  “Max,” she said, “there is another scar here. On your chest.”

  “There is?”

  “Max!”

  “Did the robber stab you here, too?”

  “Uh, that was from another fellow.”

  “Somebody else tried to kill you?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You really have to learn how to get along with others, darling! Honestly. Do people often try to kill you?”

  “Only now and then. Ah, you need not fear for me, my love. Don’t you know I’m descended from warlords and Crusaders?” he reminded her sardonically. “Even a few Knights Templar thrown into the mix.”

  She looked askance at him, but thrilled to that small endearment: my love. She tucked it away like a treasure inside her heart and dared to hope she was making real progress with him at last. She gave his second scar a kiss. “Someday you’ll have to tell me all about it.”

  “I don’t think I will,” he murmured, skimming his smiling lips along her neck even as he tightened his embrace. “It is a very nasty business.”

  “Well,” she conceded with a sensuous sigh, enjoying his warm nibbling at her earlobe, “you do have a penchant for getting into trouble. Are there any other scars that I should know about? Being as I am your wife and all.”

  “Why don’t you keep looking and find out for yourself?” he breathed by her ear.

  “You really are wicked, you know.”

  “Not past redemption, surely?”

  “I didn’t say I thought it was a flaw.”

  He let out a low laugh and slid his arms around her waist, kissing her in earnest. Daphne reveled in the satin glide of his tongue against hers and caressed him everywhere, caught up in his intoxicating taste.

  She sensed, heard, breathed in the quickening of his breath as her fingers inched over his bare skin, savoring the sculpted hardness of his abdomen, upward to the muscled swells of his chest.

  She curled her hands in lustful awe over his powerful shoulders, and then raked her nails in teasing lightness down his enormous biceps. Meanwhile, he had slid his clever fingers under the edge of her satin dressing gown, slowly pushing it down off her shoulders.

  He tore his lips away from hers and let his kiss now follow where his hands glided. Daphne moaned softly as he nibbled her bare shoulder, but when his lips moved up the curve of her neck, his hand roamed down to cup her breast through the thin cloth of her chemise.

  She tilted her head back as his thumb began teasing her nipple to burning erectness. Leaving her breast temporarily, he grasped her hips and shifted her up onto her knees astride his lap. This brought her breasts right up to his face. Immediately, he returned to lavishing them with his attentions. Her dressing gown was now hanging about her elbows, but she was still dressed in her linen chemise.

  Kneeling on the fabric, she grew impatient to be rid of it, but there was such pleasure in straddling him, feeling the heat and the hardness of him between the juncture of her thighs.

  Her breasts strained against the linen restraint of her garment, but Max did his best to work around it, kissing her chest where the scoop neck of her chemise left her skin bare, and teasing her breasts into aching response through the fine paper-thin cloth.

  Raking her fingers through his thick dark hair, she moved against him in a subtle rhythm; her body sought a closer fit with his. She didn’t think they were going to find it on this chair, but, God, he was driving her mad.

  Her restless blood clamored for a deeper fulfillment.

  As he gripped her hips and helped her grind against him, she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. God, she had burned for this man from the first moment she had laid eyes on him, looking like sex incarnate coming out of that brothel.

  She wanted to know tonight exactly what her libertine could do.

  With sweet, carnal memories of his mouth between her legs, she captured his chin and drew his rapt kisses away from her breasts. “Max,” she whispered breathlessly. “I need—a drink of wine.” With a vixenish stare, she climbed off his lap and stood up a trifle unsteadily.

  She let her blue satin dressing gown fall to the floor with an idle shrug. He watched her with an avid, wolflike stare as she turned away, going to steady her nerves with a final swallow of wine. Before she reached the vanity where she had left her cup, she felt him watching her and glanced back at him over her shoulder. There was a look on his face almost of pain as he stared at her.

  She paused and turned around. “What is it?”

  “Your shift is quite transparent when you stand before the fire.”

  “Oh?” She glanced down at herself, blushing slightly. “Well, then. I don’t suppose I need it anymore.” With a surge of brazen daring, she sent him a sultry smile and lifted the chemise off over her head.

  She heard his whispery groan as she shook out her hair and dropped the filmy garment on the floor. Standing in place for a moment, she let him look, then casually turned away and walked over to retrieve her wine.

  In the mirror of the vanity, she could see his stare devouring her nude body. She was not sure what had gotten into her. Only that she wanted him.

  The one thing she was beginning to understand was that these physical pleasures gave her a way to reach him more deeply. When he was engrossed with her in the giving and receiving of amorous bliss, he forgot about keeping his guard up; the mask he wore came down.

  Even now, his desire seemed to reach out to her from across the room like a stream of powerful heat.

  She turned and watched him watching her, drank the last swallow of her wine, and then, instead of going back to him, walked slowly over to the bed.

  His stare intensified, but he held himself back as if with a leash. She drew the covers back and climbed into his bed. “Mm.” As she slid down between the silky cream-colored sheets, she was enveloped in luxurious warmth from the coal-filled bed warmer already spreading its heat.

  Reclining on the pillows piled against the headboard, she crooked her finger at him. “Come here, husband.”<
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  He rose and went to her. She held his stare, leaning back on her elbows. The look on his face was that of a man who had got what he wanted and knew that, at last, the long-relished time had come to enjoy his prize.

  He had been holding himself back for the sake of her sensibilities, she thought, but she hoped he saw now that if he wanted, he should take.

  And he definitely wanted.

  With his gaze locked on hers, he reached the bed and slowly joined her, moving on all fours atop her. Daphne quivered, waiting for his kiss in the darkness. She tilted her head back, offering her lips.

  He swooped down and claimed them as though he could not withstand another second of denial. He consumed her mouth, her breath, her soul, in ravenous need, one hand cupping her head, the other reaching down to free himself from his breeches.

  Daphne was swept away as she returned his kisses, running her hands up and down his silken sides. She helped him push his breeches down past his hips, unbearable excitement rising in her. He lay between her legs.

  She was acutely aware of the softness of her quivering stomach against his hard, chiseled abdomen, her satiny breasts against his muscled chest. Their mouths were joined as their bodies soon would be, her fingers twined behind his neck.

  He reached down to stroke her gently and moaned to find her core already soaked with her readiness for him.

  “I need you,” he panted.

  In response, she drew him closer into her embrace. The next thing she knew, she felt him slowly, carefully entering her. Her heart thundered as he mounted her, but behind her closed eyes, she was wild with yearning for him.

  His fevered panting rasped against her cheek as he overwhelmed her maiden barrier. Her hands tensed atop his shoulders, but she did not cry out.

  He dragged his lips across her brow in a savage remnant of a kiss; having fully invaded, he now stopped. Already in full penetration of her, he could go no farther, could only wait for her virginal body to accept the depth of his taking, the width of his grand incursion.

  She barely dared breathe.

  “Good girl, good girl,” he panted, soothing her ever so seductively.

  Daphne willed her body to open completely to him. It was pleasure. It was pain. It was sheer intoxication. The pain passed, trickling away by the second while a floodtide of desire rose anew and engulfed them both.

  He began to move, awakening her with a blissful friction of their bodies. The undulant waves of his taking built toward a crescendo of resounding power. She wrapped her legs around his hips, gifting him with a surrender that only seemed to take him higher.

  “Oh, God, Daphne.” They both were shaking with frantic need. His iron arms clenched around her waist as he claimed her in a frenzied, driving consummation. She thrashed beneath him, wanting all he had to give, letting him unleash his storm. The cries of wrenching pleasure that escaped her filled the room as he ravished her.

  Sweet heaven, this was how she wanted him, all his cool control stripped away, ravenous, aye, desperate for her, not hiding behind his clever wordplay, his sardonic humor, his quicksilver mind.

  There was no hiding for either of them in a moment like this. She did not even mind that he was slightly rough with her, because in this moment, he was so raw and utterly real. The darkness that he tried to hide, the depths in him that he would never give voice to, all were revealed in every touch, every kiss, every thrust as he claimed her for his own. His body gave expression to what his silver tongue refused to share.

  They reached their climax in furious unison, writhing, burning, locked in a searing kiss, her hips lifting to meet each slamming stroke from him. He stopped as he, too, was overcome, throwing his head back, his arms rigid around her. He arched his spine, buried to the hilt inside her passage. Reality pulsated with pleasure like a racing heartbeat.

  Their ecstasy blotted out the world; his low groan as he filled her with another powerful spurt of his seed harkened to her out among the cosmos, where her mind, as ravished as her body, had been floating briefly.

  Time had been suspended…

  Then he sighed, such a sound, deep, soulful, from his core. “Oh, Daphne,” he breathed. He pressed a shaken kiss warmly to her lips.

  “Max.” She wrapped her leaden arms around him as he laid his head down on the pillow just above her shoulder.

  She turned her face at length to look into his eyes. There was nothing more to say; it was the closest she had ever felt to him. No words required.

  She touched his hair wearily, and smiled as he closed his eyes with a look of total bliss. She went on caressing him until he fell asleep, yet she was still haunted by the words he had confided in that stable.

  No one has ever loved me.

  Gazing sweetly at him in the silence, she kissed his brow. My love, there is a first time for everything.

  Chapter 16

  Wake up, sleepyhead,” Max whispered in her ear the next morning.

  Daphne shifted luxuriously beside him. “It’s early.”

  “There’s something we need to take care of before we leave Town.”

  She rolled onto her back and gazed at him. “What is it?”

  He just smiled. “Come with me.”

  Thus began their orphanage project, in which Daphne and he assembled a team of helpers and accomplished what amounted to a month’s worth of work in roughly a week.

  First Max summoned Oliver Smith, Esquire, along with the property agent for the boarding school. They all drove out to Islington so His Lordship could personally inspect the premises.

  Finding it all in reasonably good order, with only a few repairs needed, Max took the property agent aside to negotiate the deal. This was quickly accomplished, but before the children could move in, a considerable number of preparations had to be completed.

  While Daphne was responsible for listing what the children needed, he put himself in charge of the how.

  He quickly marshaled up an army of resources to help get the boarding school ready for the orphans. First he recruited his butler Dodsley, at the head of his entire domestic staff, to clean the boarding school from tip to stern.

  Second, since the orphans’ caretakers had long been overwhelmed, Max hunted down and rehired a number of the kindly spinsters who had worked there when it was a school.

  Daphne summoned the older boys and girls who had been apprenticed out or hired all over London to come and work for a day helping to get the place ready.

  Papa and his gentlemen friends spent a day watching footman William and one of Max’s coachmen fix up the two old wagons and the governess cart that they had contributed for the cause. Lord Falconridge donated an enormous sum to stock the orphanage’s pantry with long-term stores of food. He also pitched in for a slew of books and chalks and slates for the classroom. At the same time, the Duke of Warrington pitched in with a delivery of coal stores sufficient to warm the orphanage all the way through to next summer.

  Jono and Carissa went around to all the toy shops in London and coaxed the toymakers into handing over some of their wares for the children to play with, hoops and balls and pull toys, dolls and stuffed animals.

  Oliver Smith was given the task of making arrangements with a shop full of seamstresses and another team of cobblers to outfit the children with their new clothes and shoes.

  It occurred to Daphne that Penelope had the perfect talents to help organize all the activity on move-in day. Since the location no longer entailed the dangerous environs of Bucket Lane, her stepmother agreed to help, too, and even brought Sarah and Anna to come and assist.

  Penelope herself took charge of stocking the medicinal cabinet with plenty of herbal remedies and potions for warding off the children’s sniffles. Even Albert Carew’s elder brother, Hayden, the Duke of Holyfield, made a contribution before heading off on his holiday in France with his expectant wife, to enjoy the pleasures of Paris before the birth of their first child.

  By move-in day, everything was ready. The new caretakers were in pla
ce, all smiles at the prospect of their charges’ arrival. A receiving line of seamstresses and cobblers waited at the orphanage to measure all the children for their new sets of clothes and shoes. Penelope bustled around making sure everything was in order and quite reveling in her newfound role.

  At last, the fixed-up, newly painted wagons rolled into Bucket Lane to transport the children to their new home. Small faces peered out of every grimy window as their makeshift army of concerned citizens arrived: Daphne and Max, the two Willies, Oliver Smith, Dodsley. Warrington and Falconridge had also come along to keep the local ruffians at bay.

  Before long, they left Bucket Lane behind forever, and as the wagons full of cheering orphans arrived at their new home, Daphne’s eyes filled with tears at all the joyous hubbub. There were children running about everywhere, never having been set loose in a country meadow before. The seamstresses were hard-pressed to still each wriggly toddler long enough to be measured.

  The little girls were immediately crowding around the huge gentle draft horses, petting them, and the boys were chasing one another around the fenced-in garden.

  At length, however, their energies flagging, the children were herded into their new home, going single-file into the doorway over which hung a placard that read: The Emma, Lady Starling, Home for Orphans.

  It had been Max’s idea to dedicate the place to Daphne’s mother. Watching him all week, she thought him extraordinary, but what surprised her the most was his natural way with the children. In fact, Daphne thought, he seemed to have surprised himself. When one giggling two-year-old escaped the old cobbler who had been trying to measure her tiny feet, Max dashed off after the escaping urchin and swept her up into his arms.

  The toddler hung down, trailing her arms limply, and laughing her head off as he carried her back snugly to the shoemaker. He also befriended Jemmy, the thirteen-year-old who had run away from two apprenticeships that Daphne had managed to arrange for him in the past.

  The lad was so much in awe of Max that he agreed to come with them to Worcestershire, where there were any number of openings for him in the many projects her husband had under way.