Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  That was why this man, a genuine, good, honorable man, strong in mind as well as in body, was such a balm to her soul. And what a ripping fine body he had, too. She smiled as she stared at his splendid chest, enjoying the view for several moments. Finally, she looked into his eyes again, and she grinned. “Told you so.” At his puzzled look, she added, “You do have a bit of the devil in you.”

  His lips curved just a little, but his expression remained grave as he reached out and touched her face. “You bit your lip.” His thumb brushed her mouth, she felt a sting at the contact, and when his hand pulled back, there was a smear of blood on the pad of his thumb.

  It startled her, the sight of that, a sign of how tightly she’d held back, how much she’d tried to withhold herself from him. “I—” She stopped, for she didn’t know what on earth she’d intended to say. “What are you thinking?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “I’m thinking how beautiful you are.”

  A whole different kind of pleasure washed over her. “Funny,” she choked, “I was thinking the same about you.”

  “And,” he added, leaning forward to press a kiss to her hair, “I was thinking that I really prefer women with eyes the color of lilacs.”

  That made her smile, and he liked that. In the late afternoon sun that streamed through the window, she was rosy and tousled, her hair falling all around her, her breasts peeking out between long ebony curls. In those gorgeous violet-blue eyes, he saw pleasure, and a little bit of astonishment. She didn’t have to say what she was feeling. He saw it in her eyes.

  Then, suddenly, her thick black lashes came down as she slanted a glance down to his hips, and what must be flagrantly obvious, especially since his trousers were unbuttoned. “Do you know what I want now?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I want to go upstairs. I want . . .” She paused, then added, “More.”

  He laughed and stepped around the end of the table to lift her into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he carried her up the stairs, bending to duck them both beneath the low beams at the landing.

  He reached the top of the stairs and glanced to the corridors that branched left and right. Glimpsing a brass bedstead and white linens through a doorway at the end of a corridor, he started that way even as he asked, “To the right?”

  “Yes.”

  Her room was sparsely furnished with a wrought-iron bedstead, a marble-topped washstand, and an armoire. A carpet of Turkish design in blue, green, and red covered the plank floor, and sheer curtains of white chiffon fluttered at the open windows that overlooked the sea. Opposite them was a primitive stone fireplace.

  He’d banked his own desires, holding back as much as he could so that she could let go, but as he laid Julia on the bed, as he looked at her, naked and so lovely against the white linens behind her, he feared his self-discipline was coming to an end.

  His eyes locked with hers, he yanked off his shoes. He unfastened the remaining buttons of his trousers and pulled them down, along with his linen, and stepped out of them.

  “What do you want now, Julia?” he asked, joining her on the bed, stretching his naked body out beside hers.

  “You,” she answered, her voice a soft sigh on the sea breeze.

  But he didn’t move to enter her. Instead, his hand slid between their bodies, and his fingers eased between her folds to caress her, to spread the moisture of her arousal.

  “Oh,” she moaned, and this time, she relished the sound of her own voice, for it seemed to enhance and deepen the pleasure. “Oh God. You are such a tease.”

  “Does that feel good?” he asked, the tip of his finger sliding up and down, in and out, teasing her.

  “Yes,” she said, shivering with wicked excitement.

  “Do you want me?” he asked. “Inside you?”

  “Yes,” she said again, her hips pushing toward him. “Yes.”

  His hand withdrew, and then she could feel the tip of his penis stroking her where his hand had stroked her before. He flexed his hips, his cock sliding, hard and hot, along the folds of her opening, bringing renewed pleasure to her with each tiny move. “Sure?”

  She was panting now, feeling desperate, but in a way that was amazing and wonderful. “Yes, I want you inside me. Yes, inside me. Now. Do it, damn you, and stop teasing me!”

  He laughed, but as he eased into her, as he moved on top of her, pushing slowly in, pulling slowly back, she knew it was time to get revenge. If he wanted her to say what she wanted, she was going to do just that.

  “I want you to come,” she panted, her hips jerking against his, trying to speed the pace, wanting him to have the release she’d already had. “C’mon,” she added, only half teasing. “You know you want to. Just give in.”

  He shook his head. “Shan’t,” he said, breathing hard and fast. “You first.”

  She clenched tight around him, pushing with her hips, urging, feeling a bit frantic. “Aidan, for God’s sake, faster, please.”

  Again, he shook his head. Lifting his weight on his arms, he tilted his head back, and his mouth made a grimace of both pleasure and agony as he moved inside her, holding back. “I want you to come first.”

  Despite his words, his movements were quickening, his thrusts against her stronger and deeper. This was what it all meant, a shared pleasure. When she pushed upward, he groaned, torturing her, too. When his hips thrust hard, she matched his pace, reveling in it. His breathing was harsh and ragged, and so was hers; her frantic urgency became his. And with each thrust, the pleasure built, hotter, stronger, deeper.

  Aidan got his way in the end. She climaxed first, a rush of feeling so intense, she cried out, a cry of surprise that became a keening wail of ecstasy and ended in panting, glorious oblivion.

  His cry came right behind hers, and the shudders of both their climaxes rocked the bed. This, she realized, was something she’d never really had. This was far beyond the quick, intense couplings she’d managed to sneak with Stephen, and not at all like anything she’d experienced with her former husband. No, this was something else—this was lovemaking, and it filled her with wonder. Aidan thrust against her one more time, and then he stilled, his body heavy on top of her, his breath coming hard, his face buried against her neck, his fingers tangled in her hair.

  She stroked him, liking the hard, smooth muscles of his back and the sleek curves of his bum. She liked the thick, curling tendrils of his hair, and when he said her name in a low, satisfied groan, a grin of pure happiness and satisfaction spread over her face. She turned her head and kissed his temple, feeling an overpowering wave of tenderness that was like nothing she’d ever felt in her life before.

  She was no longer the love-struck, rebellious girl who’d gone running up to Scotland to elope, nor the guilt-laden child who wanted to make good for her mistakes. And, thank God, she was not the numb doll who couldn’t feel sexual desire, or the driven, desperate, panicked creature who’d seduced a man against his will, or the flippant, witty socialite who deflected pain like a mirror refracted light.

  No, she was just a woman. And that meant she could feel, she could need, she could give, and she could receive. Happiness bloomed within her, an incredible, overpowering wave of joy that made tears sting her eyes.

  This time, she didn’t fight those tears. Crying meant she wasn’t numb, she wasn’t cold and lifeless. She wasn’t a Sleeping Beauty. She was awake and alive, and the world was full of new beginnings and glorious possibilities. She still felt raw, she still had wounds. She was still a bit wobbly and weak, like a colt trying to walk on shaky legs. But with Aidan’s arms around her, she didn’t mind any of that, because for the first time in over twelve years, she was truly free. She was free, she was beautiful, and she’d just made love with a man for the very first time.

  Julia let the tears fall.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She was crying. He felt the tears, wet against his cheek. He lifted his head, filled with alarm. “Julia? God, are you
all right? I didn’t hurt you?”

  “No,” she choked out, shaking her head. “You didn’t hurt me. Quite the opposite.” She touched his cheek, smiling. “I’m crying because I can, my darling. I welcome it, I want it.”

  He rolled away from her and sat up, staring at her, unable to comprehend her words or her radiant smile. “That makes no sense. I’ve made you cry and you want me to?” He lifted a hand to cup her wet face, his thumb catching on tears.

  She also sat up, facing him. “For twelve years I wouldn’t cry. It became a point of pride with me, a badge of honor, a sign that I didn’t feel anything. Remember that night you kissed me in the maze, when I ran away? I cried. Because of what you made me feel, you see. I was happy, and it hurt. I didn’t want to be happy, and I was frightened, and I could feel myself falling apart, unraveling, and—” She started to laugh, looking at his face. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “I haven’t the least idea,” he admitted. “I’m still trying to accept that I made you cry and you think that’s a good thing. But,” he added, weaving his way carefully, “I have the feeling it has something to do with your former husband.”

  She paused, and her smile faded. She nodded and looked down at her hands in her lap. “Shall I tell you about him?”

  He felt a knot of dread forming in his stomach, but what he felt didn’t matter. “If you want to, Julia.”

  She considered for a moment, then she nodded. “I’d like to, but I don’t . . . I don’t know if I can. I’ve never been able to tell anyone what it was like.”

  Aidan waited, and she sat there silent for a long time before she spoke again. “He had this cravat, of ivory silk, that he kept in his pocket. He always carried it. He was always playing with it, idly, you know, the way some people drum their fingers. I asked him about it once, and he just smiled and said, ‘It’s my favorite cravat.’ It was on our wedding night that I learned why.”

  Aidan felt the hairs on his neck stand up. “Why?” he asked, his voice a strange, harsh whisper, but the question was moot. He was already beginning to perceive the sickening picture, and it appalled and angered him as much as the realization that Yardley had hit her.

  “He uses it to tie women up. He has a riding crop, too, and he enjoys using it. He likes inflicting pain on women, it . . . arouses him. And if the woman is afraid of him, so much the better.”

  Aidan wanted to press his fingers to her lips, tell her to stop, to hush, but wounds healed over with poisons inside didn’t ever truly heal. He clenched his jaw, caressed her cheek, and forced himself to listen.

  “Needless to say, I was shocked and revolted. One might say Stephen was a rake for seducing a girl to whom he was not married, but Stephen loved me. What Yardley did was all so outside my experience. I didn’t know what to do, what it meant, why he did it. I had just turned eighteen when I married him, and I was scared out of my wits. I knew it wasn’t healthy; I knew it was twisted, wrong. But I soon learned that if I begged him to stop, or if I showed any fear, it only increased his pleasure. If I defied him, if I fought, he struck me back harder, and he enjoyed that, too. He wanted me to fight, so he could inflict more pain. If I ran away, he eventually dragged me back. But then I figured out how to defend myself.”

  “How?”

  “I discovered that if I just lay there, if I pretended to be lifeless, like a doll or a corpse—if I didn’t lift my arms so he could tie my hands, but just let them flop like dead weight . . . if I lolled my head or just stared through him as if I didn’t even see him . . . if every time he lifted my hips and maneuvered me onto my knees, I sank back down . . . if I didn’t cry or speak or make a sound . . . if I did those things, his arousal just died.” She laughed, a harsh sound in the hushed room. “Like a collapsed balloon.”

  Aidan didn’t know what to say. He knew, in his conscious, reasoning mind, that there were men like that, but he’d never dwelled on such an abhorrent fact of life. He didn’t want to do it now, but now, he had to do it.

  “So,” she went on, “I learned to be numb, to be lifeless, to say nothing, do nothing. I would chant it in my mind again and again. ‘You’re numb,’ I’d say. ‘You’re dead, and he can’t hurt you.’ I wouldn’t cry or show fear or show . . . well . . . anything.”

  “Julia.” He wanted to comfort her, to say something that could be a balm for such wounds, but there were no words capable of that. “Julia, my dear.”

  “The trick worked, Aidan. He became bored with me, and eventually, he stopped coming to my room, and the next time I ran away, I hoped he would let me go.”

  “Did he?” He held his breath, even though he knew from her subsequent actions that the answer would be negative.

  “No.”

  Aidan let out the breath he’d been holding, and drew another, wishing to hell he could hold his drink, for he could do with a stiff whiskey and soda right about now. “What happened?”

  “He tracked me down where I was living in Paris, and he proposed a compromise. I should spend three months a year at Yardley Grange for the sake of appearances, and the rest of the year I was free to do as I liked.”

  “And you agreed to that?” It was more a statement than a question.

  She nodded. “I didn’t have many options. Did you know that tying up your unwilling wife and whipping her buttocks with a riding crop and then fucking her from behind like a dog is not grounds for divorce?”

  She spoke matter-of-factly, without emotion, but listening to her, Aidan was feeling anything but matter-of-fact. Rage seethed within him like a boiling corrosive. “No,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I didn’t know that.”

  She nodded. “As long as the riding crop doesn’t slice the woman’s skin open, it’s not considered cruelty. I didn’t know it, either, not until I consulted lawyers about a divorce. One of them,” she choked, “even laughed a little and informed me that many wives found ‘naughty things’ in the marriage bed quite pleasurable and suggested I learn to like it. They all agreed I had to endure it. So when Yardley wanted to compromise, I consented. Part of the bargain was my silence about his proclivities.”

  “If you’d spoken out, gone to the press . . .” But his voice trailed off, for he realized the futility of that even before she spoke.

  “To what end? It still wouldn’t have given me grounds for divorce. Besides, I couldn’t bear to tell anyone. I couldn’t even tell my own family. I was too ashamed.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of!”

  “It’s easy to say that, and I know it’s true, but to reveal those things publicly? Tell people what he did? Describe it openly?” Her voice wobbled, and she shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. As I said, it would have served no purpose. And I had my family to consider. They would have had to stand by, helpless, knowing we had no legal redress. Yardley was careful to never give me provable grounds for divorce by cruelty, and my family would have been in agony on my behalf. Not to mention being fodder for the scandal sheets. And what about my mother and father? For them to know the hell they sent me to for what they thought were good reasons and then being unable to do anything to help me? No. I couldn’t. Until they died eight years ago in a carriage accident, neither of them ever knew, and I’m glad of it.”

  He nodded, respecting that, hating that the present legal system gave her no options.

  “And I would have had all of society looking at me, some of them with pity, and some with scorn. After all,” she added in a hard voice, “it’s widely understood that lots of women don’t want their husbands to exercise conjugal rights, and those husbands are entitled to punish their recalcitrant wives. It’s also understood that quite a few, like Yardley, have even more twisted inclinations, but wives aren’t supposed to go about airing that dirty linen in public. I would have been condemned for my lack of discretion more than Yardley for his perversion.”

  That, he feared, was all too true, a sickening testament to the shallow, callous views of society. “So you compromised wi
th him. But what changed? Something must have, or you wouldn’t have done what you did with me.”

  “Well, for one thing, I reneged. I couldn’t keep the agreement,” she confessed. “I tried, but even though he didn’t touch me, I knew he was gratifying himself by using the servant girls. When he had been occupied with me, he’d left them in peace. I couldn’t keep coming back year after year to Yardley Grange, knowing what had happened to me was happening to other women under the same roof, knowing that as long as I was there, I could have prevented it.” Her voice broke, and she paused. “I couldn’t bear it. Those girls—”

  “Julia, Julia.” He caressed her cheeks, smoothed her hair. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I tried for several years, but it was so unbearable. One year, I just refused to go back. I was a coward, I daresay.”

  Something snapped inside him. “You are not a coward,” he said in a savage whisper, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms, holding her tight. “I’ve never met a braver woman. It’s true,” he insisted when she shook her head. He pressed a kiss to her hair, then leaned back against the headboard, pulling her with him. “I won’t have you disparaging yourself this way. And servants are not slaves. They are free, at least to an extent. They can leave his employ.”

  “Without letters of character? For those who stay, it says a great deal about their options, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “You can’t save the world, Julia.”

  “I know. When I first began to refuse to come home, Yardley was wild with rage. But then he acquired a mistress, and was preoccupied enough with her to accept my refusal to come home. I heard through a mutual acquaintance that she shared his kinky inclinations, so everything rather leveled off for a few years. But I knew it couldn’t last forever. She left him, finally, and he began coming after me again. I would be at a ball in London, and he’d pop up. Or I’d be at the spas of Biarritz or at a salon in Paris, and he’d arrive. I think it became a new form of pleasure for him, tormenting me by following me, making me always afraid of where and when he would turn up. Sometimes, he let days go by, weeks, or even months, but I always had to be on my guard, ready to run. I found the most ingenious methods of escaping from him.”