Unfortunately, Brian felt the schoolmaster’s disdain, and when the man pointed out a word in her reading book that she’d read incorrectly—by tapping it with his ink-stained finger more times than was bearable, even to Lark—Brian swooped down, bit the offending digit, and promptly gagged.
He might have forgiven that transgression and forgotten the incident. But a few weeks later, when in the course of his incessant searching for his spectacles, the prig broke a bladder of ink someone had slipped into his claret frockcoat pocket, he lost his temper, and when Brian giggled, he went for her in a rage with a strap.
Lark hit him with a chair to stop him from hurting Brian, and Ash dismissed the tetchy tutor without a reference. The following day, Ash himself began teaching them, but not before he gave them a talking to about their behavior during lessons.
He paced with as much pomp as the tutor, except that his inexpressibles fit him like a second skin, and Lark knew that his legs and shoulders were not padded. As a matter of fact, she knew what he looked like all over, and in the throes of passion as well, so she did not feel the least intimated.
She and the children sat in silence at the nursery table, books open, waiting for their new tutor to finish his lecture.
Finally, he rounded on them. “One more thing,” he said, looking from one of them to the other. “No more schoolroom pranks. Now, which of you put the bladder of ink into your former tutor’s pocket?”
“Micah did it!” Brian charged, pointing the boy’s way.
Micah rose to his feet and roared his outrage pointing back toward Brian.
“Lark,” Ash said. “That leaves only you. Did you do it?”
Lark looked from one child to the other and raised her chin. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
Ash made a noise of disgust. “You did not.”
“You doubt that I could?”
“Not at all, but I do doubt that you would become a poor example for the children.”
“I did it,” Lark repeated.
“Fine then. You will stay late and do an extra assignment when we are finished.”
“Oh, for Dirty Dan’s Sake, I did it!” Brian said, sticking her tongue out at Micah.
Micah mirrored the action, while Lark refused to meet her husband’s gaze, so he would not see her amusement.
“You lied,” Ash said to Brian.
She hung her head. “Yes Sir.”
Ash sighed. “I dislike dishonesty above all things, Brian. Do you understand?”
“Yes Sir.”
“I would rather you told me when you were naughty, than lie about having done it.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Good. Now that’s settled, let us open our reading books at page sixty-three. Brian, since you perpetrated the prank that lost us our tutor, you will begin. You will also have an extra assignment at the end of the lesson as punishment … for your lie, not your misdeed. By my account, the tutor got what he deserved.”
Brian nodded. “My Maman said you would be strict but fair.”
Ash started, as if he’d seen a ghost, then he glanced red-faced at Lark, before nodding for Brian to begin reading.
Lark had tried to forget what Brian said about Ash loving her mother. She had never asked him if he loved anyone before, only if he’d played the blanket hornpipe with anyone else, or made a babe with them, which he might have done with Brian’s mother, as it turned out, and which bothered her more with each day that passed. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Brian; she did. But Ash was her husband and she felt a womanly ownership that she did not want to share. She wanted to know, damn it, if he had loved another woman.
She wanted to know if he loved her.
“Daydreaming during lessons, Lady Blackburne?” Ash said with a smile, and Lark turned her attention back to the book in front of her, her face warming.
The children were both bright. Micah helped Lark with her numbers, while Brian helped her with her reading, a sad and humiliating state of affairs.
After a particularly difficult lesson, Lark threw down her pencil, rose, and went to the nursery window, where she sat on the window-seat to look outside.
Ash followed. “Lark, is something bothering you?”
“I am not smart enough to be your wife and I am not half good enough either. I do not know why you put up with me.”
Ash’s arms came around her, his cheek met hers, and she reveled in his silent support. “I do not know why, either,” he said, his unexpected words cutting, despite his kiss on her neck. When he dared to chuckle, Lark rose and stomped on his foot with near as much force as she’d used on the dancing master, though to be fair, she was wearing less painful heels at this time.
When she saw her husband’s pain, she placed her hand against her mouth, in shock at what she’d done, felt her eyes fill, and quit the room.
“Devil it! Why did you do that?” Ash called after her. He looked at the children. “Why did she do that? What the …” He sat and massaged his throbbing foot. “I never saw that woman cry for no reason.”
Brian shook her head. “You were supposed to tell her you loved her, Dolt.”
“You are wiser than your years,” Ash said, before he called for Mim to supervise in the nursery, so he could follow his bride to her bedchamber.
Did he love Lark? Ash wondered, finding the thought as frightening as ever. Would his mother have suffered so badly at his leaving for war, if she had not loved him?
To him, love had always seemed to cause more pain than joy.
True, he had discovered in Lark a wounded soul mate and he could not resist the lure to heal her. He enjoyed spending time with her, talking to her and joking with her—which is all he had been about this afternoon. She had never taken one of his jests so before.
He certainly took pleasure in having her in his bed. Lord, he could barely get enough of having her in his bed, or against the wall, or in whatever ridiculous position she wanted him, though he did not like getting his foot crushed under her heel, by God.
When he opened the door to her bedchamber, her emotions had vaulted from tears to ire, it was plain to see, so Ash sighed and advanced on her, giving her little choice but to wait him out, or run. “If we can get you quickly out of your gown, I believe it will be easier for you to forget what an idiot I am.”
“Are you like to be making an apology, then?” she snapped, crossing her arms.
“I am no more versed at soliciting forgiveness than in granting it,” he said kneeling before her, “though I pray you will … overlook … my earlier thoughtless comments.”
Lark gasped as Ash lifted the hem of her gown to nuzzle her through her petticoat, there at her center.
“This is more than to make a babe,” he said. “I want to be close to you. Now.”
She knew she should stop him—it was the middle of the day for pity’s sake—but for the life of her, Lark could not raise a hand to put period to the pleasure her husband aroused. Her arms became heavy, as did her legs, except for their sudden need to buckle at the knees. What was wrong with her today?
Ash found the tapes at her waist and undid them so her petticoat broke free and puddled on the floor at her feet.
She squeaked and raised her skirts, holding them against her bodice, so as to watch him undress her from the inside out.
He looked up at her, his eyes dancing, his hair endearingly askew, and she could swear that her heart did a small flip inside her chest before it laid itself at his feet. Was this love? she wondered.
Ash stroked her through her shift, rushing more warmth to her core, and he rested his cheek just there, raising her to new heights. But when he turned his head and opened his mouth against her center, whispering her name like a prayer, Larkin rose so near to release, she whimpered.
She closed her eyes and wove her fingers through his thick, silken hair, holding his head against her, for all the world as if she were begging for more of his magic.
Ash moved his talented hands upward along the bac
ks of her legs, sliding them beneath the soft linen of her shift to cup her bottom, and then he slid both hands forward to meet at her front, at the center of all feeling, and splayed his fingers to stroke and tease.
Touching could bring pleasure, Lark had learned, wild, amazing pleasure, when the man doing the touching was Ashford bloody-beautiful Blackburne.
She released the breath she had been holding with a shuddering sigh, and Ash rose like a ruthless, ravenous rogue and opened his mouth over hers. He swallowed her sighs, drew more, until his mouth became so much a part of her own, she might take to bleeding, if he stopped.
When she thought she had reached a perfection of sensation, nearly unbearable in its intensity, he moved to undo the buttons at her bodice, stroking her exposed skin as he moved down her torso. Heightened sensation, rising in promise.
He freed her arms from her sleeves without her help, for she was too ensnared in pleasure to think. Just as well, for she had no strength, either to help, or resist.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered as he slid her dress down along her sensitive quivering body, the palms of his hands skimming her, until he cleared her hips and her dress joined her petticoats on the floor.
Standing before him in nothing but her shift, stockings and slippers, Lark wished she were a lady who wore fancy corsets of silk and lace just for her man. Her underpinnings were no more than serviceable cotton, plain, and well-worn, yet her husband regarded her with an appreciation akin to awe.
He took her hand and she stepped over her clothes, to face her lover, as if in the center of a bright cocoon, for the sun flowing through the curtains blessed as well as mocked them for this breach in the fabric of good manners.
“It is the middle of the day,” Lark said, in a tardy effort to play the lady, but her rogue of a husband’s wicked grin said he cared not a whit. She had daily evidence that the Earl of Blackburne liked breaking rules as much as did his hoyden bride.
He slipped her shift up and over her head. Then he stepped back to regard her, like a connoisseur examining a work of art, assessing and delighting in the vision.
For the first time in her life, Lark felt … beautiful, at least in the eyes of another, in the eyes of the rogue who mattered most.
She’d dreamed of him for years, tricked him into marrying her, yet she would not alter her life with him for anything, no matter his warranted anger when he learned the truth. And he would learn of it, for the more time that passed, the more she knew she must confess before they could be truly happy.
As if sensing her surrender, Ash began to remove her stockings with a renewed determination in his appreciative gaze, sliding the first slowly down her leg until Lark shivered in anticipation. Then he began again with the second, doubling her heartbeat.
Now she stood naked before the man she loved. Did she love him? Dear God, how foolish that would be, but she must. She adored every angle of his face, every twinkle in his eyes, his frowns, and curses. She treasured the way he encouraged Micah’s studies and laughed at Brian’s naughtiness.
More than anything, she appreciated that he respected her fears in the bedroom, allowing her outrageous requests in regards to position and timing, and that he pleasured her in whatever way she wished.
Did she love her handsome, stubborn rogue? If she did, and she told him so, would that not destroy his ability to be shed of her, if he wished it, upon his grandfather’s death?
He stood and turned her, her back against his front, so he could cup her breasts from behind, as if weighing and measuring them. Lark leaned against him as he plumped each one, pebbled her nipples, and whispered his adoration of her body, his breath and nibbling lips warm along her neck, ears, and shoulders.
Pleasure points coursed through her with an escalating force. Her contentment grew apace, her womanhood flowered.
Too soon, but not soon enough, her attentive husband turned her and lifted a breast to suckle her, while he reacquainted his hands with the shape of her bottom and the heat at her center, and made her legs tremble.
As he rose up again and his smoldering eyes set her ablaze, she bent and disposed of his trousers in a thrumming heartbeat and got her first good look at his linen smallclothes.
“They look very different on you than they do on me,” she said.
“Praise be, but I did give you a pair of the button variety.”
She circled him and regarded him with the same hot gaze as he used on her, to play him and tease him, then she gave him back a bit of his own. Stroking the fabric ever so lightly across his front, she found the opening big enough and easy enough, without buttons, to accommodate her hand, silently applauding his choice of underlinen.
Ash gasped when she found him, his lance rigid and thick, his ballocks soft and supple … but her other hand ached for him as well, and so she knelt and slipped his linen down his legs and cupped his ballocks, even as she closed her other around his splendid manhood.
She reveled in the power to make him throw back his head and stifle a groan of roaring pleasure, a gratification that seemed as acute as pain.
She liked as well that she could make him beg, and buck, and plead for her to “stop,” and “more,” and “hurry,” and, “Wait!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In a quick turnabout, Ash took control, lay her on their bed, kissed her ravenously, and came over her, opening his mouth over her own once more. He lay atop her for the first time ever; did he realize it? She did not stop him this time, for she found she liked the intimate weight of him. The position no longer seemed … threatening, as it used to do, but fulfilling and splendid. Right.
Hard to her soft, cool to her hot, Ash dipped where she curved, and arched where she plunged, all so deliciously and perfectly well. They fit together like two pieces of a hand-carved puzzle, making her wonder how even God had managed so perfect a match.
“Ash. You feel good. You’re on top, did you realize? I like it. It feels better than—”
“Shut up, Lark, and kiss me.”
She did. Tongues touching and dancing, mating. Hands, legs … mouths touching … everywhere.
As the sun shifted direction, Lark learned new variations on pleasure—a bliss she never imagined, a wondrous joy, as heart-stopping as fast-sliding down a snow-slick hill, a pleasure that grew to unimagined heights, burst within them both and set them free.
Like two spoons, they slept, until Lark sat up and realized the beauty of the man who lay beside her, and she took advantage of the opportunity to examine every texture of her husband’s naked man-parts in the full light of day. She touched him, along and around, up and down, delighting in her ability to arouse him, painting his moist tip with a playful finger.
When she dared to kiss that silky tip, he woke with a moan and a start, saw what she was about, and as fast as that, she was on her back and he was deep inside her again.
In a frenzy, he brought her higher in three deep strokes than he had during any of their previous couplings.
So blessedly good, she felt, with his weight atop her, she wept for the joy of it.
They climbed and soared again, without rest this time, then like water cascading down a mountain—pure, bubbling, wild and free—they floated as one, peaceful and at rest, for minutes, or hours.
Lark woke to find dusk had fallen while Ash worked in her with slow purpose, making her beg for faster, then slower, then just plain more. She regarded him, looking down at her, incredibly handsome, too handsome for her.
“Come with me, Lark,” he said. “Come with me to heaven. I’ll wait. Come.” Then, deepening each concentrated thrust, he dipped his head to suckle her, pulling hard shafts of leaping pleasure from so deep inside, she could have wept again.
He stopped suckling with a groan to move higher over her and increase his pace. She feared she might die of the frenzy before she shattered into a million star-bright pieces, hovered in the heavens, and became one with eternity.
A moment later, Ash shouted her name, gave her his
seed, and she rushed to the firmament again, one last incredible time, then she let herself drift, safe, sated and exhausted in her husband’s arms.
After a time, he reversed their positions and settled her atop him like a blanket of lazy contentment, and urged her to sleep.
She closed her eyes without a word. She had never known such sublime contentment.
Ash woke with his answer, the one for which he had come searching. Brian had been right. He loved his wife, loved her as if she were his missing half, a frightening discovery, for had she not once implied they might go their own ways once grandfather’s estate was settled?
She stirred in his arms, pushed her face deeper into his neck, moved and moaned. Parts of her must be tender and sore. He would have to kiss each one just to make them better, and after that, perhaps he would let her out of bed.
Lark shifted and moaned again, and rubbed her nose, back and forth, hard, against the hair on his chest.
Ash laughed and his rogue’s heart warmed. “Itchy nose means you’re coming into money.”
She smiled lazily and stretched her arms in that rod-stiffening way of hers, her silken limbs sinuously sliding against his own. “Don’t need money. I have you.”
“We both need money, remember? That’s why we married.”
Lark took her luscious bottom lip between her teeth, making him want to bite it himself, or perhaps he should bite his own, come to think of it, because her sad eyes and sudden silence made him nervous of a sudden.
She rose quickly, placing certain parts of him in perilous danger of annihilation. Ash caught his breath, then expelled it in relief, and tried not to be distracted by her pert breasts and fine bottom. He watched her rummage, and blush, until she covered herself to her thighs with his shirt.
He had to raise his knee to keep her from seeing how alluring he found her wearing it, or she’d find something else to wear. She seemed that annoyed, though he didn’t know why.
“Brian called me a name for the way I treated you in the nursery,” he said to make her smile, though he seemed rather to bring a more thunderous frown to her brow.
Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) Page 16
