Liana blushed. She glanced down and found her attention riveted by the naked chest she was reclining on. His flesh was darker than hers, tanned by the sun, broader, firmer and nicely sculpted. His muscles were chiseled like those of the Greek and Roman statues in the British Museum, but unlike marble, his sculpted muscles were marvelously warm. And unlike the marble statues, his chest wasn’t bare. A small wedge of hair, coarser than the hair on his head marked the center of it with a line of hair bisecting his firm, flat stomach. A corner of the bedsheet covered her arm from the elbow down, shielding that part of his abdomen from her. She couldn’t follow the trail of hair to its destination, but she knew it went lower because she could feel it brushing her inner arm above her bandage. And she could feel his hard muscled thigh beneath hers and knew it was hairy as well. Liana had the sudden urge to satisfy her growing curiosity and see where it led.
She flexed the fingers of the hand. Alex eased the pressure on it and Liana slid her hand over his belly, brushing the male part of him with her fingers as she did so.
Alex sucked in his breath along with his stomach. “Liana.” He enunciated each letter of her name. “Pay attention.”
“I am paying attention.” She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes and began idly drawing circles on his chest.
Alex was suddenly as hard as it was possible for him to be. Inviting her into his bed had been a mistake. He should have waited until she fell asleep in the chair and carried her back to the lady’s chamber. He shouldn’t have let her sleep next to him. He should have anticipated his morning erection and had a plan to manage it. He should never have gotten so damned comfortable with having her sprawled all over him.
“You don’t wear a nightshirt.”
“And if I did, I wouldn’t be,” he said. “You’re wearing it.”
“It?” She narrowed her gaze at him. “You told me your mother keeps you well supplied with nightshirts.”
“She does.”
“How is it, then, that you profess to have only one?”
“My mother gives me nightshirts I don’t wear. I keep one for emergencies—” He looked at the nightshirt she was wearing. “Like last night. I give the rest to my valet, Beau, to do with as he pleases.”
“You never wear a nightshirt?”
“Not if I can help it.”
Liana was fascinated. The idea was positively scandalous. She was thrilled at the prospect of knowing something about him most people wouldn’t know. “What if you’re sick and need a physician? Do you wear one then?”
“I am rarely ill, but if I were, I wouldn’t put on a nightshirt for a physician’s benefit. Any physician worth his salt has seen naked bodies before. The parts are all the same. My body is no different from any other man’s.”
Oh yes, it was. Liana may not have seen any men naked, but she’d seen plenty clothed and knew few men who looked as if they could have modeled for those Greek and Roman statues. She’d seen men who wore corsets to contain their excess flesh and towering neck cloths in a vain attempt to conceal double and triple chins and she’d seen men so thin she wondered how they managed to keep from becoming a true skeleton.
Even she knew Alexander Courtland was a magnificent specimen of a man.
“What if a maid comes in to light the morning fire or to bring a breakfast tray?” she asked, studying him. “Would you put on a nightshirt then?”
He fought to form coherent thoughts to answer her questions when all he could think about was the fact that she was oh so close to where he wanted her to be. “Maids do not come in here to light fires or deliver breakfast trays.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Footmen do.” He frowned. “Although now that there is a lady in residence, maids will have to be sent up to the lady’s room. We can’t have the footmen—Schuyler—or any of the others tending the lady’s chamber.”
“What time do they usually come up?” Liana asked.
Alex took a deep breath. “When I’m in residence, I normally have my coffee sent up and the fires lit no later than half past six. My mother sleeps until eight or nine. Her chocolate and toast is sent up and her fires are lit then.” Alex was glad to be able to change the subject.
“It’s nearly nine now,” she pointed out.
“I ordered coffee and chocolate sent up at half-past nine this morning because the staff had a late night and so did we.”
“May I have chocolate as well?” Liana asked. It was an expensive treat her mother was rarely able to afford, despite Colin’s generous allowance.
Alex smiled. “I ordered the chocolate for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Since I didn’t know what you liked for breakfast, I doubled my usual order so that we might share.”
“I generally have tea and toast, but sharing your breakfast sounds lovely.”
She was still drawing circles on his chest and her touch felt so good. Alex gritted his teeth. “You can tell Mrs. Barrett your preferences today, and tomorrow you can have what you like.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “Alex?”
“Yes?”
“What if you were injured and needed someone to nurse your injuries? Someone other than a surgeon who might see you nude. Wouldn’t you want to wear a nightshirt then?”
They were back to that again.
“I would send for my mother or my old nanny, both of whom have seen me in the altogether.” He gave her his mischievous smile. “You are a stubbornly curious little minx, aren’t you?”
“Well, of course, I am,” she admitted. “I’ve never been alone with a man who wasn’t my father or my brother before. I’ve never been able to have private conversations without a chaperone listening.” She grimaced. “And if there’s a chaperone listening, it isn’t really private, is it?”
“No, I don’t suppose it is,” he admitted.
“Wouldn’t you be curious if you finally had the opportunity to satisfy some questions you’ve had?”
“Most definitely,” he told her. “I have a curious nature.”
“So do I,” Liana said. “Only I’ve never been able to exercise it.”
Alex took a deep breath and slowly let it out, considering what Liana had said and remembering that when he’d been curious he’d gone to his father with his questions. He asked the question once again. “How did your mother explain things to you?”
She heaved a sigh. “She didn’t explain anything.”
“If she didn’t explain, what did she say?”
“My mother told me that as a married woman, I would be expected to share my husband’s bed whenever he wanted me to. And that I didn’t have the right to refuse.” She looked at Alex. “Is that true?”
“Legally it is,” Alex answered honestly. “Because men require heirs to inherit, the law as written doesn’t allow a wife to deny her husband her body or refuse his carnal appetites. A husband has the right to use his wife’s body.”
Liana gasped. “To use it how?”
“However he wants.”
“And I have no say?” Liana began to shake with reaction. She thought she’d understood what was expected of her as a wife, but she hadn’t had any idea. It explained a great many things about her mother’s decisions over the years.
“Legally, no.”
“You mean Rothermere could have done anything he wanted to me yesterday if you hadn’t objected to the wedding?”
“Yes.”
Her teeth started to chatter. “I’d be dead.” She met Alex’s gaze. “He was so angry with me. He could have killed me and nobody could do anything about it because he would be my husband and entitled to use my body however he wanted.”
“Yes.” Alex wrapped both his arms around her, holding her close, sharing his body heat with her while she was reacting to the shock of realizing the danger she’d been in. “But, Liana, sweetheart, I did object to the wedding yesterday. You are married to me, not Rothermere.”
Liana rested her cheek against his chest, listening to the stead
y beat of his heart, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. “My mother was right,” she whispered. “When I thanked her for saving me from Rothermere, she said she helped you save me.” Turning her face, she pressed her lips against his skin. “I didn’t want to marry him. I would have fought him. And you might be attending my funeral.” She planted another kiss against his chest. “Thank you again for saving me, Alex.”
“I was glad to do it.” He hugged her closer and went so far as to brush his lips against her hair, although he doubted she felt it. “Did your mother have anything else to say about the duties of a wife?”
“Alex…” She sounded mortified. “You’re as stubborn as I am.”
“And equally curious.” He wondered how bad it could be to make Liana blush the way she was blushing. “We made a deal, remember? You can tell me anything.”
“If you must know, my mother told me to expect my first night with my husband to be embarrassing, messy, and painful, then she advised me to obey my husband, not to cry or make a fuss, and if at all possible, try to find pleasure in the deed and if that wasn’t possible, to pretend I did, because that is how marriages are legally consummated and how children are made.”
Alex muttered a curse beneath his breath. You would think that a woman who had conceived and given birth to five children would prepare her daughter for the marriage bed with better advice than that. Especially, if she was about to marry a man like Rothermere.
He didn’t want to do what he knew was coming next, but Alex resolved to do it. He recalled Cherie, his French lady friend at the house on Portman Square warning him of the particular ignorance of virginal young ladies of noble English blood. “They know nothing. Their mamas and papas keep them ignorant and then they hear all the horrible things from whispering friends and housemaids. No one ever explains the pleasures to be found in the bedchamber.” The remarkable lady of the evening had instructed him to do better.
“When you marry, my lord, you must teach your bride all the ways to give pleasure that I have taught you. She will be frightened. Make it good for her. Show her all the joys men and women share beneath the covers. She will be happy and love you for it. Swear to me that you will do this.”
Alex had sworn he would. And Cherie had taught him even more ways to pleasure and be pleasured and a part of him still loved her for it.
“Alex?” Liana looked concerned. “Did Maman do something wrong?”
While he’d been remembering his first time with Cherie, his bride had been worrying about his reaction to Lady McElreath’s failure to prepare her. He shook his head. “She only told you the negative aspects of the marriage bed. She didn’t tell you about any of the wonders of it.”
Liana chewed her bottom lip. “Maman could only tell me what she knows.” She looked at Alex. “And it didn’t sound to me as if she’d ever experienced any wonders. She was very embarrassed and so was I.”
“If gambling and drinking to excess, neglecting his family, and allowing himself to be blackmailed by a scoundrel like Rothermere weren’t enough to convince me your father is a fool, his failure to show his wife the wonders of the marriage bed would be.”
“Papa?” She was confused. “What’s Papa to do with it? According to Maman, men always enjoy the act. Women have only themselves to blame if they don’t.”
“Bollocks!” The oath was out before Alex could stop it. But he was suddenly angry. What he was about to do was highly unconventional, but Alex wasn’t about to allow Liana to go to her next husband unprepared. He wasn’t going to take her precious virginity. He was going to preserve that so she would be able to get an annulment when she no longer needed him for protection against Rothermere. But he would do everything else to keep his promise to Cherie and teach his bride the joys of the marriage bed before he let her go.
Liana blinked in surprise at Alex’s profanity. “What do you mean bollocks?”
“I mean your father is not only a fool, he’s a cowardly one. He sacrificed you to save himself. And he blames your mother for his failures as a lover.” Alex shook his head. “How he produced children like you and Colin and Caroline is beyond me.”
“We take after Maman,” Liana said. “Who is strong and brave and true.”
Alex smiled. “And curious?”
“Very curious.” She returned his smile with one of her own.
“Enough to play a game with me?”
“What kind of game?”
He gave her an exaggerated leer. “I call it Taking Liberties.”
“Sounds intriguing,” she told him. “Tell me more.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“The manner of giving is worth more than the gift.”
—Pierre Corneille, 1606-1684
“Have you ever seen a naked man?” he asked.
“No, I have not.” She sounded slightly indignant.
“Unless you’re ready to see one now, I suggest you close your eyes. Breakfast is about to arrive.” Alex snagged his quilted robe from where she’d left it on the foot of the bed and rolled from beneath the covers in one smooth movement. “It’s half past nine and my breakfast is never late.”
Liana closed her eyes, but not before stealing a quick peek at his shapely bare bottom, slim hips, muscular back, wide shoulders, and long, long legs covered with rough hair. Just as she thought, Alexander Courtland was a fine specimen of a man.
The finest looking man she’d almost seen naked.
She sighed.
Alex glanced over his shoulder and caught her looking. “You naughty girl. I caught you peeking.”
Liana grinned. “I told you I was curious.”
He slipped his arms into the robe, knotted the belt at the waist and walked to the door just as a knock sounded on the sitting room door. Turning to Liana, he pointed. “Stay right there until I call you.”
Liana gave him a mutinous look.
“You promised to obey me,” he reminded her. “Yesterday morning.”
“So I did.”
“Besides,” he drawled, “you don’t want the footman to see you with that rat’s nest tangle in your hair, do you?”
Putting her hand up to her head to feel the massive snarl in her hair, Liana let out a squeal.
“Not to worry, sweet Liana, I’ll comb it for you after breakfast.” Alex opened the bedroom door.
“Before or after you teach me how to play the game?”
“I don’t see why I can’t teach you the rules of the game while I comb your hair.” He smiled at her. “After breakfast.”
“Rules.” She pretended to pout. “I’ve lived by the rules all my life.”
“Which will make breaking a few all the more enjoyable.”
Liana smiled at him. “I think I’m going to like being married to you, Lord Courtland.”
Her words and the smile she gave him sent a sharp pang shooting through Alex’s heart and his conscience. Once again, his impulsive nature had gotten him into trouble. He was about to engage in a reckless game of limited seduction, all because he enjoyed her company and didn’t want to see her disappointed. But he knew, no matter how the game turned out, it would leave its mark on both of them.
That knowledge should have discouraged him, but Alex found himself almost as excited about the game he was making up as he went along as Liana seemed to be. Alex waited until the footman had removed their supper tray from the night before and set the breakfast tray on the table in the sitting room and exited before he called Liana to breakfast.
She padded in on bare feet, looking more child than woman in his nightshirt and tangled hair. Seeing her that way should have pricked his conscience, but Alex enjoyed seeing her the way no one else ever had. It added a little thrill to their game. He sat savoring his coffee and watching her as she sipped hot chocolate laden with sugar and cream.
At her rapturous sigh, he said, “I take it the hot chocolate is to your liking.”
“It’s heavenly,” she confessed, tonguing the cream mustache off her top lip. “I s
hould love to have it every morning.”
“Then you shall,” he pronounced.
Liana shook her head. “Oh, no, it’s terribly expensive. Too expensive to have every morning.”
He gave her an indulgent look. “We can afford it.”
“I know,” she said. “But I don’t want to spoil my enjoyment of it.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“If I have it every day, I may come to take it for granted. And then I may find myself leaving a cup half full because I know there’s more in the kitchen.” She looked at Alex. “Just because you can afford something doesn’t mean you should have it every day. Some things are better savored.”
Out of the mouths of innocents.
Alex thought of the cask of French brandy sitting in his wine cellar in London. Good French brandy was so rare these days, and he’d gone to such trouble to smuggle it on one of his Channel crossings, that Alex found himself doling it out for special occasions when he’d rather indulge himself more. He was savoring it the way his bride was savoring a rare cup of chocolate. He recalled Colin taking delight in things Alex and the other Free Fellows took for granted. “I do believe you’re right.”
“I think I’ll order chocolate with breakfast on Sundays. The rest of the week I’ll have tea and dry toast as always. Unless we have butter or oatmeal porridge?”
Alex shuddered at the prospect. He’d struggled to swallow a lifetime’s worth of porridge at Harrogate. He hated the idea of the stuff, but it was warm and filling and must seem a luxury to a girl who had made do with dry toast and tea most of her life. “We’ve butter and honey and jams of all varieties. I don’t care overmuch for oatmeal porridge, so we’ll have to ask Mrs. Barrett if it’s available. And if not, we’ll arrange to purchase some.”
“You are very good to me, my lord.”
He was tempted to brush away her compliment, because providing butter and honey and jams for her toast and making arrangements to secure a horrid concoction known as oatmeal took so little effort on his part. “Being good to you is easy, my lady. You ask for so little.”
A Bachelor Still Page 20
