Tempting the Bride

by Sherry Thomas

  “I can’t anymore.”

  “I am not getting down on my knees unless the story tells me to.”

  He growled but acquiesced. “‘In no time at all I was completely naked. She dropped to her knees before me.’”

  Helena rounded to his front and knelt, her lips a hairbreadth from his jutting cock, glancing up at him with the tiniest of smirks on her face.

  He gave her the next set of instructions. “She extends her tongue and licks the head of my cock.”

  “Is that what the story says? I seem to remember differently.”

  “That is exactly what the story says,” he lied blatantly.

  She smiled, knowing him for the liar he was, and did exactly as he asked, her pink, moist tongue swirling softly where he was most excruciatingly sensitive.

  His knees nearly buckled. “Now she opens her mouth wide and takes in as much of my length as she can handle.”

  And he was inside her mouth, paradise itself. The sensation alone drove him mad, but there was also the sight of it. She was no longer smiling, but stared up at him with a hunger that almost matched his own. Then she moaned, a sound of such stark need that he lost all control over himself.

  He shut his eyes, shuddered, and let her milk every last drop.

  As soon as she let him free he pushed her against the bedpost, tied her hands behind her, and returned the favor—several times. Then he untied her, carried her to his bed, and made love to her slowly and properly.

  Afterward she giggled against his shoulder. “Ask me again how I like your smutty story.”

  He turned his face and kissed her forehead. “So…how do you like my smutty story, my dear?”

  “I must confess, sir”—her tone was mock serious—“I still have not read the entire work. But the parts I have read have been a work of staggering genius. Why, the nuanced characterization, the heightened tension, and the deft use of the silken cords of her restraint to represent the bonds of matrimony…I applaud you, sir. I applaud you.”

  Now she batted her eyelashes, naughty again. “Not to mention it makes me hornier than a camp full of soldiers.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I’ll renege on my word. Maybe instead of working on revisions for you I’ll write another smutty story instead.”

  She poked him in the chest. “That is not allowed. You may, however, write a new smutty story after you are finished with my revisions.”

  “And will you stage that story, too?”

  She turned up her nose. “Only if it is of the highest quality.”

  He laughed and kissed her on the lips.

  “I have an idea,” she said, pulling back. “Let us not marry in secret. Let’s instead take full advantage of my loss of memory and have a tremendous wedding. After all, what woman can bear to have no recollection of her wedding day?”

  He was both startled by her audacity and carried away by her sudden enthusiasm. “I have always wanted a grand wedding for us.”

  She wagged her finger. “And no country wedding, either. We will hold it at Westminster Abbey.”

  “And we will ransack Millie’s gardens to deck the whole place with flowers—up to the rafters.”

  “Indeed we must. And Venetia’s gardens, too. She’d be insulted if we didn’t ransack the duke’s hothouses as well.”

  He rubbed her bottom. “We will put you in a virginal white gown, even though you have been more plucked than a guitar.”

  She flicked his shoulder. “How rude. I was going to deck you out in pearls and diamonds, but now I must reconsider.”

  “No!” he cried. “Please don’t reconsider. I never look as stunning as when I’m in pearls and diamonds.”

  She chortled and fluffed his hair. “So vain.”

  “I only want to look good for you.”

  She sighed, a happy sound that made his heart swell to twice its normal size. “I think for our honeymoon we will go to Lake Sahara, sleep in tents, and hunt like nomads.”

  It touched him that she remembered Lake Sahara. “And stand on the shores and watch the sunrise together.”

  “Yes,” she said softly, “when birds in flocks of thousands fly over the lake, their wings white as sails.”

  She fell asleep in his arms. He stayed awake for a long time, wondering whether what they had built together would be enough to withstand the return of her memory in full.

  CHAPTER 16

  Someone adjusted Helena’s bedcover. She tended to move about a great deal in her sleep and did not always manage to hold on to her blanket. Often in the morning, her feet and ankles would be quite cold—and in this instance, her calves, too, since she’d disrobed thoroughly the night before.

  Warm hands rubbed her feet, then her entire lower half was enveloped in a nice, heavy quilt. She sighed in contentment. The same person came nearer and kissed her on her forehead.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured.

  She smiled and sank back into sleep—only to reawaken what seemed but a few seconds later with a violent start.

  The room was dim and empty, the shutters still drawn. She closed her eyes again, her head feeling woolly, as if she’d grossly overslept. She lay still for a few more minutes, then slowly pushed to a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

  On the nightstand was a photograph of Fitz and her David, standing in the middle of the vast expanse of Tom Quad, the largest college quadrangle at Oxford. Helena had taken the photograph with David’s factory-loaded Kodak camera during one of Fitz’s visits to the university. Shortly afterward, her friend and classmate Mary Dilhorne had passed by. They’d spent a minute chatting together before Miss Dilhorne went on to her next class and David and Helena saw Fitz off at the rail station.

  As soon as Fitz had settled into his compartment, before the train had even started, David was already whispering into her ear, “Was that one of your lesbian friends? When are you going to invite me to watch?”

  “After you first invite me to watch you as a catamite,” she’d said as she waved at Fitz, “taking it in every orifice.”

  The present-day Helena smiled. They’d gone at it like Rome and Carthage, hadn’t they? And she’d fired off a number of excellent retorts she was proud to recall.

  At some point during the night, David had gone to her room, collected her dressing robe, and put it on the back of a chair near the bed. She shrugged into the robe, walked to the window, and threw back the shutters. The sun had risen. Bea’s pond reflected brilliantly in the distance. Helena breathed in deeply, filled with a sweet contentment.

  Which was disturbed a moment later by a sensation that she’d forgotten something. She chortled to herself. Of course she’d forgotten something—as much as half of her life at one point. But the sensation, as if something had burrowed inside her brain, would not go away.

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. Oh, right, the pages of David’s manuscript. She’d better put them away before the servants came through. But when she glanced toward the foot of the bed, the music stand, as well as the manuscript pages, had already been removed—again a demonstration of David’s consideration.

  Still the strange and increasingly disconcerting sensation remained. Was it something to do with Fitzhugh and Company? Had she forgotten to return a set of corrections to the printer? Or neglected to arrange advertising a particular title?

  The sensation receded somewhat when it dawned on Helena that she’d at last remembered Millie. A feeling of tremendous fondness suffused her—dear, dear Millie. How they’d all grown to love her, and how she always kept surprising them. Together she and Fitz had proved to be remarkable hosts, presiding over many a joyful gathering of family and friends.

  And, of course, Helena and David were always there at the gatherings, trading barbs and disparagements.

  Don’t look at him like that.

  I shall look at him however I wish to.

  He’s younger than you.

  Doesn’t matter.

  He has small feet.

&nb
sp; Excellent. It will cost less to keep him in shoes.

  Don’t you know what they say about men with small feet?

  Yes: They are less arrogant.

  He is too soft for you. You need a man made of steel, Miss Fitzhugh. He is like a bird’s nest, built of twigs and fluff.

  Why so much interest in how I feel toward another man, Hastings? If you persist in talking about it, I shall have to believe that you are jealous.

  Please, Miss Fitzhugh, you’ll make me laugh. Surely you know by now that for a woman to interest me she needs a pair of breasts. So my concern for you is entirely humanitarian. Mark my words: You will be yearning for a man with bigger feet and a stiffer…spine.

  Andrew! They’d been speaking of Andrew.

  She stumbled backward, her calves hitting the side rail of the bed. She barely felt anything, her horror and dismay obliterating everything else.

  Andrew, always happy and eager to talk about all the books under the sun, always gentle and respectful when he didn’t agree with her assessment on any particular volume. Andrew, the first person to tell her that she would make a wonderful publisher, when her family still doubted the wisdom of such a course of action. Andrew, who’d left a bouquet of wildflowers outside her door every day, too shy to leave a card alongside the flowers, until she’d caught him in the act. If you love me, leave another one tomorrow, she’d told him. The next day he’d left three.

  It had been such a magical time in her life.

  When he’d broken down and sobbed, apologizing over and over again for misleading her—when he’d been perfectly frank from the very beginning that he was expected to marry someone else—she’d told him, with tears streaming down her face, that she could never be angry with him. That she was grateful to have known him and grateful for the memories.

  And all it took was a kick in the head to make her forget everything.

  It hurt to breathe. She staggered to the window and pushed it open, gulping. Her poor, sweet Andrew. How he must have felt during their most recent encounters, when she’d treated him as if he were just another bystander in her life.

  How would she have felt if she woke up one day and the person she’d loved perennially no longer gave a damn about her?

  Someone set his hands on her arms and kissed her on her nape. “Guess what arrived in the morning post? Our special license. Shall we start sending out those scandalous invitations?”

  That pain in her heart was black and explosive. She flung aside his hands and stomped away from the window. “Don’t touch me.”

  Behind her came a long silence, then, “I see.”

  She could not look at him. But it was almost worse to look at the bed and be reminded of her shamelessness the night before. Had it been only lust, she might still have forgiven herself, but she had to talk about weddings and honeymoons, making the commitment of a lifetime.

  The only saving grace, perhaps, was the fact that she had not said “I love you” in so many words—but that was only because she’d been saving it for their true wedding night.

  Her disloyalty burned like acid upon her skin. She hated the feeling of it. She hated that she didn’t know better when she should have. And she hated that each time it had been she who had spread her legs and practically begged him to help himself to her.

  “Helena—”

  She spun around. “How could you? I’d lost my mind. I was barely cognizant, entirely uninformed, and utterly incapable of true consent. Were you any kind of gentleman, you would have restrained yourself and told me to wait. It took only a few weeks—you couldn’t have waited that long, you who claim to love me to the moon and the stars?”

  “I did tell you to wait, Helena.” He looked grieved and hurt, his eyes bright with just the sort of sincerity she did not need to see. “I told you every time that you would be better served by patience.”

  She couldn’t bear the truth of his words. “You knew how I felt about Mr. Martin. You knew how much I loved him. You better than anyone else knew that I would never betray his love and trust. But you saw a horny dimwit and you just had to have your fun, didn’t you?”

  “Helena!”

  His expression began to harden, which only made her wilder. “Why would you think you could ever displace Mr. Martin from my heart? What sort of arrogance and delusion was that? Have you lost your mind, too?”

  He did not call her name again—was not even looking at her anymore. She held her breath—she wanted him to keep calling her name. She wanted him to reassure her in that wide-sky-sweet-breezes voice that everything was fine, that she did not need to be buffeted about by this chaotic confusion.

  His gaze came back to her. Her heart leaped. But then he leered. “Ah, well, it was good while it lasted—you were the hot little strumpet I’d always suspected you would be. Of course, your breasts remain lacking, but your enthusiasm almost made up for it. My God, the way you swallowed my cock. Real whores couldn’t do it better.”

  Her face burned. Her entire person burned.

  “And yes, you were gullible, weren’t you?” He went on relentlessly, walking slowly toward her, his eyes harsh, his words harsher. “I’ve never liked you better than when you were that horny dimwit, your legs spread wider than Siberia, your fingers playing with your own titties, your—”

  She slapped him so hard her entire arm hurt. But the pain was nothing compared to the annihilation in her heart.

  “Get out!” she bellowed.

  He raised a contemptuous brow. “This is my room, my dear Lady Hastings. Or do you not remember that you came here last night famished for cock and wouldn’t leave me alone until I’d fucked you well and good?”

  Memories of the night before were like grit rubbed into an open wound. The trust she had for him, her utter openness of the heart, and all the hope she nourished for their future.

  She walked out without another word.

  The connecting door slammed. Hastings stared at it, unable to believe what he’d just become—again.

  The man she’d always despised.

  Had he not learned anything from the past few weeks? Had he not learned that lying because he couldn’t bear to be vulnerable never protected him from pain, but only walled him off from happiness?

  He stood in place, breathing hard.

  He’d told her that his history of being an ass toward her had been no one’s fault but his own, and it was true. But at times like this, so much of him still felt like the boy whose only resort was to hit back hard, because he was never going to make anyone understand anything except how viciously he could strike.

  Because sometimes the appearance of strength was all that mattered.

  But hadn’t he already promised himself that there would be no more lies, no more cowardice, and no more hiding his true sentiments behind mockery and derision? Hadn’t he promised himself that he would be a man worthy of her?

  He pressed two fingers between his brows. He knew what he ought to do, but did he possess courage enough to see it through?

  Helena sat before the vanity, her head in her hands. The connecting door opened. She leaped up from her chair. “What do you want?”

  Hastings closed the door quietly. “I’m here to apologize.”

  She almost didn’t hear his words. How did a man who’d looked so hateful only a minute ago transform into this specimen of humble contrition? “What for?”

  His gaze was a blue green of unlimited depth. “For my false and unkind words. They were the absolute opposite of my true feelings. And I’m sorry I reverted to my worst habit when you least needed greater distress.”

  Until he’d spoken, she’d had no idea how much she longed for him to tell her how sorry he was. But now she had his apology, she could not tell whether it brought relief or only a greater desolation. “So you are remorseful for giving in to my carnal demands?”

  He shook his head. “No, I am only apologizing for speaking those words that would have you believe I didn’t treasure the privilege of making love to
you.”

  The gentleness of his voice, the infinite sincerity of his words—he was still praying for rain in the Sahara. His persistence moved her and infuriated her at the same time. “So you are glad you slept with me when I didn’t know any better?”

  “Helena, you lost your memory, not your mind. You were perfectly capable of conducting your business and your life.”

  She had certainly felt so, hadn’t she? Only to wake up from a dream of love torn completely in two. “You say that because the choices I made suited you.”

  “Think back, Helena. Was there any point during the past few weeks when you weren’t the same woman you’ve always been?”

  She was beginning to feel uncomfortably close to tears. He was expressing a level of confidence in her that she could not feel herself, telling her that she should trust the choice she’d made. “That same woman I’ve always been would never have willingly gone to bed with you.”

  He inhaled slowly, then exhaled just as carefully. “I suppose the lack of residual feelings for Mr. Martin freed you to fall in love with someone else.”

  Her nostrils flared. Panic spilled out of her heart into every muscle, every nerve. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have not fallen in love with you.”

  She willed him to be nasty to her. She didn’t know how much more of his kindness and consideration she could take.

  But he only smiled, if a little sadly. “It doesn’t matter how we label it—I can recognize depth of feeling when I see it.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Perhaps it is time for you to purchase a pair of spectacles. I love Mr. Martin, not you.”

  “I stand by what I said earlier. You loved Mr. Martin as he was five years ago. But that man no longer exists. Without nostalgia in your heart, he is but an unobjectionable man who holds no particular appeal for you.”

  If he’d shouted at her, she could have shouted something back. But his almost saintly composure left her defenseless. She returned to her vanity, sat down, and stared into the mirror.

  After a while, the connecting door opened and closed, and she was again all alone in the room.