by Jane Feather
Theo fought her unruly responses as the cool air laved her skin. And then this slow exposure paused for what seemed an eternity at the top of her thighs, and she found she was holding her breath. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from moving, from murmuring her impatience, from putting her hands on his chest, lifting her head to touch her tongue to his nipples as he knelt above her. But still she resisted the temptation.
"Stubborn little gypsy," Sylvester murmured, half smiling, feeling her struggle as if it were his own. He took another fold in the fine lawn of her nightgown and then another, until the material lay in a flat roll at her waist. He bent to kiss her bare belly, drawing his tongue over the smooth skin in a damp, heated stroke that set her muscles jumping with a life of their own. But still she kept silent and made no voluntary move.
"Perhaps I should try another approach," he mused, as if talking to himself, and promptly flipped her onto her stomach.
Theo was taken aback. She'd been expecting that moist and tantalizing exploration to continue its downward progression. But now he was rolling up the back of her nightgown as he'd done with the front, baring her body inch by inch until he reached the small of her back. She felt his breath warm on her skin as his tongue darted into the dimpled indentations above the flare of her buttocks. His hand slid between her thighs as he kissed his way over the damask rounds, his fingers probing, stroking, flickering, opening. And finally Theo moaned and her body lifted to his caress, tightening around the thumb that was within her and the delicate teasing fingers at the core of her sensitivity.
Sylvester knelt beside her, his free hand sliding up and under the nightgown, pressing against her spine, working up the bony column to the nape of her neck, and she stretched and arched catlike as the firm pressure released little knots of tension along her back.
He swept the black river of her hair aside and bent to kiss her neck, nibbling and nuzzling, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her skin and hair. There was something wonderfully innocent about the back of her neck, something milky and soft about its scent. Even when she drove him to distraction with her stubborn impulses or her blunt statements, he had only to think of this delicate, soft-skinned column for his anger to lose its sting.
"Draw your knees up," he whispered, running his hand down again, stroking over her bottom while his other hand continued its work between her thighs.
Theo obeyed the soft command, her face buried in the coverlet. He moved behind her, his flat palms spreading her thighs. The intimacy of his caressing fingers deepened, and she could no longer control her soft, whimpering moans of pleasure, and when she felt his flesh glide within her, she reached behind her blindly, to touch the rock-hard thighs that drove him on this joy-bringing, joy-taking voyage.
At her touch Sylvester knew he'd won. He moved within her until the little ripples of the satin sheath that held him began to gather momentum. Then he withdrew and, before Theo could react, turned her onto her back.
"Now," he said, "I want to see your face, my partner in pleasure."
He drew her legs up onto his shoulder and plunged to her core, his hands sliding over the backs of her thighs, and gripping the firm flesh of her backside.
Theo cried out as the changed position deepened the sensation of his flesh in hers, and she reached up to touch his chest, his nipples, to stroke down the concave belly, to slide between his thighs and upward on a deeply intimate journey that drew a low groan of delight from her lover.
He smiled down at her, and there was no triumph in the smile. Theo's tongue touched her lips, her eyes aglow, her skin flushed, and he knew that for the moment she'd forgotten everything that had brought them to this glorious plane.
She began to move, urgent and insistent, and he held himself still. "Wait a little, gypsy."
Theo shook her head, and there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. With one devastating wriggle of her exploring finger she broke his last reserve of control, and his body seemed to explode as her own convulsed around him and she no longer knew where his skin began and hers ended. His flesh was integral to her own body and his joy was hers.
"You wicked witch," he gasped when the wave receded and he could draw breath. "I was taking my time."
"You can't expect to have everything your own way." There was a tart edge to the mischievous rejoinder despite her languorous tone.
Sylvester grinned. "I gave up expecting that many months ago, my dear girl… but neither, I'll have you know, can you."
He fell onto the bed beside her, pushing an arm under her body, brushing a damp lock of hair away from the alabaster curve of her cheek. Theo lay still, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, wrestling with the idea of defeat. But it wasn't over yet. She still had a few days, until his mother and sister left. Perhaps she'd better try to make her in-laws a little more welcome.
"Why the face?" Sylvester asked languidly at her unconscious grimace.
"I'm thirsty," she improvised.
Sylvester sat up and swung himself to the floor. "Will water do you?"
"Yes, thank you."
She watched him through half-closed eyes as he crossed to the water jug on the washstand. "Where's the glass?"
"On the dresser."
He picked up the glass she'd been drinking from when he came in and filled it with water. He drank himself before refilling the glass and bringing it across to her. "What's in that bottle?" He handed her the water.
"Oh," Theo said, taking a drink. "Well, it's something I should have mentioned earlier."
"Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to enjoy this?" Sylvester mused, picking up the brown bottle and holding it to the light.
"It's a potion that will prevent conception," she said. "I got it from a herbalist in Lulworth."
"What." Sylvester stared at her, trying to understand what she'd said. Women didn't make those choices, they weren't theirs to make. He turned the bottle over in his hands, gazing at her in stunned disbelief. "Are you telling me you've been taking this since our marriage."
"Yes," Theo said. "Didn't you wonder why I hadn't conceived?"
"It did cross my mind," he said grimly. "Dear God in heaven, Theo! Why didn't you discuss this with me?"
"Well, at the beginning you said you wanted to set up your nursery without delay, and I didn't feel ready, and I thought if you refused to listen to me -"
"I'm not a brute, Theo," he interrupted. "I wouldn't force you to carry my child."
"Well, I didn't know that then." She plaited the sheet with restless fingers. "From what I understand about these matters, men don't expect their wives to have an opinion, let alone a way of enforcing that opinion. But I did."
Sylvester ran a hand through his disheveled locks, struggling with a melange of disbelief, resentment, and hurt. Of course, he'd expected her to do as other women did in these matters and simply accept the realities of the marriage bed.
"Why don't you want to bear my children?" he asked finally.
His wounded feelings were clear in his voice and his eyes as they rested gravely on her face, and Theo chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of how to assuage his hurt.
"It isn't that I don't want to," she said. "I just don't want to now. It's what Dame Merriweather said: It's best to look after the loving before you start breeding." She offered a tentative smile.
Sylvester looked down at the bottle he still held. "Do you have any idea what's in this? Have you the slightest idea what damage this kind of stuff can do you? It may well have prevented pregnancy, but what other effects was it having?"
"Dame Merriweather wouldn't give me anything that would harm me," she said with conviction.
"A country herbalist! What the devil does she know?" He put the bottle down and came over to the bed. "Listen, these medicines can do incalculable harm, I've heard horror stories aplenty." Not, however, among the kind of women Theo spent her time with. He kept the wry thought to himself.
Theo frowned. It was true the potion played havoc with her monthly c
ycle. "So what do you suggest?"
"There's a perfectly simple precaution I can take that involves no dangerous substances," he said, bending to extinguish the bedside candle. "So we'll leave it up to me from now on." Sliding a hand beneath her, he lifted her body so that he could pull down the coverlet. "Get in." Theo wriggled between the sheets, sliding over to make room for him. "Just until I'm ready," she said. "Yes," he agreed with a mock sigh. "Until then." "Perhaps we could try your method now." Her hand moved seductively over his body as he came in beside her. "I'd really like to see how it works…"
Chapter Twenty-five
Theo awoke to bright sunshine. Sleepily, she hitched herself on her elbows to look at the clock. It was almost ten. How could she ever have slept so late? But then she remembered. She lay back on the pillows, her hands drifting over her naked form, reminding her skin of the touches that had brought so much pleasure during those joyous hours before dawn.
She turned her head and frowned at the empty space beside her. When had Sylvester left her? Presumably he'd woken long ago; he rarely slept after the sun came up. She closed her eyes again, running her hand over the sheet where he'd lain, over the pillow that still bore the indentation of his head.
He claimed to care for her, yet he demanded that she keep her distance from him in all but passion. What kind of love was that? But, then, perhaps no one had ever loved him, so he didn't know how to express such an emotion.
She thought of Lavinia Gilbraith, mean-spirited, carping witch that she was. It was impossible to imagine her loving anyone, even her son.
She would just have to teach her husband herself… by example.
On that energetic determination Theo sprang from bed, guiltily thinking of her mother-in-law, who was presumably waiting for her hostess's attention. She hoped the cabbage roses in the pink bedroom hadn't upset Mary's delicate digestion. After pulling on her dressing gown she reached for the bellpull to ring for Dora.
She heard Henry's voice in Sylvester's room next door. It was pitched very low. Then she heard a sound that sent chills down her spine, and her hand dropped from the bellpull. It was an inarticulate, animal-like moan of pain, interspersed with the dreadful sounds of helpless dry retching.
She crept to the wall and pressed her ear against it. What was happening? Was Sylvester ill? The dreadful moan came again, a sound that chilled her blood, it was so filled with despairing endurance.
Sylvester had that headache again. That other part of his past – his precious privacy – that was forbidden to her.
She went out into the corridor and tried to lift the latch on Sylvester's door. The door was locked. In the name of goodness, she thought with a surge of exasperation, how could he expect to spend a lifetime with her, to grow old with her, all the while keeping the most vulnerable parts of himself secret from her? And most particularly this hideous curse?
Back in her own room, she stood thinking for a minute, then went to the window. There was a narrow iron balcony, little more than a foothold outside. Its twin was outside Sylvester's room, a large sideways footstep away. Curzon Street was two floors below. A barouche bowled down it at a fast clip as she leaned out. She craned her neck and saw a scrap of curtain at Sylvester's window flutter in the wind. The long window was cracked open.
Without conscious decision she ran to the armoire, pulled out her riding habit with the divided skirt, and dressed rapidly. She braided her hair, slipped a pair of light, soft-soled slippers on her feet, and returned to the window.
Heights had never bothered her. For years she and Edward had clambered over the cliff face at Lulworth Cove searching out gull rookeries without once considering the crashing surf and jagged rocks beneath them. But a busy London street below was unnerving in a way surf and rocks had never been.
Theo turned her back on the street, faced the wall, and threw her leg over the low ornate railing, feeling for the brick ledge that ran between the two balconies. Her foot found it, and she straddled the railing, taking a deep, steadying breath. She'd have to bring her other foot over, and for a minute she'd be standing on this narrow ledge that would accommodate only her toes. But her hand could reach the other balcony. She stretched her arm, and her fingers closed over the iron. She would have a firm grip on both balconies while her feet were in no-man's-land. Once she'd got her left foot onto Sylvester's balcony, she'd be home and dry.
It was pure craziness. It was exhilarating. More than anything, though, it was necessary. Sylvester needed her. She had opened herself to him. He must open himself to her.
With a swift prayer to the gods, who certainly owed her something, Theo swung her other foot to the ledge and for a terrifying second was poised above the street, her toes clinging to the ledge, her hands, white-knuckled, gripping the balcony on either side. Her heart thudded in her throat as she gingerly raised her left foot Now she was held by five toes and ten fingers. She swung her left leg sideways, over the rail behind her left hand, and as the cold metal touched her calf she heaved a sigh of relief. The rest was easy.
A minute later she was standing foursquare on Sylvester's balcony, easing open the window.
Soft-footed, she stepped into the darkened bedchamber that, despite the slightly opened window, felt as stifling as a greenhouse.
"Who's there!" Henry spun from the curtained bed, his eyes glowing in the dimness, his outraged whisper hissing in the quiet.
"It's me," Theo said calmly, crossing the room. She had very little to do with Henry – none of the household did. It was accepted that he had a special relationship with the earl, one that Theo decided was more intimate in essentials than her own. But that was going to change.
"My lady!" His outrage was superseded only by his astonishment as he gazed at the window behind her, the curtain fluttering in the breeze.
"What is it, Henry?" Sylvester's voice was a cracked thread, like the voice of a very old man. It put Theo in mind of her grandfather in his last days.
"It's all right, m'lord, don't go fretting now," Henry said, laying a hand on Theo's arm. "You must leave here at once, my lady. His lordship can't have visitors."
"I'm not a visitor, Henry." She shook his hand off her arm, and her eyes flashed in the darkness, her voice frigid in contrast. "I am his lordship's wife."
"My lady, I must insist!" He renewed his hold on her arm.
"Take your hand away, or I might break your wrist," Theo said with the same soft, cold ferocity. She raised her free hand, the edge of her rigid palm hovering like a steel blade above the wrist of the manservant's gripping hand.
The dreadful dry retching came from the tented bed, and a groan that filled Theo with a horrified pity, but she maintained her menacing stance, and after a second Henry's hand dropped from her arm.
"Thank you," she said, brushing her sleeve pointedly. "You may remain if you wish, but I will be responsible for nursing Lord Stoneridge, as is my duty."
Henry stood openmouthed as she walked quickly to the bed, gently drawing aside the curtain at the head.
Sylvester's face was a pale shadow on the pillows, gray and waxen, his right eyelid so swollen that it was almost closed. Lines of pain etched his brow and ran down his nose to his mouth, as deep as the furrows of a plowshare.
His hand moved, shuffling to the bedside table where the bowl and a glass of water stood. She took the glass and gently slipped an arm beneath his neck, holding the glass to his lips.
"Theo?" he croaked. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Hush," she said. "Henry's right, you mustn't become agitated."
"But how in the devil's name did you get in here?"
"I flew through the window," she said, bending to lay her lips on his forehead. "I wish I could take it away."
His mouth twisted in what might have been a gruesome travesty of a smile, but whatever he'd been about to say was lost as he groaned and reached for the bowl.
Henry jumped forward, but Theo forestalled him, holding the bowl until Sylvester fell back on the pillows
, racked with renewed torment.
Theo wiped his mouth, gently bathed his face, and laid a lavender-soaked cloth on his forehead, ignoring the hovering Henry.
"Theo, go away," Sylvester murmured after a minute. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't want you… don't want you here, seeing me -"
"Hush," she interrupted with quiet force. "You're my husband, and I will be a part of your suffering. There's nothing you can do about it anyway."
Whether through weakness or acceptance, he ceased to object and lay still and silent, wrestling with his agony.
Theo moved away from the bed and whispered to the still outraged Henry, "I have to go down and see Lady Gilbraith, but I'll be back directly. You're to leave the door unlocked." There was such crisp authority in her eyes and the set of her jaw, such an edge to her soft voice, that Henry bowed and moved to open the door for her.
Theo sped downstairs. She could hear her mother-in-law's irritable voice from the hall.
"I cannot think how a household can be run in this fashion. It's past midmorning, and there's no sign of either Stoneridge or his wife."
"I do beg your pardon, ma'am," Theo said, jumping down the last two steps. "Sylvester is ill."
"Ill? What on earth do you mean, ill? He's never had a day's illness in his life. And what kind of a slugabed are you, girl, to appear to your household at this late hour?"
Theo ignored this latter complaint "Sylvester has a war wound that afflicts him with severe headaches," she said with an attempt at patience. "I'm afraid I must leave you to your own devices today, I'm needed at his bedside. Please feel free to order things as you wish, and, of course, if you'd like to take the air, or pay some calls, then the barouche is at your disposal. Now, if you'll excuse me -"
"Goodness me, gal. If the man has a headache, it's ten to one he dipped deep in the cognac last night. He should take a powder and sleep it off. There's no need for you to dance attendance on him, and I wish you to accompany me on some errands. Mary's too busy sniffling and moaning to leave her bed."
