by Anne Gracie
Eventually she did fall asleep; he could tell by the way her body softened and her breathing became deep and even. In sleep she was as sensual as ever.
She had hopes of him, he could tell. He would set her straight tonight. That was what a honeymoon was for—to get things settled, establish the rules, clarify the expectations. Limit them.
He watched her sleeping, her chest rising and falling. She was so young and vulnerable. But also strong, he reminded himself.
* * *
• • •
The sun hung low in the sky, and as the carriage turned into a driveway between two tall stone pillars and rattled over a small bridge, Lily awoke, looking adorably mussed.
“Are we here?” She yawned and stretched, and looked out the window. “Oh, so this is Tremayne Park. What a pretty house. And the garden is charming.” She tidied her hair—unsuccessfully; tawny curls sprang in all directions—crammed her hat over them and put her shoes back on. In the middle of pulling on her gloves, she started and turned a guilt-stricken face toward him. “Oh! I didn’t even ask you about your friends. Quickly, Edward, tell me who we’re staying with.”
He laughed. “It’s all right. My friend, Tremayne, is not here. He’s gone to Paris for a couple of months. We have the place entirely to ourselves.” He didn’t add that Tremayne had taken his mistress with him. It occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t have brought her here. Tremayne was far from respectable. It was a sign of how Galbraith’s life was going to change, now he had the responsibility of a wife.
“Not quite to ourselves,” Lily murmured as servants spilled from the house to meet them. The very respectable-looking butler; a neat, older woman who he presumed was the housekeeper; two footmen and a couple of maids emerged from the front door to greet them. Several grooms came running around the side.
Edward had arranged for his own valet and a maid for Lily to travel ahead with their luggage. They came out to welcome the newlyweds too.
After introductions, the housekeeper conducted them to a large suite of rooms, where hot water and Lily’s maid awaited her. Ned was in the adjoining room. There was a connecting door between them.
He poked his head around it. “Everything to your satisfaction, Lily?” He jerked his head at the maid, who hastily made herself scarce.
Lily stood stiffly in front of the bed, as if hiding something from him, and said in a subdued voice, “Yes, thank you.” She swallowed and, seeming to feel the need to say something else, added, “I can see the sea from my window—through the trees.”
She was very pale. Was she ill? He strolled into the room, wondering what she was concealing on the bed. “Yes, the beach is quite close. I’ve ordered dinner for an hour’s time. The dining room is on the floor below this. Do you want me to collect you, or will I send someone?”
“I’ll find it.”
He came closer and she stiffened. “Is something the matter?” he asked her.
“No.” Her voice squeaked.
He sauntered toward the window and cast a quick glance at the bed. Ah. A very filmy nightgown lay draped on the bed, which had already been turned down.
Damn the convention that kept brides ignorant until their wedding night. He glanced at her again. Her skin was chalky pale and, now that he was looking, he could see she was trembling.
Did she expect him to pounce on her without warning? To rip her clothes off and have his wicked way with her? She might.
Surely her sister-in-law had explained it all to her. Though women were strangely inhibited about such things—why, he had never understood. Men weren’t. Yet from what he gathered few women even knew what to expect from childbirth, even though the bearing of an heir was a woman’s premier role in life.
Lily had been to boarding school, he recollected. Some girls’ school in Bath. Hordes of schoolgirls had attended her brother’s wedding, he remembered. No doubt those school friends of hers had filled her ears with lurid tales of gory wedding nights. Girls’ schools were hotbeds of misinformation, the more dramatic the better, and the spinsters who ran them were no doubt just as ignorant. Or worse, men-haters. No doubt she’d been taught that all men were ravening beasts who couldn’t control their carnal appetites.
One of his flirts had told him that on her wedding night she’d expected to be practically disemboweled. “The reality was such a letdown,” she’d told him, laughing.
That was another reason for such secrecy and misinformation; it suited many men to have their brides ignorant. If a bride had no expectation of pleasure, the men’s skills were not called into question. Ned had no patience with it.
In his experience women whose husbands didn’t satisfy them wandered. And brides who were mishandled often became reluctant bedfellows. He wasn’t having his own bride seek her pleasure elsewhere. Nor did he want her reluctantly enduring his attentions for the sake of heirs and duty.
Dammit, he’d planned to go out for a good hard ride before dinner, exercise some of the tension out of his body so that he’d be in absolute control tonight.
But he couldn’t leave her here like this, trembling bravely before him, imagining God knew what, and letting her anxieties multiply.
He indicated the flimsy peach-and-lace confection spread out suggestively on the bed. “You won’t be needing that until much later this evening,” he said casually. “Come and look at this view.”
She swallowed convulsively and came toward him. He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her closer. He pointed. “Over there is Brighton. We’ll go there tomorrow or the next day. You will want to see the royal pavilion, of course—it has to be seen to be believed—it’s still being added to. The prince regent has—well, you’ll see. As well there’s shopping. Brighton may be small, but it has many elegant and fashionable shops. I think you’ll enjoy the lanes too.” As he gestured and pointed with one hand, he soothed and stroked with the other, as if unaware.
“The lanes?”
“A delightful rabbit warren of shopping delights. You’ll want to return with some small gifts for your family, I presume.”
“Yes, yes, I would.”
“It’s very warm in here. Let me help you unbutton your pelisse.” Without waiting for her reply, he turned her toward him and began undoing the buttons that ran down the front of her pelisse.
“Oh, but you don’t need—” She caught her breath as his knuckles brushed across her breasts. Her nipples rose. He pretended not to notice and kept undoing buttons.
He kept talking, distracting her from his roaming hands. “Have you ever been dipped in the sea? It’s supposed to be very healthful, though if you ask me, it looks rather grim—some of those female dippers look like wrestlers to me.” He brushed his hands over her breasts again. “Do you swim at all? I could teach you when the weather warms up a bit.”
“Swim? No, I d-don’t.” She shivered, but this time he didn’t think it was nerves.
“Now, let’s get this off you.” He slipped the pelisse off her shoulders and tossed it on a nearby chair. “We might ride to the beach tomorrow if the weather is fine. My friend Tremayne keeps a fine stable and he said we were to ride as often as we want.” Tremayne, of course, had laced the offer with double entendres. “Did you bring your riding habit with you?”
“Ye—er, I think so.” She looked vaguely around, but he turned her around to look out the window.
“Can you see that slight hill over there?” She craned her neck to see where he was indicating, and he began to unhook her gown.
“What are you—”
“Making you more comfortable.” He planted a warm kiss on her velvet-soft nape, and she sighed and arched against him. He slipped his hands around her and stroked her breasts through the fabric of her dress. There were innumerable layers between his hands and her softness, but he could feel the hard aroused points of her nipples. He scratched them gently and felt her shi
ver.
He nuzzled her neck, nibbling on her skin, and she murmured her pleasure and leaned back against him. His fingers flew, unhooking her dress rapidly. It fell apart, revealing the lovely line of her back, and the nasty tight bindings of her corset.
How he hated corsets. Women didn’t need them. How women could bear to be laced in, their lovely soft flesh tortured and pushed into some stupid unnatural shape . . .
He started on the hooks of her corset.
“Oh, but I’ll need that,” she said.
“What for?”
“If we’re going riding before dinner.”
“We are, but trust me, you’ll be better off without it.” He attacked her corset, undoing hooks, tugging free the laces. It too fell open, and he slipped it off her and tossed it unheeding across the room. Vile thing.
Her smooth white skin was creased with red lines from where the blasted thing had bitten into her. He ran his tongue along each crease, warming, soothing, sucking, the taste of her entering his blood.
“Edward.” She sagged against him, gripping the windowsill to support herself.
Now all she wore was a chemise—a delicate, flimsy thing, through which her skin glowed—and her stockings. No drawers? God give him strength.
He gave silent thanks for her girls’-school upbringing that taught that only fast girls wore drawers. He ran his hand down over her hips, caressing the lush curves of her backside through the soft fabric. And moaned.
He was as hard as a rock. He breathed deeply, fighting for control.
Slowly he turned her around to face him. Oh, lord, the chemise hid nothing, caressed her ripe curves in a pretense of modesty that flaunted her beauty, even as it teasingly veiled it.
Creamy gossamer, cut low at the neck, a generous, tantalizing scoop barely covering a gorgeous pair of breasts, clinging to the rosy hard points of her nipples.
He groaned, wanting to rip it off her, to fling her back on the bed and plunge into her, into that warm place hidden beneath the shadowy dark smudge at the apex of her thighs. And to bury his face in those breasts.
Steady, Ned.
Her eyes devoured him, luminous with questions, her mouth ripe, plum-dark and satiny. He cupped her face between his hands and brushed his mouth over hers, once, twice, inhaling her breath, her sweetness. He would have moved back then, but she twined her arms around his neck and drew him closer as she opened her mouth to receive him, taste him.
His blood surged, pumping hard and hot through a body rigid and shaking with unfulfilled desire. His control was slipping. He had to leash it.
He slipped his fingers through her hair, sending pins flying. The scent of her hair, sweet as a summer night, blurred his awareness as her soft curls tumbled around them.
He ravished her mouth with deep, deliberate kisses, struggling to maintain a semblance of restraint, while she unraveled him with kisses that were eager and innocent and luscious.
He slid his hands over her buttocks, around her hips, sliding ever upward until he reached her breasts. He caressed them, their weight sweet and ripe in his hands. She gasped as he trailed his knuckles over her aching hard nipples. She shuddered under the featherlight touch, thrusting herself against him. “Again,” she gasped, “again,” her words fuel to his flame.
He bent and took a rosy nipple in his mouth, laving it with his tongue, teasing and sucking. She gripped his hair in damp frantic fingers, holding him to her, half collapsed against him. In one swift movement he gripped the hem of the chemise and pulled it up over her head. He dropped it on the floor and stared at her, this lush, ripe beauty, his bride. Her hands came up to cover herself in a move as old as Venus—and as enticing.
“No, don’t,” he rasped, catching her hands. “Don’t hide from me. You’re beautiful.”
Her face quivered with some emotion. He swept her up in his arms and in three steps had her on the bed. He stood back, feasting his eyes on her, breathing like a drowning man.
She moistened her lips and gazed up at him, her eyes huge and liquid. She held her arms out to him; her thighs trembled, then parted a little, and he could wait no longer.
He ripped open his breeches, parted her legs and entered her with one slow thrust. She arched beneath him and stiffened, and he fought for the last shred of control, holding himself still while her untried body struggled to adjust to him.
Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face contorted in a grimace that cut him to the soul.
Cursing himself, barely able to think for the battle he was waging to slow his body, to hold back until she was ready, he slipped his hand between them and caressed her gently, seeking the little nubbin he ought to have attended to much earlier.
Her stiffness gradually softened. His fingers stroked and teased, and he felt her gasp and quiver in response. Faint shudders began deep within her and he could hold back no more. He began to move, thrusting deep and hard, again and again as the primeval rhythm took hold. The waves swallowed him and he was lost.
The last thing he remembered was his shout as he climaxed, and collapsed on top of her, oblivious.
Chapter Fifteen
The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.
—MADAME DE STAËL
Slowly Ned came to himself. He had no idea how much time had passed. Lily lay still and silent under him, breathing softly, her eyes closed. He was still deeply embedded in her. He carefully withdrew and rolled off her. And realized to his mortification that he was still fully clothed, still wearing his boots and coat, with only his breeches undone and his manhood shamefully exposed.
And that she lay, naked, but for her white silk stockings. Looking wholly enticing—and he should not be thinking such a thing, not when he’d just ravished her like a brute.
But she was flushed and rosy, all curves and female lusciousness, and those white stockings that ended halfway up her plump thighs framed a sweet temptation.
Her eyes fluttered open and he averted his gaze. He sat up, turned away and buttoned his breeches. “Are you all right?” His back was still turned. He wasn’t ready to face her.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, thank you.” She sounded vague, abstracted.
He rose and walked across to where the cord hung down for the servants’ bell. He pulled it and, bracing himself, turned to face her. She was sitting up in bed, her knees bent and the covers pulled up around her. A froth of lace and peach silk peeped out. She must have pulled her nightgown on in the few seconds he’d had his back turned.
Her arms were locked around her knees and her chin rested on them. She was watching him, her expression thoughtful.
“What are you thinking?”
She blinked, as if he’d woken her. “Oh, nothing much. Just . . . thinking.”
“About what?” As if he didn’t know. But he needed to get it out in the open. Find out just how much damage he’d done. He’d been so taken up with his own pleasure, he couldn’t even recall what he’d done—if anything—to ensure hers. Unforgivable carelessness with any virgin, let alone his bride.
“About . . .” A blush crept over her skin. “I didn’t know—well, I suppose you can’t really, until—” She broke off and took a steadying breath. “It’s nothing, really, just—”
“I fear I was a bit hasty,” he began stiffly.
But she wasn’t listening. “It was . . . extraordinary.”
Extraordinary good or extraordinary bad? Ned wanted to ask, but he’d never been the kind of coxcomb who elicited—let alone demanded—praise from his lovers.
If a man couldn’t tell whether he’d satisfied a woman . . . He’d never had any difficulty knowing before. But today . . .
He swallowed. Time to be a man. “We’re going to be doing this often, and if you are to, to enjoy it, you need to tell me how you feel about what we do. We’ll get it right, eventually.”
The women he’d lain with in the past had no hesitation in telling him what they preferred. He didn’t see why his wife couldn’t learn do the same.
“Oh.” Her face flamed and she pressed her palms against her cheeks as if to cool them. “Very well, I’ll try.” She thought for a minute, and her brow furrowed. “It’s hard to know, you see—being my first time—and how to explain—I don’t even know what words to use—sorry.” She broke off and took a deep steadying breath. “Aunt Agatha warned me it was an unpleasantness to be endured—but Emm—she’s my sister-in-law—said though it might hurt the first time—it did, but not very much—she said with practice it could be bliss.”
“And?” He had to know which it was.
She hesitated and gave him a half-embarrassed, half-troubled look. “I’m not quite sure—somewhere in between? As I said, it was extraordinary. Like nothing I’d ever felt or imagined . . .”
He had no idea what to say. He had no words, no excuses. He couldn’t believe they were even having this conversation, but he supposed he deserved it. It wasn’t even as if she were trying to make him squirm—though he was.
A low rumble sounded from beneath the bedclothes, and she blushed and placed a hand over her stomach. “I’m sorry, that was me. I’m fearfully hungry. I suppose I should get dressed for dinner.”
“Don’t bother, I’ve rung for a servant,” he said brusquely. “We’ll eat up here.” He wanted to finish the conversation, find out just how badly he’d messed up. And where on that wretched scale of hers he rated.
“In bed?” She brightened. “How lovely. Is that normal for a wedding night?”
He shrugged. Nothing about his wedding night was normal. Luckily at that moment the butler arrived, offering a temporary reprieve. Ned ordered dinner to be brought up, with champagne. And a glass of brandy to be brought to his room at once. He badly needed a drink.
“The food will be here in about fifteen minutes. I’ll have a wash in my room and let you, er, take care of things here.” First rule of soldiering: retreat, regroup and try again.
