by Amelia Hart
This feeling was damnably familiar. He had spent six months feeling like this, had thought if he could only have his beloved Julia as his wife, he need never feel like this again.
Instead it was worse. Worse to know exactly how it felt to have her smile at him, laugh up at him while she held his arm and pressed her breast against it. Worse to go everywhere and see and hear things he wished to share with her, and have to hold himself back from seeking her out to share them. Worse to know what it was like to tell someone what he really, truly thought of something and see her nod thoughtfully, and then open her mouth to say something wise or insightful or amusing or irreverent. Worse to know exactly, precisely, maddeningly what it felt like to slide deeply inside her and have her tighten around him and call out a soft welcome.
He was mad for her.
He stared at the panels of her bedroom door. The night was still. It was three in the morning, and she had been home since midnight. He had heard her come in. Now the whole house slept.
It had been a week, since he had made that promise to himself. But she had not sought him out, or asked for him to accompany her anywhere. She was usually out for dinner, or he was. Once she came into the library when he was there, and he was careful not to watch her. She moved about the room, examined the books, walked twice past his desk, but he kept his head down and wrote nonsense in his ledger, an entire page of it he later tore out. Finally she selected a book and left the room. When she was gone he went to the shelf and inspected the space she had left.
He was certain it was a book of the Reverend Matthew Caulder's Sermon's and Country Contemplations, since volumes one and three stood either side of the gap. He went back to his desk and viewed the page he had written with disgust, then sat and gazed at the ceiling for a good half an hour before rousing himself to continue with his work.
Now he stared at her bedroom door.
It was not as though she had barred him from her room. This was more in the nature of a self-imposed exile, for the sake of harmony. There would be no harm in a brief interruption. Though perhaps best of all if he did not announce himself, but made sure of his welcome before she woke.
He slipped silently into her room. He could hear her heavy breathing. She was a sound sleeper. Carefully he stripped naked, folded back the covers and eased his body down, leaving some space between them. Then he reached out a hand and laid it on her flank. She did not stir. Her body was turned away from him, the spill of her hair a dark shadow on her pillow. He came closer still, an inch at a time, flinching with pleasure as his erection brushed her back, moving it beneath the curve of her bottom so he could come closer, could wrap around her lightly, her back to his chest, her bottom in his lap and the back of her thighs against the front of his. She was curled up, and he curled around her and rested there for a moment, enjoying the rightness of it, her small form, warm from sleep, within the shelter of his body.
He felt very tender of her, very protective.
With his fingertips he lightly traced the curve of her shoulder. She sighed, and shifted slightly, pressing against him. His erection twitched in eager response, nestled in the cleft between her thighs, and he closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deep against the pleasure of it. The fragrance of her neck, her hair, was in his nose, a light, sweet smell, infinitely alluring. He stroked his hand over her chest to cup the slight weight of one breast, felt the nipple tighten against his palm. She took a deep breath, and her bottom moved again, the tiniest slide of devastating friction.
He held his breath. Slowly, slowly released it.
Good God, how he wanted her.
He trailed his fingertips down the center of her belly, over her hip, the outer curve of her thigh, then beneath her bottom to where the sweet folds of her were exposed. He kissed her neck, as he slid those fingers glancingly across her sensitive flesh. She murmured and stretched, thrusting herself into his hand. He followed the motion, eased his fingers deeper, a delicate exploration until he found that small center of pleasure, minute and fragile. She quivered and parted her legs, rolled a little forward into the mattress to give him better access, arching her back.
She murmured again. Had she woken?
But she said nothing, only shifted in languorous rhythm beneath his touch.
With his other hand he lifted his erection to press the blunt head of it on her, the slick feel of her blissful as he moved it back and forth in that delectable cleft in her body, that tempting entrance to heaven.
She pushed back against him, a wordless questing, and he felt the subtle catch of flesh almost entering flesh, warm and wet and welcoming. So quickly she was ready for him. Had he caught her dreaming of this?
He did not enter, gritted his teeth to find the self-control, and only teased her. She was very sensitive there, he knew. Knew the feeling of his body there, so close, could drive her wild with wanting him. For long minutes he laid there, fingers and erection stroking her, in a torment of want, and feeling her grow ever wetter.
Then there came the moment when she rolled towards him, eyes still closed but mouth seeking his, hands outstretched. She touched him, clasped him greedily and slung one leg over his hip, and her mouth was open on his, her breasts pushing against his chest and she had him just inside her again at the moment he was truly certain she woke.
She did not stop, only held him harder, commanding his presence inside her. He fitted them together with one hard stroke, inside her to the hilt, his hands squeezing her buttocks as he strained to get nearer to her. She moaned and clutched at his shoulders, his back, and he rolled so he was over her. He would have propped his weight off her but she held him too tight, so there could be no space between them, and a moment later he felt the subtle inner clenching of her orgasm drawing on him.
He kissed her, hungrily, demanding acknowledgment, and she sucked his tongue and shuddered and bit him lightly so he groaned and felt his own release, too quick but more powerful than he could restrain, roll over him in darkness and thunder. His Julia. His wife, beneath him and he inside her, her arms tight and her legs wrapped around him. His Julia.
Immediately he turned, taking her with him so he lay on his back and she on him, not wanting to crush her but not ready - nor anywhere near it - to let her go. She lay there, face buried against his chest, and for a moment he thought she shook with aftershocks. Then he heard a small sob.
"Sweetheart? Julia? What is it?" he asked, smoothing her hair behind her ear, trying to see her face. She kept her chin down.
"Nothing. Oh, nothing. I'm just being stupid. Don't mind me."
"What is it? Tell me."
"Nothing at all."
"It must be something."
"Don't nag at me."
That silenced him, and he lay there, stiff, feeling her rise and fall with his indrawn breath. He lifted his hand, that had been savoring the tight curve of her bottom. She pulled back onto her knees, head averted, then climbed off the bed. He watched her go.
"You and your rules," he said bitterly, without meaning to open his mouth. She did not respond, her back still to him. That proud, stiff back. He found himself speaking, if only to fill the waiting silence. "Don't nag. Don't watch me. Leave me alone." He wanted her to turn, to talk to him. She did not. "Be good. Be sober and Godly and prudent and hardworking." He got off the bed to and stood by the foot of it. "Contribute."
"I never told you to be all that," she said, very low.
"Stop being such a waste," he said, and his tone was an accusation. Still she did not turn, the silhouette of her barely perceptible in the darkness. "Give up your decadent life. Be faithful and chaste and all the things I-"
"So you don't wish to be faithful?"
"Damn it, Julia, I-"
"You miss the philandering."
"That isn't what I'm saying. But you want to change a man from what he is without loving him, to keep him like a pet in a cage and feed him only tidbits-"
"You think this is a cage? Our marriage is a cage?"
&nbs
p; "No, this life is a cage if you-"
"Then live it just as you prefer," she said, ice cold, and went to where her robe lay over the chair at her dressing table. "If you are happier with your freedom, take it." She put the robe on in swift, jerky movements. "I give it back to you."
He felt as if ice water trickled down his spine. "What are you saying?"
"I release you from all constraint, from any rule. Live your life exactly as you please."
"You don't mean that."
"I do. I mean it precisely," she hissed out of the darkness, then the door opened and slammed. She had left the room.
"Julia!" he bellowed, chased her, stumbled over some obstacle and went down, rose again and pulled the door open. The hallway was silent and black. "Julia!" She did not answer.
He went back into her room and fumbled a candle and tinderbox from her nightstand, wasted precious seconds lighting the thing, pulled on his trousers then went back into the hall. She was nowhere to be seen.
He searched the house, room by room except for the servants' quarters, but she had hidden herself away and no person could find another in this great house unless they wanted to be found. He stood at the foot of the stair and fumed.
What did she mean? Nothing, surely. She was angry. She only spoke from anger, and said things she did not intend. Women often did that, Julia no less than any other.
It was only a misunderstanding.
Unless it was not. Unless she had stored those words up because she longed for some excuse to say them, to send him back to his old pursuits so she need not be bothered with him.
But that was foolishness. Not dutiful Julia. She would not send her own husband away.
She was only angry.
Tomorrow they would speak, and clear up the confusion.
But the next day she stayed hidden. Like some defiant child she avoided him. If he had realized that was her intention he would have stayed in her room until she returned for clothes, but it had not occurred to him she would stay angry, nor be so childish in the midst of it.
By the time he had figured out her intention, she had dressed and left the house. Crichton told him of it with brisk impersonality, when he asked in some frustration if she knew where Mrs Holbrook was.
"Mrs Holbrook has gone for a walk, sir."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"Not to me, sir."
"Or when she'd return?"
"No, sir."
"Did her clothes indicate her destination?"
"No, sir."
"So I'm to walk the streets looking for her, then!"
She blinked at him expressionlessly, as if to say she had not even heard this ill-tempered outburst. He turned away, drove his fingers deep into his hair, then went to change into his riding gear.
"If Mrs Holbrook returns," he said through his teeth to the butler as he pulled on his gloves, "please tell her I wish to speak to her directly, and I am currently riding about London looking for her."
"Yes, sir," said the man imperturbably, and handed him his hat. "Would you prefer she wait here, or come after you?"
"Wait here, of course. There's no point having her roaming about too. What a pair of ninnies we should look-" he caught the man's eye, and glared at him for his patient expression, then went out.
The winter day was bright and fresh, and he went first to the park, hoping to find her promenading. Hats were tipped to him, and ladies waved their hands or kerchiefs hopefully, but he only waved back, looking for and not finding that one slender figure.
"Met your wife, Holbrook," came a call from the curb nearby, and he swiveled in his seat, pulling up his horse. She obeyed an unthinking signal from his heel, and sidled closer to the speaker. It was Mr Harlow, arm-in-arm with his wife. "Very gracious to us. She's the height of dignity, but she was very pleasant when we said what good friends we are with you."
"When was this? Just now?"
"Oh no. Last night, at the Tabersham's rout. A dreadful squeeze," said Mrs Harlow, her delicately pretty face turned up to his. She came to stand by his knee. "I wanted particularly to meet her. I thought she must be something quite special, to have caught you."
"Undoubtedly," he said, trying to think how to extricate himself.
"She is so distinguished. Such a distinctive style," she said.
"Yes."
"We'd be delighted if you'd join us tonight for one of our little soirees. Bring her with you," added her husband.
Colin looked down at John Harlow as the man put his hands on his wife's shoulders, a certain gleam in his eye that conveyed another meaning to one who knew him so well.
"Thank you. I'm not sure what she had planned for us tonight-"
"I'll send over a footman with an invitation, just to be sure you have it. Tell her we'd be delighted to know her more . . . thoroughly."
"Delightful. Naturally I'll leave that to her to decide," he said, thinking it too impolite to say to the man he'd be damned if he shared his wife with anyone. Not when he was well aware of the Harlows' different views of marital fidelity. There was no need to be insulting.
"Naturally. You know you're always welcome," said Mrs Harlow with a meaningful smile. John Harlow looked complacently on.
"Thank you," he said, bowed from the saddle and kneed his horse back into the thoroughfare.
He searched for Julia in vain, as he had been certain he would, and arrived back at the house in a worse mood than he had left it. As he walked through the door his butler took his hat and gloves, and held out a salver with a single invitation, delivered later than all the others that lay on his desk.
"The Harlow's footman said you were expecting this, sir."
"I was, thank you," he said, took it and carried it with him as he went into the library. Absently he thumbed it open and set it on the blotter before him, staring sightlessly at it.
What an unpleasant day. He would ring a peal over Julia's head when she returned. Unfailing pleasantness got him nowhere, leaving her alone earned him outbursts of temper, perhaps a little heavy-handedness might earn him more respect.
But no, that was a foolish thought. She was not one to be commanded, not some sweetly biddable creature. He fingered the invitation.
Perhaps he had set himself too far from the life he had lived with such assurance. There, he knew how to go on. He had made a clean break, thinking it was the only way. Yet it seemed a foolish thing to do, distrustful of his own strength of will. There he could feel himself again. He did not need to participate, or even be in the same room as the goings-on that were the main entertainment at the Harlows. He could be sober, or even drink a little, in the other drawing room at the card tables. He had been too dependent on Julia's company, her goodwill. That was not a healthy state. His separation from her weighed so heavily on him because he had not filled that time with other amusements.
Mostly, the last thing he wished to be doing when she returned home was sitting morosely waiting for her like a neglected cur.
He would go out. He looked at all the other invitations arrayed in a neat pile on the corner of his desk where Julia had left them after opening them. Balls, routs, dinners and soirees. No doubt she had responded to them all. He would probably be welcomed in even if she had sent apologies on his behalf. Or maybe she had sent nothing at all for him. He had not asked her.
He contemplated the Harlow's invitation, feeling a certain reckless desire to tempt fate. So be it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Julia was tired when she arrived back. She had walked too far today, up and down streets she barely knew, or did not know at all. Walked and walked and thought her mother had been right. Rakes were not men to marry.
He had ignored her for a week, then come to her in the night, and made her cry by giving her a piece of what he had so abruptly withdrawn. By taking it away, he taught her how much she wanted it. Wanted him.
She felt trapped by pride and uncertainty.
He said he loved her beyond anything, yet he could go a w
hole week and barely speak to her. She wanted his love. She was afraid of how dependent she had become on it. When he took it away it made her crazy.
She must tell him so. She must be vulnerable to him, no matter how it frightened her to acknowledge he had such power over her. The alternative was this impasse where he was absent and she was unhappy. That was no sort of marriage. Or perhaps she had already driven him beyond that point, with her angry words. Perhaps he would take the permission she had so stupidly given and act on it. What man would not, who had once lived as he had and only stopped because she demanded it?
But surely not her Colin, who loved her so? He did love her. She was certain of it. She must not waste that. And if it was hard to love a man who appealed to so many, then let that be her burden to bear. She would not vent her fears on him again. Only be honest and say how it hurt to think he would soon leave. Be honest and let him comfort her and try not to let fear twist her thinking.
He loved her. She must cling to that certainty, and say she loved him too. No more cowardice. She wanted him back.
Forget London. They could leave it, and be happy elsewhere as they had been in the little house. She would embrace idle hedonism, as he had recommended.
Night was drawing in, and the house was dim and quiet. She had not ordered a dinner for tonight before she left. Had Colin? Perhaps they could eat together. And talk. She must talk to him. She must simply open her mouth and say the words. I love you. Not so terrifying as all that. She was a brave woman. She could do it.
She walked into the library, where candles burned. But he was not there.
"Mr Holbrook has gone out, Ma'am," came the voice from behind her, and she jumped, then turned. It was the butler.
"Oh. Has he? I'm sorry to have missed him."
"I believe he is sorry too. He sought you for some hours, earlier."
"Did he?"
"Riding about London."
"Oh. And now he's gone out."
"Yes."
"Do you know where he went?"
