“Simply tell me what to do.”
Fires were lit in the fireplaces throughout the manor. Blankets warmed before them. Hot soup heated in the kitchen. When servants brought the first survivors up from the shore, they were taken to the kitchen where they could remove their drenched clothes behind a screen in privacy and relative warmth because the ovens were going. Torie would hand them warm blankets, and when they were properly covered, she’d escort them to the large dining room where they were served warm soup, reassuring them all the while that everything would be well.
Servants eventually took them to bedchambers where they could sleep. Twenty-seven in all, passengers and crew.
Torie wasn’t certain what they would have done if Drummond Manor wasn’t so incredibly large. But it accommodated everyone.
At one point, Torie had thrown on a cloak and cautiously made her way down to the shore to watch the rescue efforts, certain she could do more there than she could inside where so many servants were tending to everyone’s needs. But she didn’t have the strength to row the boat that Robert and Weddington were taking out to the ship. She barely had the stamina to stand against the wind. But she watched her husband putting his life at risk for these strangers, and her love for him swelled as much as the waves from the sea.
She could hardly stand to watch, the anxiety and terror growing that she’d see him killed.
It wasn’t until she returned to the house that she realized she would cause additional work for the staff, because now she needed to be dried and warmed. Eleanor brought another nightgown to her bedchamber.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Torie said, after she was once again in dry clothes and sitting in front of the fire. “I’ll be down to help you in a bit.”
“I think the servants have everything well in hand. And I don’t blame you for going down there. This is only the second time that a catastrophe such as this has happened since I’ve been here. But I can’t bring myself to bear witness to it so close to shore.”
“Was Robert here when it happened before?”
“Not while I was here. I think it happened once before when they were lads. Ships and storms don’t often make a good match.”
“I don’t know him, Eleanor.” She held her new friend’s gaze. “I thought he would be ordering people about. I didn’t realize he’d actually be in the boat, actually go out in the storm. It terrified me to watch him. And yet at the same time he seemed so sure of himself, so unafraid, so determined.”
Eleanor knelt in front of her and took her hands. “Weddy once believed that he had no truer friend than Robert. Then the Robert we knew somehow went away. But he’s returned now. Trust your heart, and you’ll see the Robert that we all love.”
Finding Eleanor’s comment somewhat odd and cryptic, Torie stared at her new friend. “When you say he went away, do you mean—”
“Ah, there you are.”
“Weddy!” Eleanor popped up and ran across the room, straight against her husband’s chest, giving him no choice except to wrap his arms around her to keep them both balanced and prevent their tumbling over.
“I’m wet and cold, Eleanor, and you’ll find yourself in the same boat if you don’t unlatch yourself from me.”
“I believe that I’ll simply hang on, and we can dry and warm each other.”
He looked over Eleanor’s head at Torie. “Robert will be here soon. He’s borrowing some more of my clothes.”
She was in his bedchamber when he returned wearing only a pair of trousers, his feet bare. He appeared exhausted, and she could hardly blame him. He looked at her, looked at his bare feet.
“Weddington’s valet helped me,” he explained, almost apologetically.
“I watched you out in the storm. It terrified me.”
“Terrified me as well.”
“Yet you kept going back out onto the sea.”
“They needed help, and I was in a position to help.”
“And if you’d died?”
“But I didn’t. I see no sense in speculating on what might have been.”
“Then let’s speculate on what is. You are my husband, and yet the intimacy between us has not gone as deeply as it might. Why do you not want me?”
“Oh, dear God, but I do want you, with every fiber of my being.”
“Then take me.”
Robert contemplated her invitation as he watched her unbutton her nightgown, part the cloth, and slip it off her shoulders. When had women grown so incredibly bold?
And when had he grown so incredibly weak? He watched in amazement and gratitude as her nightgown slithered slowly along the glorious length of her body, revealing it inch by tantalizing inch, until it finally left her completely bare, possibly vulnerable, stunningly beautiful.
She was exquisite, the lines and curves coming together—
Suddenly dipping down, she snatched up her gown, held it to her chest—
“No,” he said more harshly than he’d meant, and she froze, her eyes like those of the deer they’d spotted in the woods when it became aware that it was being watched. “Allow me a moment to simply look at you.”
She licked her lips, furrowed her brow. “I thought once I was disrobed, things were supposed to happen rather quickly. I thought perhaps you were disappointed.”
“What would I find disappointing?”
She moved the gown aside only a little to reveal one perfect breast. “My breasts are rather—”
“Voluptuous?”
“I was going to say large.”
“I have large hands.”
Her gaze dipped to his hands, dangling uselessly against his sides. At the same instant her eyes rose to meet his, she released her hold on the gown again, and it made its slow journey back to the floor.
She was a temptation.
And he was only a man. Not a saint.
He’d been so strong for so long, holding the insanity and loneliness at bay. Tonight he was so weary. Weary from battling the storm, weary from battling his brother, weary from battling his desires. So damned weary.
He surrendered to the seduction of her voice, her scent, her presence, the blush of her bared flesh. He surrendered because he had neither the strength nor the desire to walk away.
As slowly as she had unbuttoned her nightgown, he unbuttoned his trousers, watching her face for any signs of fear or doubt or change of heart.
But he saw none. He saw only anticipation, and God help him, desire.
Weddington was right. She wanted Robert. The man standing before her. Not his brother, not John.
But him. And while he might not be able to lay claim to her heart, while all she might desire was his flesh joining with hers, he would take the offering, be glad of it, and make her equally glad that he had.
Taking a deep breath, he shoved his trousers down and stepped out of them, standing before her as bare and vulnerable—
“Dear Lord, but you’re beautiful,” she whispered, and he saw the appreciation in her eyes. “I didn’t know that a man could look so…magnificent. Like a warrior or a god.”
“I’m not that magnificent,” he mumbled, suddenly self-conscious with her praise, tempted to snatch up his trousers and cover himself. In his fantasies, he’d always been in a brightly lit room, both he and his lover bared, but in reality he’d expected the bedding to take place in complete darkness, beneath covers, using hands to see more than eyes.
“You are to me,” she said, dipping her head, peering up at him, the dimple in her cheek appearing, then disappearing. “I can’t wait to touch you.”
Now that the moment was upon them, she was shy, his wife was. And he adored her for it.
“Let me finish having my fill of you,” he said, even as he knew he would soon fill her, but he didn’t want their first time together to be rushed, and perhaps was even a little shy himself. He’d never had a woman before—or at least if he had, he had no memory of it.
That had been the purpose of his last celebration, the last
night before Pentonville, when he and his brother were to cross over into the debauchery of adulthood with wine and women and gambling. The wine and gambling he remembered. The women…he was fairly certain he’d been drugged by then, and if he’d performed, he had little doubt that he’d performed miserably.
He wanted this moment with Torie to be perfection, because he suspected that it would be a first for her as well. The blush on her cheeks traveled down to the gentle swell of her breasts. Even as he gazed on her, noting all the dips and curves, he was well aware that she was taking note of his body as well.
“Are you nervous?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Frightened?”
She shook her head.
“I guess it’s a good thing that one of us isn’t.”
“Why would you be frightened?” she asked.
He was terrified, actually, of doing it wrong, of not making it good for her.
“I know a woman experiences some pain. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m afraid in my effort to spare you discomfort that I’ll be clumsy and awkward—”
Reaching out, she pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him, while at the same time igniting the fires of his desire. Her eyes were locked on his, and he wondered if she could see clear into his soul.
The dimple appeared in her cheek. “Why is it that you so seldom talk, until now, when I’d rather you didn’t. I’m fairly certain that I’m coming to love you.”
“Oh, dear God.” He thought he might have dropped to his knees, and if he’d not pulled her to him, latched his mouth onto hers, and held her there for support, he very well might have.
How he’d yearned for this moment. For eight long years he’d envisioned it, dreamed of it, imagined it, but nothing had prepared him for the reality of a woman’s bare flesh pressed against his from shoulder to heel. And not just any woman. Not a woman he’d paid for or a servant he’d coerced…but a woman who possibly cared for him. She was fairly certain. What would it take to make her completely certain?
As certain as he was. He loved her. If she’d never granted this moment, he still would have loved her. He loved her smile and the tiny dimple. He loved her laughter and the wonder in her eyes when she gazed upon a fawn.
She made silence bearable. He was content to simply be with her, but to have more, to have this…
It was all his heart desired. And he would protect it unto the death. He would find a way to prove his claims, he would find a way to keep John from being a future threat.
When he could think clearly. When his mind wasn’t lost in the sensations of her. Because he was lost, lost in the wonder of her, the silkiness of her skin against his, the softness of her breasts flattened against his chest, the wonder of her hands running over his shoulders, his back as he kissed her and she kissed him.
Without removing his mouth from hers, he tumbled them onto the bed, a tangle of arms and legs that quickly settled around the other, to hold that person near. She was where she belonged: beneath him, her hair spread out across the pillows.
And he thought he might be where he belonged. He lifted his head, gazed into her eyes, and felt his confidence come to the foreground. He would make this good for her. He would.
Torie saw something shift in his gaze. A determination she couldn’t explain. She ran her hands up into his hair, over his broad shoulders.
He was right where he belonged. Nestled between her thighs. Raised up on his elbows, gazing down on her with a feral intensity. Then she could no longer see his eyes because he’d dipped his head, a quicksilver kiss against her mouth before he pushed himself down and delivered a more leisurely kiss to her breast.
His tongue circled even as he suckled, and she thought this was decadent even as she didn’t want him to stop. She combed her hands through his hair, holding him close, relishing his touch as much as he was relishing hers.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as he trailed his mouth from one breast to the other, his fingers stroking the underside while his lips and tongue saw to the needs elsewhere.
He grazed his hand down her side, down the inside of her thigh, then over to the very heart of her womanhood.
She thought she should have been shocked, appalled, but it all seemed so right, so perfect, and so incredibly stimulating. Her body arched against his hand as though it knew better than she what was required to end this aching that had begun deep within her. And it did know better, because all she knew was that she relished his touch, wanted it on every inch of her skin.
His fingers stroked her intimately, and she released a tiny whimper.
He moved up. “Soon, Torie, soon.” He kissed her and as his tongue slid into her mouth, so he began to slide into her. She was ready for him, so ready for him.
As he plunged fully into her, the pain she’d always heard she’d experience was nothing as she expected. Just a quick burst of awareness that the barrier had been breached, that she was now well and truly his wife.
He buried his face in the curve of her neck. “You feel so remarkably good,” he rasped. “Like hot velvet.”
She heard him swallow, felt hot moisture land against her skin. A droplet of sweat, she was certain, because his back had grown damp with the dew of perspiration. Not tears. Not an overwhelming of gratitude that they’d finally come together.
So still, he was so still as though he was absorbing the moment, the sensations, sensations that seemed to be hovering. Was this it, then? A coming together that seemed to require more…
He slowly began to rain kisses over her face, her throat, her shoulders. Then he started to move inside her, slowly at first, long strokes that stretched and filled her…
He rose above her, quickening his pace. An urgency that hadn’t been there before. His face contorted with his concentration, his eyes holding hers, the intensity feral, almost frightening.
She held on to him as he rode her, she rode him, the sensations building, building until she thought she might burst…
And when she finally did, the world exploded around her.
Her husband exploded within her.
And she thought that nothing would ever again be the same.
Robert had always known that he’d been denied a good many things, but the true extent of what he’d been without had been an elusive mystery now solved. As he lay with Torie nestled against him, his hand idly stroking her bare side, the reality of his brother’s cruelty became crystal-clear.
Prison was for felons, criminals, those who stole and cheated and murdered. Robert had done nothing to deserve his incarceration, and although he’d always known that fact, the anger burning in him now as a result of the injustice was almost frightening.
He wanted swift revenge, and even as he thought that, he grew weary and realized he truly wanted only that it be over. That he be free to live out his life with Torie in peace.
But how to achieve that goal still remained beyond his grasp.
And he had little doubt that John would see the situation very differently, John, who had courted her, asked for her hand in marriage. John, the man she was to marry.
He tried to ease the guilt that now swamped him with the realization of exactly what he’d done. He reminded himself that she’d told him she had doubts about marrying the duke. He told himself that tonight all her doubts seemed to have vanished like fog touched by the sun.
She’d wanted him. She cared for him.
And he couldn’t deny that he cared for her. Desperately.
The storm still raged outside, the lightning flashing, the thunder crashing, but here was a safe haven, comfort and warmth.
“Where do you go?”
He rolled his head slightly and gazed down on his wife. “Pardon?”
“I can see from the look on your face that you’re no longer here with me.”
“I was just thinking about how very fortunate I am to have you in my life. And everything I would do to keep you there.”
“It shouldn’t be that ha
rd of a task—keeping me here. I’m fond of chocolates, flowers, and pearls.”
He grinned. “So you can be bribed.”
She snuggled up closer against him, trailing her fingers over his chest. “Did I never mention that?”
“I don’t believe you did.”
“I must have at some point or else you know me very, very well. You gave me the pearl necklace and bracelet I wore the day I married you.”
He was grateful her face was down so she couldn’t see the look that must have crossed his face. Always, always there would be things he didn’t know. Always there was the chance she would discover the truth.
He should confess now, while she lay sated and content in his arms. Tell her he was not the man she thought he was. But he couldn’t bring himself to utter the truth, to ruin her contentment—or his.
Tomorrow, tomorrow he would tell her everything.
Chapter 18
“Despite your protests to the contrary, I can tell that you jolly well did take my advice last night.”
Standing by the coach, waiting as his wife said good-bye to Eleanor, Robert blatantly ignored his friend.
It was mid-afternoon; the rain had cleared off and the gray skies had turned blue. After all the rescuing they’d done last night, he and Weddington had slept until only an hour or so ago. Robert would have gladly never left the bed because Torie had been in it, sleeping beside him. He loved watching the way she slept.
She had a little habit of rubbing her feet together throughout the night. He wondered if that was the reason husbands and wives slept in separate beds, although he had to acknowledge that he’d welcome any evidence of her nearness, had found her small actions comforting.
“No comment?” Weddington asked.
“I’d never realized what a vexing friend you are.”
“A helpful one as well. I want you to take these with you.”
Robert glanced down to the wooden box Weddington was extending toward him. “I don’t see myself engaging in any more duels, thank you very much. They upset Torie too much.”
A Matter of Temptation Page 20
