by Anne Gracie
Lost to everything, she shuddered and thrashed around him. A final, husky groan, a gush of warmth within her. She trembled on the pinnacle of . . . something . . . and then . . .
The room was dim when she finally opened her eyes. The candle in the dressing room had burned to a stub; the fire was down to coals.
She must have fainted. Or something. But only for a few minutes, she was sure. He lay beside her, breathing heavily, as if he’d just run a mile.
She was panting too, but she felt loose, floaty, totally relaxed. Euphoric.
Why had nobody ever told her that lying with a man could be like . . . like that?
The chill of the night was creeping over her bare skin. She reached for the covers to pull over them.
“Awake, are you?” He sat up and turned to look down at her. She could just see his profile, limned by the dying firelight.
“When were you going to tell me?” His voice was hard. Accusing.
Oh, God. “Tell you?” she managed in a voice that shook only a little.
“That you weren’t a virgin.”
There was a long silence. A thousand possibilities raced through Emm’s mind. But only one was the truth. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice.”
Chapter Thirteen
A girl, no virgin either, I should guess—a baggage
Thrust on me like a cargo on a ship
To wreck my peace of mind.
—SOPHOCLES, WOMEN OF TRACHIS (TRANS. E. F. WATLING)
Cal couldn’t believe his ears. “You hoped I wouldn’t notice?”
She swallowed and nodded.
He waited for an explanation. She pulled the bedclothes up to cover her nakedness, then sat there silent and unmoving, making no attempt to explain or justify herself.
Anger licked at him. He’d striven so hard to ensure that her first time was the best he could make it—and it wasn’t her first time at all. It didn’t help to know that, far from exerting total control over himself, he’d utterly lost it.
But that was her fault, responding like . . . like . . .
He grabbed his dressing gown and flung it on, shoving his arms into the sleeves so violently he heard something tear. He didn’t care. He seized the candle, marched to the dressing room and lit it from the stub that was about to gutter.
He lit two more candles—this wasn’t a conversation you could have in the dark—and placed them where they would light her face best. He stood over her, arms folded. “Who was it?”
For a long moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Her eyes were wide and dark; her skin glowed, honey and silk in the soft candlelight. Her expression was unreadable.
The scent of their lovemaking filled his nostrils. Rose and vanilla, aroused woman, and musky, salty, raw unbridled sex. His body stirred in response. He wanted her again. Already.
His patience snapped. “Dammit, I asked you a question. And don’t bother giving me a pack of lies. Who the hell was it?”
She seemed to be considering what to say. Eventually she said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll be the judge of that!”
She gave him a long, thoughtful look, tucked the bedclothes more tightly around her and said with a tiny shrug of one tantalizingly bare shoulder, “I was seventeen. I thought I was in love. There’s been no one since.”
The cool, bare-bones summary infuriated him. She showed no contrition at all. If she’d wept, apologized, begged his forgiveness, he might have, after a judicious period, forgiven her.
But this, this matter-of-fact account that explained nothing—nothing!—drove him wild.
He wanted to throttle her. He wanted to beat her.
He wanted to take her back to bed and make love to her until they were both insensible.
“We will talk of this in the morning,” he said, and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him.
* * *
Emm winced at the slamming door. She’d thought her lack of virginity wouldn’t matter so much because their marriage had been made for purely practical reasons. And because it had all happened such a long time ago.
How wrong she’d been.
When the accusation had come, she’d been stupidly shocked. She’d been floating on a cloud of . . . bliss. Exhausted, drowsy and yet somehow . . . exhilarated. Not thinking of anything.
And then the question, harsh, accusing. For which she had no answer. No acceptable answer.
On reflection, she admitted to herself that she could have handled it better. Handled him better, instead of being stiff-necked and stubborn and refusing to apologize or beg his forgiveness.
His anger had shaken her. As if somehow it was personal, a personal betrayal.
But how could it be when they hardly knew each other?
Her emotions were all over the place. Perhaps she should have made more of an effort to tell him beforehand. But he’d shown no interest in her as a person—apart from that kiss—and the opportunity hadn’t arisen.
She punched her pillow. Why should she expose herself, rip open old wounds and humiliations—and grief—open herself to the judgment of a man she barely knew? If he’d ever asked her anything about herself, ever shown the slightest interest in her life, her past, even her opinions, she would have felt obliged to tell him about Sam. But he hadn’t.
She pulled the covers around her and lay staring into what remained of the fire. The glowing coals were turning to ashes of gray. The room was growing colder.
Life was so unfair. He’d obviously lain with oh, probably dozens of women, and she’d lain with one man and that only three times almost ten years ago. But she was the sinner and he was the righteously wronged.
Male pride and possessiveness.
She turned over in the bed again, unable to get comfortable, because despite her attempts to justify her actions to herself, the strongest emotion she felt was regret, because until then it had been so lovely between them. So unexpectedly sweet. Tender. She’d had no idea it could be like that . . .
Until tonight, her—admittedly limited—experience of congress between a man and woman was that it was hasty, rough and uncomfortable. But wildly exciting.
Lord Ashendon had shown her it could also be glorious . . . transcendent.
She’d felt cherished . . .
And then . . . the moment had shattered, like a delicate rainbow glass bauble crushed beneath the heel of a boot. Leaving her dazed among the shards.
She would not cry, not over this, not over anything she could not change. Spilled milk. Story of her life. There was nothing for it but to mop it up and go on.
But how to mop this mess up?
She closed her eyes, burrowed a nest into her bedclothes as she had when she was a child and tried to sleep.
* * *
“His lordship sent me to wake you, miss—I mean, my lady.” Milly threw the curtains back, letting sunshine stream through. “Such a lovely day it is, I expect he doesn’t want to waste it.” She brought a tray over to Emm. “I got you sweet rolls and some hot chocolate, miss, but if you want anything else—”
“No, that will do nicely, thank you, Milly.” Emm blinked at the bright sunshine. She went to sit up, then recalled she was naked. She pulled the covers around her. “What time is it?”
“After ten, but then, nobody expects you to get up early after your wedding night.” Milly blushed as she picked up the silk nightgown from the floor and folded it. “It’s ever such a grand house, miss—I mean, my lady.” She fetched a dressing gown and handed it to Emm.
Emm slipped it on gratefully, then reached for her breakfast tray. She was famished. She poured the chocolate. “Are they treating you all right, Milly?”
“Oh, yes, m’lady. As your personal maid I’m at the top end of the servants’ table. At the Duck’s I was right down the other end with only the scullery maid below me.” She tossed E
mm a quick grin. “Of course they’re all thrilled that the young master’s come home after all these years, and they’re beside themselves that he’s married. Everyone here adores him. The previous lord, his older brother, they weren’t that keen on him, but Master Cal—that’s what they call him when they forget he’s the earl now—he’s always been their favorite, so I reckon you being his bride, you can do no wrong in their eyes.”
Emm sipped her chocolate. That remained to be seen.
“Oh, and I forgot to say, the master said to tell you when you’re dressed he wants to speak to you in the library.”
Emm’s appetite vanished. She put her breakfast tray aside. “Draw me a bath, please, Milly.” Best to beard her dragon in his den and get it over with.
“Very good, m’lady.”
* * *
“When should I have told you?” Emm stood before him, placed on the mat like a naughty child before the headmaster. It was petty, Cal knew, but he was feeling petty and cross. He hadn’t a wink of sleep, and when he’d looked in on her this morning he’d found her sleeping the sleep of the just, looking rumpled and delectable. And infuriatingly, deceptively innocent.
It had put him in a fine temper, because of course what he wanted was to pull back the covers and take her again. And again.
But just because his body was rampant and aching with desire for her didn’t mean he’d let her undermine his common sense or self-discipline. A man should be master in his own house.
A night of sleep hadn’t made her the least bit more amenable or apologetic. She seemed almost indignant at his question. “When? The day you proposed? You took me so much by surprise—two minutes beforehand you’d offered me a job as a chaperone. I could hardly even believe your proposal was serious.”
“If you recall, we spoke the next morning, madam.”
“No, you did most of the speaking that day. You set out the conditions for our marriage, what you expected me to do. You never once mentioned a requirement for virginity.”
“Because it was understood,” he grated. Of course it was. Bride and virginal were practically interchangeable terms.
“You never asked me a single thing about myself—not about who I was, about who my family was—”
“You told me you had no family.”
“And you never wondered why? Or thought to ask how I’d come to be working at Miss Mallard’s, when I’d attended the seminary as a pupil?”
“I assumed—”
“Yes, you assumed.” She was pacing now, back and forth. “You assumed I’d fill the position you wanted, perform the duties you required of me, undertake the care and protection of your sisters and niece and launch them on the marriage mart—and I will. Leaving you free to pursue your ‘important government duties’ elsewhere.”
He clenched his jaw. There was some justice in what she said, but—
“It wasn’t me you wanted, it was a convenient wife. And that’s what you got. But now you want more—you want a perfect wife. Well, I’m not perfect, but I will do right by your sisters and niece. And I will do right by you.”
“I didn’t mean—” He hadn’t meant to insult her integrity, but was it too much for a husband to ask who’d deflowered his bride?
“After you left that day, I realized I probably should have told you then, but you’d gone to London. And then, because of your desire to have a quick wedding, by the time you returned, the invitations had gone out, the school was in a frenzy of anticipation and everything was arranged. And when I finally did see you, it was at the church. What was I to do, ask you to step into the vestry and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m not a virgin’?”
“No, of course not, but—” he began irritably. How did women do it? She made it sound like it was all his fault.
“Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I decided that it wasn’t relevant.”
He almost choked. “Not relevant?”
She made an impatient gesture. “Surely the whole reason for wishing a bride to be a virgin on her wedding day is so that the groom can be assured that any child resulting from the marriage is his. Well, it’s almost ten years since I had congress with a man, and I cannot possibly be pregnant.” A faint blush stole across her cheeks. “Not unless last night . . .”
She lifted her chin. “But if my word is not good enough, you can refrain from . . . any further efforts to conceive until my monthly courses have passed.”
Cal couldn’t fault her logic. But he wasn’t going to last a month, not knowing she was in the next room, all soft and lissome . . . coming alight for him at the merest touch.
“And if you conceived a child last night?”
She lifted her chin and said almost defiantly, “Then I will count myself most fortunate.”
“You want a child, then?”
Her eyes went dark and dreamy. “It is my dearest wish,” she said softly.
That was something, then. Cal was tempted to whisk her back upstairs and get to work on giving her one, but he had a position to maintain. And he wasn’t going to let her get off too lightly. She hadn’t bent an inch, damn her. She hadn’t yet apologized or told him who her lover had been.
“You still haven’t told me who he was.” His voice was quiet, but he hoped she heard the underlying steel beneath it. He would not give up until he knew.
There was a short silence and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse to tell him. Again.
Then she sighed, all the spit and vinegar drained. She sat on the chair opposite. “Sam was a— He worked on my father’s estate.”
His eyes narrowed. “Your father’s estate?”
She lifted her chin. “My father was Sir Humphrey Westwood; our home was in Berkshire.”
That explained her assurance, her manners. “Was?”
“My father is dead. The estate?” She shrugged, as if to say she had no idea. And possibly didn’t care.
“It was entailed?”
She shook her head. “Papa disowned me, after . . .”
He waited.
She waited a long, stubborn moment. He didn’t take his eyes off her and eventually she gave a sigh, as if giving in. “I was just seventeen, naïve, innocent and wildly romantical, as girls that age often are. Sam was five-and-twenty, dark and dashing, as handsome as . . . as sin.” She made a rueful gesture. “I fell madly, blindly, carelessly in love. Nothing else mattered to me, except . . . him.”
“What happened?”
“Papa caught us . . . together.” She swallowed. “There was a lot of shouting.”
“And?” he prompted after a time.
“He offered Sam five hundred pounds to leave the country and never contact me again.”
Cal’s fists clenched. He wouldn’t have offered him a penny—he would have horsewhipped the blackguard to within an inch of his life. Seventeen and innocent was no match for twenty-five.
“The swine took it?”
“He did.” There was a long silence, then she gave a little shiver. “There has been no one since.”
Cal frowned. There were gaps in her story. If her lover had been so easily bought off, why had she been disowned? And if she’d been seventeen when she was disowned. . . She was six-and-twenty now, and she’d been at the Mallard seminary for seven years. It didn’t add up. A thought occurred to him. “Did he leave you with child?”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “No. There was nothing like that.”
She seemed genuinely surprised by the question and showed no self-consciousness when she replied. He believed her. “Then why—”
“So, if you need assistance with the management of your estate, I can help you. I did much to assist my father before—I can, for instance, read and keep accounts. Papa had no head for figures.”
“Then why were you disowned?”
“A . . . a misunderstanding.” She r
ose and smoothed down her skirt. “So now you have the answer to your questions. I hope the knowledge of my youthful imprudence will not prove an insuperable obstacle to the smooth progression of our marriage.” She gazed at him a moment with those clear sage-green eyes and said firmly, “I have not lain with any man since—except you. Nor will I.”
It was a promise—and apparently as good an apology as he was ever going to get from her.
Part of him wanted to assert himself and demand some sort of gesture of contrition for not telling him about it until after they were married. But fundamental honesty forced him to recognize he hadn’t exactly given her the opportunity to explain.
They were both new to this business of marriage, and they’d married not knowing much about each other. If they were both a little tense and prickly, well, that wasn’t surprising.
This was what a honeymoon was for, he supposed. To get to know each other better.
That and the bedding.
He rose and rang a bell. “Thank you for your frankness, madam. I suggest we put last night behind us and go on as intended. I have work to do. This estate has been neglected for the last year and I wish to get everything organized before I leave.”
“When will that be?”
“I’m not sure, not for a week at least. The girls will be arriving tomorrow.”
“The girls?”
“I cannot trust them to Aunt Dottie’s care; you know that.”
She bit her lip. “Of course. It is after all, why you married me.”
Denial trembled on the tip of his tongue, which was nonsense—it was why he’d married her—but he was aware it wasn’t quite fair to give her a honeymoon of only two days before her chaperone duties commenced. The fact that she didn’t complain, as most brides would, galled him somewhat.
“I have much to do here.” He gestured to the pile of paperwork on the desk. “Later this afternoon I will be riding out to make a brief inspection of the estate.”
“Oh, may I—” She broke off as a knock sounded at the door.
The housekeeper entered, and whatever his wife had been going to say remained unsaid. “You rang, sir?”
