by Anne Gracie
She eyed him with a doubtful expression. “Really?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “By staying betrothed, we can make both my grandmother and Alice happy, and nobody will be put out or disappointed.”
“I suppose,” she agreed reluctantly.
He gave her a quizzical look. “Are you so keen to get rid of me?”
She gave a halfhearted laugh. “It’s not that, it’s just that— Oh, my father has embroiled us all in this dreadful tangle, and I can see no way out except to cut right through it and leave everyone free and clear.” Her lovely eyes were troubled. “I am truly grateful, Lord Thornton, for your—”
“What?” He staggered back as if in shock.
She put a concerned hand on his arm. “What is it? Are you ill?”
“You called me Lord Thornton.” And then when she didn’t respond, he added, “Not Lord Thorncrake or Lord Thorndyke or Lord Thornbottle.”
She looked self-conscious. “Oh. Yes. Well, I’m sorry about that.”
He fixed her with a gimlet look. “Who are you and what have you done with Lucy Bamber?”
She laughed, a genuine one this time.
“That’s better,” he said. “I don’t like seeing you all crushed and guilty. None of this mess is your fault, and your father is gone, so let us put it all behind us.” Before she could argue the case, he hurried on. “Now, I plan to collect you at half past eight tomorrow morning. It’s not too early for you, is it? It will take us most of the day to reach my grandmother’s.”
“It’s not too early,” she said. “But I still don’t like the thought of getting her hopes up.”
“Let me worry about that,” he told her.
* * *
* * *
Lucy ate a hearty breakfast. Alice had toyed with a piece of toast but hadn’t been able to bring herself to eat more than a mouthful. She was too tense.
She waved off Lucy and Mary shortly after half past eight. It was a rather grand affair. The smart traveling carriage had the Charlton coat of arms on the door and was pulled by a team of four fine horses. The driver wore livery, as did the footman traveling at the rear. Gerald accompanied them on horseback.
As they turned the corner and disappeared from sight, butterflies started up in Alice’s stomach. James would be here in half an hour. She was all packed, but was she ready for what was to come? She had no idea.
James arrived twenty minutes later in a yellow bounder—a hired post chaise pulled by two horses. A postilion rode one of the horses.
“We’re not going far,” he explained, “and this is more private. No grooms or drivers to worry about or eavesdrop, no horses to stable.”
Alice nodded. She couldn’t even think about grooms or horses. But privacy she could appreciate. She could still hardly believe she was going to do this, even less that it was at her suggestion.
James put her valise into the boot at the back and helped her into the chaise. She’d never been in one of these conveyances before, and when he climbed in after her, it suddenly felt very small. Their bodies touched all down one side. His body felt so warm. She herself felt cold. Nerves.
They set off, and she distracted herself by looking out the window that covered the whole front of the chaise and pointing out various sights of possible interest. She feared she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
After a few minutes it started to rain, just a soft, light spitting, but it made the window hard to see out of.
“We’ll be there in about an hour,” James told her. “I’ve rented a small cottage near a village on the outskirts of London.”
“Mmm,” she responded vaguely. In the small, close carriage, she could smell him—nothing strong or overwhelming, just the faint scent of his soap, clean linen, a hint of his shaving cologne and the underlying smell of his skin: the smell of James. She just wanted to lean over, press her face against his chest and inhale him.
If only that was all it took . . .
“So, how shall we while away the time?”
Startled, she turned to look at him.
He laughed at her expression. “Not with any improper activity,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of time for that when we get there.”
“Oh. Of course.” She swallowed.
His big warm hand closed over hers, and she immediately felt both comforted and yet, foolishly, even more nervous. “I meant,” he continued, his thumb caressing her skin, “what shall we talk about on the journey? Let’s start with you: Where did you grow up?”
She told him about her childhood at the vicarage in Chaceley and, under what she later realized was his skillful questioning, told him a great deal more than she’d intended, about her father’s passion for saving the souls of denizens, about how she’d grown up lonely—she wasn’t allowed to associate with the village children—and had always wished for brothers or sisters, but they’d never happened.
And all the time his thumb caressed her, moving back and forth over her hand, slow and rhythmic.
She found herself telling him how she’d come to marry Thaddeus. “I barely knew him, but both Mama and Papa were insistent that he was a good match for me—and he did seem to be good-looking and quite charming. So, two weeks to the day after we met, we were betrothed.” And she, poor naive fool, had thought that Thaddeus had fallen in love with her, and she’d been so excited by this unexpected whirlwind wooing by a handsome and sophisticated London viscount that she’d imagined she was in love with him, too.
Later she’d learned that she was on a list of virtuous and eligible girls his father had given him, along with an ultimatum that if he wasn’t betrothed to one of them by the end of the month, his allowance would be stopped. It was all to prevent him from marrying his mistress. She didn’t tell that to James. It was too lowering.
“And six weeks after that, I was married and living in London, and Mama and Papa had departed for foreign shores—Papa’s lost souls, you see,” she finished.
“And not long after that, they were dead.”
“Yes, it was a terrible shock. And by the time I found out, they’d actually been dead for weeks.” That was when she’d finally realized she was entirely alone in the world—except for her husband, who by then had shown his true colors. “But enough about me.” She forced a brighter tone. “What about you? Did you have a happy childhood?”
He told her about the estate in Warwickshire where he’d grown up—the one that was now his—and how his brother, Ross, being the heir, had been trained to take over the management of the estate. It was clear from his stories that he and his brother were very close—and that Nanny McCubbin had cared for them both. “She was more of a mother to Ross and me than our own mother was.”
Alice, having seen Nanny McCubbin with his daughters, could easily imagine it.
He told her about joining the army and going to war, about how he met his wife, Selina, on leave, and how her parents were adamantly opposed to the match, but how he and Selina won out in the end. He told her how Selina had traveled with the army and how well she’d taken to that life.
As he talked and told funny and dramatic stories of their adventures, Alice became more and more aware that she could never live up to his memories of Selina. Alice couldn’t even produce a baby, let alone give birth to one in the middle of a war in a tent or a dirt-floored cottage. And from the sounds of things, Selina had treated every one of those hardships as a delightful adventure.
Alice, by comparison, was dull and unadventurous: she hadn’t done much with her life at all.
“The uncertain and dangerous life we lived made us both very aware that we needed to make the most of every day,” he finished.
An excellent principle to live by, Alice thought. And she was having an adventure—if the definition of the word was to do something you’d never done before that felt risky and a bit nerve-racking.
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There was no point in hoping that James would fall in love with her. His stories about Selina had convinced her of that. He wanted Alice as a mother for his daughters and a wife he was comfortable with, whose company he enjoyed. She could accept that, could even live quite happily with it, as long as she didn’t let herself crave more than he was prepared to give.
If she could bear going to bed with him, it would be enough.
The Bible said it was better to give than to receive, and Alice had a heart full of love to give. She already loved his daughters; she would just have to take care that she didn’t smother James, or embarrass him with her feelings—if she agreed to marry him, that was.
You couldn’t make someone love you—Thaddeus had taught her that.
“We’re here,” James said as the carriage pulled up outside a small, pretty cottage. “Wait here while I open it up—you don’t want to get wet.”
He leapt down and splashed through the puddles to the front door of the cottage. He unlocked the front door and returned with an umbrella for her.
While he fetched their luggage and paid off the postilion, Alice looked around. The cottage was small and simple but spotlessly clean. Four rooms, by the look of it—a sitting room and two small bedrooms, with a kitchen at the back.
The floor was slate but made cozy with colorful rugs. A fire had been set in the fireplace, all ready to light. The kitchen contained a cast-iron stove, also readied for lighting, and a large table. Glancing out the back door, she saw a short path leading to an outhouse, which she made quick use of.
She washed her hands at an outdoor pump, and then explored the cottage. One of the bedrooms contained a large double bed, made up with soft blankets, fine linen and a beautiful satin-edged eiderdown. She sat on the bed—a new mattress, if she wasn’t mistaken. In fact, the bed itself was too big and grand for a cottage like this. James must have furnished the whole cottage from scratch.
She swallowed. He’d gone to a lot of trouble. She hoped it would be worth it. Hoped she would be worth it.
She’d started shaking again.
“Well, what do you think?” James asked, setting down the valises and a large wicker basket. “I know it’s small and simple, but I thought you’d be more comfortable with no strange servants and no neighbors. It’s a five-minute walk into the village, and the post chaise and postilion will be waiting there, so whenever you want to leave, I’ll walk in and fetch them.”
She pressed her shaking hands together—she could do this, she could—and smiled. “It’s lovely.”
He took a tinderbox from the shelf above the fireplace and in a few minutes the fire was alight. “Won’t be long before the room warms up.”
She nodded. It wasn’t cold that was making her shake. When had she become such a coward? She done this hundreds of times with Thaddeus. It couldn’t be any worse.
But that wasn’t what she was so frightened of.
This was make-or-break. Either she could bear to be bedded by James, or she couldn’t. If she could, she would marry him. If it was as it had been with Thaddeus—proving that she was the one at fault—she couldn’t marry James.
Oh, she was sure he’d say it didn’t matter, but she knew it would, and she couldn’t bear to see him grow more and more disappointed with a cold wife who shrank from him in bed. And then he would turn to a mistress, and she couldn’t bear that, either.
“Are you hungry? I’ll put on the kettle and organize something to eat.” He disappeared into the kitchen, and she could hear him getting out crockery and clattering quietly about. She ought to be the one seeing to it, not him, but she couldn’t even think about food at the moment.
She couldn’t think about anything at all. Except for that big bed.
She glanced out the window. It was still raining, and the dismal gray light coming through the windows gave her no idea of the time. How long until the evening? An endless, unbearable wait.
Perhaps she could force herself to enjoy it—or at least make James think she enjoyed it.
No, she was not prepared to be dishonest in that way. To start a marriage with such dishonesty would be to invite further cracks and deceptions. She couldn’t do it.
She paced up and down in front of the fire. She wanted to throw up. So much depended on what happened in that big bed tonight.
“You’re not the slightest bit interested in food, are you?” She whirled around. He stood in the doorway watching her. His voice deepened. “You’re driving yourself mad with imaginary worries.”
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. Her worries weren’t imaginary.
“Give me a minute.” He disappeared back into the kitchen.
What was he thinking? She had no idea.
He was back in two minutes. “You need to have a little faith,” he said and pulled her gently toward him.
“I do have faith in you,” she said tremulously.
He cupped her face in one hand and gave her one of those slow smiles that never failed to melt her bones. “I meant, faith in yourself.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I have every faith in you, Alice. But I can see that you need to be convinced. Can I assume you have no appetite for food at the moment?”
She nodded. “Good,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Chapter Fifteen
Oh, the glory of James’s kisses. Kissing. Why had it taken her so long to learn? Thaddeus had never kissed her, not like this. She was glad that James was her first.
With lips and tongue, he gently pressed her lips apart. His tongue stroked the inside of her mouth in a leisurely, sensual exploration. Every tiny motion thrummed through her body and gathered momentum. Warm shivers rippled through her, building with each stroke, pooling in the deepest recesses of her body.
She pressed her hands against his chest and slid them higher, stroking his jaw, feeling the faint underlying masculine roughness of bristles in a friction that delighted her, breathing in the scent of him even as the dark, masculine taste of him filled her senses.
She tried to copy the things he was doing with his tongue, only they dazzled her so that she couldn’t concentrate, only feel. And respond without thought or purpose.
Pleasure.
She slid her fingers through his hair and pressed herself against him—thigh against thigh, belly to belly, breast against chest. Her knees felt suddenly weak. A long shudder rippled down her spine, some deep hollow within her aching for . . . for what, she had no idea. Only a need for which she had no name . . . She clutched his shoulders, leaning against him.
He shifted his grip and swung her up off her feet. She squeaked in surprise, and he smiled. “Time to move into the bedroom.”
Oh. The heat drained out of her. The kissing was over. It was time for the . . . the other.
He set her on her feet beside the bed, then sat on the other side of the bed and pulled off his boots and stockings. He stood to remove his coat, then swiftly unbuttoned his waistcoat. He draped his coat over the rail at the end of the bed and folded the waistcoat over it. She watched as he dragged his fine white-linen shirt over his head, shook it out, then draped it over the rail.
He wore no undershirt—his chest was bare and hard with a dusting of dark hair and two small, hard nipples. She tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t known that men had nipples. His arms were powerful, strong and sinewy, his forearms sunburned.
She stood unmoving, gazing across the bed at him. Her mouth dried.
His mouth curved in an understanding smile. “Do you need help with that dress?”
Flushing at being caught staring, she nodded. She’d anticipated this part, and knew she’d be disrobing without her maid to help, but she hadn’t expected to be undressing in front of him. Even less that he would undress in front of her. She turned her back. “Just untie the bow at the top and loosen the laces, please.”
She could manage from there.
Deftly he untied her laces, and swiftly pulled them not just loose but free. Cool air whispered down her spine, warm fingers brushed against her skin. She shivered, not quite understanding why. She wasn’t cold.
Her dress started to slide. She grabbed at it, but, “I have it,” he said, and eased it down over her hips and all the way to the floor. He knelt and looked up at her, waiting, and she had no option but to step out of it, leaving her in just her underclothes. He gathered up the folds and draped the dress over the bed rail.
She began to unhook her stays—she’d chosen front-fastening ones deliberately—but, “Allow me.” His voice was slightly husky.
She could barely breathe as one by one he undid the hooks down the front of her stays. She wore a chemise underneath, but even so, she felt the brush of his knuckles through the fine lawn fabric. Her nipples were hard and tight and extraordinarily sensitive.
On the fifth hook he looked up from his task. “You can breathe, you know.”
She huffed in a nervous half laugh, and he leaned forward and kissed her, lavish, leisurely kisses that sent shivers coursing through her again. Straightening, he slipped her stays down her arms and tossed them aside. He’d undone the rest of the hooks while kissing her; she hadn’t even noticed.
He was breathing more heavily now. So was she. He reached for the buttons on the fall of his buckskin breeches.
“I’ll get my stockings.” She turned away hastily and sat on the bed. She stripped off her stockings and then her drawers. All she wore now was her chemise.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “My nightgown—it’s in the valise.”
“You won’t need a nightgown.” His voice was deep and a little hoarse. She turned to say something—but every word evaporated from her brain. He was naked. Completely, totally naked.
Alice didn’t know where to look. She’d never seen a naked man before. Thaddeus had always come to her either fully dressed or, in the early part of their marriage, in a dressing gown with a nightshirt underneath. And she’d always worn a nightgown.
