“Not at all!”
A finger against her cheek prevented her sharp turn away. “Don’t lie, Minerva. Never lie. I want you curious. I want you interested in everything. I want you trembling with it, with the need to know, the need to touch and taste.”
And she was trembling, but not entirely with the effect he could have on her. She was trembling from that comment about lies. Susie had said he didn’t like lies. He’d forgiven her the one about her courses, but would he forgive others? The continuous, entangling lies . . .
The finger moved, stroking her cheek. “At times, you seem troubled, Minerva. I know this is not easy. Am I troubling you?”
“No.” It slipped straight out, but it was essentially true.
“I desire you,” he said, still touching her in that delicate, distracting way. “Tonight.” With a quirk of the lips, he added, “To be honest, now. But I can wait. Wait even for another night if need be.”
Even now, he was offering her escape.
She thought about her words this time, for deep inside quivered a place that feared him, feared his power over her, feared the breaking of barriers that she knew must come with intimacy. But she said, “I don’t want to wait.”
His smile showed pure delight. “I’m glad.” But then he added, “So, is there anything else troubling you?”
It was so tempting to tell him everything, but she knew temptation must generally be resisted. “Nothing in particular,” she said, but looked away. Oh lord, she might as well paste a sign to her chest saying LIAR!
He moved his hand, letting her turn to look out at the noisy, crowded theater and be comfortable. If someone so troubled could be comfortable.
“What about Sir Arthur?” he asked.
She turned back. “What?”
“You don’t seem easy with him.”
She hated the hint of watchfulness and doubt in his eyes and gave him what truth she could. “He’s an old family friend. I was quite fond of him when I was young, but later”—she looked away again, but this time just from remembered embarrassment—“he . . . he made me uneasy. Before I left to take up my post.”
“Did he do anything?”
She looked back. “Do?”
His lips twitched again, though his eyes were not particularly amused. “The sorts of things I have done. Kiss you. Touch you.”
“No!” At the sharp word, Laura twitched to look behind, and Meg smiled for her. “No,” she repeated in a quiet voice. “Nothing like that. Just a change in his manner. It made me uncomfortable. And I am a little concerned about Laura.”
Though it was slight, she sensed his sudden tension. “Has he done anything there?”
After a moment, she lied. “No.” It wasn’t really a lie. He hadn’t done anything. Yet.
“Certainly, Laura seems at ease with him. Most likely the man’s harmless, but to be safe, we won’t allow him to be alone with any of them. With so many idle servants eating their heads off, that’s simple to arrange.”
It was so complete a solution that Meg felt tears sting her eyes. “Thank you.”
He reached to brush beneath her eyes. “I wonder if you told me the whole of this.”
With despair, she knew he had to know she had not.
The finger trailed down to her lips and tapped once there. It was almost a chastisement, though a very gentle one. “Marriage is for sharing problems, my dear, and for finding solutions. Though it’s early days, I will be hurt, I think, if you continue to fight battles alone.”
Then Meg did want to burst into tears and spill out every detail, but the muted orchestra surged into full volume, playing a rollicking music for the clowns of the first show. As she turned and watched the curtain rise to reveal the glittering scene in front of a gaudy oriental palace, she was glad to have escaped that folly. She fiercely resolved, however, never to hurt her kindly husband again if she could help it.
For his part, Sax watched his strange wife, rather than the performance. He noted the excited pleasure of the younger ones, and enjoyed their enthusiasm. It was easy to become jaded. His new family was breathing life into stale pleasures. Mostly, however, he was fascinated by his wife. She, too, was breathing new life into stale pleasures. How long had it been since he had anticipated sex quite this much?
She seemed to be enjoying herself, too, but she was definitely troubled.
He wondered how bad it was.
He didn’t judge Sir Arthur Jakes to be the type to forgo months of rent, even for an old family friend. What payment had he demanded? Minerva herself? Was it possible that she’d had to give the man her virginity, and that her nervousness about consummation was simply a fear of being found out?
He thought over their encounter in his bedroom, trying to see if she’d acted like a woman who’d never been touched before. It was hard to tell. She’d been surprised, but in the end, eager.
Sir Arthur might be an insensitive lover who had simply used her, so that more subtle attentions were new.
He might have raped her.
Careful not to startle her too much, he put a hand on his wife’s shoulder, to the place left bare by her modest evening gown. She started a little and glanced at him, nervous, but not truly fearful. He doubted Sir Arthur, or any man, had abused her, thank God, but it was still possible that she’d had to pay for shelter with her body.
He wanted to be the first, and he wanted the freedom to carry her high. After this afternoon, his marriage bed lay before him like a delicious promise, like the smell of baking bread or roasting meat, bringing saliva to the mouth, and the spiciest kind of keen appetite.
His wife. His unexplored domain.
Ah well, even if she wasn’t a virgin, she was unawakened in all the ways that mattered.
She turned back to the stage, but he knew she had to be aware of his hand against her skin. He let one finger tease her nape, and as keenly as she watched the antics on stage, he watched her every reaction—her parted lips, her warming cheeks, her hand flexing suddenly on the arm of her chair.
Ignoring Monk behind them, he moved a little closer and put his lips to her neck, just behind her ear, hearing her catch her breath. “If we were long married,” he whispered, “and alone, I’d draw the curtains.”
She raised her chin—the tiniest, revealing arch of surprised desire. When her lips parted more, he put a finger between them and grinned when she set her teeth into it. Passion. His wife was a creature of passion. No matter what little secrets she was hiding, he was a very lucky man.
He moved closer to first lick, then bite, then suck her lobe. She almost rose out of her seat, her hands tight on the arms. “We have a bed waiting, however,” he whispered. “And tonight, I think we need a bed.”
Letting his tongue play around the curve of her ear, he inhaled, taking in her scent, warm and womanly and personal, except for the most prim hint of lavender. Would he adorn her with richer perfumes, or was she best as she was, so proper on the surface, but all fire and spice beneath?
“Your bed or mine?” he whispered.
She turned to him, drowning, he could see, in her senses, just as he wanted her.
Wanted her.
By Hades, it was true. If they were alone, he would not wait. He was master of this game, however, so if they were alone he would not be playing with this fire until it was time.
“You said mine,” she said dazedly.
“So I did. Does that please you?”
“I don’t think I mind anymore.”
“Yours.” He kissed her soft, parted lips. “The Amazons might give you ideas. Your bedroom, where I will undress you by candlelight and firelight, and uncover every secret of your senses.”
“I think you already know them.”
“Every woman is a new mystery.”
She stiffened slightly, as he knew she must. Something had to cool things down.
The music changed and on the ignored stage, a magician began to make flags appear out of nowhere.
Her lips pr
essed together, and she straightened in her chair. “No woman likes to think of herself one of many, my lord.”
“I’ve known plenty who’d prove you wrong. A man’s no use to them unless he’s desired by many others.”
“I suppose they queue at your door.”
He’d swear she had sniffed, and he grinned. “No, but I receive some interesting invitations by correspondence.”
She turned pointedly toward the stage. “I wish to watch the performance, my lord.”
Thoroughly put in his place, Sax silently laughed and stretched a hand behind him. Monk put a peeled orange into it. Sax ate one segment himself to be sure it was sweet and good, though he trusted Monk’s abilities in these matters. Then he put the next segment to Meg’s tight lips.
She glanced at him, frowning, then after a silent struggle relaxed enough to let him feed her. But it was grudging. She was punishing him. He loved it. When she swallowed, he presented another. “If you want to own me, Minerva, you will have to earn it.”
She chewed the orange and swallowed, still looking at the stage. “I am your wife.”
“You think that gives you property rights?”
She turned then. “ ‘Forsaking all others’?”
“My confession was just about my unruly past. The future is yet to come.”
“Can a leopard change its spots?” She took the orange from his hand, peeled off a segment and presented it to his lips. “I think, my lord, I must learn how to behave from you.”
As he took the fruit and chewed it, he had to suppress a growl of approval. Oh yes, marriage to Minerva was going to be a lot of fun. “Are you saying you intend to take lovers?”
She put another piece of fruit against his lips. “That depends on what you earn, doesn’t it, my lord?”
He seized her wrist. “Fidelity,” he challenged quietly, surprising himself. “Both of us, for each other alone. Forever.”
He was undoubtedly mad. It must be a primitive instinct about the woman whose children would legally be his, but his own words startled him, as did the intensity of feeling behind them. She was his—her secrets, her fighting spirit, and her fascinating underwear.
His.
The thought aroused him to a point perilously close to disaster.
Perhaps she sensed it. Her eyes grew huge, but not afraid. Like a wild creature she was excited by an instinctive knowledge of his desire. “That is what I said in the marriage vows, Saxonhurst. I take such vows seriously.”
He nodded, released her, and took the piece of orange she was still offering just as the burst of applause warned him that the early show was over.
The younger ones turned around, bright-eyed and excited, and demanded oranges and cakes. Monk served them all, giving the adults wine.
Sax sipped his, consciously cooling himself down. The promise he’d just made could prove to be very awkward if he’d judged his wife amiss. But no. Watching her as she laughed with her brothers and sisters, he didn’t think she’d surprise him in bed, except in the most pleasant ways. Any other little secrets she might have were irrelevant.
His unexpected countess was a woman of deep and honest passions, or he was a celibate monk. In his years of lively investigation of women, he’d learned that many apparently ordinary women were deeply passionate, while many flamboyant ones were all tinsel, with no true interest in the earthy side of life.
He’d also learned that random sexual encounters, no matter how expert, could become tedious, something he’d never have believed when a wildly liberated twenty-one. A lengthy sexual voyage with his mysterious wife would not, he was sure, be tedious at all.
She suddenly swooped forward to prevent Richard from tossing a piece of orange peel into the pit. Her dowdy silk skirt shifted to reveal her shapely ankle and a hint of embroidered petticoat. The plainest white on white, but a complex design, beautifully worked. Passion concealed by lack of color, and obvious only to those of keenest sight and instinct.
That earlier glimpse of her corset had shown lush green vines bearing scarlet blossoms.
Lush, embracing, secret passions.
He relaxed back. He was a very, very lucky man, and had no doubt that in a few hours he was going to be in an extreme state of connubial ecstasy.
Meg saw that the twins were restless, and suggested that they all stroll the corridor a little. She needed a respite, too, for the box, though large, seemed closed in and hot, especially when she glanced at the earl and saw the way he was looking at her.
Anyway, she hoped for a moment alone with Laura to deliver her warning. Despite Saxonhurst saying they wouldn’t let Sir Arthur be alone with any of them, she wanted Laura alerted. Now. Though logic said her fear and urgency was ridiculous, she wouldn’t feel safe to let her sister out of her sight until she was warned.
The fashionable crowd were arriving, however, to see the main performance, and the crush in the corridor was too great for private talk. Family excitement was running too high, too. There’d be time when they were leaving, or when they returned home.
Before . . .
She glanced at her husband, and he smiled.
Before.
Then she was being introduced to people, people whose names she would never remember, especially as their faces were all the same—astonished.
Sir Arthur appeared again. “Just visiting an old friend in his box,” he said, with a wave behind him. “I can see you are all vastly pleased with the performance.”
The twins proceeded to tell him just how pleased, with more decorous agreeing noises from Jeremy and Laura. Meg noted her husband watching hawkishly for a moment before his attention was claimed by a fashionable middle-aged couple.
That predatory alertness helped her to relax. He would guard them, and she trusted him to do it well. None of them was vulnerable to Sir Arthur anymore. Eased, she even joined in the conversation with their ex-landlord.
He behaved impeccably, and yet she still felt his interest in Laura, and a simmering anger toward herself. She hoped she was imagining it, but was relieved when the bell rang to announce the next act.
Like leaves blown by a sudden breeze, the crowd shifted toward their boxes. Meg turned, but for a brief moment she and Sir Arthur were side by side and alone, as the earl took farewell of the older couple.
“Housebreaking is not very ladylike, Meg.”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
The older couple moved off. Sax turned.
She stepped away, toward her husband, but behind her back, Sir Arthur’s hand seized her gown. Still smiling, he said, “Make an opportunity to speak to me in private, Meg, or you will deeply regret it. I have something you want.”
Then he loosed her and bowed, and she staggered forward to take her husband’s offered arm.
“I hope he wasn’t distressing you,” Sax said.
“Not at all.” She made herself smile, and sank helplessly into another lie. “But he says there were a few things left behind at the house that he thinks are ours. He wants me to go and look.”
“Not without me.” He was calm, but implacable. “There’s something about that fellow I can’t quite like.”
Perhaps that was why he played no more games with her during the first act of the pantomime. Meg was partly grateful, for he could so easily upset her equilibrium, and partly fearful that she’d somehow given him a disgust of her.
How many times could she lie to him and not shatter what they had?
Meg couldn’t stop thinking about Sir Arthur’s threat. How could he make her regret not speaking with him? How?
The worst he could do, surely, was to tell Saxonhurst about the sheelagh. It would be embarrassing to have to admit to possession of an obscene statue, but that was all.
Unless Sir Arthur knew about the magic.
But even if he did, he couldn’t know she’d used the magic to trap the earl into marriage.
He might guess.
If he knew about the magic.
No one knew. No one.
He couldn’t make a viable threat against her, and yet she quaked inside. She’d have to find out what he was up to before she could have a moment’s peace. And, of course, she had to get the sheelagh back.
At the intermission, she looked around, hoping for another encounter with Sir Arthur, for the chance to find out what he’d meant. She didn’t see him. She didn’t have a chance to speak to Laura. Saxonhurst seemed almost to be ignoring her!
Oh, why had Sir Arthur turned up here to spoil everything?
Blindly watching the last act, Meg could have wept for the loss of the earlier warm, bubbling anticipation.
Why had Sax stopped paying her any attentions?
Did he know?
Had he overheard?
Then, as the performance wound to its end, he took her hand.
With a mere whisper of his thumb against hers, he seemed to bring the magic back. Losing interest in the wild action on the stage, and pushing aside all thought of Sir Arthur Jakes, Meg turned eagerly to her husband.
Looking startled, then pleased, he raised their linked hands to his lips, and kissed hers. Then he pushed their hands back toward her own lips.
She noticed again how elegant his fingers were, reminded of their first moments together, when his hand had prevented her fleeing the church. She kissed each elegant finger as he presented it to her lips, then when he extended one, she obeyed, and kissed the tip.
His other hand suddenly came to rest on her back above the seat and one finger stroked there, stroked down her spine, sending a shiver right through her. He gently turned her attention back to the stage, and she watched dazedly as disguises were stripped away and true loves found, while villains came to abysmal ends, and heroes were rewarded.
And as a clever, subtle, magical hand wrote promises on her back. That was all he did—write secret promises there—but in that simple way, he captured her. When the final applause died, he stopped and took her cloak from Monk to drape around her shoulders, talking easily to the others.
Jo Beverley Page 18
