Regency Innocents

by Annie Burrows

  He stifled a groan.

  ‘Is aught amiss?’ she asked, peering up at the rigid lines of his throat.

  ‘No, nothing that need trouble you.’ He sighed, shifting so that no part of him quite touched any part of her any more. There was no way he could talk to her about what her marital duties would entail, not tonight. It was bad enough just thinking about it. If he tried to verbalise exactly what was going through his mind, he would end up wanting to give her a demonstration. And end up traumatising her, no doubt. For he was pretty sure he was not going to be able to take it slowly enough not to hurt her.

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  There was a short pause. Then she said, in a very small voice, ‘May I kiss you goodnight?’

  She must have felt him tense, because she added hastily, ‘My mother and father always used to kiss each other goodnight. And we are married now, so, should I not kiss you?’

  ‘Only if you really want to.’ He was sure no woman could really want to kiss him. ‘You do not need to,’ he said, suddenly angry with Deborah’s need to do her duty, as she saw it. ‘It is not required.’

  ‘But I do want to,’ she stunned him by saying. Raising herself on to one elbow, she looked down into his face, right into his eyes, adding uncertainly, ‘If you don’t mind. It is what married people do, is it not?’

  ‘Part of it,’ he grated, his heart breaking into a gallop as her hair brushed across his chest, and he thought of what else married people did. And people who were not married, either, when the urge took them.

  He had arranged it so that she was lying on his left side, his injured side. But she did not think he would like her to kiss the scarred side of his face. So she leaned across him, and placed a gentle kiss on his right cheek. As she did so, her breasts grazed across the hair-roughened surface of his chest. He sucked in a sharp breath.

  ‘What did I do wrong?’

  His eyes were squeezed shut. ‘Nothing,’ he grated. ‘Lie down. Lie down at once.’

  Chastened, she did so.

  And shifted away, until she was right on the very edge of the mattress. But he could feel the warmth emanating from her skin. Could hear her breathing. Shaky, uneven breaths, as though …

  ‘You are not crying, are you?’

  ‘Of course not!’ came her muffled response.

  He rolled on to his side, raised himself up on his injured arm and looked down into her face with concern.

  ‘Yes, you are …’ he groaned ‘… and it is all my fault. I have been a complete b-beast today, have I not?’

  ‘N … no …’

  ‘Yes, I have. I know it.’ When he thought back over the way he had treated her, he was amazed she had not given way to tears much sooner. What kind of man forced a timid young virgin to strip naked on her wedding night? Repulsed her so curtly after she had drawn the courage to place a shy kiss on his ravaged face?

  ‘Forgive me, Deborah?’ He ran his thumb along the poor, bruised lower lip that she had been chewing more and more as the stresses of the day had piled up.

  ‘Of course I forgive you.’ She sighed, looking up at him solemnly with tear-drenched eyes.

  God, but he wanted to kiss her. If he could manage to be gentle, could she manage to stomach it? He thought she, of all women, might really be brave enough. Look at what she had already endured at his hands. All day long she had borne the brunt of the emotions that churned inside him. And had stoically maintained a dignified mien.

  He lowered his head and gently sucked her lower lip into his mouth, soothing it with his tongue.

  He felt a tremor run through her, and broke the kiss, with a feeling of intense regret. He should have known she would recoil.

  Are you afraid of me?’ he asked ruefully, looking down into her face. Her hair had fanned out across the pillows, making her look … he gulped … incredibly alluring. He gritted his teeth as a fresh flood of desire surged through him. ‘You do not need to be. Though I don’t suppose after today’s performance you will believe me ….’

  ‘No!’ she replied, as he made to shift away from her. ‘I am not afraid of you. Not at all. Only—’ She broke off, and began chewing at her lower lip again.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘That I might not please you,’ she admitted, her eyes darting away from his.

  ‘There has been no pleasing me today, has there?’ he admitted, brushing his thumb over the lip she seemed so intent on abusing. As he recalled how soft her mouth had felt under his own, his breath hitched in his chest.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said solemnly. ‘I wish I knew …’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for!’ he insisted. She could not help the way she was. He did not even know now why seeing her in her true light should have hurt him so deeply. Women were none of them what they appeared. Even Lensborough’s wife, a woman who had a reputation for being shy and demure, had turned out to have a sordid secret buried in her past. Before that marriage could proceed, they’d had to deal with a villain who had been blackmailing her for years.

  ‘Truly?’ she asked, with a hopeful expression. ‘Even the kiss …’ she persisted. ‘Was that all right?’ Her face fell. ‘You did not seem to like it all that much.’

  ‘The kiss was perfect.’ He thought of the way her breasts had brushed across his chest, the way her hair had hung round both their faces like a curtain of living silk, cocooning them in a moment of dark intimacy. And how he had wanted to pull her fully on top of him, hold her in place and thrust up inside her. He swore under his breath.

  ‘I wish to God I could trust myself to kiss you again.’

  She frowned up at him. ‘I don’t understand. If you want to kiss me, then why don’t you?’

  ‘Because, my sweet little innocent, it will not stop at kisses. You would be shocked if I were to tell you … to show you …’ The breath hitched in his chest again as his mind flooded with a series of images so erotic, he was amazed the sheets did not go up in flames.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ she assured him in a breathy little voice. ‘You said kisses were only part of what married people do. And … I don’t want to stop at kisses. I want all of it.’

  ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ he growled.

  She looked crestfallen. And you don’t want to show me,’ she said, turning over on to her side.

  ‘What!’ He pulled her over so that she lay on her back. ‘What I want right now, is … what I want …’ He groaned, finally abandoning his attempts to hold back. He plundered Deborah’s mouth, plunging his fingers into her hair to anchor her against the force of his kiss. Need ripped through him, sweeping aside any thoughts of restraint. He looped one leg over hers, pinning her body beneath his, wanting to feel the softness of her skin against the full length of his own hardened need.

  She arched up against him. For one terrible moment he thought she was trying to push him off. But instead, she looped her arms round his neck and kissed him back for all she was worth.

  It was like striking a spark into dry kindling.

  Just as he had known it would, any hope of initiating her gently went up in smoke. Amazingly, she seemed as greedy for sensation as he felt. She matched him, kiss for kiss, touch for touch, until the moment when he went to push her legs apart. Though she opened for him willingly, and he found her lusciously ready for his possession, it still hurt her. He felt no regret when she gave a yelp of pain, only a soaring triumph at the audible proof she was his now, utterly his in a way no other woman had ever been. And when she began to move against him again, winding her legs about his waist, her little hands clawing at his back, he felt a rush of power, that he had somehow, miraculously, against all the odds, brought her to this pitch of wild abandon.

  He felt as though their rising pleasure was fusing them together. It was swifter, more intense, than anything he could ever have envisioned. For a blinding second or two, when he felt her convulse around him, crying out her rapture, he felt as though he had left the hell of his existence behind,
and found a slice of heaven. When he came back to earth, he was shocked to find his face was wet with tears. He had to bury his face in her neck to stifle the shuddering sobs that shook his whole body.

  How could a mere woman reduce him to this? He pulled away, rolling on to his back and flinging his arm over his face. He could not let her see what she did to him. If she said one word that mocked him, gave him so much as one look that showed she knew the power she could wield over him, he would make her rue the day she was born!

  When he had regained control over himself, he lowered his arm and turned his head to confront her.

  Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed with sleep.

  Relief flooded through him, leaving him limp and shaken. There was no need to deal with her now. If he played his cards right, she would never know how deeply her response had moved him.

  For she must never know. Once a woman got the upper hand, a man was doomed. Let her but guess how much he desired her, and she would start to trade on it.

  Women were all the same. Deep down, they were scheming, manipulative creatures who would twist a man round their fingers, to get what they wanted.

  Well, no woman was going to manipulate him. And if Deborah tried it, she would soon find she had picked the wrong target.

  Chapter Seven

  Bliss. There was no other word for it. Deborah stretched, and yawned, her whole being thrumming with lazy sensuality.

  Her sleep had been deep, and completely restful, nestled against the strong body of the man she loved. Sighing, she snuggled closer, daringly placing one hand upon his waist and pressing a kiss against his back.

  He rolled over, and looked down at her with a perplexed frown.

  He had hoped that last night had been an aberration. He had reasoned that he must have been more worried about his ability to function normally than he had admitted to himself. That was why he had wept. It had been relief on finding he was whole, in that respect. It was not unprecedented. One of the company sergeants, one of the most hard-bitten men he had ever known, had wept with relief when the regimental surgeon had told him they could save his arm.

  Last night’s outpouring of emotion had nothing to do with the particular woman he was with.

  And there was no reason why his heart should seem to be expanding and melting within his chest, just because she was touching him voluntarily this morning.

  He was damned if he was going to melt into emotional mush every time his wife reached out to him!

  He sat up abruptly, plucking her hand from his body, and flinging it from him.

  ‘We have no time for that. We need to get up, and on the road. Go to your room, now, and get dressed.’

  Shaken by the vehemence of his rejection, Deborah slid from the bed, fumbling her arms into the totally inadequate silken wrapper that had lain on the floor all night. He would not even look at her, but lay with his arm flung across his eyes as though the very sight of her made him angry.

  Not that she could believe he held her personally in aversion, or he would not have asked her to marry him at all. But she could not forget the stunned look on his face when he had rolled over, and seen that it was her. Just before the shutters had come down, and he had repulsed her, he had looked positively confused.

  Then it hit her with blinding clarity.

  She was not Susannah.

  Head bowed, she fled from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  For a few moments, she sat on the edge of her untouched bed, her arms wrapped about her middle, which seemed to be completely hollowed out.

  She was glad that Linney would be sharing the carriage with them today. She did not know how she would have coped being shut up with her husband, not today. She felt he had reduced her to nothing, somehow, by throwing her out of his bed this morning.

  And she was nothing, to him.

  Last night, she had interpreted his groans of pleasure as a sign that he had felt something for her. But while she had been pulsing with love, all he had wanted was a convenient female body. She understood now, in the clear light of day, why he had spoken of urges, rather than love, when he had insisted they share a bed.

  She found it hard work to climb into the carriage later, weighed down as she was by the conviction that not only did he not particularly care which woman he used to satisfy those urges, but that in order for him to be so proficient at it he must have done it with many other women. He had known exactly how to touch her, where to press his lips, to reduce her to a quivering mass of throbbing need.

  He did not seem inclined to talk today, either, though she could feel his eyes upon her from time to time. Once, she returned his look, flinching at the ferocious blast of hostility that met her gaze.

  Depression settled over her then, like a greasy pall. She felt unloved, and used and so lonely! Why had she ever imagined she could reach him and heal him? He did not want to be healed, least of all by her.

  Had she made a terrible mistake, in marrying such a deeply wounded man? She certainly felt way out of her depth with him this morning, and half-convinced that she would not be able to keep her head above water for very much longer, unless he threw her some kind of lifeline.

  ‘We are here,’ he said, jolting her out of her silent misery.

  They were slowing down to pass through a pair of wrought-iron gates, set between two stone pillars.

  ‘Wh-where is this, exactly?’ she plucked up the courage to ask. ‘Am I permitted to know, now?’

  ‘There is no harm in telling you now we are here, no,’ he grunted. ‘You cannot blab to anyone, and it would be too late to do anything about it, anyway. This is The Dovecote. In the county of Berkshire. Our new home.’

  He craned his neck to look out of the window, as they swept round a curve in the drive, and a house came into view.

  It was not as big as Deborah had imagined it would be from the way he had talked about it. The four-square, three-storey building was not even as big as the vicarage where she had grown up. She would guess it had no more than six or seven bedrooms, and the grounds that surrounded it were more of a large garden than an estate. Had he put her through so much unhappiness for this?

  The carriage drew to a halt before a shallow flight of stone steps, leading to a covered entranceway. A group of household staff came pouring out, as though they had been waiting in the hallway for their arrival. When Linney leaned out to open the coach door, they surged forward, gathering around in a semi-circle as he let down the steps. They were all smiling.

  Linney helped Captain Fawley out first, then offered Deborah his burly arm. As she emerged from the coach, the entire group of staff burst into a spontaneous round of applause.

  ‘Welcome, welcome to The Dovecote,’ a large woman of middle age said, stepping forward, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘I am Mrs Farrell, your housekeeper, and right glad we are to see you come home at last, Captain Fawley. And you, Mrs Fawley, of course!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Deborah, when her husband remained mute. One glance in his direction was enough to tell her that he appeared to have been stunned into silence by the enthusiastic reception. ‘I am sure we will be very happy here.’

  Mrs Farrell’s smile, if anything, grew even broader. ‘We all hope you will be, and will do all we can to make sure of it. Terrible it would have been, if that Percy Lampton had pushed his way in here.’ She shook her head in disapproval. ‘My mistress would not have rested easy if he had got his hands on all she had worked so hard to build up.’

  She felt her husband’s tension flow from him in waves at the mention of Percy Lampton’s name. From the swift look he gave her, the anxious frown that drew his brows down, she guessed he must think his housekeeper had betrayed a secret he still wished to keep from her.

  ‘But you won’t want to stand about talking after your journey. I’ll just introduce all the staff, and then you will want to see your rooms, I don’t doubt.’

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ Captain Fawley said, taking De
borah’s arm as the housekeeper turned to do the honours.

  ‘This is Cherry, the upper housemaid, and Nancy, the lower. We don’t have a butler. I do all a butler would do, save order the wine cellar, which there was no call for in Miss Lampton’s day. She never drank, nor would she have a male servant in the house.’

  It finally hit Deborah what had seemed odd about the group of servants who had come out to greet them. Not a single one of them was male.

  ‘And here is our cook, Susan,’ Mrs Farrell continued happily, ‘and May the kitchen maid. We have Bessie as the boots, and Betty the under-housemaid. Freda does the garden with her helpers …’ a group of women and girls with weatherbeaten faces bobbed curtsies ‘… and Joan looks after the stables. We did once have a male groom, but he proved unsatisfactory.’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘Joan does much better. But then we only have a couple of carriage horses in the stables. Miss Lampton rarely went out, save in the gig to the village. Used to have a couple of hunters, when she was younger, but she had to get rid of them once her joints got too stiff for her to mount.’

  ‘I see,’ said Captain Fawley, looking thoroughly discomfited, though whether by the complement of female staff, or the housekeeper’s volubility or the fact that Deborah now knew Percy Lampton was the other man in line for this property, she was unable to guess.

  ‘Of course,’ the housekeeper remarked, running her eyes assessingly over Linney’s burly frame, ‘we know things will not be run the same, not now you are here. You will want a man to see to your clothes, and so on.’

  ‘And to stock the wine cellar,’ Captain Fawley said firmly. And my own horse will be arriving in the next day or so, with the rest of our things.’

  The housekeeper nodded again. ‘Only natural, a married man would want to run things different from a single lady, but I assure you that had we not all been prepared to work for you, we would not have stopped on, is that not so?’ She turned to the other female staff, who all nodded, or spoke their affirmation.