The Earl's Practical Marriage

by Louise Allen

  He broke off as the boat bumped into the landing stage on the tiny island. ‘Here we are already. A few strokes of the oars and the dragon is left behind. Quick, Lady Palgrave has come out on to the terrace to look for us.’

  Giles jumped ashore and held out his hand to her. It was like their childhood escapades playing hide and seek, Laurel thought, laughing out loud as they scurried round the shrubs and reached the other side of the islet. ‘Do you remember hiding here from Fawcett, the old gamekeeper, that time we let all the terriers out by mistake?’

  ‘Lord, do I! And there was hell to pay because his prize bitch encountered some mongrel from the village and was ravished before he could separate them.’

  ‘They were sweet puppies though, and you did find good homes for all of them.’

  ‘So I did.’ He held back some arching rose briars to let her through the tangle of shrubbery. ‘And here is the summer house, looking a great deal smaller than I recall from my youth.’

  ‘Things do look smaller. Childhood exaggerates everything.’ Laurel pushed open the door. ‘It is still in good condition and clean though. I used to let Jamie row over here quite often when it was hot. He would fish and swim and I would read novels and we would pretend to Stepmama that we had been studying natural history or something serious.’

  Memory did not exaggerate you though, she thought as she turned to see Giles following her into the summer house.

  He stood in the doorway of the miniature Greek temple, silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside, and she caught her breath. Memory had given her the image of the youth—gangling, quiet, not yet grown into his body and showing no signs of the man he would become. My man. Now he was solid, confident in his body, relaxed and yet with an edge of alertness.

  ‘For a schoolroom this has the two essentials as a boudoir for seduction.’ He came in, leaving the door open behind him. ‘There is a comfortable couch and, as far as I can see, no spiders. Spiders are the death of passion.’

  ‘Indeed? You speak from experience, no doubt?’ She was jealous, she could hear it in her voice.

  ‘Of spiders in such circumstances? No, I am glad to say. They would be a serious impediment—I am terrified of the things.’ Giles made a show of lifting the skirts of the chintz cover on the couch and peering warily beneath. ‘And as for mice...’

  ‘Wretch.’ Laurel lobbed a cushion at him and found herself caught up in his arms and tumbled on to the couch. ‘You used to keep pet mice in the schoolroom and I recall you putting spiders in the soup tureen when Lady—’ The rest of what she was about to say was lost as Giles kissed her.

  She had thought she was beginning to understand kissing, but it seemed she had been wrong. This was different, this slow, languid open-mouthed caress. It was deep and personal and intimate. She could taste Giles. The flavour of tea and the sweetness from the tiny macarons they had nibbled at politely a short while ago, that she had expected. But there was something that she recognised from their previous kisses, something that must be simply him, his unique taste, his essence.

  It was disturbing and arousing, almost as arousing as the slow slide of his tongue across hers, the tiny nips and licks at her lips, the movement of his hands on her body.

  Laurel wriggled, wanting to get closer, wanting to feel him, skin to skin, even as the wary, self-conscious part of her brain protested that she was shy, that he did not love her, that really this would be so much easier the first time in the darkness of the bedchamber...

  ‘What is it, Laurel?’ Giles broke the kiss and propped himself on one elbow to look down at her. ‘Am I going too fast?’

  ‘No. It isn’t that. Giles—will you take your clothes off? All of them?’

  ‘Me? I was rather hoping to remove yours.’

  ‘Please.’

  He thought about it for a moment, his lids heavy over the deep blue of his eyes, his lips a little swollen from their kisses. ‘You will feel more in control of things. I see.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I would. I had not expected you to understand that.’

  ‘I used to understand you very well, Laurel. I could read your expressions, the way you held yourself, the gestures you made with your hands. You have grown so confoundedly pretty that I must have been distracted up to now—but I am learning to see the old Laurel again.’ As he spoke he swung his legs down from the couch and pulled off his boots and stockings, then unwound his neckcloth.

  Laurel curled up against the head of the seat, watching as Giles stood and shrugged out of coat and waistcoat. ‘You have changed, too.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ His grin faded as he looked down at her. ‘You have your curious robin look—head on one side. Laurel, the male body might come as a bit of a shock to you.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ she said, more confidently than she felt. ‘I have seen Jamie growing up, don’t forget—and you were not exactly shy about diving into the lake when we were young. Oh, and I have seen statues.’

  ‘Boys, youths in cold lakes and statues are not exactly good guides to what an aroused adult male looks like,’ he said, his voice muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. ‘And I think you might say that I am aroused.’ He emerged tousled, tossed the crumpled linen aside and paused, hands at the fastenings of his breeches.

  There was a significant ridge just there. To distract herself from it Laurel reached out and touched the hair that dusted across his chest. ‘Is that soft?’ It was darker than the sun-bleached hair on his head and felt both springy and soft as he leaned down to let her brush tentative fingertips across it. When her forefinger caught his right nipple she heard his quick intake of breath.

  ‘It changed when I touched it.’ She brushed her finger over it again, and then the other one. ‘How interesting.’ Startlingly, her own nipples stiffened as well.

  ‘That is not quite how I would describe it,’ Giles said, his voice on the cusp between laughter and something else altogether. Under her hand his skin was smoother than she expected, the well-defined muscles beneath it harder.

  ‘How do you get muscles like this?’ She ran the flat of her hand down the arm that was bracing him against the wall as he bent over her. ‘You moved so beautifully when you were fighting those men.’

  ‘Riding, swordplay, boxing. And in the Peninsula it is often not possible to ride. It is tough terrain to walk in—one gets fit quickly.’

  ‘Behind enemy lines, you mean?’ She could not see his face clearly, but she felt the tension in his arm. ‘You do not want to talk about it?’ she stated when he did not reply.

  ‘No. No, I do not.’ He straightened and she saw he was trying to soften the snub with a smile. And then he unfastened his breeches and let them fall, taking his drawers with them, and she stopped wondering about the war.

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes, I see—’ She broke off, fascinated by the heavy length half-rising from the dark curls at his groin, and reached out her hand. Giles stepped back and that part of him visibly thickened and lifted of its own accord.

  ‘If we are not to anticipate our wedding night then, I beg you, Laurel—do not touch.’ There was the laughter again and, this time, a husky hint of breathlessness that gave her the most extraordinary sensation of power.

  If I reach out and stroke... And that would not be fair, he is trying to keep this within the bounds that we agreed.

  She trusted him and it was not right that she should make it difficult for him to keep his word. ‘Very well, I will behave. Shall I take all my clothes off, too? It seems only just.’

  ‘I really do not think that would be a good idea.’

  That was definitely a faint moan. How very intriguing.

  ‘In fact, I am going to put some of mine back on, if you don’t mind.’ He reached for his breeches without waiting for her reply, fastened them and pulled on his shirt, leaving it untucked.

  ‘How do we make love with our clothes on?’
Laurel had a horrible suspicion that she was pouting and got her expression under control.

  ‘Like this.’ For a big man he could move fast, she discovered. One moment she had been sitting up, the next they were both lying on the couch and Giles’s hand was sliding up under her skirts, up over the silk of her stockings, the fine fabric snagging slightly on the callouses on his fingers.

  Then the bare skin of his palms was on the bare skin above her garters and heat quite apart from the warmth of his flesh on hers flooded through her, deeply, intimately. Laurel muffled the little sob of surprise against his shoulder and clung on as his hand moved upwards, smoothing over the curve of her thigh, gently, insistently, parting her legs. She felt herself tense, then, as though her body knew far better than she did what she wanted, needed, she relaxed, opening for him, letting the questing fingers stroke upwards, parting her intimately.

  ‘Laurel?’ Giles breathed in her ear and she nodded, made some sort of inarticulate sound—agreement, trust, assent—she was not sure what it was.

  She was aware of one finger sliding deeper, entering her. It felt thick and her body resisted. She was suddenly not at all certain about agreeing to this—and then Giles touched something at the same time and the pleasure took her breath as she arched into his hand and lost the power to analyse just what was happening.

  ‘Yes, sweet, yes, querida. Perfeito...let go for me.’

  How could she let go when whatever it was he was doing was ravelling her so tight, so impossibly tight, that she would surely break?

  ‘Yes, like that, Laurel, just like that...’

  And then she did break and let go and cry out and...

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘I saw stars.’ Laurel stirred as she lay in his arms, then opened pleasure-drugged dark brown eyes.

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ Giles managed to ask. He was shaking, he found. Shaking because he was racked with desire to take this to its conclusion, cursing himself for using Portuguese endearments, of all the clumsy mistakes to make. Laurel did not need it rubbing in that he had had lovers before, although she obviously knew.

  He made himself relax, enjoying the feel of her as she snuggled closer, trusting him, secure in his arms.

  She believes in me, he thought bleakly. Trusts me. How much would that hurt her if she knew why I offered for her? I should never have asked her to marry me. I should have thought of something, some way to make the money, some way to get the land back without this marriage.

  And yet—how? His duty was to his father and to his name. The match he had offered Laurel was perfectly acceptable in the eyes of society, especially for a lady virtually on the shelf. Most reasonable people would say it was highly advantageous to her.

  You are justifying yourself, his conscience nagged.

  He had lied to her by omission by not telling her about the land sale and the debts. Giles pulled himself together with an effort. This was Laurel, his friend, the girl he had been estranged from for far too long, and now she was happy that they were together. She had accepted that this was not a love match, he was not deceiving her about that.

  ‘Giles?’ The sleepy contentment in her eyes had turned to puzzlement. He needed to keep alert because she could read him too well, even in a sensual haze. Laurel sat up, her hands on his chest, and frowned. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Guilty conscience,’ he admitted. Might as well tell the truth about something. ‘I should never have made love to you.’

  And there I go with another half-truth.

  ‘Your stepmother is going to be furious that we sneaked off together and she will make your life miserable by nagging you about it, I have no doubt.’

  ‘I thought you were not happy because I had all the pleasure and you have had none.’ Laurel pushed away from him, her hands firm on his chest for a second. Giles looked down, remembering them scratched from blackberry picking, bruised from tree-climbing, muddy from fishing. Now they were the pampered hands of a lady, the lady he had tied himself to for life.

  And she is tied to me, my ring will be on that finger soon enough.

  ‘I had my pleasure in seeing your pleasure, feeling it,’ he told her as he got to his feet and put his clothing in order.

  And that at least is the truth.

  It had been arousing watching Laurel come apart under his touch. There had been something more than that, although he could not put a name to the emotion.

  ‘Hmmm.’ She looked at him doubtfully, then smiled, a wicked twist of her lips. ‘I will have to make it up to you when we are married. But we had better get back, or at least be seen rowing about on the lake. Stepmama will not nag me, merely sigh heavily and tell me I will have to behave with decorum when I am a countess. You, of course, may receive a lecture, so be prepared to look suitably repentant.’

  She does not suspect that anything is wrong.

  Giles pulled on his boots and checked his neckcloth by touch. Hopefully any disorder would be put down to the exertions of rowing, not to disgracefully stripping off to gratify the curiosity of his betrothed.

  He led the way down from the summer house to the boat and helped Laurel in, a certain masculine smugness counteracting the guilt. Her expression when she had looked at his naked body, the interest and the frank admiration, the curiosity that hinted at so much delightful sensual exploration, those all promised that their marriage would be satisfactory in the bedchamber at least. But there must be no more lies, no more deceit. Or, given that was probably impossible, no more than absolutely necessary.

  * * *

  Something was wrong with Giles. Laurel pretended not to notice as she smiled and pointed out dabchicks and water lilies and did her best to ignore the tingling along muscles she had not realised she possessed and the fizzing in her veins that was like too much champagne, only better.

  There had been something in his manner that had not been quite right from the beginning. He was hiding something from her, she sensed. Once she would have teased it out of him, or demanded outright to know what it was. But this was no longer the young Giles, this was a man, and presumably his secrets were not the kind to be revealed to avoid persistent teasing or to be tricked out of him by catching him unawares. For all she knew they might be state secrets, military intelligence, or he had seen something in the course of the fighting that had made a profound impression, something he was not yet ready to speak about.

  Whatever his secrets were, she had to respect them and certainly not jump to conclusions about them—she had learned her lesson about doing that all too well. But there was something else, something that had happened when he was making love to her. He was regretting having done it, she could tell. For a moment she had wondered if it was her, if he had found her not attractive enough, but the hard evidence of his arousal against her body had not changed—he had wanted her at the beginning and he still wanted her now.

  Laurel hid a sudden smile: how very inconvenient for men that their desires were so evident in the fashions of the time. No doubt some vigorous rowing would allow him to have everything under control by the time they got back to the house.

  Thinking was not easy with her brain befuddled by the onslaught of unfamiliar sensual pleasures. Perhaps she was analysing too much, worrying that their new-found reconciliation would be wrecked by the perils of marriage where the possibilities for misunderstandings, for hurting each other, were so great. Even so, it nagged at her. What was it that he wanted her to be to him? Would she be able to satisfy that need?

  * * *

  Stepmama was cool when they returned, but she seemed to accept the explanation that they had gone rowing to take advantage of the breezes on the lake. Even so, Laurel felt herself rebelling at the implied grudging approval. She was not eighteen, nor was she the spinster daughter any longer. She was old enough to know her own mind and, whatever doubts lurked in the shadowy recesses, she wanted to marry Giles.
Now.

  ‘We have not actually posted any of the invitations, have we, Stepmama?’

  ‘No. I had intended doing that tomorrow when we have checked over the list one final time with Lord Revesby. I would not like to omit anyone.’ Lady Palgrave ticked off another name on the paper by her side.

  ‘How long would it take to obtain a special licence?’ Laurel asked Giles.

  ‘Three days, provided I can find the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace. I believe he is in residence. If I have to go down to Canterbury, then two more days, perhaps.’ He kept his expression perfectly neutral, but there was laughter in his eyes and she guessed he knew exactly how she felt. ‘Or we could elope to the Border, although that is a long journey and would cause talk. A special licence would be tidier and more conventional, shall we say?’

  ‘A special licence?’ Lady Palgrave dropped her pen, making a large blot in the middle of the invitation list. ‘Laurel! Is there something you should be telling me?’

  ‘Something...? Oh, my goodness, no. It is just that I suddenly realised that I do not want to get married, I want to be married.’

  ‘I see. So, I am to pack my bags and take myself off to the Dower House in three days’ time, am I?’

  ‘Of course I would not ask something so distressing of you, Stepmama.’ Laurel sat down with a bump on the nearest chair. ‘I have only realised now how I feel. Giles, would you mind? Did you want a large wedding? Only, I fear that it means that we must take that honeymoon after all—I would not inconvenience Stepmama for the world.’

  ‘We will elope to London.’ Giles sat down, too. ‘Scandalously run away to the town house. I will obtain the licence and we may be married at whichever church you wish. We will lure in two witnesses off the street if you want to do without guests entirely. Think of the saving in champagne,’ he added in a whisper.

  ‘What will people say?’ Lady Palgrave demanded.