Gentle conquest

by Mary Balogh

  She could not think of anything else but their liaison. Two nights ago she had given herself to her husband for the first time. It was not an event to be forgotten in a moment or shrugged off as a thing of little importance. It had been such a very physical act, so much so that she could not be in the same room as Ralph now without feeling an ache of awareness of him. She could feel him now, his long leanness pressing down on her, his manhood a hard and welcome pain inside her. Just a glance at him now could set her heart to thumping and her womb to throbbing.

  How could he sit there reading, oblivious of her very presence, when she could not wait for tomorrow night, when it would all happen again? Tomorrow she would not be frightened or unsure of herself. She would be able to enjoy every moment. And she hoped it would last longer. So much waiting for a mere few minutes of delight! Of course, she thought suddenly, Ralph did not know that it was she with whom he had lain. But how could he not know? How could he not feel now that it must be she?

  Ralph, she thought, stitching away sedately at her embroidery, when I married you I hoped that I would be able to tolerate you. After a few days of marriage I thought that perhaps I might be able to develop an affection for you. Now I think I might be in a fair way of falling in love with you. She glanced up at him again, startled by her own thoughts. He was looking at her.

  "I am very dull company, am I not, dear?" he said. "Would you like to come to the music room and play for me?"

  She smiled across at him and shook her head. "No, No, carry on reading," she said. "I know that is what you like to do, Ralph. I think perhaps I will choose a book too. The only trouble is that I am not a reader and do not know where to start. What would you recommend?"

  He put down his own book and got to his feet. He held out a hand to take one of hers. "Let us see," he said. "Poetry? Perhaps you would enjoy Thomson's Seasons." He took a slim leather-bound volume from a shelf and handed it to her. "Or a novel? Richardson's Pamela is quite readable, though you might find that the sentiment is somewhat objectionable. It is a very long book, too."

  "Oh, dear," Georgiana said when he set three volumes in her hands. "This is all one book? Let me try the poetry, Ralph. Is it easy to understand?"

  "Shall we read it together?" he suggested. "Perhaps if we put our heads together, we can interpret any lines that are a little difficult."

  "You are very tactful," she said. "What you really mean is that you will be able to explain the meaning to me.”

  "You belittle yourself, Georgiana," he said gently, and he pulled up a chair alongside hers while she folded up her work and put it away in its basket.

  When she was in her own room later, Georgiana marveled at the fact that she too had forgotten all about Kensington in the hour they had spent together with the book. Ralph was a born teacher. They had both talked about the poetry, but she knew that her own insights had been drawn from her with skilled questions. She had never dreamed that reading could be such an absorbing activity. And she had not thought in the last few days that her intense awareness of her husband could be anything but sexual. For an hour she had been totally captivated by his intelligent and active mind. She had been borne upward by it, beyond herself.

  She had been actively disappointed when Ralph's mother and sister arrived home and came into the library to share some tidbits of gossip they had heard during the evening visit. The spell was broken. She was again herself. He was again Ralph, the husband from whom she was estranged, if that was the right word. She supposed that two people must at one time have been close if they could be estranged. They were again the couple whose marriage had never made a proper start. Still the couple who said good night at a respectable hour and retired to their very separate chambers.

  She started to long for the following night again.

  ***

  Ralph handed his caped greatcoat and beaver hat to the porter when he reached the house in Kensington. He resolutely put from his mind thoughts of Georgiana and the very happy turn their relationship had taken in the past two days. They were in a fair way to becoming friends, he felt. But they were far from being lovers still. He would not think of her for the next hour. He had waited with impatience for three days for this moment. He was going to enjoy it.

  She was waiting in the dimly lit sitting room as she had been before. She rose to her feet when he entered as she had then. It was almost like going back in time. He crossed the room to take her gloved hand. It was almost like going back in time. He crossed the room to take her gloved hand. It was quite impossible to see her face beneath the heavy black veil. But he did not wish to do so. He would be repelled to see the hennaed hair and the features of a stranger. He raised her hand to his lips.

  "I do not like to think of you alone on the streets coming here and leaving," he said. "Will you change your mind about taking up residence here for a while, Miss Shaw? It can be easily arranged, you know."

  She shook her head. "No," she said in that whisper she had used on the other occasion.

  It must be that she had other lovers, he thought, and pushed the thought from his mind. He was not sure yet if he wished to set her up as his mistress, under his sole protection. But he thought not. For him this was to be a very temporary interlude.

  "Shall we go into the other room?" he asked.

  This time he found his way to the bed with rather more ease than he had the last time. He did not think he had ever been in a room from which even the faintest glimmer of light had been so ruthlessly excluded. He undressed and climbed into the bed.

  She was already there, naked as before, but warm this time. Excitingly warm. He propped himself on one elbow and clasped her shoulder, pushing against it until she turned over onto her back. And he began to explore her body, unafraid tonight, savoring every move, postponing the moment when he would mount her body and give himself up to the demands of his physical need.

  Her shoulders and arms were very delicate and slender. Her full, firm breasts were a surprise in contrast. So very feminine. He touched them lightly at first and then with greater boldness, molding them in his hands, touching the tips with wonder as he felt them harden against his thumbs. He lowered his head hesitantly and kissed one hardened nipple. He took it into his mouth and sucked gently. The girl pushed up against him and made a low sound in her throat.

  His hands slid lower as his mouth moved to the other breast, spanning her tiny waist, pushing down on her flaring hips, tracing the outside of her legs and then her inner thighs. Her flesh was even warmer than his hand. She was burning him. His hand nudged at her thighs with some urgency and she opened for him. He buried his face between her breasts and felt her with his hand. His fingers explored her, caressed her, gloried in the heat of her.

  And then her fingers were tight in his hair, the upper part of her body arched toward him, and he was rising to meet her, toppling her to the bed again, bringing himself down on top of her nakedness and pushing up urgently into the soft heat beyond where his fingers had reached.

  His arms went around her slight little body and he buried his face against her soft curls as he thrust and thrust into her, heedless of gentleness, heedless of the moans that escaped her, heedless of everything except the elemental need to reach that moment of glory when all the tensions of his desire would be released into the woman's body that he possessed.

  She was shaking slightly beneath him when he came to his senses again. He did not know how long he had been lying thus. Had he been sleeping? He rolled off her, but kept his arms around her and brought her with him. He held her close against him and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. She was still trembling.

  “Did I hurt you?" he asked. "I am sorry. I forgot to be gentle.”

  “No," she whispered, "you did not hurt me."

  And what an absurd thing to have said, he thought. This girl had doubtless been subjected to indignities that he could not even dream of. It was not in her power to object to the treatment she received in a man's bed. She was paid to be compliant.


  Ralph felt a twinge of distaste for what he was doing. This was a person he held in his arms, a woman doubtless with dreams and hopes and feelings. He tried to put a face to the physical presence he could feel. But he could not. He could not associate the pretty and rather vulgar little dancer of the opera house with the soft and still slightly trembling body that cuddled against him.

  She was Georgiana's size. Just thus Georgiana would feel, if she could ever overcome her fear of him sufficiently to cling to him so trustingly. He closed his eyes and laid his cheek against the soft curls of the dancer and imagined that they were dark, glossy curls instead of garish red ones. It would be so easy to fantasize, to imagine that it was his wife with whom he had just made love.

  The girl had stopped trembling. She had relaxed against him. Her breathing had become deep and even. She was sleeping, Ralph realized in surprise. Somehow he had not expected a paid whore to sleep after such an encounter. He would have expected her to be eager to be gone, her work done for another night. Perhaps she was really tired? What must it be like to be forced to work on after a night of dancing in order to earn enough money to make a living?

  He was glad she was sleeping. He did not feel like leaving yet. He did not want to lose contact with her and know that several more days must pass before he could hold her again. He remembered the way she had offered herself to him with something like urgency just before he entered her. He remembered the sounds she had made as he moved in her. Did she feel she mint he an actress in bed as well as on the stage? She surely could not have been feeling the eagerness her actions had suggested.

  He was so inexperienced, Ralph thought ruefully. Not that he was really sorry. He did not think he would crave contact with the muslin company once this particular liaison was at an end. If only his marriage to Georgiana could be set right, he would be perfectly content to explore the world of sexual delights with her and to learn further pleasures with her.

  The girl woke suddenly with a start and Ralph hugged her to him, knowing that however disappointed she might be, and however unfair to her he was being, he must have her again before he left. He rolled with her on the bed and was relieved to find that she accepted this new duty without objection or hesitation.

  He took her quickly and deeply, his eyes tightly closed, seeing and feeling his wife beneath him. And she lay submissively beneath him, this girl, perhaps living out her own fantasies.

  CHAPTER 14

  SEVEN WEEKS PASSED with amazing rapidity. Georgians lived them almost in a dream. She knew that her life was not a satisfactory one, that there would have to be many changes before she could feel that there was stability and true contentment in her home. But this knowledge was of the head. With her heart she was happy, almost deliriously so. Perhaps the present state of affairs could not continue indefinitely, but she would not think of that. She would enjoy the present for what it was worth.

  She was in love with Ralph, deeply, headlong, passionately, head over heels in love. And she felt that the fact must show on her face. She could not feel as she did and show no outer sign, surely. She tried not to look or behave differently from usual. She went about her day-to-day activities as if nothing had changed in her life. But she was convinced that one day Ralph must look at her and know the truth.

  The wonderful thing was that she had fallen in love with him in his two persons. She was in love with the lover who came to her and bedded her twice each week. She was equally in love with the husband who showed no physical sign of attachment, but whose behavior toward her suggested a growing affection.

  She had not expected that physical love could become a craving for her. She had looked forward to marriage as a means of being independent of her parents and becoming someone of consequence in society. She had thought of the physical side of it with some misgiving, as something she must get used to, since men appeared to need it and it was necessary anyway for the begetting of children. She had been prepared to endure.

  But Ralph could rouse her body to unimagined delights. She did not know how he did it. He had no more experience than she. Less, in fact. He had never even kissed before his marriage. His skill must be instinctive, a part of his natural gentleness of manner probably. He could do things to her with his hands and his mouth that reduced her to raw sensation. And his driving presence inside her body could lift her beyond feeling, over the edge into blissful nothingness. And he was always there afterward with warm arms and body to cradle her back into this world and back into her body.

  It was not always like that with him. Sometimes he took her without first using his hands to excite her. But she found that she enjoyed these encounters equally. Perhaps even more. When she was aroused she forgot everything except her body's need. She forgot Ralph and even herself. On the other occasions she could remain fully aware of what was happening and could enjoy thoroughly the knowledge that it was her husband embracing her, occupying her body, moving in her, making those low sounds of pleasure that he always made against her hair as he climaxed. One did not need an earth-shattering experience to enjoy the marriage act, she found.

  She almost lived for those nights. And she willed time to slowness when they were together. With the exception of the first time he had come to her, he always took her twice. And she found herself loving more than anything the time between, when she could cuddle against his body, warm and relaxed, knowing that soon, but not too soon, he would turn her onto her back again or lift her astride his body and they would be one again. She always smiled into the darkness when he apologized for needing her more than once. If he just knew! Just for the luxury of spending a whole night with him she would have let him take her ten times!

  It had been an agony to her to have to tell him one night hat she would be unable to keep their next regular appommient. A whole week had passed with no more ilian a chance touch of his hand at home. But she might have avoided the frustration. Nothing had happened in its regular monthly pattern, and nothing had happened in the more than three weeks since.

  Her newness to sexual activity must have upset her system, Georgiana decided. She could not be with child. It could not happen that quickly or that easily, surely. Besides, would she not know if she were pregnant? Surely one could not have one's husband's child on one's womb without feeling it there. And did not women vomit and have the vapors all over the place when they were in such a delicate situation? No, she was not with child.

  She hoped she was not! As it was, she was beginning to realize that she had trapped herself into one of her hopeless tangles, except that this one was worse than any of the others had ever been. Life was wonderful at the moment. But sooner or later she was going to have to reveal the truth to Ralph. And how would he feel about it? He would feel a fool, probably, to discover that he had been sneaking away at night to make love to the wife who slept nightly a few feet away from him. And she could not afford to make Ralph feel foolish. He had very little self-confidence as it was.

  Soon now she was going to have to find a tactful way to tell him. She certainly did not need to be pressured by the presence of a baby pushing her out of shape. How quickly did one develop a bulge, anyway?

  But it would be wonderful to have a baby with Ralph, she thought despite herself. As soon as he knew the truth and their marriage had become a normal one, she would ask him if she might have one. Though she supposed that she need not ask. Once he was making love to her nightly in her own bed, it would happen in its own good time, she rather suspected. Oh dear, she was so inexperienced, so woefully ignorant. She, who had thought just a few short months ago that she knew everything there was to know!

  But her love for Ralph was developing not only through their clandestine meetings. She was getting to know him in an everyday setting and growing to love the person he was. She could not imagine why she felt as she did. He was not at all the sort of man she had always admired and associated with. She had always liked men who were strong and confident and physically very active. She had liked daring me
n, ones who were willing to take a risk and accept a wager for the sheer fun of doing something out of the ordinary. Warren Haines had once wagered a great deal of money on his ability to outdrink a notorious heavy drinker. He had won the bet and spent three days in bed violently ill. And Georgiana had admired him tremendously.

  She had not liked Ralph at first because he was not a "manly" man. Whatever that description meant. Whatever was manly about being able to outdrink a fellow fool and half-killing oneself into the bargain?

  Ralph was incredibly gentle. Somehow he managed to keep the peace at home, even though the atmosphere between her and her mother-in-law was frequently tense. She had noticed that he somehow succeeded in making both women feel as if they had his support. And she could not be offended at his not turning against his mother. She could see that he genuinely loved the dowager, whom she found it extremely difficult even to tolerate. She had heard about his plans to give his mother the dower house at Chartleigh for a Christmas present. And she marveled at the way he had made his mother enthusiastic for a move that should have upset her dreadfully.

  They had been driving to the lending library one afternoon when Ralph drew the phaeton to a sharp halt and handed her the ribbons. He vaulted down into a crowded street and reappeared with a scruffy little dog in his arms. She had half-noticed the dog being beaten with a stick as they approached but had thought very little of it. Such sights were quite common. Ralph deposited the mutt in her lap before climbing to his seat again, and she gave a little shriek as she noticed the grime of its fur and the blood on one side that immediately stained her pelisse.

  Ralph apologized and moved to take the dog into his own arms again. But first he took a linen handkerchief from his pocket and laid it gently against the creature's Mimed side. And she felt ashamed of her concern for her own appearance and tender toward the man who had noticed the suffering even of a small animal in the crowded streets of London. The mutt, now clean and healed of its wound, spent its days in the kitchen, where the cook constantly threatened to do away with it for being always under her feet and just as constantly fed it the choicest scraps of food from her store.