by Pendle, Eve
“It will not be a sentimental match, my lord.” She smiled wryly. “I am done with any sort of sentimentality.”
“Didn’t you hear me in that pit.” He must make her understand. He had tried to tell her and warn her off. “You are making a mistake.”
“Perhaps.” Her expression was as calm as a lake on a still, summer night.
“You sound like you don’t care.” How could she live with him, knowing what he’d done? He could barely live with himself.
She looked away. “I love my sister. She deserves the best chance.”
Averting her face might make her think that she was hiding her thoughts, but it was a failure. Because it was all too obvious that this was nothing to do with Connie. She wanted to marry him. For some inexplicable reason.
All the implications of them being married rushed over his skin. They would live together. He'd see intimate moments with her, like when she adjusted her hair before she left the house. When she took off her boots and rolled down her stockings at the end of a long day.
She was fully clothed now, but she'd be in his bed. A gently bred virgin, creamy skin trembling for him. It had been a long time since such an idea had made him hard. It had used to, Lydia was proof of that. But now the thought of a tender flower to avoid crushing was hardly appealing. Emily seemed more like a willow, bending deftly but springing back up.
“Are you sure you want this? You will be nothing more than an addendum to me, an afterthought. Oscar Clawson, third Earl of Markshall, and wife. There’s more to a marriage than taking a man’s name. He owns you. Your body will be mine.” He stood up abruptly and was gratified to see Emily’s face lapse into confusion for a second before she masked it. That was a beginning.
“I know that. But this will be a formal marriage. And you won’t hurt me.”
“Won’t I? You’ll want to test that theory. If we’re going to be married, don’t you think we should seal the agreement with a kiss?” By the end of this discussion, she’d run scared from the idea of marrying him.
“A kiss?” She rearranged the shawl draped across her shoulders. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Au contraire, my lady.” He strolled towards her as if this were nothing to him. As if his heart weren’t thumping in his chest like a gavel in a courtroom. “We cannot do without it.”
“This isn’t a romantic match.” But her gaze said differently. Her pupils were dilated. Her hair, soft looking with a sheen like highly-polished old oak wood, was so neat it would be a travesty to allow her to leave an interview with her fiancé with it so tidy. It wouldn’t acknowledge his prowess or her attractiveness.
“You said you wanted children.” Taking his time, he looked her over, obviously lingering at her lips, her breasts, her waist. That dress hid her body, but no corset could entirely lie about the shape of a woman.
“Yes.” Her pink tongue moistened her lips.
“Then we’ll need to kiss.” He stood over her, his boots at the hem of her skirt, deliberately intruding on her space. Towering above her made him feel uncomfortably large compared to her proud and petite form sitting almost at his feet. He pushed the feeling away. He scoured her face for signs of the fear he’d expected to induce in her. None, yet.
“We’ll need to be as close as two people can be, and you need to be sure you can manage it. If you can’t kiss me, how can I know you won’t faint when I stick my cock in you?”
“There’s no need to be crass, my lord.” There was no maidenly fit of vapors, but the pulse in her neck was fast and her color raised.
“But there is.” Leaning over her, he crowded her, bracketing his arms around her by putting his hands onto the arms of her chair. His face was just above hers. “There’ll be no, ‘my lord’ when you’re in my bed. You’ll call me Oscar. There’s nothing crasser than the marital act. It’s called that to sanctify it, but really, it’s just the same as…” He paused to draw out the emphasis, then said clearly, almost saying the obscene word into her mouth. “Fucking.”
Her cheeks stained red, but she didn’t back down. He admired that, even though it was antithetical to his purpose.
“I’m sure we’ll come to some agreement.” There was a light breeze through her words as if her chest were constricted. By fear or lust? He didn’t know which he wanted it to be.
“We will.” He let his mouth fall onto hers, pushing her head back. Her lips were yielding and warm. Pressing harder, he kissed her with all the aggression he could muster. And she kissed him back. When he opened his mouth, she opened hers. When his tongue reached out, hers did too. He ignored it and thrust into her mouth like a conquering hero. The gasp from the back of her throat sent sensation down his back. As much as he wanted to interpret her noise as fear, he knew was it was arousal.
He gave no quarter and she seemed not to want any. Her hands had crept up to his neck and her fingers dug into his hair and scalp, keeping his lips on hers and dragging him closer. She was fire beneath him and he couldn’t get enough of her kiss. This was addlebrained and he wanted more. He was supposed to be terrifying her, but instead, he was losing himself, getting pulled into her sweetness and ardor.
If she ran from him as she should, this would be his last kiss with her, forced on her. He’d take everything he could; he had to touch her. Holding himself on one hand, still over her, stroking his tongue against hers, he dragged his palm over her cheek and down the infinite softness of her skin. Snagging the neckline of her dress, he pulled it down to reveal the curved top of her breast. The dress was aqua silk, smooth and cool on his fingertips. But the moment he touched her breast it was warm and soft. And her moan. Oh, it settled in him, just under his cravat, expanding there. It was sustenance he didn’t know he’d needed. He rubbed across the plump roundness of her, careless that he was creasing her dress.
This was going wrong in every way that he was wrong. She was responding to his attack as if he were welcome. But then, this was just a simple touch to her bust, even if it was undoing him. She must understand the danger she was in. He grasped her skirts by her knee and dragged them up. She stiffened, and a surge of raw triumph crashed over him.
Her hands loosened from his hair and it was like a part of him went too. But after a second, her fingers were at his waist, tugging at his waistcoat.
His breathing clogged. Lady Emily, the perfect lady, was endeavoring to touch his waist. He’d always known she was special. What he hadn’t realized was that her purity would save him from himself. She was setting him on fire. Her eagerness was paraffin-soaked tinder and seasoned wood on his spark of need. A spark by itself was nothing. But with fuel, it was quickly all consuming.
“They’re engaged.” A female voice from the hall cut into him. Emily’s lips stilled on his. Her hands rested on his shirt.
“Indeed,” the Duke replied in a growl. “They’re not married yet.”
They weren’t. And whatever their marital status, there was no question about their moral status. She was above him in every way.
Under him, Emily wriggled and tried to rearrange her attire. “Markshall!” she hissed.
As the latch clicked and the door swung open, he insouciantly straightened to his full height, turning so he blocked the view of Emily’s disarray from the door.
The Duke and Duchess of Cumbria stared at him openmouthed.
“Your graces.” He smiled grimly. “Lovely to see you.”
“Look here, Markshall–” The Duke began.
“I think,” Oscar interrupted him, “we’ll need a special license.”
* * *
The license wasn’t as difficult to procure as he’d thought. For a reason he didn’t inquire into, Jones knew all about wedding licenses and waved away the idea of a special license. Apparently, if one specified the church and lived in the parish, it was easy enough. Just pay a guinea, have both Emily and him sign that they didn’t know any impediments to the marriage and the priest gave them a common license. Thus, he didn’t have to go to t
he outrageous expense of inconveniencing the Bishop of Canterbury. He announced the engagement in The Times, and just over a week after the fern hunting incident, they were quietly married. No big society wedding, just her family and his cousins.
It was when she walked over the threshold of his townhouse, her hand daintily over his, that it really sank in that she was his wife. He barely had a moment to take in that fact before Lady Emily morphed into Lady Markshall, apparently without effort. She charmed his housekeeper and butler with her smile and flattering assurances that she knew the house worked beautifully. She thanked the footmen who carried her trunks by name and complimented the maids on their work.
The cook excelled herself for dinner and Emily ate just enough to satisfy the kitchen she enjoyed the food, but her eyes were shadowed.
It all tasted like ash to him. After dinner, he practically ran to the haven of the smoking room, despite the farce of separating the sexes when there was only the two of them. But the enormity of what they’d done was undeniable.
Toying with an unlit cigar, he swirled whiskey in a glass and stared at the landscape painting on the wall. The news from Sir Thomas was scant. Annie’s illness was getting worse, her fever high and her breathing labored. And there was nothing he could do.
He’d always told himself that he hadn’t married Lydia because he wasn’t the marrying type. His behavior had been reprehensible then, and maybe this with Emily was even worse. By saving Lady Emily’s reputation when he wrecked it, he’d finally closed the door on fixing Lydia’s reputation. He would never make it right with her.
It didn’t do to think of it like that though. There was no way Lydia would have accepted him. He’d made careful inquiries to that end years ago. But by indulging his need to prey on innocence, he’d compromised Emily. By doing the honorable thing and marrying her, he’d set in stone his bankrupt morals by imposing on Emily for the rest of her life. Even if it might have silenced Lady X- and her malicious newspaper articles, it was a mess. He was a mess.
At some point, he’d have to face Emily, but he didn’t want to tonight. The thought of bedding his wife to have a child in wedlock when he already had a child who was unwell, maybe dying, was unspeakable.
It was a good thing Emily had meekly agreed to separate after dinner. If she were with him, she’d be a temptation to his worst impulses of lust and covetousness. That was what had got them together in the first place, after all, when he should have been concentrating on working on lords to make them lazy over the issues of coal mining children. That was his job.
A thought scratched at him. Maybe if he could get the Contagious Diseases Act repealed, he’d have made enough recompense to deserve Emily.
He held his glass of Laphroaig to his nose and inhaled the smoke and peat scent. Taking a sip of the almost medicinal Scotch, he nodded to himself. He had to remember what he was aiming to do and who he was. His duty was to honor his daughter by working to overthrow an unfair system from the inside. As a known rogue, he was the only one who could.
In a while, he’d go to bed and he wouldn’t seek out his wife. Pretending to be drunk on his wedding night would be fine. It was absolutely normal. Considerate, even.
Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t until Oscar had stripped off his coat and cravat and was undoing the buttons on his shirt that he noticed her. Emily was sat on his bed, back against the headboard, silently reading a book. Jane Eyre. Her hair was down, flowing down over her shoulders in soft waves, glinting gold and mahogany in the candlelight. The curve of her shoulder was tantalizingly revealed where her nightgown ribbon had been undone and slipped down. The thin linen revealed the dark shadow between her legs.
“What are you doing here?” He turned away before he started drooling. Or worse still, grabbed her.
“It’s our wedding night.” She looked up at him with piercing eyes. “I came to wait for you. Did you get drunk?”
“No.” She was some terrible truth serum and made everything worse.
“Why not?”
Light was shed on the sordidness of his world when she innocently questioned it. He took a deep breath. “I’m not always a good person when I’m drunk.”
She nodded. “But then, you’re not a good person anyway.”
All the air he’d just taken in seemed to be punched out of him.
“Or so you’d have me believe.” She closed the book and set it onto his bedside table. As she leaned over, the hem of her nightgown hitched up to reveal her slender ankle and calf.
He clenched his fist to prevent himself reaching out to run his hand over the downy hairs on her legs that glinted in the candlelight.
“This should be easy then.” She leaned back and stretched, causing the neck of her nightgown to slip loose and reveal the top of her breasts.
He watched, entranced. She didn’t understand. Not least, she didn’t understand how she tempted him. Loosening his collar, he turned away. “I think you should go to your own bed.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Emily.” He turned back, frustration simmering. How could he be expected to be a considerate husband when she was wanton?
“I’m not scared.” She ran her hand down, skimming over the side of her neck, over her collar bone, then flirted her fingertips across her breast. Stroking around her nipple, she looked him in the eye.
Not so bloody innocent then. He couldn’t watch any more of this. He stalked over to the bed, snapping open his trousers as he went.
“I can’t be held responsible for my actions if you stay,” he growled. He wanted to threaten her, scare her even, into compliance. It ought not to be allowed to goad a man who’d only had his right hand for relief for years. “Run.”
“No.” Her bottom lip jutted out a little, and her chin lifted. “I’m not leaving until we’ve consummated our marriage.”
“You won’t like it.” He scowled.
“Mother told me about it.” She tilted her head. “It doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Fuck.” He was leaned over the bed now, his effort to scare her defeated, and his cock was rising, every moment stiffer since its unshackling from his trousers. But ‘not so bad’ was the worst description for sex he’d ever heard, and he had no idea how to deal with this situation if he couldn’t frighten her.
“That is the general idea, yes.”
“How the hell do you know about the word, fuck?” She was a duke’s daughter. Fuck should never have reached her neat little ears.
“From you.”
When his first attempt to scare her had failed dismally and ended in him wrecked at her feet. There was pattern emerging here.
She shifted forward, until the gaping neck of her nightgown allowed him a full view of her pert breasts. So pretty, with puckered dark pink nipples that made him crave the sensation of them in his mouth.
All his anger dissipated, leaving a low throb of desire and a need to care for this brave, naive woman. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Her mouth tugged into a smile.
“You want children.” He’d stayed away, allowing her to have the option, not wanting to sully her. But here she was. It wasn’t that she wanted him, but a man could take what was offered even if he didn’t merit it.
“Yes.” There was a reservation in her tone, as though that wasn’t all she wanted. And that made his cock twitch. “Don’t you want me?”
“I want you to come to me.” Her nightgown in the candlelight was almost transparent, revealing the darkness of her areolas. His mouth watered. Her nightgown was no barrier at all, and his instinct was to rip it off her, push her back on the bed, and take her in a way that would satisfy him. But he didn’t.
He came forward, kneeling onto the bed. Was that desire in her eyes? Uncertainty, that was for sure. But he could make pleasure chase that away. Taking her hand, he tugged her to him, then laid down, so they were lying face to face, on their sides. Looking into her eyes, always that mix of colors
, he cupped her cheek with his palm and stroked her soft skin. The curve of her eyebrows, the line of her nose, the arc of her cheekbones, all came together to make elegant perfection.
“You’re so beautiful.” He slipped his fingers over her neck.
“I don’t need sweet mendacious words, Markshall.”
He shook his head and shifted closer, watching her eyes and her mouth until their lips met. The kiss was the flutter of a butterfly wing, a brief touch and then another, almost weightless. Keeping his yearning banked, he deepened the kiss slowly, as if they had a lifetime and there was no endpoint. As if his lips on hers was the consummation of both of their need, rather than the beginning. His fingers reached her hair, though he didn’t grip or pull the silken strands. He touched her with all the respect and care she deserved. Gradually, the muscles of her neck, shoulder, and arm relaxed as he stroked across her cotton and skin.
Her hands wandered, creeping tentatively across his chest, biceps, and over to his side and back. Wherever she touched, sensation shocked through him and further hardened his cock. Then her breath was hitching with arousal and he knew it was time.
If they were going to consummate their marriage, they would need fewer clothes. It might have been a long time since he’d last coupled with a woman, but he remembered that much. There would never be another first time for Emily to be naked with a man, or see a man naked, and he’d let her curiosity have free rein. Her questing hands suggested she might be interested.
He eased back to allow her to see. Her gaze followed his hands as he flicked open the buttons on his shirt. She gasped as he shucked the garment off his shoulders and let it fall wherever it would. Without ceremony, he pushed his trousers and small clothes off.
While she looked with greedy eyes, he reached for her ankle. It was fragile under his fingertips and he skimmed upwards, over the softness of her calf. He snagged her nightdress and continued up, revealing her knee.
