by Pendle, Eve
Chapter Seventeen
There was a great commotion in the house when he returned from his club for dinner a few days after he’d walked into Emily’s discussion with Mrs. Anderson. Since then the politics of the Contagious Diseases Act Repeal had demanded all his waking hours. He was only at home for luncheon today as he was expecting a letter from Lord Selby. Something too long to scan at his club before burning. He was also hoping to finally hear from his dilatory correspondent, Sir Thomas.
The days since his marriage had been an agony of not knowing what the situation was with his wife, not knowing whether his daughter lived, and not knowing whether anything he did for the Contagious Diseases Act Repeal made any difference. His letters to Sir Thomas enquiring about Annie had gone unanswered. He didn’t want to draw the suspicion of the local telegram office with repeated messages, so he had no option but to wait impatiently.
A footman rushed past him and Oscar frowned in surprise. When the next footman hurried through the hall Oscar caught his arm. “What the hell is going on?”
“Lady Markshall’s collection has been delivered from Cumbria, my lord.” The footman made a slight bow. “It’s come in through the servant’s entrance and Lady Markshall is upstairs directing the placement of the items.”
He followed the noise of disruption to the east parlor, a forgotten corner of his London townhouse up on the second floor.
From the doorway, he stood and watched his wife. She was elegantly beautiful dressed in a white gown with green ribbons at the edges of the dress and in her hair. The result was compelling; a goddess Diana in a bustle, surrounded by a lush forest.
“Carefully down.” She directed two maids holding a small glass case with leaves bursting from the top. “A little to the left.” She stood back to look at the effect. “Yes. That’s right. Thank you.”
It was only then he noticed the sheer number of fern-related items already instated in the room. As well as four large traveling Wardian cases placed on the floor, there were at least six small glass domes and several medium-sized, angular Wardian cases on various surfaces. Glass jugs with fern patterning were lined up along one of the shelves along with numerous books, and pots with ferns in them were nestled in boxes on the floor, awaiting their position. Drawings, prints, and paintings were hung on long lines from the picture rail, like cascades of plants.
“You weren’t joking, were you?” He leaned against the door frame. “This is quite a collection.”
He could tell the instant she heard his voice, as she stiffened, starting as though he’d caught her doing something wrong.
“Lord Markshall.” Her expression was cool. “I’m sure you don’t mind my commandeering this room.”
Oscar’s heart dropped at her tone, so distant. As though it hadn’t been mere hours ago that she’d been in his arms, coming apart. She’d come to his bed in the middle of the night, as she had every night after the first. They coupled with an enthusiasm his ample experience couldn’t remember the equal of. It was only at the witching hour, well after midnight, that he even realized he had a wife when she came to his bed like a shadow. Like she couldn’t bear to be near him in the daylight.
He stuck his hands into his trouser pockets, wandered into the room and made a show of looking around. The maids dipped quick curtsies and left.
“It’s every new wife’s divine prerogative to redecorate, is it not?” He smirked. “Good thing I like green. Could you put a few more fern-related items in here?”
“Yes.” As she turned, a glimmer of a smile hovered at the edge of her mouth. “I have some baskets that will be hung from the ceiling.”
“Excellent, I was worried there for a moment there wouldn’t be enough ferns to make all the other ladies green with envy.” He approached her as one did a stray cat, not directing his gaze at her, keeping his focus on a glazed pot or a smooth Wardian case panel, seeing her worried face reflected in the glass. He longed to look at her hair in the sunlight.
“I’m very fortunate to have such a collection.” The hem of her dress kicked out as she moved between the boxes.
“What’s this one called?” He pointed to one of the uncovered ferns in a delicately patterned white china pot. It wasn’t what he associated with a fern as, not being a curly, frilly thing. This fern had long, pointed leaves with slight ridges, boldly pointing towards the ceiling.
She glanced around uncomfortably, seemingly reluctant to meet his gaze. “Devil’s tongue.”
How appropriate. And given the pink tinge in her cheeks, she must be thinking of what her devil-husband’s tongue had done to her. He hid a smile. Perhaps the longing wasn’t as one-sided as he’d thought.
“And this little one?” Running one finger down a delicately fronded leaf, he took it gently between his finger and thumb, stroking it gently. The action was a deliberate simulation of the action he would use on her sex.
Her dilated pupils said she’d noticed that. He watched as she licked her lips, her tongue smoothing over her lips and leaving them glistening. She swung her arms behind her and grasped her hands together as if to prevent herself from touching anything. Was it to stop herself from reaching for her ferns to protect them, or at his deliberately provocative action?
“Hard shield fern,” she whispered.
Hard indeed. “And all this?” He ran his finger down the smooth varnished wood of the top of neatly stacked boxes. They were all neatly labeled in gold letters. Slides. Preservatives. Medical. Tools. Microscope.
When he looked up, her head was tilted down toward his fingers, watching his deliberately idle movement
“Microscopes, bottles, other things to facilitate...” Her pitch rose, and she swallowed before finishing. “Propagation.”
“You’re helping your ferns have sex?” He grinned.
Their gazes met. He could swear heat flared in her eyes before she swept her eyelids down, shutting him out.
“They have spores.” She turned away from him, fiddling with sharp looking glass slides. Stacking them up and pushing them into little piles.
“Spores.” He imbued the word with all the sensuousness it had. Which wasn’t much, but it was certainly enough.
Her throat convulsed. She wasn’t as immune to him as she would like him to believe.
“What do the ferns need to eject their spores? Wet?” He strolled closer. “Heat? Agitation?”
“Don’t try to make it sound sordid.” The dark green ribbons fluttered against the white of her dress with her jerky movements. “It’s a scientific exercise.”
He reached towards her hand. “Do they need to be stroked in just the right place?”
“Don’t touch those.” She snatched at a pile of glass slides and a cry of pain escaped her.
There was a spot of red. This couldn’t be happening. She’d been hurt because of him. Again. He saw a line of blood leaking from her finger.
“It’s nothing.” She turned her face away from him, clenching her fist.
“Let me look.” He took her hand, injured and small and so precious to him, in his. She allowed him, and he carefully opened out her fingers. There was blood on her skin, seeping along the lines of her palm. On her first finger was a thin slice where the sharp edge of the glass had cut into her. Not deep, but right across.
His heart constricted at the sight. It was such a contrast, the red of her blood, the white of her cuff, and the green ribbon.
“It’s nothing.” She tried to take her hand back, her gaze fixed on the table. “The glass is sharp. It happens all the time.”
He didn’t like that more. It certainly didn’t make him any happier to think that she was regularly in pain, even as slight as a little cut. “It needs to be cleaned, otherwise it’ll get infected.”
“Yes, I know that–” she snapped and then stopped herself. She shook her head. “I don’t know where my medical supplies are.”
“Not in the box marked medical?”
Her eyes flicked upwards beneath a scowl.
“I saw it a moment ago.” He gently pushed her toward a chair. “Sit down.”
She fought him then, meeting his gaze with hers. He fought the urge to growl that she was his to look after, even in this small way.
After a second, she nodded slightly and sat. “Very well.”
Reluctant to leave her even for a moment, he moved quickly, snatched up the Medical box by its brass handle and was by her side again. The lid opened to reveal drawers and bandages and neatly folded cotton and muslin cloths, along with small glass bottles with printed labels. All scrupulously clean. He pulled out a bottle of tincture of iodine and a cloth.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned. Their gazes met. Her eyes were dark. And suddenly, he remembered both the last time he’d said that to her and his motivation for being here in the room.
“It’s all right. I’m used to it.” Her breath seemed to catch in her throat.
His chest was tight. His member was rising to the recollection of that night, and the others since. When they were abed, in the middle of the night, they were animalistic, desperate. It was enough only to stoke his need harder, satisfying only his most base urges and leaving him hollow. Longing for her true self in the daylight.
Her hand was trembling as he cradled it in his. He focused on the little cut and tried to ignore the pounding of his heart and the blood accumulating at his groin.
She let out a hiss of discomfort as he dabbed fabric soaked with iodine on the cut. Then there was silence as he applied ointment from a small jar and covered her finger with a small strip of muslin, tying it off with a reef knot.
He smoothed the fabric over her finger. He was finished, he ought to relinquish her hand. But he didn’t. His fingers slid up, delicate as a whisper across the dip of her palm to her wrist.
Under his fingertips, her pulse was skittering like a leaf in a breeze. The white cuff of her gown stopped his further exploration upwards to the sweet, soft skin of her forearm and beyond. He’d never seen her fully, as all their coming together had been in darkness and haste for satisfaction.
The desire to have her was nigh-on overwhelming. The impatience was pulling at him, telling his hands to grab and pull, to push into her hard and fast.
He grasped the fabric around one of the tiny pearl buttons and for a second considered rending it apart, ripping the sleeve to reveal what he wanted to see. Just her arm, a seemingly un-erotic part really.
He nudged the button undone and filled the gap, pushing open the next and the next, with utter control until the sleeve was almost open to the elbow and his fingers were drawing gentle patterns on her skin.
“Oscar.” Her voice was hoarse.
He looked up. The stripped desire he read in her eyes brought his hand to her cheek before he could check the impulse.
As he curled his fingers into her hair she leaned into him, then kissed him. Or he kissed her. He didn’t know which of them instigated any of it. There were hot and desperate licks and caresses, his tongue in her mouth and hers in his. Her lips were plump and soft against his and their noses clashed in their urgency to be close.
She was kissing him like he was the source of her next breath. In truth, he felt the same. She was his air, water, and fire, pure and sweet and essential.
Her hands were over him, exploring his shoulders then sliding down his back to dig into his buttocks. Returning in kind, he held her with one hand and stroked the top of her breast through the layers of her dress and chemise. Her body, even encased in this dress, was unutterably beautiful.
She was a little shorter than him, and through the haze of need, he realized she was leaning backward, her neck at an awkward angle. He grasped her waist and she let out a gasp even as he kept his lips on hers and he lifted her onto a clear space on the table. Then she reached for him, tugging his shirt up and out of his trousers.
He’d meant to touch her soul and be worthy of her desire and her regard. Instead, her haste fed him. Her hands trailed down to his waist and boldly slid lower, stroking over his hardness. He lost his mind. Grasping for the hem of her skirts, bringing them all upwards in an overflow of white fabric. He locked his hands in the small of her back and yanked her flush against him before her dress could fall or either of them could change their minds.
A second to undo his trousers and smallclothes, careless that they fell to his ankles, and he reclaimed her mouth in a kiss as he thrust into her.
They gasped together. And he stilled to feel this moment. Their lips were still together, foreheads close, sharing breath as they were joined intimately. She was heaven. Being with her, in her, was closer to perfection than anyone like him ought to be. She was hot and tight around him, and extravagantly wet. Without his volition, his hips moved back and then slid back into her.
He’d heard friends say that it was different with their wives and he’d understood from their sardonic looks that to mean insipid. He’d given up going to whores years ago, when the numbness in their eyes had become an anathema to his arousal. He couldn’t have said when knowing his partner was loathing the experience had gone from being a detail to enough to flatten any erection. The thought of a child out of wedlock was enough to make him back away from even the most ardent women keen to reform a rake.
But Emily’s little moans and her fingers pressing into his shoulders was unlike anything he’d felt before. She came to him in the night like a dream. In the daylight her enthusiasm and need were intoxicating. He’d never realized that sex with his wife might be an addictive delight.
He thrust harder and was gratified to see her throw back her head. The move exposed her neck and he took the offer, nipping at the tender skin with his teeth, even as he kept up a solid rhythm.
This wasn’t going to last as long as he wanted it to. He could lie her on the table and lick her till she screamed after he’d finished, and he made a silent oath that one day he’d do that, but he had this one opportunity to bind them together in pleasure.
He’d been gripping her waist, plunging into her. Now, he wedged his right hand between their bodies, moving with the rhythm of his thrusts. He searched, her decadent wetness all over his fingers. The cry from Emily would have told him he’d found the right spot, even if he hadn’t known from the little hard peak. He rubbed it mercilessly. Now was not the time for a slow exploration, where he indulged in the feel of her and relished every involuntary movement and sigh, this was the moment for pushing her over the precipice with him. With his other hand, he let go of her waist and grasped the front of her gown, pulling it down to reveal her breast. He rolled her nipple in his fingers and she vibrated with the sensation, making unintelligible sounds. He wanted to savor her every movement and watch her, touch every delicious part of her, but it took everything he had to keep his cock and hands bringing her the frantic delight she needed, kiss her mouth and keep his own orgasm at bay despite her grip on him.
The noises coming from her increased in pitch and he allowed himself to speed up. The feeling of her, experiencing this with him, overtook all his caution. She was beautiful and passionate and as she stiffened, crying out, one, then two quick thrusts pushed him into white, bursting pleasure.
It drained him as he stilled his fingers, allowing her to ride out her orgasm, slowing their kiss and pulling them close together, his cock buried deep in her, solid as she convulsed around it.
After a long moment, he focused on Emily again. A rosy glow highlighted her cheeks, her eyes were still closed, and her mouth was slack. He felt a surge of triumph that he’d succeeded in making her thus replete.
She opened her eyes. In their wary depths, he was instantly reminded that one orgasm did not make a marriage. For a few minutes of delusional ecstasy, he’d been convinced that if they were physically together, nothing could break them.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
* * *
Everything was still there, the same way up, when she opened her eyes after the maelstrom. Intruding on the edge of her senses were all th
e reasons this was a terrible thing to have done, but her body felt like it was glowing.
“Emily,” Oscar whispered. He ran his hands down her body, smoothing her dress as he went.
She was uprooted. Sat on this table, she was a fern captured from her home and transplanted into a new world. She couldn’t stand.
She watched as he pulled his clothes up and tidied himself to a well-dressed, handsome earl. Except the front of his trousers still bulged with his substantial manhood. That was one of the things she’d noticed, as he’d tenderly wrapped the cut on her finger. His every touch had been a pursuit edged with fire.
“Could you–” Arms halfway to his shoulders, she hesitated. It felt intimate to request him to lift her down. Yet that was ridiculous, given what they’d just shared.
He knew what she meant, somehow, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He was more careful than when he’d brought her up. His hands lingered for a moment. Then he released her when she stood, her feet miraculously holding her up.
On her own now, the shame rose up her spine. She’d behaved wantonly. No man could respect a lady who coupled with him in broad daylight, on a table. This was symptomatic of how entirely she was failing. And yet, even as she felt how she’d let herself down, she knew that in the dark of night she would want to go Oscar’s room again to feel the thunderstorm he gave her.
“I ought to get on.” She glanced up at him.
He had a funny, half smile on his face. He must be disgusted with her, as she was with herself.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done.” She tilted her chin towards the piles of ferns and fern related objects.
“You can’t possibly do anything with your finger so damaged,” he said, apparently forgetting that she’d used all ten fingers and thumbs to encourage him to fuck her harder. “Therefore, you will direct me. I shall place the objects accordingly.”
