by Sophia James
Not the proclamation she had hoped for and dressed in a lacy nightgown with a large bed a few feet away the language of lust must be taken into account. How much more did he want from her? She swallowed. With only a mention of love she would allow him everything.
‘More?’
‘Between us,’ he answered. ‘Like this.’
His fingers crept to the ties of her wrap and as he undid the ribbons she felt the swish of satin pool about her feet in a single and quiet sigh. Now she only wore her thin and sheer silk-and-lace nightgown, sleeveless and cut low, the lace hiding nothing. She made herself stand still, in the warmth of his room and under his gaze.
‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, sweetheart.’ One finger traced the outline of her right breast and stopped at the nipple. She took in a breath and waited, the thick ache of her want almost a physical thing.
The magic in his touch and words was like tinder to dry kindling. Fire flame, with the burn of a need that consumed her. Her, Amethyst Amelia with her failed first marriage and her ugly port-wine birthmark. Her, the daughter of trade and of commerce, an unchosen bride who had instigated a marriage of convenience with an aristocrat that had left him no other choice but to sign.
Yet he still thought her beautiful.
‘I love you.’ She could no longer find it in herself to pretend or to be cautious. ‘I love you with all of my heart, Daniel.’
His smile came quickly. ‘Ahhh, my Amethyst. I dreamed you had said it and now I know.’
His thumb began to move across her nipple and she could not stop the arching want or her shaky breath or the way her hand fell on top of his, keeping him there at his ministrations, urging response. She could not stop the surge of joy either that swept away sense and left her reeling. For him. For her husband. For a lord who had set her free.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘Love me, back,’ she whispered.
‘I do,’ he returned and, lifting her into his arms, took her to his bed.
* * *
He laid her down carefully, the long lines of her legs against his counterpane, the fairness of her skin and the heavy bounty of her breasts.
Waiting.
And then it hit him, hard in the place about his heart, that she was his. His bride. His for ever. And she loved him. Another thought came at about the same time as that one. The chaos of her first marriage with Whitely pointed to a lack of true intimacy. Would she allow him all that he wanted or would she be fearful?
Her hand came across his and he could feel the shaking. ‘Whitely never...’ She did not finish.
‘Bedded you?’ He suddenly knew that was what she was saying to him, the shocking truth of it immediate as he recalled Lucien telling him of Whitely’s groin accident as a child.
‘I think he was...incapable.’
‘He has not touched you as a husband?’
The curls shook as she moved her head slowly.
Relief flooded in, but he had never lain with an innocent before and the blood that pounded was not conducive to the patience he would need. No, not at all. His rod was stiff straight as he wiped his hair back and took a breath.
She must have seen his consternation, for she began to speak again. ‘But I have seen the animals at the farm at Dunstan House and we have always kept horses, so I know the way of mating and all that it includes.’
‘Are you trying to reassure me?’ He couldn’t strip the amazement from his words. Could she think him untutored in the art of lovemaking?
‘I will be twenty-seven next February, and so I am hardly a girl, but if it is reassurance you need...’
He stopped her by leaning forward and laying his mouth against her own, hard and unyielding by way of reply. The lemon scent of her so familiar and her curls were short in his hands. Unlike any other woman, strong and honest and his.
Slanting his kiss, he brought her in closer, his breath ragged, his want untrammelled and the need for possession desperate.
‘I do not think you quite understand how it is, my love,’ he said softly when he raised his head and looked at her. ‘But I promise that you soon will.’
* * *
She felt his other hand lift away the thin-and-nothing barrier of her lacy gown. Naked. Exposed. His eyes met hers before wandering into places no one else had ever seen.
And then he knelt and brought his mouth to the mark at her thigh, the wet warmth of his tongue tracing her shame as if it was beautiful, too; as if the redness was indeed the kiss of the fairies of which her mother had spoken. No quick exploration, either, but a generous lengthy loving that took away all worry and replaced it with only hope.
But other things were happening, his hand against her thigh, the throb inside her between her legs, the longing for a touch she had no notion of, there at the centre of her being.
He stood and doffed his shirt and the brown hardness of him took her breath away.
‘I want you, Amethyst.’
‘Why?’ The word was whispered, brave against the gaze of pale green.
‘Because I love you.’ Simple. Quiet. He did not drop his glance or qualify the truth with other lesser things and her heart swelled with joy.
His trousers were unbuttoned and his boots untied and then he was naked, too, the candlelight in the room flickering over them both, sculpting contours in flame. Dark against light, hard against soft. His body held masculine grace tempered with the scars of battles that had long since been fought. Touching a knotted line on the sharp bone of his hip, she traced it down.
Then his mouth came across hers. Skin against skin and bone against bone. She caught a dark desire inside him as his tongue tasted, the strength and the fear.
‘I should not wish to hurt you.’ Whispered close through breath and heartbeat.
‘You won’t.’
The tension in him was coiled like a spring, the soldier who had always taken action now stymied by something he had not expected. ‘’Tis a first for me as well, this.’
She only smiled.
‘I haven’t been a saint, but I have not deflowered a woman before either.’
* * *
Deflowered? God, he was making a hash of this, talking like a schoolboy in the moments he should have just shut up and got on with it. But there was something in the gentleness of her gift and words that made him...nervous.
This was the first time she had lain with a man and from all he had ever heard women needed it to be special.
Special when all he could think about was pushing deep inside of her and claiming her in that one momentous final moment of elation that made a man weep with the beauty of it.
The velvet-brown in her eyes was soft, understanding, almost gold under the candlelight.
‘Love me, Daniel.’
‘For ever, my love.’
And then it was simple, the tight lines of their bodies together, his hand cupping her bottom and bringing her over the hard rod of his need. An opening slick with wetness and a quiet push within.
He heard her gasp and stopped, slowly, slowly, but for ever onwards until the hilt of him was buried in the warmth of her flesh and against the edge of her womb.
‘Mine.’ He said the word in wonder and watched her take it in, saw the flickering pain on her face change into surprise and then into fire. Felt the waves of her own ecstasy against him, claiming and clenching until he could not know where he ended and Amethyst began, the melded aching orgasm taking them both above thought and reason to a place where nothing existed, save for them.
Suspended there. Without time. Without surroundings. Clinging to desire until the very last tiny echoes had subsided and the world crashed once again into reality.
‘Thank you.’ He could not remember ever saying that to a woman after making love, but all h
e could feel was gratitude, his seed holding them together and the hollow beat of his heart finally quieting.
Usually he got up straight away, the feeling of intimacy threatening somehow and empty. But here, now, his hand fell against her back and he held her close, her warmth of skin and her legs straddling his.
More. He wanted her again. Wanted to slip in and stay there for ever. His member rose and nudged her thigh and she simply opened her legs and let him enter.
This time it was slower, the slickness allowing an easy entrance, the rise and fall of her breasts against his hands as he took her. His tempo quickened just with the thought.
* * *
She was rushing again to that place she had had no notion of, the high breathless plane of wanton relief. She could feel herself reaching, tipping into him, his shaft within her deep.
She heard herself cry out, guttural and primal, noises that she had never thought to make before, sounds from the very soul of her need.
Again. And again. Boneless and formless. And this time when the final pulses came she dug her nails into his skin and marked him with the loving, long runnels of redness against the brown.
Afterwards she could not move, but lay there across him, still joined, still feeling the heaviness of him within her, and then she slept.
* * *
Birdsong woke him, the twelve-hour candles burned towards the end of their usefulness, the drips of wax across the holders opaquely white and twisted.
Daniel breathed out and watched the last of the night turn into dawn, streaked with the pink of a new day. The sounds of the house were quiet. The swish of an early maid’s skirts as she walked the passageway, the creak of timber shedding off the cold of night, the creeping plant outside his window, its greened tendrils knocking against the glass.
All the sounds he had heard for all of the years of his life. And now there was a new one. Amethyst’s quiet breathing, her eyelashes long against her cheeks.
His bride. His wife. His lover now, her body claimed as his own.
Would there be a child? Would this night bring the fruit of conception and the promise of another generation of Wyldes born into the lineage of Montcliffe?
If it was a boy, they could call him Nigel and this time he would get it right. If it was a girl, he hoped that they might find a name of a gemstone as Robert and Susannah had and then he could also call his daughter ‘my jewel’.
‘What are you thinking?’ Amethyst’s voice was soft with the morning.
‘Of you and of us and our future. I’d like children...’
She pushed herself up at that and her hand went beneath the covers, across his chest and then his stomach to the budding hardness of his flesh.
‘So would I.’
‘Now?’ He could see in her face the languid hope of sex.
Turning over, he brought her beneath him, covering her smallness with his body and finding the very centre of her with his fingers before once again entering in.
* * *
When she awoke next he was not there, the day without showing a full sun and a cloudless sky.
Her eyes went to the clock on the mantel. Almost one o’clock. Looking around, she saw piles of books and an old piano she had not noticed yesterday. A globe and guns stacked on small shelves completed the tableau beside it.
A man’s room, nothing feminine within it, save for her tangled in the sheets and naked, her thighs tight with his seed and her nipples tender from his kissing.
Like a child she had held him there, his hair dark against the white of her skin. Her hand fell across her thigh and inwards, the throb of delight still present under a different ache. She smiled. Not like the animals in the barnyard after all. The slight tip of her hips brought the feeling back and she reached for a momentary echo, pushing down on the bone of her groin, guided by some ancient knowledge.
Daniel Wylde had healed her and made her whole. He had taken all the doubts and turned them into certainty; the sureness of being loved and of loving back as well.
A gift of place and of beauty, the heart and body and soul kind of love her parents had known and of which the great stories told.
Her story now. No longer blinded by shame. Her fingers traced the mark on her thigh and she remembered his mouth there. Not ugly. Not unsightly.
But beautiful.
He had called her that so many times over so many hours and in the sunshine of a new day she finally felt it.
* * *
She came downstairs much later, having bathed and washed her hair and tidied up the scramble of sheets upon the master bed. She felt different, the soreness in her private places only adding to the illusion. She felt wanton too, her mind going to the hours between now and when they could again be in each other, feeling the heat of their loving.
Only the Earl was in attendance at the table.
‘Your father and Julia have been journeying around the countryside all day and have sent word that they will be down in an hour or so. Perhaps we might look over the garden before we eat as it will be a while before it is served.
Hope soared. ‘I would like that.’
Outside the courtyard was empty. Leading her around a corner under the overhang of stone, he found a position that shielded them from any unsuspecting servant who might be walking the paths.
He was kissing her before she even turned, hard desperate kisses that spoke of all the frenzy she herself felt, and when they came up for breath he held her closely against him.
‘Will there ever be a time when I see you without wanting you?’
She laughed. ‘I hope not.’ Her finger traced the line of his lips.
‘If you keep doing that we won’t be having any dinner.’ The smile in his words was as obvious as the need in his eyes. ‘Would you like to see how Deimos is faring? John has been asking after you, too. I think you have earned his respect as a healer, Amethyst, which, believe me, is a hard thing to do.’
‘He has been here at Montcliffe for a long time, then?’ she asked him as they walked.
‘Since I was a boy. It was John who taught me a lot of the tricks of the trade. His own father was the stablemaster at Montcliffe before him and his father’s father before that.’
‘History,’ she said quietly. ‘That is what I love about this place. I have never been so much a part of what has come before.’
‘Or after,’ he said and brought her fingers to his lips. ‘I’d like lots of children to see Montcliffe prosper.’
‘Then let us try again for the first after dinner,’ she whispered and laughed as he turned towards the stables.
* * *
Her father and Julia were both waiting in the small salon next to the dining room when they returned and it seemed to Amethyst that her world had rolled over into something different. Papa looked the happiest she had ever seen him and her own heart sang with the promise of life. The doctor had been right after all: hope was the best medicine for any ailment. She knew he was not cured, but he was definitely happy.
‘We have some wonderful news to give you—’ Robert’s voice was light ‘—and I have had wine sent up from London to celebrate it with.’ He gestured to the bottles in front of him with the four fluted glasses standing beside them. ‘Julia has done me the honour of agreeing to become my wife and I have signed the deeds today on a house not far from here in which we intend to live.’
‘I hope you will give us your blessing, Amethyst? I realise it might seem a sudden thing, but sometimes one just knows.’ Julia’s voice was soft. ‘I swear I shall make it my goal in life to keep your father healthy.’
Sometimes one just knows.
Reaching for Daniel’s hand, Amethyst understood exactly what Julia was referring to as his fingers tightened about her own.
‘I would be delighted to welcome you
to the family, Julia, as I haven’t seen Papa smile so much in years.’
As the wine was poured Robert handed them all a glass. ‘I would like to make a toast, then, to for ever. For us all.’
* * *
Much later they lay together in the main chamber, the time well after one in the morning.
‘I love you more than life itself, my Amethyst,’ Daniel said into the darkness and the sound of it curled into his heart. ‘And I am glad that you waited for me.’
She smiled. ‘Gerald finally did me a favour.’ Her words were soft against his chest. ‘If he had been a better man, I might not have met you.’
‘He is dead. He will never hurt us again.’
‘And the others. The ones who tampered with our carriage on the road to Leicester?’
‘They will not harm us either, I promise.’ He tried to keep the anger from the edge of his words.
‘Papa was right to choose you as our saviour. He would not have managed to scare them away all by himself.’
‘Your father is an amazing man. I think he would do almost anything for love and he’s a lot stronger than he looks.’
‘Perhaps with Julia’s care he can confound all the doctors, though there will come a day when...’ She did not go on.
‘If we have a boy first, let’s name him Robert.’ Nigel could wait, Daniel thought, but for Amethyst’s father time was fading and the sheer bravery of the older man had never ceased to amaze him. He hoped he could be half the father to his own children as the old timber merchant had been to Amethyst.
‘Perhaps when Gwen comes to visit us we might have my grandfather here as well. A change in scenery would do him good and a time away from my mother might be just the thing he needs,’ he suggested.
‘I’d like that. We could take him to visit my father and show him the horses and...’
She stopped talking when he kissed her.
He had no wish at all to return to society, but resolved to make his life here, amongst the green hills and valleys of Montcliffe. Tracing a pattern across the freckles on his wife’s shoulders, Daniel began to tell her of Nigel.
