by Meara Platt
Lillian’s eyes were closed as she gave herself over to his experience.
He paused and drew away. She blinked her eyes open to stare into his smiling ones.
“You are not hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head, in a daze. But then another question plagued her. “You will keep your spectacles on… during…?”
“They won’t be necessary.” His cobalt eyes teased her. “My sight isn’t so impaired that I cannot see you from this distance.”
Lillian took it upon herself to grasp the metal arms and slide them off his face. “You can still see me, then?” She held them close to her own eyes and tried to view him through them. “Are they uncomfortable?”
“A little. But the annoyance is worth the benefit.” He watched her as though her curiosity fascinated him.
The smooth silver that wound behind his ears felt warm from his skin. She hadn’t considered how touching them was, in itself, an act of intimacy.
Foreboding slid down her spine. Emotional intimacy was going to make losing him quite difficult to endure. She studied his eyes again. She liked him.
She liked him very much.
Knowing him might also make the pain of all of this worthwhile. If everything went as planned, she would have a child. She could tell her child—their child—about his father. The thought trickled away when he removed the spectacles from her fingers. He dropped them onto the nearby table and then hungrily claimed her lips again.
This kissing. It was nice. He seemed to be in no hurry as he tasted her mouth, and then her throat, and then returned again to her mouth.
“Christian?” She was enjoying herself—immensely—and yet she could not help but wonder when he would get to the business at hand.
“Lillian?” he teased but pulled away to look into her eyes once again.
“Um. Perhaps if this is going to take a while, we might wish to eat first after all?”
He laughed softly, and she felt some surprise that his amusement didn’t annoy her. Rather than laughing at her, he seemed to be taking pleasure in her.
“You wish to eat?” He didn’t wait for her response but turned and selected something from the table. He took a bite of a plump berry and before she could protest, moistened her lips with its juices. “You are hungry after all?”
It was as though he was kissing her with the strawberry now. She parted her mouth and he placed the sweet morsel on her tongue. He did not remove his fingertips but trailed them along her teeth and then her lower lip.
She chewed and swallowed the fruit and then gasped a little when he slid his finger inside of her mouth.
“Lillian.” His voice came out sounding gruff. “I believe we can move into your bedchamber, now?”
Finally! Lillian nodded and then gasped again when he scooped her into his arms and carried her through to her bedchamber as though she weighed next to nothing.
Chapter Six
Not So Unpleasant After All
With her arms wound around his neck, Lillian contemplated that very soon she would know what it was like to be a wife, in body as well as in name.
So far, she had been more than pleased with the kissing and the touching and the teasing. She hoped she would find the second half of consummation equally as enjoyable.
He, oh, so gently, lowered her onto the bed, atop the counterpane, but then surprised her by slipping out of his banyan.
Oh! Oh, my.
He wasn’t shy at all about the appendage bouncing against his toned abdomen as he turned and then climbed onto the bed beside her.
After one startled glance, she stared everywhere but… there.
“It isn’t dangerous.” He flashed a grin as though he could read her mind. He was certainly not bouncing his knee now.
Unable to summon a response, Lillian wondered where all of her confidence had fled. This was going to happen. It was real.
“I’m sorry. I’ve made you uncomfortable.” He hesitated.
None of this was nearly as simple as she’d imagined it. “Is making love always so very complicated?”
“I have hopes that in time it will become less so.” His hand trailed along her side and Lillian wiggled in an attempt to shake off the uncertainty that had attacked her at the sight of his… manhood.
“Should I touch it?”
It was his turn to appear startled. “You are more than welcome to.” He pulled away from her enough so that she could have her look of his swollen appendage. The flesh was pink and thick veins throbbed beneath the skin as it seemed to bob and wave.
She lowered her hand and ran a fingertip down the side of it, and he drew in a hissing breath. “It doesn’t… hurt?” It was softer than she’d imagined but also hard. “It isn’t always like this, is it?”
“No, to both questions.” He wrapped his hand around hers, causing her fingers to encompass the width. It was warm… hot almost and it pulsed.
He was going to put it inside of her.
“Does this seem complicated to you?” he asked.
“It seems… large to me.” She would answer him honestly. “But, if it’s part of what we must do to make a baby…” All thoughts of pleasure fled and so she released his member and turned to rest on her back, eyes closed.
“Are you certain you are ready to do this?” His voice sounded by her ear.
“Yes. Carry on.” She would be brave. “I’ll get used to it.”
“Lillian, your eyes are pinched closed.”
She opened them to see his face very close to hers and his eyes looked quite concerned.
“Just do it. Really. Don’t mind me.” Perhaps he required more encouragement. “You may mount me now.”
Christian made a choking sound and fell back onto the other side of the bed to stare at the ceiling. She couldn’t help but notice that his member had shrunk and no longer seemed so… happy.
He’d thrown one arm up to cover his face and it struck her: he expected her to do the mounting. Hitching her gown up, she pushed up on to all fours and then lifted her leg across his body so that she straddled him. He dropped his arm and his eyes opened wide as she did her best to align their pertinent parts.
“What are you—?” His hands dropped to her hips.
She would do this. She would make a baby with this man.
Sitting on him this way, however, all thoughts of procreation fled. He seemed to be growing again… Lillian slid herself along him.
Christian’s hands had moved to her backside and were urging her back and forth.
Not so unpleasant at all.
Both of them stared into one another’s eyes now, neither smiling, neither talking. Then Christian lifted her slightly, and she felt him at her entrance. She hovered there for just a moment before he relaxed his hold.
This was the moment. She knew it. It was the moment when he would break through her barrier. She’d always heard it would be painful but as she slid onto his engorged manhood, she only felt a slight twinge before finding herself fully seated.
It was inside of her. She released a sigh of relief.
He smiled. “Is it as bad as you’d imagined?”
Oh, but he was teasing her again. Partly. His eyes also reflected concern and tenderness.
She shook her head. “It is… filling.”
He shifted her forward, causing him to slide out partially, and then thrust up deeper inside of her. She gasped, and he halted.
“Painful?”
She shook her head again. “Better. Again please.” And then, ah, yes. He filled her again, and then again, creating the loveliest sort of friction. His hands gripped her waist and she gripped his shoulders. He closed his eyes and she could see that he was concentrating greatly as he worked their bodies together. Before long, her own eyelids had grown heavy and she could no longer bear to keep them open.
She squeezed them together tightly but not in fear. No, she experienced the most pressing anticipation. She moved with him, along him, against him, until at last she arched
her back and a lightning type of energy gripped her.
He increased his own pace and after a few more urgent strokes, stiffened. Oh, yes. He would release his seed.
Lillian relished the throbbing heat inside before collapsing into a heap of nothingness atop him.
Christian shifted and then one of his hands was stroking her head. “Thank you, Lillian.” His mouth touched her forehead and a new warmth spread into her heart.
As wakefulness set in, Christian gradually become aware that the warm, soft, very willing woman tucked in beside him was his wife.
Lillian.
He wanted to whisper her name aloud but did not wish to wake her. After her initial misgivings, she’d been eager to press onward in pursuit of conceiving his heir, no less than two additional times.
The second time, she’d trembled in his arms.
The third time, he’d nearly declared his undying love and then she’d asked him if he thought they had succeeded.
He shifted his gaze toward the window and saw that the sun was beginning to rise. He had not slept so soundly since Calvin’s death.
Everything had changed yesterday. Well, many things had changed.
He’d married!
He turned his head and stared at the golden blond hair spread in disarray around her head and on his shoulder. A few caught in his whiskers, causing him to smile.
“Mmmm….” A low moan emitted from her and at the same time, she slid her foot along his leg. “I’m starving.”
“I did provide you an evening meal,” he reminded her before dropping a kiss onto her forehead. “I even tried to feed you myself, but you had other activities in mind.” He watched as her eyes opened, wondering if he would feel that same comfort at their warmth today that he had the night before.
He did.
He felt like any other bridegroom, he imagined, on the morning after his wedding night and surprisingly did not want to think about the next step of their unlikely union. He’d always thought himself a rational sort of fellow and yet for the moment, he was happy to pretend they were a couple in love, about to embark upon a lifetime of…
Not a lifetime.
Her hand trailed along his chest. “How do you feel this morning? You are not overly tired, are you?”
She was inordinately concerned about his health—his well-being. It was unusual. Perhaps it was a feminine thing. He’d gone without his mother for over a decade now, and little sisters did not count.
“I am fine. And you?”
She stretched in a manner that reminded him of a satisfied feline, and Christian couldn’t help but delight in the sight of pink-tipped breasts emerging from beneath the covers. Although he had eventually removed her night rail, the room had remained in darkness and he’d yet to see his wife’s body unclothed.
When she realized he was staring, pink flushed up her chest and into her cheeks. She did not move to cover herself, though.
“This is part of that intimacy, is it not?” Tiny lines formed on her forehead as she frowned. “I had not understood completely before. I don’t think a person can understand such matters without experiencing them.”
He was coming to know that she liked to analyze things—him, even. But she was right. When he’d told her he’d had some experience, the number was far closer to one than it was to one hundred.
One of the women had been a barmaid at one of the taverns near his brother’s… near his… country estate. She’d been older than him and far more experienced. The other woman had been older than him as well, a widow who lived down in Brighten.
“Does it bother you? That I have bedded others?” The desire to live a full life seemed greater than before, not for any rational reasons but because he wanted to spend as much time as possible with the woman lying beside him.
Her eyes clouded with what he could only guess was sadness.
“Your dying bothers me,” she admitted with a frown. And then she leaned forward, her hair shrouding them both, and placed her lips lovingly upon his.
The kiss started out sweet and tender, but she was naked, as was he, and they’d only just both discovered a most powerful mutual passion.
Christian flipped her onto her back beside him, adjusted himself between her thighs, and thrust himself into what was soon becoming his favorite place in the world.
And, feeling her legs wind themselves around his waist, he could easily imagine that he was fast becoming her favorite guest.
Chapter Seven
Mother, Say Hello to My Husband
“You are certain you wish to do this?” The question burst from Lillian’s mouth in lieu of a greeting when her husband entered through the connecting door of their two chambers. He looked exceedingly handsome this morning in a gray jacket and waistcoat and black fitted trousers.
He had insisted she not face her mother alone.
Even though she had left a note, it would not be fair to leave her mother waiting for their explanations much longer. The note had been meant to reassure her mother but it had been vague. Especially since Christian was a duke…
Stepping forward, Lillian adjusted his perfectly tied cravat, pouncing on the excuse to be near him again.
She’d missed him already, in the short amount of time it had taken her to bathe and dress, and she fought the urge to wind her arms around his neck and offer her lips for a kiss.
This was not a real marriage, after all. Was it?
He glanced around the room, presumably to ensure they were alone, and pulled her flush up against him before stealing a most unsettling kiss.
Unsettling only in that it caused her to completely forget her train of thought.
“I will take the brunt of your mother’s anger.” He stared down at her sternly from behind his spectacles.
Becky appeared from inside the dressing room, and Christian stepped backward and smoothed his hands down his jacket.
“Your pelisse, Your Grace.” Betsy lowered her gaze and stepped forward to drop the garment around Lilian’s shoulders.
“The coach is waiting out front,” Christian added with a glance at his timepiece before offering his arm to lead her downstairs.
She’d initially thought they would walk to her mother’s house but he suggested it would appear more proper if they arrived in one of his carriages.
Settling onto the bench, she smoothed one hand along the soft velvet upholstery. Christian took his seat beside her and grimaced. “Calvin bought it shortly before his death.”
Calvin… Lilian nodded. The brother who’d died in a duel. “Were the two of you close?” Although she intimately knew the touch of this man beside her, she knew very little about most other aspects of his life.
“More so before he inherited. We were closest in age, and I’d not hesitate to admit that growing up I considered him my best friend. Undoubtedly, he considered me a nuisance most of the time. When he took over the title, I expected he’d become more serious, as did our brother before him, but Calvin went in the opposite direction.” Christian frowned. “He’d always had a wild side but when he became Warwick, he turned downright reckless.”
Christian took hold of her hand and turned to stare at her. “I give you my word that you needn’t worry that I will take unnecessary risks. In fact, I will exercise the greatest diligence where my safety is concerned.”
It was an odd thing for him to say. He seemed so very earnest, though, that she couldn’t help but send him a smile.
His knee began bouncing up and down. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly when the carriage rolled to a stop.
“Are you certain you wish to come in?” Lillian did not wish to put him under any unnecessary strain. “I’m not afraid to tell her alone.”
In answer, he pushed the door open, hopped down, and then lowered the step before the outrider could come around. When he reached to assist her, determination showed in the set of his jaw.
“She will be taking her breakfast now,” Lillian informed him as they stepped toward the fron
t steps.
“But she will have been awoken early, as soon as your absence was discovered.” His hand covered hers. He reached up with the other, to sound the knocker, but the door was whipped away from him when her mother’s butler swung it open.
“Lady Lillian, Her Grace is beside herself with worry.” Mr. Williams stared suspiciously at Christian.
“As you can plainly see, there is nothing to worry about.” Lillian did her best to sound as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Is she in the morning room?”
“She is.”
Christian had not released Lillian’s arm, and she was thankful for his added support. She was not, in fact, looking forward to this meeting and although she was not afraid by any means, she was glad she would not have to do this alone.
“We will find her upstairs.” She glanced over her shoulder to meet his eyes.
But his gaze already directed upward. He dipped his head and spoke softly. “I believe we will not need to look hard.”
“Lillian Francis Prentiss!” What is the meaning of this? And married? I do hope you were joking!” When she realized Lillian was not alone, she raised one hand to her brow and swayed dramatically, almost as though she was on the verge of fainting. “Who is this scoundrel who has kept you out all night?”
“Do be careful, Your Grace!” Christian moved quickly to ascend the stairs at the same time Mr. Williams reached out his hands as though doing so would prevent her from falling.
Lillian raced after Christian, who’d halted before reaching the landing. Her mother gripped the balustrade with white-knuckled rage and glared daggers at him.
“Mother.” Lillian stepped in front of her husband in order to protect him from death by mother-in-law. “This is my husband, Christian Masterson.” And then she bit her lip. “The Duke of Warwick.”
A painful moan escaped her mother at the announcement.
But the Dowager Duchess of Crawford was a lady, first and foremost. After closing her eyes a moment in order to summon her dignity, the older woman opened them and nodded. “Your Grace. Pardon me for failing to be pleased to make your acquaintance. You see, my daughter failed to mention that the two of you had become betrothed. The courtesy of an invitation to the wedding would have been appreciated, at the very least.”