Once Upon a Tower

by Eloisa James

  “I’m not composed,” he said shortly. His voice made her feel better, because there was a raw sound to it.

  “I feel hot all over,” she whispered, kissing his brow. It was the only part of him she could reach while he concentrated on tying a perfect bow. “I feel as if I won’t be able to sleep. I feel . . .”

  “I know I won’t be able to sleep.” His fingers paused and he met her eyes. “I never dreamed that I would share my life with such a sensual woman.”

  “I’m not sensual,” Edie whispered. “I’m quite ordinary, really.”

  “You are anything but ordinary,” he said, cupping her face and giving her a hard, swift kiss. He had the door open and handed her down to the pavement, almost before she knew what was happening.

  “Gowan!” she protested. She lowered her voice, realizing that grooms had hopped from the carriage and were standing to attention, two on either side of the door. “Don’t you think that I have a significant point, given that special license you acquired? If our reputation is to be ruined under the suspicion that we have anticipated our vows, we might as well do so!”

  Gowan tucked her hand in his arm, and began walking up the path toward Willikins, who stood in the light of the open door. “I indeed take your point, but you must understand: I value my honor above my reputation.” He had assumed his ducal voice again—in response, she had to suppose, to all the men standing about in livery.

  Edie stopped when they were halfway up the walk and, she hoped, out of earshot of both the grooms and Willikins. “Gowan,” she hissed.

  He looked at her with a kind of placid tolerance, though it was hard to discern in the flickering light from the doorway. She found it so annoying that she gave his arm a shake. “You are behaving in a rather stickish manner, Duke.”

  “Stickish?” A flash of wry humor returned to his eyes. “Addressing me by my title is stickish as well.”

  She felt all hot and melting and urgent, and it was extremely vexing to see Gowan looking as calm as a vicar after his Sunday’s sermon. So she came up on her toes and licked his bottom lip.

  “What are you doing to me, Edie?” The sentence growled out of some deep part of his chest and flooded her with satisfaction. Perhaps he was simply better at covering up things than she was.

  “I’m making certain that you will have as much trouble sleeping as I shall.” Then she reached up, pulled down his head, and kissed him. It wasn’t their fourth, or even their fourteenth kiss, but it was the first kiss that she gave him.

  There was something about that realization that made her feel even more melting. But even though he showed satisfactory signs of enthusiasm, Gowan did not sweep her into his arms and stride back to the carriage, shouting to the coachman to take them to a bedchamber somewhere.

  In fact, after a bit, he pulled his mouth away, peeled her arms from around his neck, and growled, “I’m taking you to the door now, Edith.”

  Edie had managed to get her breath back by the time they reached the long-suffering Willikins. His countenance was expressionless, and for some reason, that made her feel even crosser. Was she to spend her life being watched by living statues?

  So she curtsied good-bye to Gowan, but refused to meet his eyes. She had just turned to climb the stairs when she heard an exasperated sound and he spun her around and said, low and fierce, “Dukes don’t deflower their wives-to-be in carriages, Edie.”

  She glanced to the side, but Willikins had shown his intuitive grasp of a butler’s more sensitive duties and disappeared into the recesses of the house.

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s the way you lose all expression. One minute I’m kissing you, and the next I find myself being put aside by a man exhibiting all the emotion of a block of wood. One moment you make me laugh, and the next you assume the expression of a schoolmaster speaking to a naughty boy. I find it annoying. In the extreme,” she added, in case he thought to discount her feelings.

  “A man is what he does,” Gowan said. “If I deflower my fiancée, I am not myself, but some other being, some person so overcome by lust that he forgets the rules that govern civilization.”

  Edie suddenly felt too weary to argue. “Yes, well, you’re probably right,” she said. She thought of dropping another curtsy, but it would likely be taken the wrong way. So she patted his cheek because, after all, he was a dear man, if a misguided one. And then she made her way to her room.

  Sixteen

  Gowan returned to his carriage, climbed in, and sat there with his arms folded during the short drive to his own town house.

  Once home, he nodded to his butler, tossed off his coat, and went up to his bedchamber. All the while a kind of desperate sensuality tore at him, buffeting him with images of Edie’s luscious breasts, of the way her breath had caught in her throat when he’d kissed her.

  His man entered the room and asked whether, while His Grace unclothed, he would be interested in reviewing the butler’s report regarding household expenditures, as was customary. Gowan ordered a bath and then threw the fellow out; he had no wish to display an erection that showed little signs of softening.

  Hell, it probably never would. He’d have this arousal at the altar. And what would follow that? What would he do then?

  Throw his duchess into a carriage and take her like some sort of wild animal, right on the seat? His mind duly noted that Edie wouldn’t argue with it. In fact, he thought it was possible that somehow he’d been lucky enough to find a woman who would relish anything he could come up with.

  And he could come up with a lot. It wasn’t just his imagination; his Kinross forebears had been possessed of bawdy imaginations and had stocked the library to suit. Oddly enough, all those books’ images seemed vulgar now that he’d kissed Edie and heard her little shriek. Seen the delicious curve of her neck when she gasped for air.

  He wished that he could take her to Craigievar and marry there, so that he could take her directly from his own chapel to his own bedchamber. But no—Edie said that it would cause an indelible scandal if they ran off to Scotland. Frankly, he could see no real difference between marrying in haste in London and marrying in haste in Gretna Green. Any man with a few pounds could get his hands on a special license, after all, whereas a trip to Scotland was expensive, given the changes of post horses, the inns, the inevitable broken axle.

  Why should that cause the greater scandal?

  He looked around his bedroom in some distaste. Given that he refused the carriage seat as a substitute for the marital bed, he had to find a lodging in London that was worthy of their wedding night; this wouldn’t do. The house was in the very best section of London, only three or four streets from the earl’s town house. But he’d never bothered to change the furnishings after he bought it, and the previous owner had a veritable mania for outré Egyptian flourishes.

  He went to sleep every night under a frieze of jackal heads. Not that he disliked jackals, precisely. From what he’d seen in the British Museum, Egyptian jackals had long muzzles and a regal expression. These jackals looked more like beagles, a breed he enjoyed. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to bring his bride to a bed surrounded by panting dogs.

  It would have to be Nerot’s Hotel. He rang the bell and his man, Trundle, reappeared with satisfactory haste.

  “Inform Bardolph that I wish him to visit Nerot’s and rent the best suite.”

  Trundle bowed. “For how long, Your Grace?” He ushered footmen with hot water into the bathing chamber while Gowan thought about it.

  The Earl of Gilchrist would resemble a beetroot if Gowan suggested a wedding on the morrow. But on the other hand, he would not—could not—wait much longer.

  “From tomorrow until further notice,” he said, when Trundle reappeared. “If the best suite is currently occupied, pay the hotel double to get them out.”

  One would never know that he was the most fiscally prudent duke the duchy had seen in decades.

  “Would you care to undress now, Your Grace?”

 
“No.”

  “So that you could take a bath while the water is hot?” Trundle sounded a bit desperate.

  “No. You may leave. Deliver the message to Bardolph. I shall undress myself.”

  Trundle frowned and opened his mouth.

  Gowan raised an eyebrow and the man whisked himself out the door.

  He went into the bathroom and stared at the steaming tub for a bit before he pulled his wits together. It was distracting to picture Edie’s mouth. More than distracting. There lay madness.

  He stripped naked, turned, and caught sight of himself in the glass. Would he be pleasing to Edie?

  At twenty years of age, he’d stopped growing any taller. Instead, in the last two years, he had just been growing broader. His legs were huge, probably the result of hard physical labor. When he was in residence at Craigievar, he would rise at five and go to his study, then head into the fields in the afternoon to work alongside his crofters.

  An English nobleman couldn’t do that, but his clansmen expected him to lend a hand when he was able. They’d hand him a scythe and point to a row with considerably less amazement than if he bought them a round at the tavern. Whether they were hauling logs or making barley sheaves, he worked alongside them.

  The physical work, together with years of swimming, had broadened his chest, too, making it quite unlike the lithe bodies of most English gentlemen. He didn’t fool himself that they were soft and defenseless, because he knew they weren’t. He’d been to Gentleman Jackson’s Saloon in London and seen them boxing each other with calculated ferocity. But English physiques tended toward the sinewy.

  Scottish ones just bulged.

  Below his broad torso . . .

  He was bigger than average; he knew it empirically, from unavoidable observation. After a hard day in the fields, his men would strip naked and plunge into the bitterly cold loch, he among them. Even at eighteen, he could see his ancestors had bequeathed him more than a castle. What if Edie didn’t like that part of his body?

  He reached down and palmed his balls. They were drawn up close to his body, and had been from the moment he’d caught sight of Edie that evening. It wasn’t particularly pleasant to feel like a powder keg, overly tight and explosive.

  Watching in the glass as he wrapped a hand around his tool, he saw it in double vision, as if Edie were beside him, and it was her delicate, long fingers that caressed him.

  She looked a perfect lady, but the fingertips of her left hand were callused from endless hours of playing. He was still trying to get his head around the idea that he was marrying a musician. Watching her play a duet with her father had been a revelation. Her body bent with the music like a willow in a high wind, her face utterly alive with joy.

  He wanted her to feel that with him as well. And he wanted her to stroke him with her musical hands.

  The thought led to an image of Edie kneeling at his feet, that wash of golden hair over one shoulder, her lips opening as she . . .

  A hoarse noise broke from his throat and his hand tightened.

  A few minutes later, he lowered himself into the tub. The water felt like a caress, causing his body to stiffen again. Still, the swiftness with which he had lost control was percolating into his brain, and not in a happy way. It was unacceptable.

  He couldn’t blaze up like brandy put to flame: he had a responsibility to Edie. It was more than a responsibility with regard to consummation of their marriage. He had a distinct sense that a couple’s first night together determined the pattern of their marital relations for years to come.

  Having inherited his dukedom at an early age, he had long ago learned to plan out, and rehearse, any new action. A young boy tasked with leading a household can practice what needs to be said in the privacy of his bathing chamber, if that happens to be one of the few places where he’s ever alone.

  On another day, he can rehearse the speech he will make while taking back control of the local bench. And when joining the bank’s board of governors. Over time, he can become so good at thinking through the various possible outcomes of any action that he rarely makes a mistake—because he had thought through all conceivable weaknesses beforehand.

  Marriage and intimacy were just another challenge. There was a danger that, having never done the act before, he would lose control and act like a raw boy of fourteen. That would be unacceptable, but he wasn’t overly worried. He had not enjoyed pulling away from Edie, even less so when he tucked those luscious breasts back into her bodice, but he’d never been in danger of losing control.

  The key was to make a mental list of what needed to be done in order to ensure that Edie enjoyed her first experience, particularly given the pain that women apparently felt. That was the one eventuality for which he couldn’t plan, since by all accounts the amount of pain varied from woman to woman. Some felt a sharp pang and others something more distressing. Many women, he’d been given to understand, felt no pain at all.

  He had hopes that Edie would be one of those, but either way, he was responsible for her pleasure, if not rapture, during the rest of the evening. She was demonstrably responsive, so he didn’t have to worry about frigidity. It didn’t take long to come up with a step-by-step plan for their wedding night. Images popped straight into his head, thanks to the illustrated volumes found in the ducal library.

  His mind went hazy at the memory of how Edie’s breath grew choppy, and how she gave a little cry every time he suckled her. The mere thought of sinking into her hot depths, seeing her eyes widen with ecstasy, feeling her, slick and tight around him . . .

  Gowan ended up with his head thrown onto the back of the tub. Damn, but he was sick of this. Once he was married, he didn’t want to touch himself ever again. Ever.

  He would be touched only by Edie. Her hands . . .

  Her body.

  Seventeen

  Edie dreamed about dancing with Gowan. They were sweeping through a ballroom in larger and larger circles, in perfect step together. And then she stopped in the middle of a twirl, pulled his head to hers, kissed him.

  And woke up feeling happy. It turned out she had slept through breakfast, so she practiced for a few hours until it was time for luncheon. When she made her way downstairs, she found Layla seated in the dining room, looking rather the worse for wear, but more cheerful than she had been in some time.

  “Darling!” she cried. “Do join me. Jonas will be here presently.”

  “I don’t want any details,” Edie stated, rounding the table.

  “As if I would do something so uncouth,” Layla responded, waving her hand, and then dropping it onto her forehead with a muffled groan. “I have a terrible head, darling. You can’t imagine. You father and I were up—”

  “I hope you managed to have a rational conversation?”

  Layla giggled. “I wouldn’t remember. I don’t think so. Rabbits, darling. Rabbits!”

  It was Edie’s considered opinion that rabbiting through the night, though it might be a good start, was not a sufficient way to heal a marital breach.

  “Luckily for you,” Layla continued, “I can plan a wedding even if my head does feel as if it’s about to cleave in two. Not to mention going shopping: we must buy some presents for your new little daughter. Well, technically your half sister-in-law or something like that.”

  Edie bit her lip.

  Layla’s eyes softened. “You will be a wonderful mother to that poor little scrap, Edie. You’ll see. The moment you see her, your heart will melt.”

  Layla’s heart melted at the sight of any child: she stopped at every perambulator to coo and admire. But Edie tended to hang back. Children were so small and looked so fragile, and she had no idea what to do with them, or what to say.

  “We’ll pay a visit to Egbert’s Emporium this very afternoon,” Layla continued. “She’ll need a doll, of course. Perhaps a toy farmyard as well, and one of those new dissected maps of England.”

  “A map of Scotland would be more appropriate,” Edie put in.


  “England, Scotland, whatever. I saw the most adorable doll a few days ago. It came with three bonnets. If only I’d known, I would have bought it, but your father hadn’t mentioned Susannah to me.”

  Edie had a good idea why the earl hadn’t told his wife. The very idea of orphaned little Susannah made tears well in Layla’s eyes, and her father had obviously chosen silence over a difficult conversation. She reached across the table and squeezed her stepmother’s hand. “You will visit, won’t you? Please?”

  “Of course! I shall be the most indulgent auntie any child has ever imagined. I’ll warn you now that I intend to shower her with ribbons and slippers and all kinds of fripperies. Between us, we’ll make up for the fact she lost her mother. ”

  At that moment the door opened and Edie’s father entered. Unlike his wife, he looked groomed as ever. Edie had the greatest difficulty imagining her father less than immaculately dressed, though, of course, she didn’t really care to pursue the image.

  Once he was seated, and the first course was served, he announced, “I have come to a conclusion about your wedding ceremony, Edith.”

  Edie nodded. She had made up her mind that she would refuse to wait four more months.

  “The duke hopes to force my hand by purchasing the special license. Recognizing that fact does not mean that I am necessarily unsympathetic. Besides, rumors will do the damage, whether we wait four months or not. It’s most unfortunate that Lady Runcible was told of Kinross’s request.” He flicked a disapproving glance at his wife that told Edie she was right: rabbiting did not magically cure marital disruption.

  Luckily, Layla had her head down on her arm and didn’t see his silent reprimand.

  “I have decided that I will allow the marriage to happen in the very near future,” he pronounced. “The wedding party will be small, naturally. I shall ask the Bishop of Rochester to perform the rites; he and I were at school together.”

  Edie found a smile growing on her face without conscious volition.