Once Upon a Tower

by Eloisa James

  They took their seats at the table, which was laden with silver platters, cutlery, and chinaware painted with the ducal seal. Edie stared down at her plate in silence as Mr. Rillings explained his wine choices for the meal.

  Then Bindle took over, and began to explain the delicacies that lay under the silver domes. Gowan noted absentmindedly that his servants were doing an excellent job of reproducing dinner at Craigievar, even in the unfamiliar surroundings of a hotel.

  His butler was a bit long-winded; this was not news. But as with Bardolph, he had inherited Bindle, and had never thought it worth the fuss to train him to be more succinct.

  But now, sometime into the recitation—just as Bindle had begun to describe the boeuf en daube—Edie raised her hand. He stopped.

  “Mr. Bindle,” she said gently, “I think I should prefer the delights of discovery this evening.”

  The butler gaped at her. He was not a man accustomed to interruption. The duke’s household moved in a steady rhythm, as regular as the tides: everything at its expected moment, for precisely the right period of time.

  Edie smiled at him, and finally the man understood that it was time to go. He rounded up his footmen and Rillings, and they left the room.

  “That was masterful,” Gowan said, raising his glass and grinning at her. It felt good to recognize that he would no longer be the only power in his particular world. She would be there, too. Alongside him.

  “I am less interested in the preparation and ingredients of food than you must be. This looks and smells like a good beef stew, which is all I need to know.”

  “I never listen very closely when Bindle explains the menu.”

  “Then why on earth does he give you such a lengthy description?”

  “It’s the way it’s always been.”

  Her brows drew together. “That does not seem a reasonable explanation, Gowan.”

  “I think it makes him happy,” he observed.

  She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. Her green eyes surveyed him in a manner that sent a new flush of heat to his groin.

  Then she brought the fork to her lips, and he desperately longed to throw the table to the side and be damned if the crash of crockery disturbed all of London. He would carry her to the bed and—

  He took a deep breath.

  One did not lose control and ravage one’s wife. It was beneath one’s dignity.

  “It’s very thoughtful of you to consider your butler’s pleasure, Gowan,” Edie observed, swallowing. Her lips glistened, and he wanted to throw back his head and howl. He didn’t want this damn food.

  Instead he sipped his wine and tried to turn his attention to its complexion, made from grapes that grew only in the mountains, of a ripe sweetness, whose color was gold . . . as recounted by Rillings.

  And failed.

  Edie ate two more bites while he watched her lips from beneath his lashes and reviewed his list.

  “I am sorry that your aunts missed our wedding. Will they be distressed, do you think?”

  “I doubt that very much. They will be happy to meet you, but they would consider it a betrayal of the scientific temperament to grow excited about a wedding. They have not yet traveled to Craigievar to meet Susannah, for example. That would interrupt the training program of the moment.”

  “How much must I eat?” she asked, swallowing another bite.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gather that you have decided that I need to fortify myself for the strenuous exercise that lies ahead? It must be I who is in need of food, insofar as you haven’t touched yours.”

  “You are my wife,” he said, a little apologetically. “I’m responsible for making sure that you are clothed and well-fed.” Even as he said it, he wondered if it sounded as stupid to her as it did to him.

  But if it did, Edie had the tact to ignore it. She rose with the grace that was inherent to her every move, from the slide of her bowing to her walk. Perhaps she did everything to a rhythm only she could hear. He came to his feet, and watched hungrily as she walked from the table toward the bedchamber door.

  He stood there, frozen, drinking in the generous swell of her hips.

  She looked back at him and smiled. “Gowan.”

  He was at her side in a moment. She was a witch, this bride of his. She had but to smile and he knew he’d follow. He probably always would if she looked at him with that hunger in her eyes.

  Then he pulled her into his arms, and he was drinking her down, deep and fierce, knowing that she was his, finally his. His wife. His lover. His Edie.

  He ran his hands down her back and pulled her against his body. They could do that now, fit their bodies together like puzzle pieces. They fit together perfectly, his hardness cradled by her softness.

  “Now, Gowan,” she whispered.

  So he picked her up and carried her into the bedchamber. Nerot—whoever he was—had installed a bed the size of a small granary. It was as long as it was wide, and hung with pale pink silk embroidered with silver thread and pearls.

  It was a bed made for a duchess.

  He jerked back the coverlet and then laid Edie on the sheets. She smiled up at him, all her glorious hair swirled at one side. “My wife,” Gowan whispered, dropping a kiss on her brow, another on her nose, another on her lips. “You’re exquisite. May I remove your gown?”

  Edie twisted to the side, showing him a line of seemingly infinite tiny buttons running down her back.

  So he concentrated on the buttons, trying to ignore the fact that they ended just above a lusciously rounded bottom.

  The final button surrendered only to reveal a corset underneath. Edie watched him unlace it without saying anything. Under the corset was a chemise, made of a fabric so diaphanous that he could see the shadow of her nipples beneath it.

  “Are you going to remove your clothing?” she asked. He stepped back, thinking that perhaps she felt shy at the idea of being unclothed while he was dressed. “Yes. But there is no need to feel embarrassment, Edie.”

  “I don’t feel embarrassed,” she said, smiling at him.

  He believed her. There was something about Edie’s straightforward manner that made him think he could trust whatever she said.

  “Is that your clan colors?” she asked.

  “Aye.” He bent, unlaced his brogues, threw them to the side. “I’m wearing a philabeg or, in Gaelic, feileadh beag.” He removed his hose, and unbuckled his sporran.

  Edie seemed fascinated. “What’s that little packet for?”

  “A few coins.” The kilt was made to be unwrapped with speed—but suddenly Gowan realized that Edie was examining him, every inch of him. He had the feeling that she liked what she was seeing, that she wasn’t hankering after a ropy Englishmen like those he’d seen in boxing saloons.

  He removed his coat and pulled up his shirt rather more slowly than he ordinarily would, suppressing a grin at the silliness of it. His arm muscles flexed as he took the shirt over his head and tossed it to the side. But he figured that she might as well see it all. If Edie was put off by his body, she wouldn’t have that look in her eyes.

  A desirous look. The same kind of ravenous hunger that was eating him alive.

  Right. Time to return to his plan. He made certain that he had each of its points in mind.

  On the bed, Edie mimicked him, pulling her chemise over her head. He forgot what he was thinking about. The generous swell of her breasts rose in the air, framed by the graceful arc of her arms, and then he looked lower and saw the curve of her inner thighs, almost hiding a small triangle of golden hair.

  The sight threatened to pull him into a dark place in which he would have no control. He refused to succumb. Instead, he joined her on the bed, gently adjusted her body until he had her in just the right position, and proceeded to make love to her.

  First, he kissed her until her lips were plump and dark and she was making little hungry sounds in the back of her throat. Only then did he allow his hand to drift below her c
ollarbone. While one half of his brain gloried in the weight of her truly magnificent breasts, the other catalogued the way she writhed under his touch, her arms tightening about his neck and her breath coming shallower and faster. He gave her a little bite, just a tiny one. That made her scream, and he ticked off one of the items on his list.

  Heard, learned, and understood.

  After a time, he slid his hand down her body, curving around her inner thighs—God, but he thought that might be what drove him over the edge, the soft curve of her legs. He wanted to bury his face there and leave bite marks all over her, and then shift a couple of inches higher and play.

  But no. He had to keep his mind on the task at hand. So he ran his hands up her thighs and touched her very core. She was so much more pink than he imagined: more beautiful, softer, wetter, a fluted flower. And she was trembling all over, her hands gliding over his shoulders, stroking him wherever she could reach.

  He couldn’t permit himself to think about that, so he blocked out the signals coming from her caresses.

  She felt wet and ready, but when he gently slid a finger inside her she was so small that he froze.

  “Gowan!” He heard her voice through a fog. His mind scrambled, trying to imagine how this would possibly work.

  Between the two of them, with him the size he was and her . . .

  Presumably Englishwomen were simply smaller there, just the way Englishmen’s biceps were smaller.

  Damn.

  Nineteen

  Edie felt as if she were living the experience and observing it at the same time. The two of them lay on the bed, but the other version of her watched them from above.

  She was spread out like a feast, trembling from little erotic pulses radiating down her legs. The logical part of her supposed she should probably roll on her side so that her legs didn’t look plump. Generally speaking, she liked her legs, but her thighs . . .

  Gowan lowered his head and put out his tongue and nuzzled her, very delicately, there, and she lost her train of thought. A second later, her instincts overcame an initial faint feeling of horror, and she heard herself crying, “Please,” over and over, just as Layla had demonstrated in the drawing room.

  Once he was licking her, her body ignored the odd thoughts going around in her head. The logical part of her felt a bit lonely, which was stupid, because it was Gowan kissing her, in this erotic, intimate way . . .

  Her legs had just begun to feel peculiarly warm when he stopped and came up above her again. “I think you’re ready, Edie.”

  She frowned. The word made her feel like a loaf of rising bread, and instantly dispelled the warm fuzziness, but she nodded and pulled him closer because she still felt alone.

  “I want you so much,” he said, his voice hoarse as he dropped a kiss on her lips. “But I’m afraid I will hurt you.”

  She smiled at that. Now that his face was near hers, she felt better. “I have been told it doesn’t hurt very much. Layla called those rumors old wives’ tales.”

  He reached down and put himself there, at the opening of her body. Edie stared down with some bemusement. He looked huge, like a giant pink mushroom stalk, which was accurate, though not a very romantic metaphor.

  The first few seconds felt good. Odd, but nice. Gowan stopped and said, “How is it?”

  It was so intimate that Edie could hardly bear it. His face was next to hers, closer than that of any person she could remember. Together with the fact that his body lay right on top of hers, and now part of him was actually inside her—it made her shiver all over. She wanted to push him away, and at the same time, pull him closer.

  “It feels good,” she said, her breath puffing against his face.

  “May I continue?”

  Edie nodded. Gowan flexed his hips, and from that moment, it was not good at all. Involuntarily, she sucked in a deep breath of air, and dug her nails into his shoulders.

  “Am I hurting you?” His voice had fallen an octave.

  “A little,” she managed. A little? It was agony.

  “Shall I stop, Edie? We could try again tomorrow.”

  Edie had lost every bit of happy sensuality she felt a few minutes ago. Her body was being torn apart. But the last thing she wanted was to have to try this again the next day. The anticipation alone would kill her. “You just have to do it,” she said, her voice rasping. “Get it over with. Please.”

  He dropped a kiss on her lips, a sweet, tender touch.

  And then he thrust, one deep, convulsive movement that seemed to take a minute, or an hour. Her mind shuddered away from the pain, from the pressure and sense of being sliced in half.

  He was stuck inside her as if she were a bottle and he a cork. Edie was completely outside the experience now. A flood of curses went through her mind, things she would say to Layla next time she saw her. This pain was no more than an old wives’ tale? Bloody hell.

  “Are you done?” she whispered, when he still didn’t move. His breath was harsh in her ear.

  “No.”

  “Does it pain you as well?”

  “Nay, it feels better than I could have imagined.” He pulled out and then pushed back inside again. The sensation was terrible.

  And again.

  He did it four times, five times, six . . . It felt as if he were a metronome, counting off staves.

  “How long does this go on?” she gasped. Seven, eight . . .

  “I can go as long as you need me to,” Gowan said, his voice strained but calm. “Don’t worry, sweeting, it will improve. Any moment you’ll start feeling a wave of pleasure.”

  She didn’t. Her brain presented her with the opening chords of a funeral dirge put to the rhythm of Gowan’s thrusts. Nine, ten, eleven . . . fourteen, fifteen. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered, “I would truly appreciate it if you could finish now.”

  He paused for a moment. “I’m not coming until you are.” He sounded stubborn and Scottish.

  “Maybe next time, Gowan. Please.”

  “I’m sorry it hurts so much.”

  “It’s just the first time.” Some sort of instinct came to her and she arched against him so he penetrated even deeper inside her. “Do it, Gowan. Go faster.”

  He pulled back and then thrust again and again. Sixteen, seventeen . . . twenty . . . twenty-seven, twenty-eight. It hurt and hurt and hurt, and she could no longer imagine a time when it wouldn’t.

  “Gowan!” she cried, on the very edge of informing him that if he couldn’t get where he was going, they would have to try tomorrow.

  “Oh, Edie,” he groaned, and then she felt him pulsing deep inside her.

  She actually gasped at the relief of it; it must be almost over. But it wasn’t.

  Twenty-nine.

  Thirty.

  Thirty-one.

  Finally, his body slumped, and he collapsed on top of her, shuddering all over. Edie patted him on the shoulder, discovering he was positively slick with sweat, which was rather disagreeable. So she picked up a corner of the sheet and dried his shoulder with it, and then patted him again.

  Then, mercifully, he braced himself on his hands and withdrew.

  Even that hurt so much that she felt tears stinging the back of her throat. When Gowan rolled to the side of the bed, she lay frozen for a moment, afraid to look down.

  There must be blood everywhere. It would be soaking into the mattress. At home, the maids would have whisked it away and a new mattress would appear by the evening. But they were at a hotel, and how was she to explain it? With all her heart, she wished she were home.

  There must be something wrong with her, because Layla had said it wouldn’t hurt. Or there was something wrong with him. Or both of them. She didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t imagine telling a doctor about something so intimate.

  Then Gowan raised his head, his eyes still dazed with pleasure, and asked, “Edie, was it horribly painful?”

  She swallowed and knew, in that moment, th
at she couldn’t bear to disappoint him. And so she told her first lie, because she said, “No,” when she meant, Yes. And when he said, tenderly, “We won’t do it again tonight,” she said, “All right,” when she meant, We’ll never do it again.

  She looked down at that huge part of him and blurted out an observation. “I thought you were supposed to grow soft afterwards, and smaller.”

  He looked down as well. “I believe I could pleasure you all night long if you wished, Edie.”

  She must have turned pale, because he didn’t offer.

  And even after she discovered that there wasn’t as much blood as she’d feared—though a good deal more than Layla had described—she couldn’t bring herself tell him that she might have suffered serious internal damage.

  Instead, she let Gowan wash her, which he did.

  When he finally fell asleep, she moved his arm from her waist and turned to face the other way. Then she curled up into the smallest possible ball and cried, very quietly, so he wouldn’t wake.

  And he didn’t.

  Twenty

  When Edie woke up, she jumped out of bed, leaving Gowan sleeping, and fled into the palatial bathing chamber attached to their suite. She was feeling much better. It was over. Yes, it had been horrible, but now it would all be different. Not that she was precisely looking forward to their next encounter, but obviously, with the virginity business out of the way, things would improve.

  Still, she had absolutely no inclination to return to the bedchamber and test that hypothesis, and when Gowan knocked on the door to ask if she would care to stay in London for some time, or leave for Craigievar, she chose the castle.

  “After all, Susannah is waiting for us,” she said, putting her head out the door.

  From his expression, Gowan had forgotten all about his sister, but he nodded readily enough. “I’ll send a groom ahead to reserve our rooms. We should begin our journey immediately if we are to make Stevenage in time to have luncheon at the Swan.”

  He stepped forward. He really did have the most beautiful eyes. “Good morning, wife,” he whispered, towering over her.