He saw himself then through her eyes and cursed, this time detailing a goat who mistook a boot for a female goat. He was naked. Could he be any more of a clod? What to do? He couldn't very well grab a blanket and wrap it around himself, that would lack finesse, it would be, quite frankly, unworthy of a man who knew what was what. So he faced her, arms to his sides, and didn't move. "I'm a man, Rosalind, just a man. I am sorry if you are disappointed there is no tree trunk sticking out from my belly."
What if she were repulsed? What if she thought him the ugliest creature on God's earth?
She was breathing hard; he heard it and wondered what she was thinking, feeling. He continued to stand there, looking down at his big toe, stubbed in his haste to get her away from his grandfather's bedchamber. It pulsed with pain. It steadied him. What was she thinking? What—
She came up on her elbows, never looking away from him. "You are beautiful, Nicholas. I never imagined a man could look like you do, all hard and smooth. I mean—" She actually broke off, swallowed, and her eyes went right to his sex.
He was aroused, nothing he could do about it. He was beautiful? He cleared his throat. "You think all of me is beautiful? Or just parts? Or maybe just my feet? I was told once that I had David's feet, you know, Michelangelo's sculpture? What do you think?"
Whatever she thought remained unspoken. She looked utterly absorbed, staring, staring, and her eyes were looking nowhere near his face. Because he was a man, because a woman's attention was focused on him, he predictably got bigger.
She sat up suddenly, swung her legs over the had, and reached out her hand toward him. Then her face flamed red and she dropped her hand back to her lap. A pity that, he thought. She whispered, "Oh, dear, as fascinating as you look, I don't think this will work. I'm very sorry, Nicholas."
"It will work, I promise you." He walked to the narrow had. She squeaked, rolled, and nearly fell off the other side.
"Didn't you see it work quite well in your book? And all those gentlemen were far more well-endowed than I am."
She clutched a pillow to her chest. "Well, yes, I suppose so. But you're not a drawing, Nicholas, you're a man, all real flesh and blood and you're standing right by my had."
"We will go slowly," he said, and prayed he could manage that tall order. It would be a close thing, but he was determined not to muck it up. "Come back to me, sweetheart, and let me see you. You want to be fair about this, don't you?"
"No."
"Here I am, naked to my feet, and you're still dressed ready for a ball."
She gave him a long, considering look. "All right," she said and scooted back to him. She lay on her back, her arms at her sides, and closed her eyes.
Again, he couldn't help himself, he laughed. "If you would clasp your hands together over your breasts, I could slip a lily between your fingers. Oh, Lord, Rosalind, you look like a half-dressed sacrifice."
Her eyes remained tightly shut. "I am."
He was still laughing when he tossed her gown to the foot of the bed. He studied the acres of virginal white petticoats, her slippered toes sticking out. He must be careful not to rip the lovely lace-edged white chemise. He got her slippers off, pulled her stockings down, smiled at the hand-stitched pale blue garters she wore. He looked at those long narrow feet of hers, the nice arches. He wanted to lick her toes.
Her eyes popped open when he lifted her bare foot to his mouth. "What are you doing?"
He licked and caressed his way up to her knees. "You are really going to like this." He raised her leg, her petticoats frothing around them, and began kissing and licking the back of her knee.
Bless her heart, she didn't move, but since his ears were attuned to any sort of sound she might make, he heard her breathing jerk a bit. Suddenly, she shot upright and leapt on him, taking him backwards. They rolled off the bed and landed on the floor, Nicholas thankfully on bottom. A rug was beneath his butt but his back was on the bare oak planks, scratchy and cold.
Who cared?
She kissed his nose, his chin, his ears, licked his jaw, and he thought he'd die when she slipped her tongue inside his mouth.
He went to work on the billowing petticoats—five of them—and soon they looked like small snow mounds scattered across the small bedchamber. When she was wearing naught but her lovely chemise, she was lying on top of him, her hands all over his face, tugging at his hair, kissing his nose, his eyebrows, his mouth. He eased his hands beneath the chemise and nearly expired at the feel of her.
"Now there is nothing between thee and me," he said.
32
She reared up, stared down at him as he kneaded her flesh. She moaned, looked horrified, then she whispered, "Nicholas," and kissed him again.
His fingers stroked her inner thighs, moving upward until he found her. He stopped breathing. He eased a finger inside her, and to his utter joy, that blessed finger set off a cataclysm. She began to move frantically against him, making small mewling sounds that drove him mad. His finger deepened and butted against her maidenhead. Nothing could have brought him to attention as that did.
Her maidenhead. He knew she'd have one, virgins did, though he'd never before been this close to one. But feeling it, actually touching her maidenhead nearly made him howl. He grabbed her up and tossed her onto the bed, came down over her, and shoved her legs wide.
He breathed hard and fast into her mouth. "Rosalind, tell me you want me this very instant."
"I want you. But I'm still wearing my chemise."
He cursed, reared back, and tore the chemise off her.
"Oh, dear, Nicholas, we mustn't tell Aunt Sophie what happened to the chemise she made. Perhaps—"
He knelt between those lovely white legs, pushed them wide, lifted her hips, and gave her his mouth.
She yelled so loud surely Cook could hear her, and jerked away, pressing hard against the headboard of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chin, and jerked the covers over her.
Nicholas stared at her. His mouth was wet with her, her scent in his nostrils, her taste in his mouth, and his brain empty. He was panting hard. He wanted to cry. What to say? She didn't look frightened, she looked appalled. He must be a man of the world here, fluent and self-assured. Was he capable? He cleared his throat. "Listen to me, Rosalind, this is very important to me. Kissing you with my mouth is vitai to me, it is what a man must have in order to gain pleasure from coupling. Surely you know that, don't you?"
"No, I've never heard of such a thing. That can't be right, Nicholas, it is a mistake, your aim was wrong. You wanted the back of my knee again, or perhaps you wished to lick the bottom of my foot, not—oh, dear."
"You would deny me pleasure on our wedding night? You do not care for me at all?"
She saw him between her legs, his mouth, his tongue, touching her, kissing her, and she nearly folded up into nothing at all at the mortification of it.
He gave a very deep sigh. "I see you do not trust me to do what is right and proper." He sighed again, not looking at her, but at his toe, which was throbbing again.
"Oh, no, Nicholas, it isn't that, it's—"
A man made a decision and acted, he thought. He grabbed her, flattened her onto her back again, pulled her legs apart, and sat on his heels between them. "Now," he said, "you will enjoy this." Again he gave her his mouth and this time, to be on the safe side, he held her down with the flat of his hand on her belly. When, thank the blessed Lord, her shock became astonished pleasure, she moaned, twisted the sheets in her fists, and moaned again. If he could have thought of any words, he would have sung to the heavens. When her hands were wild on his naked back, on his hips, her nails scoring his flesh, he was quite willing and ready to conquer the world.
Her fists struck his shoulders, her fingers shoveled in his hair, yanking hard, but it was nothing. Suddenly, quite suddenly, she heaved up, arched her back, and screamed as her orgasm tore through her. It was wonderful, beyond wonderful, and he reveled in it, holding her firmly in those precious moments, pushing he
r, giving her all he could. He welcomed the strength of it, the intensity of it, and it burrowed deeply inside him. He began to love her more gently now as he felt her ease. Finally, when she was as limp as the sheets, he raised his head to see her staring up at him, her eyes a deeper blue, if that were possible, dreamy and bewildered. Her red hair was tangled around her head and face and all her beautiful white flesh, her legs sprawled—he reared up and came inside her, hard and fast and deep. When she screamed again, as he knew she must, his palm was over her mouth. He felt her pain, but he didn't stop, not until he pressed against her womb. His heart pounded, he trembled like a palsied man, but discipline was the important thing hare.
He pressed his forehead against hers. "Your maidenhead," he managed to whisper against her hot skin, "I had to get through your maidenhead. I swear it will never hurt again. Lie still, get used to me. Let your muscles relax. No, don't curse me, you'll just make me laugh. Breathe deeply. Feel me in you, Rosalind. All right?"
Relax? With that man part deep inside her? How could that be possible? Curses bubbled up, but she held them in. She leaned up and bit his earlobe. Not at all loving or gentle, but that was all right, it steadied him. He whispered against her temple, "I won't move, I promise. Please, try to relax."
She bit him again.
Not such a violent bite this time. He kissed her cheek, the tip of her nose. He was a man in pain, a man whose muscles would lock for all eternity if he didn't move, and quickly.
"Surely this is the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do. Surely this makes me a very fine man indeed. Lie still, that's right, just lie still."
How could his voice sound so soothing, so gentle, when he'd skewered her? Men came into women, she wasn't stupid, but still, she'd simply never imagined how it would actually work. She could feel him, and wasn't that the oddest thing, hard and smooth and he was pulsing. How could that be?
He was heavy on top of her, and hot and sweaty. He didn't move. Nor did she.
She began to ease, began to let herself feel the length of him, the heat of him, and how very alive he felt. It was the small clenching of muscles deep inside her that sent him over the edge.
"Rosalind." His brain blurred, every feeling centered on her, driving into her—and her womb, oh, merciful heavens, her womb—he yelled his release.
He collapsed on top of her, feeling the slick of her sweat. Blessed be, he was still alive and of this earth, and she was holding him, her arms tight around his back.
Rosalind said against his shoulder, "I can feel you inside me. It is a very strange thing, Nicholas."
He'd never understood how women could find the breath and brain to speak after having sex. No, this wasn't simple sex, this was the hurtling of self into chaos, and exploding, so many vivid colors filling his brain. This was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him.
He nuzzled her neck. "I can feel you too. You're soft now, Rosalind , and wet from my seed and wet from you. Did I yell louder than you did?"
She leaned her head up and bit his shoulder, then licked where she'd bitten. Now that was a lovely bite and so he pushed a little, felt her tighten, and stopped. She said, her eyes as bemused as her voice, "I did yell, didn't I? I couldn't help it, it just came bursting out of my mouth. It was probably close either way. I love the taste of you, Nicholas." And she bit and licked him yet again. "And the way you made me feel—your mouth on me—it is something I could not have imagined."
Her words settled deep inside him where he usually didn't spend much time, deep harrowing feelings, powerful feelings that pooled into soul-deep pleasure, filling all the empty corners of him. He managed to bring himself up on his elbows. He wanted to say something clever, something with a touch of world-wit to it, but instead, he stared down at her face, her cheeks flushed in the candlelight, her hair stark red against the white pillow, and those eyes of hers, the blue so deep, so fathomless. No, no, he was fast becoming a moron. A woman's eyes weren't fathomless. He swallowed. He realized in that instant that this woman was his. She was his wife until he died. If her eyes were fathomless, so be it. He felt her muscles squeezing him, then easing. A man could happily expire.
She smiled up at him. "You're sweating, Nicholas."
"So are you."
She looked thoughtful. "Do you know I've never liked sweating before, but now?" She gave him a dazzling smile. "Now, who cares? That was wonderful, really, until you had to shove yourself inside me."
"My coming inside you, that was your reward, your bonus for having a very good wife and letting me love you with my mouth."
"Oh, dear." She pressed her face into his shoulder.
"Rosalind , I am inside of you, my naked self is pressed against your naked self. There is no reason for you to be embarrassed, ever again."
She looked at him. "Some reward. It hurt."
"I know, but do you hurt now?"
"Well, no, not really. But you are very big, Nicholas, and I'm not. Surely the men in all those pictures, as bountifully as they were portrayed, they still aren't built like you are."
I 'm deformed?
"Still, to be fair, despite your size, it wasn't really so very bad after a while." She leaned up and kissed him, a shy kiss, on his mouth. And fatigue suddenly fled. He wanted to make love to her all over again, right this instant, but he didn't move. It was difficult being sensitive to the fact that she must be sore. He nibbled on her chin, whispered in her mouth, "Thank you for explaining everything so clearly to me."
"I hope your grandfather isn't standing in the corner watching us."
He only smiled and kissed her again, on her mouth, a bit swollen, he could feel it, and so he licked her bottom lip. "You're my wife now, legally now."
"And you're now my husband, legally now."
"Ah, I'm much more than that, Rosalind." The words spilled out of him. "I'm the man who sought you out in London, the man who knew who you were the moment he saw you, even before he saw you, the man who must figure out what—" He broke off, cursed himself along with the goat's boot, then realized it didn't matter. Rosalind was asleep. He eased away from her to lie on his side beside her. He stroked her hair, easing out the tangles, picturing her head thrashing on the pillow when she'd fallen headfirst into her first orgasm, not a timid little orgasm, but a loud, ankle-thrumming, bone-melting orgasm. He gently pressed the wild curls behind her ear. "Yes," he whispered against her temple, "you're now legally my wife."
He spooned her, his hand on her belly, and kissed the nape of her neck. She tasted like salty jasmine.
He'd listened to men over the years talk about their mistresses and their wives. The biggest difference, they'd say and laugh, was that a wife followed you to your grave, or placed you in it, whereas a mistress perforce caressed whatever it was you instructed her to caress, and hopefully she would mourn your death perhaps a week before finding a new protector.
Wives, the talk usually continued, were to be taken quickly, without fuss and candlelight, in hushed darkness, a husband fast, done, and gone, all modesty preserved. Whereas a mistress, she was fashioned to enjoy a man, to enjoy his slavering all over her.
He'd always believed the men idiots.
Tonight, he'd proven it. He imagined that Ryder Sherbrooke would agree with him wholeheartedly.
He wondered what it would be like to have Rosalind take him into her mouth. He nearly shuddered himself off the bed.
He fell asleep with her scent in his nostrils, the taste of her on his mouth.
He didn't love her, couldn't love her, for a man couldn't love a debt. Could he?
33
Nicholas handed her the ancient leather book. "Here is my grandfather's copy of the Rules of the Pale. As you can see from the meager number of pages, it appears only to be an extract."
"Perhaps this is something of an introduction that will have explanations." But her voice didn't hold out much hope.
Rosalind sat in his grandfather's chair by the fireplace. The seat was w
arm even through her petticoats and her gown, and that made her wonder, but since there came no moans or groans when she'd sat down, she would deal with the possibility of sitting on a spirit. Hopefully the old earl was prowling elsewhere this morning, perhaps still hovering about in his former gloomy bedchamber, or standing on the other side of the room, watching her in his chair.
She let the skinny volume fall open at random. It was in the same code, she recognized it, and she could read it as easily as the other. She read:
The wizards and witches who reside on Mount Olyvan are an unscrupulous lot, endlessly contentious and vain. They hurl spells and curses at each other, so vicious the heavens hiss.
I realized at last that they could not leave Mount Olyvan, perhaps they could not even step off of Blood Rock, this cold and grim fortress that seems older than the Pale itself. Not one of the residents seemed to know where the fortress name came from, or the fortress itself, for that matter. I asked Be-lenus and he said vaguely, "Ah, we are from before time decided to travel forward." What a typical wizard answer, I thought, and wanted to kick him.
Another time I asked Belenus how old he was and he ran large fingers through his thick red beard, showed me his white teeth, and said finally, "Years are a meaningless measure created by men who have to count them to ensure they get their fair share, which men never do because to kill each other fulfills them more than continued life." On this, I fancied he had a point.
I asked Latobius, the Celtic god of mountains and sky, if he was really a god, if he was immortal, and he raised his hand and a flame speared out from the tip of his finger and exploded an exquisite glass sculpture across the vast chamber. From King Agamemnon's palace in Mycenae, someone had told me. I remember the shards flew outward, cascades of vibrant color.
And I thought, You are a wizard, not a god, and I pointed my finger and hurled a spear of flame at a sconce on the stone wall. To tell the truth, it relieved me to see it burst apart. We both stood there watching the heavy shards hit the marble floor and scatter. He said nothing. It was difficult, but I didn't either.
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