The last had made her uncomfortably hot.
Was this what her wedding night would be like? Hot, uncomfortable, and impossible to predict? While she wasn’t in the least experienced, those hungry looks had awakened feelings in her she didn’t even know she had—a choked sensation in her breast, overheated skin, blood that felt like thickened honey, and the outrageous need to throw herself across the coach and scale his huge body like a monkey on a tree.
Without a stitch of clothing.
Thank God her thoughts were private, though she was sure that some of them might have been visible on her face, given the tightening of his brow and his restless shifting on the opposite bench. Twice, out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen the heel of his palm grind into his lap, but she hadn’t dared to let her eyes drift anywhere below his chin. It simply wasn’t proper. At least her behavior was beyond reproach, even if her thoughts weren’t.
Because those were beyond shameless.
It was a miracle Isobel had been able to keep her composure intact when they finally arrived at Kendrick Abbey.
“Are you well, my lady?” Winter asked after the footman helped her down in the well-kept courtyard. “You seem…flustered.”
“The coach was rather warm,” she replied, grateful for the bite of the crisp early evening air. “And I’m nervous to meet His Grace.”
“Don’t be. Kendrick isn’t here. He’s in Bath. He spends most of his time at his estate there, taking the waters. With any luck, it will just be Oblivious Oliver.” At her questioning look, he shrugged. “My brother.”
“Oh,” she said. Isobel didn’t know he had a brother, but there were a lot of things she didn’t know about her new husband. She had years to learn, however. Grasping his gloved hand, she smiled up at him. He gave their joined hands a quizzical look but did not pull his away. Isobel took that as a good sign as she surveyed her new home and its occupants.
The servants were all lined up to welcome their new mistress, and she greeted each one of them, from the butler to the housekeeper to the footmen, with sincere warmth.
She would get to know each of them more later.
For now, Isobel followed her husband up to their suite of rooms, taking in as much as she could of the abbey’s impressive interior, from its vaulted ceilings to its meticulously polished furnishings. Isobel was no stranger to fortune, but this took her appreciation of wealth to a new level. Her husband’s chambers, though not the master, had a sumptuously decorated interconnecting bedroom. The decor was just as lavish as the rest of the house.
“Are you hungry?” Winter said. “I’ve asked Mrs. Butterfield to send up a tray for an early supper. I’ve also rung for a lady’s maid to prepare you a bath.” He paused at the threshold, his gaze unfathomable. “In the meantime, I must find my brother and take him to task for not being there to receive us properly. I’ll return shortly.”
Isobel gave him a soft smile, grateful for his thoughtfulness and equally glad he did not insist she accompany him. She was a bundle of nerves as it was, knowing their wedding night was forthcoming. A bath and a meal would help.
Hours later, she’d finished both, and despite eating the delicious fare alone—Winter had yet to return—Isobel couldn’t relax. It was her first time in a strange place and finding herself eased was impossible. After changing into her night rail, she’d climbed into the huge bed. Would Winter prefer her under the blankets? Above them? In bed at all? In an attempt to distract herself, she tried to read from a book she’d packed in her things but couldn’t concentrate. Her nerves were much too frayed.
Where was her husband? Would he come to her?
Stretching restlessly, she inched out of the bed and went to the window, where the full moon cast its silvery light over the gardens visible from her room. She and Astrid used to pretend to be fairies dancing under the moon when they were little girls. Like then, she had the urge to run outside barefooted, feel the grass beneath her toes, and spin around in circles until she collapsed with dizziness. The whimsical recollection made her smile.
The skin on her nape prickled and she whirled around, throttling a scream in her throat.
The Marquess of Roth stood at the connecting door, watching her.
Isobel blushed, realizing that the moonlight through the windowpanes rendered her filmy night clothes nearly invisible. She crossed her arms over herself, only to be stalled by Winter’s rasped, “Don’t.”
Obediently, Isobel dropped her arms. Her nerves returned in full force when he approached, only stopping when he was an arm’s length away, dark, tall, and foreboding. The moonlight caught his face, too, casting his angular features in silver shadows. He was dressed only in shirtsleeves, she realized breathlessly, and her eyes traced the strong neck disappearing into the opened collar. His shirt was untucked from his trousers, his feet scandalously bare.
“I was waiting,” she murmured when he didn’t say anything.
“I trust everything was to your satisfaction?”
Isobel nodded, suddenly shy. “It was. Thank you, my lord.”
“Winter.”
She bit her lip, unable to say his given name in so intimate a setting. He stared at her for what seemed like forever before closing the gap between them, and she gasped when his hands closed over her waist. One large palm slipped down to caress her hip. Sensations flooded her untried body, pebbling her nipples beneath the lacy night rail. She clenched her jaw hard. It was that, or give way to the vulgar moans clambering up her throat.
“Do you know what to expect?” he asked. “Did your sister or mother advise you of the wedding night?”
“Yes, my aunt explained,” Isobel whispered. She would not admit the guidance she’d received from her Aunt Mildred was thin at best, though she had a general idea of the act and what it entailed. He would undress her. Impale her. Fill her with his seed. Even in her head, the process sounded awful. She swallowed hard, her muscles locking.
“Don’t be afraid,” he told her.
With that, he untied the ribbons at her throat and wrists, and the flimsy garment pooled to the floor. Isobel held her breath, fighting her blush, as he took her nude body in, his face hard as if hewn from granite. A muscle jumped in that rigid jaw.
“This first time might hurt,” he said. “But I will try to make it as painless as possible.”
In a show of effortless strength, the marquess scooped her up and carried her to the bed, and she scrambled backward before he shucked off his own clothing and climbed on top of her. There wasn’t enough room to get a good view of anything, but good gracious, she could feel the hot brand of him on her thigh. Instead of making her frightened, it made her ache.
Was her breathing supposed to be this shallow? Her heartbeat so fast? The sharpness of all the combined feelings was making her light-headed. Her muscles tightened again, though this time it wasn’t because of dread but excitement. Isobel had no time to process any of it before he bent toward her, his parted lips settling on her neck. Nerves forgotten, her skin burned at the erotic contact as his tongue swept over her flesh.
The slow sensual lick was vastly different to the chaste, perfunctory peck he’d given her in the chapel, or the almost-kiss on the balcony, but she wasn’t complaining. He bit her earlobe, sucking it into his mouth, and her entire body shuddered. Good Lord, this wasn’t even kissing, it was…it was…devouring. The idea of his mouth trailing down her body in a similar fashion nearly made her eyes roll back in her head.
Would he?
As if she’d demanded it, he continued his journey south of her jaw until Isobel moaned, her hands climbing up to wind in her husband’s hair as she succumbed to his skill. Heavens above, she’d never felt more alive, more on edge. Every muscle in her body strained and shook as he reached the valley between her breasts, his lips wet and warm. She felt faint from the pleasure coiling in her stomach, her brain a muddled mess. Could a
person die from such sensation? Surely it was possible.
One more lick, one more dangerously sinful bite, and she’d be done for.
A whimper broke from her. “Winter.”
Cool air blew against the damp skin of her body when he broke away, a stormy gaze boring into hers. Was he going to stop? Pull away? He wouldn’t be so cruel, would he? He’d told her to use his given name!
But with a fraught growl, his mouth descended to where he’d left off and kissed its way down her body, lingering over each of her breasts until she was certain she’d go mad. By the time he lifted himself above her, she no longer had a rational thought in her head. She was a blinding mass of need and raw desire. When his body finally slid into hers, it pinched, but his careful preparation had soothed the way.
“Hold still,” he rasped, his voice hoarse with strain as his breath sawed out of him. “Get used to me.”
It wasn’t his words as much as his thoughtfulness that melted her. Once she’d adjusted to accommodate him, Isobel sucked in air as he began to move, withdrawing almost all the way before easing back in.
“Is this too much?” he asked.
“No, you’re perfect.”
Winter stilled, but she didn’t have time to feel embarrassed by the blurted admission before he repeated the motion, making her gasp. With each pass, it felt better. Sensation upon sensation built inside her with every stroke until he reached between them to caress a spot that made her see stars and she cried out as pleasure took her.
A few short thrusts later, and Winter groaned what sounded like her name, though she couldn’t be sure, his huge frame withdrawing completely from her and then going rigid with what she imagined was the culmination of his own release. Breathing hard, he slumped forward, his large body blanketing hers. It was strangely nice, though the moment did not last.
Her husband lifted off of her. For an unguarded moment his eyes met hers, a flare of shock evident before he rolled away. Isobel did not feel slighted when he stood and reached for his trousers. She could only remember the tenderness of his touch, and the kindness he’d displayed with her inexperienced body. Her husband had to care to be so gentle and considerate.
Isobel draped herself in the warmth of everything she felt and smiled to herself.
One day, perhaps soon, she would tell him she loved him.
Chapter Two
Chelmsford, England
3 years later
Oh how she hated that bloody, black-hearted jackanapes!
The brisk morning wind teased the pins from Isobel’s hair, blond tendrils lashing into her face as she galloped at a breakneck pace across the moors. She was in a fine froth, and she pushed her mare Hellion to go even faster. Faintly, Isobel heard a voice calling out from somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t turn back now. Nothing but a grueling ride would cool the heat in her veins.
According to the newssheets she’d read that morning, her husband was up to his disreputable exploits in London again, while she, the poor, pathetic—and any number of other uncharitable descriptors—country mouse of a wife remained at home in pious, devoted silence.
Devoted, my furious foot.
Her maggot of a marquess had abandoned her here.
After their wedding, Isobel had assumed she and Winter would live together in Chelmsford. It was his father’s ducal seat, after all, and his family home. Old bitterness, buried down deep, spilled through her. How foolish and utterly naive she’d been! Her caring new husband had bedded her and then left her.
That. Same. Night.
She’d gathered—albeit after a lot of weeping and the shattering of her rose-tinted spectacles—that her husband might not have held as grand an affection for her as she’d had for him. That what had seemed so special to her had not meant a thing to him at all, because right after he’d done his duty, he’d absconded like a thief in the dark.
Isobel snarled out an oath as her mare’s hooves pounded the dirt, putting much needed distance between them and those dratted newssheets at the manor. It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky, but Isobel hardly took notice, so intent she was on outrunning her fury.
In the beginning, she had thought Winter’s absence would be for a day or two. She had waited like a besotted fool for weeks before Mrs. Butterfield had taken pity on her and explained that the marquess was very busy with his business in London and very rarely came to Kendrick Abbey. And if he did come to the country, he had his own estate in Chelmsford—Rothingham Gable.
Even then, she’d been so sickeningly naive, wondering why a husband would choose to leave his new wife at his father’s ducal residence instead of his.
Perhaps he was performing restorations.
Perhaps he wanted to surprise her.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
She’d learned the unpleasant answer a few months later from a loose-lipped maid—her heroic, honorable, noble husband was apparently renowned for hosting wild house parties at Rothingham Gable. Bacchanalian revels, the maid had confided with suffocated giggles. Of course, that had all been long before he’d been married, the maid had hastily assured her.
Of course, a heartsick Isobel had echoed.
Now, three years and five months later, with the barest minimum of correspondence from the marquess, she learned more about her vagabond husband from the London gossip rags than from the man himself. Isobel had had enough. This time, he’d purportedly engaged in a dawn duel. Over an opera singer of all things.
She scowled as she slowed and dismounted, letting Hellion cool off and graze.
How dare he disrespect her so?
As the Marchioness of Roth, she’d held her head high and pretended her callous husband wasn’t such an empirical ass. She’d been patient. Honored her vows. Respected his wishes. Brushed off his antics as youthful folly. Buried the hurt that his coldhearted desertion had caused. Told herself that eventually, like all highborn gentlemen, Winter would come to his senses and require an heir. Then she would have a family, even if her rakehell of a husband did not want to be involved.
Someday.
Someday had never come. Swallowing her bitterness, Isobel paced back and forth, the rich smell of grass and earth doing little to calm her down. Even the cheery sound of laughter from the children of the tenant farmers down the hill didn’t make her smile.
As year after year passed, she convinced herself that she wasn’t bloody miserable each month she spent cooped up like some forgotten mare put out to pasture, with only her pianoforte and her useless accomplishments to keep her company. Isobel remembered with acute shame what she’d primly told her sister years ago: a young lady should be accomplished in the feminine arts. Music, and dancing, and whatnot.
Well, she was eating a large serving of crow and whatnot at the moment. No one had ever explained to her younger and vociferously green self what whatnot had meant. If it meant dealing with a husband who had dumped his wife in Chelmsford while he gallivanted in London and pretended he was an eternal bachelor, then she’d be an expert in the matter.
“He’ll grow out of it, dear,” Mrs. Butterfield had told her. “All men sow their wild oats.”
So she’d let him sow. Acres and acres of it. But this was outside of enough.
A bloody duel. Over someone who wasn’t his wife.
Isobel clenched her fists together, staring mindlessly over the tops of the tenant cottages to the spire of the village church in the distance. Clarissa, her dearest friend and lady’s companion, had suggested that some of the accounts of gambling and indecent revelry might be false—salacious stories sold newspapers, after all. But even some stories had to have a modicum of truth to them. Isobel thought she’d become desensitized to her husband’s antics, but clearly not.
Rage and hurt bubbled up into her throat.
“Damnation, woman!” Clarissa wheezed as she reined her horse to a lat
hered stop where Isobel stood at the edge of the rise overlooking the lake. “I never should have taught you to ride.”
Her sweaty best friend dismounted, her dark mess of curls sticking out in every direction, and her green eyes knowing, full of sympathetic anger. Isobel’s own eyes were dry as she greeted her. She’d shed enough tears for that pigeon-livered rogue of a husband. He did not deserve another drop from her, not a single one.
“I take it you read the newssheets,” Isobel said. No need to beat around the bush. There was only one reason that her friend would follow her mad dash from the house.
Clarissa nodded and remained silent. After three years of shared confidences, particularly about the subject of the Maggot of Roth, she well knew when to let Isobel vent. She had enough opinions of her own about Isobel’s scoundrel of a husband, but at times like this, she was the more level-headed of the two of them.
“They exaggerate everything,” Clarissa said in a soothing voice. “You know this. Those abominable liars write what they want to write.”
“Then why wouldn’t Roth dispute them, if that were the case?”
“Perhaps he thinks them amusing? Men don’t worry about those sorts of things.”
“Those sorts of things,” Isobel repeated. “He fought a duel, Clarissa. Over Contessa James of all people.”
Clarissa pulled a face. “Maybe he’s acting out,” she suggested mildly.
“He’s a grown man. How much acting out does he need to do?”
“Men mature differently than women,” her friend replied with the patience deserving of a saint instead of her usual speak-first-think-later temperament. “And he’s never recovered from his sister’s and mother’s deaths—you also know that as well as I do. Everyone knows that it left him in a terrible state. It’s the reason he and the duke don’t get along.”
The Rakehell of Roth Page 2