by Louise Allen
‘No. No, not at all.’ She released her grip on the post and then did not know what to do with her hands. Elliott solved her dilemma by catching them in his and drawing her close. She thought he was going to kiss her lips, but his mouth found the angle of neck and shoulder instead, nuzzling under the soft frills of veiling gauze, his breath hot and his tongue hotter, until her whole body seemed to glow, just from that one contact.
Elliott. She thought she had spoken, but no sound escaped her parted lips except a whimper that became a sob. He released her hands and her arms went around his neck, to keep herself on her feet or hold him to her, she was not certain which.
‘It is all right,’ he said softly, and she realised she had him in a stranglehold. ‘It is all right, Arabella. There is nothing to be afraid of, we are just going to bed together.’ He might have been murmuring reassurance to a nervous filly, his hands gentling over her. He set her back against the post and untied the ribbons of her négligé, pushing it over her shoulders, then he stepped aside to where the covers had already been turned down and pulled them back further.
‘Is this side all right for you?’
The prosaic question was so unexpected, so far from her lurid imaginings of what was going to happen next that she gaped at him. ‘Oh. Yes, I don’t mind, really.’ The bed was huge compared to what she was used to; she would be adrift in it wherever she slept. Elliott was waiting patiently so she let the négligé drop and climbed into bed. He flipped the covers over her legs and went round to the other side, discarding his robe as he went.
Bella looked fixedly at the opposite side of the room, but out of the corner of her eye she could still see him. And he was wearing a nightshirt, thank goodness. She did not think she could cope with him naked, not yet.
The bed dipped, there was the tug of bedclothes being adjusted, then he remarked, ‘You could lie down, you know.’
Could she? Bella felt as though she was made out of wood. If her back went down, her legs would shoot into the air, like a peg doll whose joints had seized up. She tried, legs tight together, and stared up at the underside of the canopy.
Elliott moved closer, leaned over her, one hand on the pillow beside her head. ‘Just kisses for the moment, Arabella,’ he murmured and leaned in. ‘You know you like kisses. Only kisses until you are ready.’
It was gentle, like last night and, like that kiss on the terrace, she did not mistake the gentleness for a lack of confidence, or experience. He knew what he was doing, he knew what he wanted and how to take it but, mysteriously, he seemed interested in her too, not just her breasts or that part between her legs.
Elliott stroked softly into her mouth with his tongue, teasing and tasting; he nibbled along her lips, sucked her top lip into his mouth, bit it gently and released it, only to do the same to her lower lip.
It was as if he found the taste and the texture of her pleasurable—which was very strange. Surely the entire point of what they were doing was for him to penetrate her, which would give him his release?
Every now and again he paused, as if he was waiting for something. Surely not for her to reciprocate? Did he want her to nibble and suck? To slide her tongue into his mouth too? She had done it last night, she remembered, embarrassed. Just the very tip. His mouth had been hot and moist and his tongue almost indecent in the muscular way it had moved against her lips. As if it were another part of him altogether.
She was feeling very strange now. Warm and restless and aching. And she did want to kiss him back, to taste and feel the textures of his skin. As her tongue slid into his mouth he shifted his position with a grunt that sounded like satisfaction, moving down the bed to hold her more closely, the hand that had propped him up coming round to cup her cheek and hold her steady.
Emboldened, Bella pulled back a little, then kissed the corner of Elliott’s mouth. She felt him smile, so she ran her tongue along the join of his lips and kissed the other corner. Definitely a smile now. It was very strange, almost as though he found this fun, as though he wanted to play.
He tipped her head and his mouth found her ear, his tongue tracing the whorls, his breath hot. Bella shivered. It should tickle. It was her ear, for goodness’ sake. But her breasts were aching and she wanted to rub against him and molten heat was gathering, low in her belly.
Then his lips closed over her ear lobe and he began to suckle it. Bella gasped. It was utterly…indecent. But it was only her ear lobe. He might as well be sucking her elbow! Yet it seemed to swell in his mouth, the insistent tug stimulating the morsel of flesh almost to the point of a discomfort that was perversely pleasant. Now her breasts really were too tight. She moved, restless, and felt her nipples, as hard as if she had splashed them with ice water, fretting against her nightgown.
He tugged and the nightgown came off. Somehow his nightshirt had gone already.
Elliott growled deep in his throat and shifted closer and then she felt it, the hard brutal length against her hip. He had promised only kisses, but then, for men, it was impossible to stop once they started, she understood that. So, it was going to happen now. She tried not to stiffen, to move away from him, but she could not help her body tightening as he moved his weight over her.
‘Arabella?’ She made herself look at him. His eyes were deep, fathomless blue in the candlelight, his lips slightly parted. He was controlling his breathing, she realised. His hand moved over her belly and she felt the chill of the familiar ring, the ring that had been on Rafe’s hand. His fingers probed between her legs where she knew she was shamefully hot and moist.
‘Oh, yes, you are ready.’ He seemed pleased. But Rafe had seemed pleased until…He entered her, firmly and strongly, and her entire body seemed to tighten with the fear. Too tight, too big. It hurts…I must move. I am supposed to move and to hold him and… But all she could do was lie there like the wooden doll she had imagined earlier. Lie there under him while the big, hard body surrounded her, crushed her, filled her. Used her.
Don’t think like that. It is your duty, his right. Bella opened her eyes on to Elliott’s intense blue gaze. He was rapt, lost in sensation, but somewhere, deep, she knew that all was not well, that something was missing.
‘Arabella—’ Then he closed his eyes, his face tensed and he gave a stifled shout as his body convulsed into hers until she thought he would break her apart. After a moment he went limp, his body crushing down on hers. There was heat and the slide of sweaty skin and the roughness of the hair on his chest and legs.
Between her own legs a strange pulse quivered and ached, unsatisfied as her body began to protest at the treatment.
‘Arabella?’ He was looking at her, hair in his eyes, his expression bleak and unguarded. ‘That was not good, was it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bella began, with no more words assembled in her brain to continue.
‘There is nothing to be sorry for,’ Elliott said. But a dry undertone to his voice contradicted his words. She had been right, he was too kind to tell her how disappointed he was in her. He rolled off and tugged until she came against his side, her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Go to sleep now.’
‘But—’
‘We have consummated the marriage, Arabella. That is enough to be going on with.’
Bella looked up so she could see his face. ‘Was…was that how it is supposed to be?’
‘Do you think so?’ He lay watching her, expressionless, not giving her any help at all.
Of course it was not. How disappointed he must be to have been forced into marriage with her. Her shake of the head was so vehement that he laughed. ‘There you are, then. We can work on it. Come back here and sleep, Arabella.’
I amuse him? Is that better than scorn and insults and violence? It has to be. She lay down, her cheek against man-warmed linen and closed her eyes. Perhaps if he would do it again in the morning, before she was properly awake, that would be better. She would be relaxed, it would be over before she had time to be afraid and for it to hurt and he might find it more enjoya
ble.
Chapter Ten
Elliott woke in the early morning light, every muscle tense with arousal. It took a moment to realise where he was and who was lying, relaxed in slumber, against him. His wife. Arabella was about the only relaxed thing in the bed, he thought grimly. She was just where she had fallen asleep last night, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. In the night she must have moved her arm for it now lay across his body, her hand lightly clasping the erect length that ached for her to tighten the lax grip.
Last night had been…frustrating. He had thought her ready for him, willing, but something had gone wrong. Was she associating lovemaking with Rafe’s betrayal afterwards? Or had he simply misread her, failed to see that nerves were overcoming her sensual responses? The temptation was to simply roll over, rip off his nightshirt and take her again before she had the chance to wake up and remember her nerves. No. Elliott tried breathing lightly, controlling the need to move under her palm. No, she had to know what she was doing, be fully involved with it. With him.
It had taken him a long time to get to sleep last night, puzzling over Arabella’s responses to his lovemaking. She reacted as he would expect a virgin to react, not like a woman who had had an affaire with an experienced rake. Perhaps it was the pregnancy. But he was hardly on such terms with any mothers that he could ask them how child-bearing had affected their love lives.
Elliott inched out from under her arm. As he slid out of the bed he saw her face clearly, the track of one dried tear down her cheek. His wife had wept on her wedding night. He had no idea how to comfort her or what to say. You are safe now? I am not like my brother, even if you probably see him every time you look at me? I won’t abandon you and your baby? ‘I promise I will look after you,’ he murmured. But she knew that by now, surely? It seemed she needed something he did not know how to give her.
Elliott closed the door into his dressing room with care, walked through into his own bedchamber and closed that door too. Only, it was not his bedchamber, it was Rafe’s, just as that was not his woman in the pink boudoir that had been decorated for a whore. She was Rafe’s cast-off mistress and, somehow, they had to forget that.
He was not used to sleeping in a nightshirt. Elliott dragged it over his head, hurled the balled-up linen at a wing chair, missed, swore and threw himself on the bed. From the mirror above his reflection, naked, still half-erect, glared back at him.
He looked like a working man compared with his elegant, sleek brother. Rafe would not have dreamed of joining his farm hands in the fields to help in the last push to bring the crops before rain fell. He would not have sat up with the shepherds in the lambing fields in the small hours or found pleasure heaving roof timbers with the carpenters when there was a building to repair.
Rafe would not have enjoyed getting sweaty and battered in the boxing ring, then laughing in some comfortable inn afterwards with the friends who had just been trying to land him a facer. He would certainly not have relished a long hard road race in all weathers, pitting skill and the horseflesh he had chosen and trained against the best the Corinthian set could muster.
Rafe had been going soft, Elliott had thought when their paths had crossed in London. Those meetings had always been in gambling hells or society ballrooms, never in the fencing schools or the boxing salons where Elliott drove himself hard for the strength and stamina he prized.
He got off the bed, shrugged into his robe and yanked the bell pull for coffee. He had never felt himself in competition with his brother and he was not going to start now in the bedchamber. What he was fighting here was nothing as rational as physical appearance or intelligence or charm, but a broken heart and betrayed dreams.
She had shed one tear. He did not want Arabella to cry, he wanted her to smile for him, blush a little. He wanted her to laugh and sigh and moan in his arms. Damn this. He had thought to be rational and clear in his requirements as though he was appointing a new member of staff, not forging a relationship with a wife. He had spelled out what he expected from her in the bedroom and she had forced herself to do her duty, he was sure of that. And he was in here with a severe case of frustration because he did not want to distress her this morning and she was fast asleep in there.
What was the matter with him? He could surely feel compassion for the poor girl without getting himself this wound up about her feelings. He was over-analysing, Elliott decided after another length of the room. She had allowed Rafe to seduce her, she was old enough and intelligent enough to know what she was doing. She had got herself into a mess, he had rescued her from it and now they were stuck with each other. He was not used to women finding anything but satisfaction in his arms, that was the trouble, he thought with a rueful smile.
‘One day at a time,’ he said aloud. ‘One night at a time.’
‘My lord?’ Franklin, his valet, was standing in the dressing-room door looking a trifle bemused.
‘Coffee, Franklin. And then my riding clothes. I want to look at the Hundred Acre Wood first thing.’
‘At what time does his lordship normally take breakfast?’
‘Lord love us! Begging your pardon, your ladyship, but you did give me a start.’ Cook put down the basket of eggs she was holding. ‘At eight, normally, my lady. He comes back in then.’
Arabella walked into the kitchen and surveyed the preparations. ‘Back in? I am sorry, please can you remind me of your name?’
‘Mrs Tarrant, my lady. And that’s Bethan with the coffee grinder and Annie in the scullery.’
My lady. Goodness. I’m my lady now. ‘Good morning, everyone.’ There was a flurry of bobbed curtsies.
‘His lordship goes out to the estate every morning at six, my lady. He sends down for a cup of coffee, then he’s out until eight. Not like his late lordship—he would take his breakfast in bed at about ten.’ Her pursed lips looked incongruous in her cheerful face.
‘And what does his lordship take for breakfast?’ Arabella was determined to be a perfect, attentive wife in every possible way. She might be a disappointment to Elliott in bed, but everything else would be faultless.
She had slept last night, worn out by emotion, she supposed. But she had dreamed of Rafe again. At least, she thought it was Rafe, and she had wanted to run away, but every now and again the man in her dream had turned with a sharp, alert grace that was different from Rafe’s languid elegance. His face had been blurred, as though she could not quite recall the difference between the two brothers. And her body had ached and tingled with the disturbing aftermath of Elliott’s possession of her body.
Rafe had been right: she was hopeless in bed. Elliott had been kind, but he had been disappointed in her. He thought her plain, no doubt, and soon she would be very obviously pregnant, and none of that helped the fact that she had no idea how to respond to him, how to arouse him. How to satisfy him. Her husband had done nothing to deserve such a…useless wife.
Elliott had been gone when she woke and the hollow in the bed was cool when she touched it. No morning kisses, no attempt to make love again. Would his patience snap and would she hear the same jibes, the same reproaches from him as she had from Rafe? Useless, wooden, plain, frigid… It was agony to imagine that she would hear words like that from him, see in his eyes that he despised her for being a failure as a woman.
As she had dressed, trying to get used to the hovering presence of Gwen, her new maid, sent up from the Dower House with Lady Abbotsford’s compliments, Bella had resolved that at least she could be the perfect mistress of the house. She would not fail at that, and she would not mope; Elliott would not want a miserable wife.
It was easier decided upon than carried out. Arabella made herself focus. The preparations in the kitchen seemed somewhat meagre for a gentleman’s breakfast, she thought.
‘Toast and coffee, my lady. I did ask when he first came here, but he said that was all he’d take.’ Cook folded her reddened hands on her apron front. ‘I can’t pretend I was not disappointed, my lady. I like to put on a good spread
, and one thing I will say about his late lordship, he knew how to entertain.’ Again that enigmatic tightening of the lips.
Bella was not going to think about Rafe. The practicalities of feeding her husband were much more important. ‘And where does he eat his toast?’ If Elliott retreated into his study it was going to be a problem.
‘In the breakfast room, my lady.’ Cook seemed not to find it odd that she did not know her new husband’s tastes, or that he had gone out early as usual the morning after the wedding. Arabella suspected that Mrs Tarrant was a perfectly capable cook if she was given firm orders, but she lacked initiative or curiosity.
‘Very well. Today please serve toast and coffee as usual. I will take tea. But I think we should have something more as well, just in case his lordship has an appetite. Shall we have a look in the larder?’
‘Heel!’ The pair of pointers stopped dead in the middle of the hall and looked back guiltily. Toby, the terrier, who always treated orders as suggestions to be considered and then disregarded, trotted on and sat in front of the breakfast-room door, head on one side, stubby tail rasping on the flags.
Elliott dropped his hat, whip and gloves on the hall chest and sniffed. Bacon? ‘Henlow!’
‘My lord?’
‘I can smell bacon.’
‘Yes, my lord. Her ladyship is in the breakfast parlour.’
Avoiding Arabella was out of the question, it would be discourteous. But bacon? Surely not the choice of a woman suffering from morning sickness who might be expected to take a light breakfast in bed.
Elliott pushed open the door and went in, the dogs at his heels. Arabella was standing by the sideboard, the silver dome of a serving platter in her hand. A heap of bacon, crisp and tempting, was piled on one side opposite a small mountain of scrambled eggs.