Wedding of the Season

by Guhrke, Laura Lee

  He gently but firmly pushed her hands aside. “I love you,” he said, and slid his palms up and down her hips. “Do you love me?” She didn’t answer, and he slowly eased one hand between her thighs to cup her mound.

  She gasped and her knees dipped a little, but she still didn’t say what he wanted to hear. He maneuvered his fingers into the slit of her drawers, ignoring how her legs instinctively clamped together around his hand, but when he touched the silken wetness of her core, he realized he’d moved too fast, for he hadn’t even gotten her boots off yet.

  Reluctantly he pulled his hand back. “The footboard is behind you,” he told her, and maneuvered her backward to sit on its edge.

  She did, her fingers curling around the brass railing as he knelt in front of her. He lifted her foot, grasped the heel and instep, and pulled off her riding boot. After he’d repeated the process, he tossed both boots to a corner of the room, and pulled her trousers all the way off. He then pulled off her garters and slid off her stockings, tickling the backs of her knees. She breathed his name on a sigh.

  “Like that, do you?” He slid his fingertips in slow, coaxing circles.

  She nodded, tipping her head back as he ran his hands up her thighs to the waistband of her drawers. He untied the ribbon and began pulling the garment down. “Lift your hips a little.”

  When she did, he was able to pull the drawers down, and as they slid to her ankles, he sat back on his knees and took a long look at her.

  He’d seen her in so many ways, and in every way she was beautiful, but now, this way, with her head tilted back and lips parted with desire and her body fully bared to him for lovemaking, she had never seemed more beautiful. Her breasts rose and fell with her rapid breathing, round and full, their nipples a rich brownish-pink in the lamplight. The curls at the apex of her thighs were dark gold, and her skin was like warmed alabaster.

  Again he touched her breasts, caressing them, shaping them, toying with them. Her breathing quickened further, her arousal heightening, and he took advantage of the moment. “Love me?” he asked, leaning in, one of her breasts cupped in his palm as he opened his mouth over the other.

  She moaned, arching toward him, and he suckled her nipple, then pulled back to flick it teasingly with his tongue, striving to keep his desire in check as he worked to stoke hers as high as he could. “Do you?”

  She didn’t answer, but her hand slid into his hair, cradling his head, trying to draw him closer. He didn’t come closer. Instead, he decided it was time for more ruthless tactics. He began kissing his way down her stomach.

  Her fingers worked convulsively in his hair. “Will,” she wailed softly. “Oh, oh.”

  He pulled back long enough to draw breath, then he pressed his mouth to the golden curls at the apex of her thighs. She cried out, her hips jerking, but he grasped her hips to hold her still and began to caress her with his tongue, stroking the crease of her sex over and over, lightly, gently, relentlessly.

  He eased his hold on her hips, and her body responded at once, moving against his mouth. Her breath began coming in little gasps. He kept lashing her with gentle strokes of his tongue until she was trembling all over and those soft, sweet wails of climax were coming from her throat.

  With a final, shuddering gasp, she collapsed, panting, and he stood up, catching her before she fell, lifting her into his arms. He carried her to the side of the bed and laid her down. His gaze locked with hers, he began to strip off his remaining clothes. “Do you love me?” he asked, yanking off his boots.

  Wordless, she stared at him. She wanted to answer, say no. But she couldn’t. Nor could she say yes. He was demanding something that she couldn’t give him. She could give him her body. Indeed, that was why she’d come tonight. But she couldn’t give him her heart. Because he was leaving, and if she gave him her heart, she might never get it back.

  Her gaze lowered to his hands as he unbuttoned his trousers. As he slid them down his hips along with his linen, she had to look. When she did, she inhaled a sharp, surprised breath at the sight of him so flagrantly aroused. Good Lord, she thought, with sudden understanding of just how he’d done what he’d done the other night. Seeing him like this explained it all.

  He waited, letting her have a good, long look, then he bent down to retrieve that black velvet pouch from the floor and removed one of those rubber disks. She stared in amazement as he slid it along the length of his shaft, sheathing himself with a thin veneer of rubber. She made a choked sound, and felt her courage slipping.

  He sensed it. He leaned over to kiss her mouth, and eased his body down onto hers before she could change her mind. She opened her arms, a bit reassured, thinking she knew what to expect next. He rested his weight on one arm, suspended above her, and his hand eased that hard, aroused part of his body between her thighs.

  “Beatrix, listen to me.” His voice sounded hoarse, his breathing labored. “I can’t contain this any longer. I love you, and I was going to wait, hold out until you admitted you love me, too, but I can’t. I . . . just can’t.” He smiled, but she could tell it was forced. “You know me. So impatient.”

  She touched his face, kissed him. She didn’t want to hear any more, because she couldn’t give him what he wanted and she wouldn’t use love as a way to make him stay. “Don’t apologize,” she whispered, moving her hips, appreciating how tempting it would be. “Just do it, Will. We’ve waited long enough.”

  He shook his head. When she moved again, sliding her thighs against his shaft, he gritted his teeth. “Don’t, for the love of God. Don’t move. Listen.”

  He took a deep breath, as if striving for control. Sweat glistened on his chest, on his forehead, and his breathing was becoming harsher by the moment. “No adventure we’ve ever been on has hurt you, but this one will, Trix. It’s going to hurt. No getting around that.”

  As he spoke, his hips began rocking slowly against hers, and she could feel the hard part of him rubbing the place he had kissed her and stroked her before, and that delicious pleasure washed over her again. She arched into him as she had done before, and the pleasure grew stronger, hotter. She moaned.

  “Christ,” he breathed, and shifted his body to rest his weight on his forearms, burying his face against her neck, and flexed his hips against her. That hard part of him pressed deeper onto her and then, just as before, into her.

  She didn’t understand. She was caught up in a sensuous, bewildered haze, and as his body entered her, it felt just the same as it had before. It didn’t hurt. Perhaps she’d misunderstood.

  Suddenly he thrust hard, shoving himself deeper into her, and she heard herself cry out as sudden, burning pain seared her from the inside. She hadn’t misunderstood, she realized in hot chagrin. He’d told her the truth.

  He covered her mouth with his, catching her sob of shock and pain in his kiss. He held himself rigid above her, kissing her everywhere—her hair, her throat, her cheek, her mouth. “It’ll be all right. I promise it will. I love you, Trix. I love you.”

  As he spoke to her and kissed her, the pain began to recede. “I’m all right, Will,” she whispered, wriggling her hips, trying to accustom herself to this coupling business.

  He began to move, slowly at first, then more quickly, his thrusts against her becoming stronger and deeper. His eyes were closed, his lips parted, and it was almost as if he’d forgotten about her, but he was stroking her hair and saying her name, and she realized he was simply caught up in the pleasure of her body. She smiled, liking that.

  She pushed upward, and he groaned, his arms sliding beneath her as if to pull her closer when he already seemed as close to her as he could possibly be, and she began to think perhaps this part of it might be tolerable after all. She felt sore inside, but that first searing pain had passed. She thrust up again, striving to move with him.

  His breathing was ragged against her hair, the thrust of his hips forcing her deeper into the mattress, and Beatrix began to feel again that wonderful thickening pleasure he’d arou
sed before with his hands and his mouth.

  And then, all of a sudden, shudders rocked him, and he let out a hoarse cry. He thrust against her several more times, and then collapsed, breathing hard, burying his face against her neck.

  She raked her fingers through his hair, she stroked the hard, strong muscles of his back and shoulders. When he kissed her hair and murmured her name, happiness rose within her like a fierce, surging tide.

  Yes, she thought, this was why she’d come tonight. Because when he was gone, maybe he’d remember this, and he would be happy, too. And maybe when he left this time around, he wouldn’t wait six years to come back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He was asleep.

  Beatrix studied him in the lamplight as she dressed. Oddly enough, in her whole life she’d never seen him asleep. He lay on his stomach, sheets thrown off, exposing his bare, muscled back down to his tailbone.

  One of his arms was tucked beneath him, the other was wrapped around her pillow. She smiled at that, liking to believe he thought the pillow was she. Though his countenance still seemed harsher than that of the man who’d gone away six years ago, it was softened now by sleep, reminding her of the boy she’d been in love with ever since she’d been capable of conscious thought.

  And she did love him. She’d tried so hard to stop, but that, she supposed, had always been a waste of time and effort. She’d handed her heart over to him before she was three years old, and no matter how she tried, she could never quite manage to get it back. She’d been afraid of that earlier, but now it was done and couldn’t be undone.

  He’d told her he was coming back, and she believed him. She did. But that didn’t alter the fact that he was still leaving. He’d probably go on leaving forever, and every time he did, it would probably hurt just as much as it did right now.

  She would go on with her own life here in Devonshire. She liked being an illustrator, and she intended to keep doing it. Perhaps she could do some sketches for Viscount Marlowe’s newspapers or illustrate some of the books for his publishing company. Her family might find that acceptable. Maybe next year she’d sketch artifacts for Will again when he came home.

  Home. Here in Devonshire would always be her home, but when Will went to Egypt, he’d always take a part of her heart along with him.

  She bent down and brushed her lips to Will’s cheek, lightly, so she wouldn’t wake him. “I love you, Will,” she whispered. “I hope it’s Tut in that tomb. If it is, maybe you’ll come home for good, but if you don’t, that’s all right, too. I just want you to be happy.”

  Turning away, she tiptoed out of the room, but she paused by the door for one last look. Their adventure was over, but she wanted to remember this image through what was sure to be a long, lonely winter.

  She’d left the north wing door at Danbury unlocked, as she’d always done in the old days when she’d snuck out to meet Will. The north wing was nearly empty, and as always, she was able to tiptoe all the way back to her room in the silence of early morning without being seen by anyone. Exhausted, she undressed, slipped into bed, and the moment her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.

  “Ma’am, wake up.”

  Beatrix stirred, feeling Lily’s hand on her shoulder, and she shook off the maid’s touch without opening her eyes, fighting to hang on to sleep, for she felt as if she’d barely laid her head down.

  “Oh, ma’am, wake up. His Grace, the Duke of Sunderland, has come to call.”

  “Will?” She opened her eyes. “Will’s here?” Still groggy from sleep, she sat up, giving her maid a dubious look, but Lily’s next words negated any notion that she’d been dreaming.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s in the drawing room, and he wants to see you. Lady Danbury told him you had not come down, but he said it was important that he see you because he’s leaving today to go back to Egypt.”

  She shook her head, trying to clear her sleep-drugged senses. “What time is it?”

  “Half past ten, ma’am. Lady Danbury sent me to fetch you and help you dress so that you could come down and say good-bye. You’d best hurry, she said, because His Grace must be at the station to catch the noon train, so you won’t have time for a long visit.”

  She didn’t want a long visit. In fact, she didn’t want a visit at all. She’d already said her good-byes, and she didn’t think she could bear another one, not in person. “I’m not coming down.”

  Lily looked at her doubtfully. “Lady Danbury was most insistent.”

  “I’m not coming down. Lily, go tell His Grace I don’t wish to see him. I don’t . . .” She paused, swallowing hard. “I can’t bear good-byes. He knows that. Tell him I shall see him when he returns in the spring.”

  Lily nodded and went out. Beatrix didn’t go back to sleep. Instead, she got out of bed, slipped a wrapper over her nightdress, and walked to the window. Mr. Robinson’s cart was there, along with Will’s manservant, and the cart was piled with luggage. Six years, and except for the servant, the view was the same as before.

  She knew why he was here, but she couldn’t go on this adventure, and that was part of why she’d said her good-byes as he slept. She might have been able to jump off Angel’s Head with him, but she still didn’t want to live on the other side of the world. And though her father was dead, she couldn’t scandalize the rest of her family by an elopement. She didn’t want Will to tempt her to try.

  She waited by the window, and when Will finally emerged from the house, she watched his back as he walked to the cart.

  He started to climb up on the box beside Mr. Robinson, and she breathed a little sigh of relief, but that relief was short-lived. With one booted foot on the box, he paused and turned to look back over his shoulder. He looked straight up at her window.

  She wanted to duck out of sight, but she didn’t. She could only look back at him, her heart breaking with good-bye.

  Go, Will, just go. Don’t wait for me. Go find Tut, and when you come home in the spring, then we’ll see.

  Even though her lamp wasn’t lit and he probably couldn’t see her behind the reflection of the glass, he beckoned her to come down as if he knew she was there. She didn’t move, except to slowly shake her head.

  Go, Will, she prayed. For God’s sake.

  At last, after what seemed an eternity, he turned and climbed up on the box. Mr. Robinson snapped the reins, and the dogcart lurched forward in the drive, circling around. As it went back down the long, tree-shaded lane to the Stafford Road, he turned, looking back over his shoulder at Danbury House for what she knew was one last look.

  Beatrix watched him go, and even after he was too far away to see, she squinted, trying to keep him in focus as long as she could, until he blurred in a haze of tears and the cart reached the end of the lane. There it turned, disappearing behind the trees that lined the road.

  Beatrix stayed by her window, looking down the lane long after he was gone. Lily returned, confirming that Eugenia was in a dither, certain Will had come to propose again and furious that her niece had refused to even see him, but Beatrix didn’t care about that. She was trying to protect her heart from further pain.

  She stared down the lane, thinking of all the times she’d stood there before, waiting for Will, waiting for her wedding day, waiting for life to start.

  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

  Looking down the lane, she suddenly realized what a narrow lane it was. A narrow lane for a narrow life, a life thinned down by her father, by society, by her own fear. Her fear, most of all. She’d always been afraid—of earning disapproval, of stepping outside the bounds, of living a different life than the one she’d always known.

  Suddenly resentment rose up inside her, resentment toward herself for living a life bound by rules she never made. Why couldn’t girls swing high on the swings until their dresses flew up? Why couldn’t they become artists or dig up artifacts or elope with the men they loved? Why was any of that a disgrace?

  You long to jump off, but you just c
an’t work up the nerve, so you tell yourself you’re content to look at the view.

  Naturally. Ladies looked at the view. And that was all they did.

  She lurched to her feet so suddenly that her chair tipped backward and hit the floor behind her with a thud. “I don’t want to look at the view!” she shouted, slapping her palms against the window. “I want to jump off the damned cliff!”

  Lily came running out of the dressing room. “Ma’am?”

  She turned to find her maid staring at her in surprise, her hands holding one of Beatrix’s gowns. She gave a choked laugh at the maid’s alarmed expression. “I envy you, Lily,” she confessed. “I truly do.”

  The girl’s blue eyes went even wider. “Me, ma’am? You’re a lady. Whyever would you envy me?”

  “Because you’re free,” she said savagely. “No one would care if you decided to swing too high on the swings or take a trip to Florence, or . . . or run off with a man!”

  “Run off with a man? Oh, ma’am, my mum would take the skin off my back if I was to do that.” Then she realized the implications. “Oh, ma’am,” she squeaked in excitement, “are you thinking to elope with His Grace? There’d be a terrible scandal about that, wouldn’t there, ma’am?”

  She made a face. “Yes, exactly, and a lady never creates a scandal. A lady doesn’t draw pictures and sell them for money. A lady doesn’t drive motorcars and a lady doesn’t walk barefoot on the sand, either! No, ladies have to wear black crepe when someone dies, and have to be accompanied wherever they go. And I’m tired of it.”

  Lily said nothing, probably because there was nothing to say.

  “I feel as if there are chains around me, Lily. Tying me down, keeping me fixed to one place, one life, one ideal, and every time I’ve tried to break free, I’ve ended up being more tied down than before. And the odd thing is, it’s been my own fault. I decided what life I had to have, what sort of woman I had to be. I helped to create those chains. I helped tie them around myself, and I helped anchor them in place, and I’ve lived in them for twenty-six years. I chose those things, even though underneath I yearned for something more. Those chains made me feel important. What a humbug I’ve been.