When they arrived a half hour later, Ainsley instantly liked the look of home, too. At the end of a flagstone walkway stood a shingled cottage with a whitewashed door and window trim, and a fieldstone chimney poking out of the thatched roof. Such a quaint little cottage. It seemed to represent the softer side of his nature that she’d grown so fond of.
Reed didn’t leave her much time to admire its exterior, however. He whisked her from the carriage and out of the driving rain, setting her on her feet inside the cozy space.
Watery gray light shone in from a pair of cheerful box windows nestled inside the bare horsehair plaster walls. The hardwood floor was tidy and flat, adorned with a round speckled rug in the entryway. Standing in the center of the room was a trestle table topped with wide planks, gray and age-worn. There was a snug little alcove in the one wall, guarded by yellowed curtains on either side. And above it was a little loft, with a wooden ladder that reached the floor.
“Is this where you lived with your mother?”
“And my dad, aye,” he said with a nod, staring down at her with a sense of expectation radiating from him. “Will this be tolerable?”
“It’s lovely.”
Her declaration earned a surprised lift of his brow. She was hoping for a kiss, but he left her to stand in the one-room cottage alone as he helped the driver.
Unfastening the cloak from around her shoulders, she hung it on a mantel peg to dry, and set about lighting the fire. It took only a spark of flint before the dried kindling and tinder bundle hissed to life beneath a stack of slender logs.
She dusted her hands together and crossed the room to a small square nightstand beside the bed and found linens inside. There was a patchwork coverlet in faded blues and yellows, along with sprigs of lavender tucked in between each layer.
Ainsley pulled the bedclothes out to air, but found they weren’t musty in the least. Therefore, she made the bed, tucking the linens around the mattress and laying the coverlet in place. Then, surveying her work, she thought about her wedding night.
A tiny cold spear of trepidation ran through her.
Stepping back to the fire, she held out her hands to warm them. Would Reed be a gentle and patient lover? Would he kiss her breathless? Rouse her to shuddering pleasure?
Of course he would. Likely all he would have to do was simply look at her in that smoldering way of his and her blood would simmer. And she would welcome the warmth, she thought.
Wondering what was keeping him, she stepped to the window. Through the sheeting rain, she saw Reed wave to the driver and heard the jangle of rigging as the carriage trundled away.
Reed paused underneath the overhang guarding the threshold to shake the water from his hair and stomp the mud from his boots. She skirted around the corner as he stepped inside and stood next to a large basket tied with a blue ribbon and two satchels.
Then he closed the door behind him and her nerves leapt in a harried jolt.
They were alone now. Man and wife.
“The roads should hold out long enough to see him to the stables,” he said, struggling to shrug free of his sodden coat.
She moved to help him, turning him around with a little nudge of her hand as if they’d done this dozens of times. “Are the stables far? I didn’t see any from the road.”
He gave her an amused glance, but complied. “Near enough.”
It took a few tugs before she could even pull the garment from his shoulders, the sleeves turning inside out down the length and girth of his arms. But her progress halted at his wrists. “You’re going to have to unclench your hands or I won’t be able to finish.”
“Then you’re going to have to take what’s inside them.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were holding—”
She gasped as he unfolded his fingers. There, carefully nestled in both palms, were violets. For a minute she simply stared at them without moving. Her heart and lungs made her feel buoyant as if she could float up the rafters.
“They’re no primroses, of course,” he teased in a low drawl that sent warmth burrowing through her, “but I saw them near the downspout and they were about to get swept away by the rain.”
She reached for them, her fingertip brushing the velvety petals, and quietly said, “I like violets, too.”
Their gazes met, held for a moment . . . until he glanced over her shoulder to the freshly made bed.
He quickly turned his attention to the rafters. “I think there’s a cup on the mantel that might make a vase of sorts, and there’s plenty of water. Smith and I put pails out to collect the rain.”
Taking the flowers, she swept toward the hearth. His reaction to the bed had her feeling shy and uncertain. Had making it look neat and welcoming been too bold of her? They were man and wife, after all. Surely, he didn’t expect them to spend their first night together laid out on the table.
At the thought and the image it conjured, her cheeks turned hot—at least four different shades of red—and she kept her face averted as she arranged the blossoms.
When she finished, she believed that the little violets drooping over the edge of a brown earthenware cup made the prettiest bouquet she’d ever seen.
Reed came up beside her and held his hands out toward the fire, his gaze on the flowers. “That looks nice. Homey.”
“It does, indeed. Thank you,” she said. “My sisters and I used to put violets on endive and eat them.”
His brows knitted together but a smirk played on his lips. “You’re not going to eat your wedding bouquet, are you?”
“Only if that basket of food from the vicar’s wife is full of asparagus.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m taking the biggest violet for myself.”
She set her hands on her hips and grinned at her husband—good heavens she liked the sound of that, even if only in her thoughts. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
His eyes darkened, smoldering and hungry as he gazed down at her. Her lips tingled, ready for his kiss and curious about what would follow. In fact, she was fairly obsessed with the thought, needing to have all the information to put her mind at ease.
But he turned away abruptly. Then, picking up the basket, he placed it on the table. “Let’s see what we have then.”
“I don’t mind if we wait.”
He glanced down to where her hand rested against her midriff. Beneath it, dozens of little knots were forming, waiting to be untied.
“Not feeling well?” he asked.
“A bit of nerves.”
Automatically, he took a step toward her and laid his hands on her shoulders, trailing them down in a soothing caress. “You don’t have anything to fret over, highness.”
“That may be easy for you to say but I don’t know . . . well . . . what comes next.”
“What do you mean, when we return to London?”
She shook her head, fighting another blush. “No. I mean here, between us.”
When he still looked at her as if he hadn’t a clue, she expelled a frustrated breath. She glanced to the bed and then back to him. Was he going to make her say it aloud?
Apparently so. “The . . . consummation of our marriage.”
He jerked his hands away so fast she might have been a burning coal.
A wash of color slanted across the bridge of his nose and cheeks, and he cleared his throat a few times before he finally spoke. “We should wait until we are more ourselves. Perhaps a rest after our long journey would set matters aright.”
Until we are more ourselves? It seemed that he was the only one not acting like himself. Not one bit.
Normally, she was the reserved one between them and yet she very much felt in need of a shepherd’s crook to prod him along. Where was the rogue bent on kissing her brainless?
“Very well. Since sleeping seems to be your answer for every issue, we’ll have a lie down and consider it later.” Then, with a little verbal nudge, she added, “Which side of the bed would you prefer?”
&nb
sp; He swallowed and pulled at his damp cravat. “I’ll sleep in the loft. You take the bed.”
Apparently, the bashful rogue had returned. Ainsley hoped this wasn’t a permanent condition.
Though in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a different reason behind this recent alteration in his behavior. Did he regret marrying her?
Chapter 26
“. . . people may not think you perfection already.—But hush!—not a word, if you please.”
Jane Austen, Emma
Ainsley couldn’t take another moment of silent musings in the bed, and neither could her thumbnail. All she’d been able to do for the past hour was worry about the reason Reed seemed so altered.
She could understand if the pressure of their pretend betrothal and then hasty marriage had finally overtaken him. Perhaps he had been more inclined to a lengthy betrothal instead. Perhaps he wasn’t prepared to be saddled with a wife so soon. Could he be considering an annulment?
When that startling thought took hold, Ainsley sat up. She was past the point of mulling.
Needing an answer, and refusing to wait any longer for him to make an appearance at the bottom of the ladder, she wrapped the coverlet over her shoulders and climbed up to the loft.
She caught him lying on his back with his arms folded behind his head, staring blankly at the rafters, his big body filling the small space.
“Ah-ha,” she said, startling him with a jolt. “Just as I suspected, you aren’t sleeping at all.”
He bolted upright, his expression guilty. “I might have just awoken.”
“I would have heard your breathing alter. Instead, I just felt you thinking.”
“Is that so?” He arched a brow and settled back against a makeshift bolster—one of the coarse-woven wool blankets from the carriage and another spread out beneath him.
“Yes, you emit tension in waves whenever you are puzzling over something,” she said distractedly as she stared at his long trouser-clad legs crossed at the ankle, his bare feet exposed.
She blushed at the intimacy of such a sight, noting their large and sturdy size, and how they were dusted with dark hair. Balanced on the rung, her own feet were bare, too. Her stockings and even her outer dress and fichu were drying by the fire. So were his coat, waistcoat, and cravat. Though considering that he’d seen her in her nightdress, she didn’t think it too scandalous for her to be in a worsted petticoat, stays, and chemise. And besides, she still had the coverlet.
At least . . . until she climbed up higher and the patchwork barrier slipped free.
He stared at her fixedly, his gaze scorching a path along her throat, and over her breasts as if she wore nothing at all. Her skin reacted to this, her nipples drawing taut.
Then he turned his head and scrubbed a hand over his face and shifted uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t be up here with me.”
She felt the sting of his rejection like salt in a fresh wound. “If you regret our marriage and desire an annulment, tell me at once.”
“Not at all. But if that’s what you want—”
“No,” she said quickly. “I’m just trying to understand your obvious reluctance to be near me. If it is because you find my kisses . . . awkward and . . . um . . . unpleasant, then . . .”
He expelled a rueful puff of air, a laugh that bruised her ego.
Yet he surprised her by angling toward her, his fingertips resting against her cheek. “Ainsley, if your kisses were any sweeter, softer, or more arousing you would incinerate me into a pile of ash.”
Even though his tone was grave, the pleasure of his words tunneled through her in a burst of sunshine warmth.
“Then why aren’t you kissing me?”
“I fear I could not stop once I started.”
She studied his countenance carefully. “Truly?”
“Aye.” He withdrew his touch and frowned. “And the last thing you need is to be ravaged by your brute of a husband.”
Normally those words would have given her pause. But her husband was not a brute. And frankly, the thought of being completely, thoroughly ravaged by Reed Sterling made her positively giddy. So she shimmied around his feet to the other side of the loft.
“Don’t smile at me like that, Ainsley. It only makes me want to kiss you all the more. And stop moving closer. No, don’t curl up beside me either,” he warned, his nostrils flaring on a deep breath. “Damn, but the scent of your skin drives me to madness.” His arm snaked around her, his wavering resistance vibrating in the thick ropes of muscle. “You’re not yourself.”
“Or perhaps, I’m more myself than I’ve ever been before.” She peered closely at his mismatched eyes, finding disgruntled disbelief. “To convince you that I am of sound mind, should I scold you? Wag my finger, perhaps? Remark on every one of your flaws?”
“Something of that nature,” he muttered, but there was a smile in his voice as his hands roved up and down the lengths of her bare arms, winnowing out tingles of sensation with every pass.
If she was going to let her barriers down with Reed, then she would have to tell him the truth and stop hiding behind her usual reserve.
Drawing back—albeit marginally, for she didn’t want to lose this cozy spot—she wagged her finger. “Mr. Sterling, whyever are you still dressed in your shirtsleeves? Don’t you realize that I’ve spent far too much time imagining you without them?”
He blinked, clearly shocked. She was, too. And when he didn’t respond immediately, she averted her face, feeling utterly naked.
Reaching out, he gently took hold of her chin and looked into her eyes. “Have you?”
She swallowed, certain her cheeks had gone seventeen shades of red.
His mouth curved into a slow, wicked grin. “Tell me all the naughty things you’ve been thinking about me.”
“You first,” she croaked.
“Oh, so many things. Hmm . . . where to start?” He laughed, a low roguish sound, and ran his fingers along her plait, drawing it forward, passing the ribbon-tied end across her lips and then his own. “I suppose with this. I’ve thought of you with your hair draped over your shoulder—”
“That doesn’t sound too scandalous.”
“—and what it would be like unbound, falling over me like a silk curtain, with you gazing down at me. Your bare body rising and falling over mine,” he concluded softly, painting a breathlessly risqué picture with his words.
“You have a much better imagination than I.”
“Perhaps because I’ve been thinking about it a while longer,” he said wryly, slowly wrapping the coil of her hair around his wrist.
“For how lon—”
He tugged gently, bringing her mouth to his.
Reed claimed her lips with such tender possession that she forgot all about her question. All she could think was at last, and surrender to the sublime mingling of their flesh, tingles dancing over her skin. They should have been doing this all along.
With every taste, she lost more of her inhibitions. Forgot about her reservations. Rising to meet him, her hands splayed over his chest, and suddenly the kisses were not tame at all, but hungry and searching.
He cinched his arm around her waist, lifting her higher until she was half-sprawled, one leg draped over his, her petticoat inching upward until the soft wool of his trousers grazed her bare skin. It felt so decadent, so wanton, that she gasped. Taking advantage, he stole into the heat of her mouth, sliding and curling his tongue wickedly against hers.
Such a naughty rogue, she thought, practically purring. And he was all hers.
She suckled his flesh, feeding on his deep guttural grunt of approval as his hands skimmed over her body, into every dip, every curve. He tugged gently on the coil of hair in his grasp and tilted her back. His open mouth grazed the underside of her jaw, nipping along her throat, laving the tender pulse fluttering beneath the susceptible flesh.
She would have been embarrassed by the sounds she was making at any other time. But right now, she
was lost to pleasure and unable to get her fill.
Reading her thoughts, he pulled her fully atop him. And she whimpered as her body slid over his hard contours, her hips settling perfectly onto his, and hitching sweetly. She didn’t think a kiss could feel any better, until his hand drifted down her back to the curve of her bottom.
He tilted upward at just the right angle to draw out a desperate, needy mewl. She wanted to keep him right there, forever. But he had something else in mind. His deft fingers flicked over the buttons at the back of her petticoat until she felt the garment sag.
Ainsley rose up, looking down at the hungry, glazed look in his eyes and argued, “See here. I still haven’t seen you without your shirtsleeves.”
With a speed she never would have believed unless she’d seen it herself, he pulled the linen over his head and let it sail to the floor. And . . . oh . . . my . . . heavens . . . he was magnificent. His broad chest was furred and thickly mounded, the line of his clavicle fading into thick ropes of muscle at his shoulders, and his abdomen ridged on either side of the tapered hair trailing down past his navel.
She made an inarticulate sound of appreciation an instant before he captured her lips again. He kissed her deeply as her greedy hands explored and gripped the firm, sloped contours of his shoulders, the unfathomable girth of his biceps, and the taut sinew along his back. She wanted to feel every inch of him.
He seemed to have the same notion and rolled her onto her back. He was impossibly strong and powerful, his large hand following every line, fitting every curve, and coasting down to the hem of her petticoat—
Then all at once, the air turned cold on her legs. It was hard to breathe. She stiffened, remembering that far away day in the Hampshire parlor with Nigel.
Reed pulled back, breathing hard, his eyes dark with desire. “Highness?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, swallowing down the memories, trying to ignore them. “Just kiss me again.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, the heavy thud of his heartbeat filling her palms. Then tenderly, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re scared. You had a bad memory, didn’t you?”
The Rogue to Ruin EPB Page 27