Provocative in Pearls

by Madeline Hunter

He lifted her hand and kissed it. First the back, then the palm. Seductive, soft kisses stunned her arm. Sweet kisses, full of ardor and danger, so confident in their ability to mesmerize. On her pulse now, kisses of dark warmth that forced her blood to sing.

  Closer now. Too close. His body not connecting to hers, but creating thrills as if it did. His palms now, warm and dry and too appealing in their masculine firmness, cupping her head and holding her, and tilting it so he could look at her.

  She knew then, as she looked at him and the moonlight revealed his severe passion. She knew this would not be like the kisses of the past, and that all hope of freedom would end tonight.

  She tried to conjure up memories of Michael, so she might use guilt as a shield. His face came as a mere phantom, and the kisses as childish, giggling things. She scrambled to find other sanctuaries, to stop him with words or actions. But he kissed her while her mind ran, and he ensured no plan emerged.

  A kiss designed to dazzle, to ensnare, to overwhelm. A kiss that she could not escape. She had no choice except to submit to the ravishment of her mouth, first sweet, then profound, then deep and so possessive she could not breathe.

  “The servants,” she said on a gasp when he ended it, finally, leaving her limp. Her first words and rebellion and she barely managed either.

  “They are long gone. Far away, above or below. They know better than to linger in view or in hearing.” He kissed her again, softly, so softly that she wondered if she had misunderstood his intentions. Then he embraced her, and she knew she had not.

  So hard to think, when your mind was forgetting everything except pleasure. Her consciousness savored the titillations to her body, to the exclusion of more rational ideas.

  “I do not want . . .” The protest barely made it out, and died as a caress skimmed her breast and her body cried with delight.

  “You do not want this?” he asked, while his mouth pressed warmth and lures to her neck and ears and shoulder. His hand cupped her breast, and caressed again. “Are you sure? Or are you lying to yourself again? There has been too much of that today, don’t you think?”

  His hand did wicked things. Delicious things. She could barely stand because of the way her strength dissolved. Pleasure astonished again and again, robbing her of will and thought and protest. She did not want this, but her body did, and he ensured it spoke louder in this debate.

  She could not deny it. She did not know how to. Desire shouted down her small protest. He made sure it did. But he had heard it anyway, she knew. He had heard and understood but was making sure she would not protest again.

  She tried once more to form the words, to escape the act that would bind her forever. Only instead her mind capitulated and acknowledged that there was no winning, no matter what the words, not now and not later. Her plan had been hopeless and she would never break this bond. She should allow the pleasure to have its way and revel in being so alive it seemed unearthly.

  He claimed her mouth in a determined, dominating kiss and bound her closer in an encompassing embrace. She lost her weak grip on the lifeline to her intentions. She floated away on the sea of sensations, into a seductive mist.

  No longer lying. No longer pretending. Hungry now, wanting more, not less. The touch on her breast no longer satisfied, but maddened her. The closeness no longer felt close enough. She melted into him, sharing breaths and scents and merging senses. He was in the mist too now; then he was the mist itself, surrounding her, entering her.

  He sat her on the terrace’s low wall and showered fevered kisses while his hands plucked at her back. She thrilled as the dress loosened. Low and deep, a cry pulsed and teased when he lowered the bodice and chemise and exposed her. She gazed down at herself, at her breasts rising full in the moonlight below the lustrous pearls, their dark tips so hard and sensitive.

  Begging now, waiting, wanting. Watching his fingertips approach, breathless with anticipation. Then torture, sweet torture, and a building, excruciating need filling her, allowing no other thought except a crazed physical insistence for more and more and more.

  His dark head dipped and his tongue laved and she held his head to her so he would never stop, so the sensations would consume her. His caress moved to her legs, smoothing over hose and garter and higher to flesh. She parted her legs so he could, so the moist warmth there would be relieved, so the discomfort might abate. That caress, so firm and sure, so claiming and determined, rose higher yet, until it touched the discomfort itself and sent shocks of pleasure through her until she was spinning, spinning beyond hope in the madness.

  Floating now, strong arms bearing her away. The terrace gone and the walls gone but the night and stars remained. Scents of fuchsias and pansies all around and moist, velvety petals on the skin of her back and arms and breasts.

  He stripped off her gown, then her chemise. She looked down at her nakedness amid the flowers, her skin and hose and pearls alight in the dark. He knelt beside her, casting off coats, pulling off cravat, looking at her, those sapphire eyes absorbing her, commanding her, mesmerizing her. She waited, waited, her body throbbing and hungry for that crying pleasure again.

  He gave it to her. He knew how. Oh, yes, too well he knew how. He joined her there in the flowers and made her cry for real, his kisses and tongue and hands promising ecstasy. She cried out, unable to contain the shocks of pleasure. She clung to him and cried and cried when he played at that hot center between her legs and tantalized her with touches designed to devastate.

  He controlled the pleasure and desire and she had no say, no choices now. Her body could deny itself nothing and rejoiced when he came above her, even though she startled at being so helpless beneath his strength. He spread her legs and kept her crying again and again with those caresses and kisses until he pressed into her, filling her slowly but inexorably, forcing their bodies to join. The mist of intimacy turned heavy and dark and finally rained, drenching her soul.

  Her body still hungered and wanted and desired, even as tearing pain and shock woke her from the daze. She opened her eyes to his dark form over her. Taut and hard and tense with control, he moved in her and she felt his own madness straining, his own desire aching for more and more and forever and fulfillment.

  It all came hard. Hard enough to hurt badly. Hard enough to evoke renewed sensations of pleasure in her too. She submitted to a crescendo of power and tension that strained and strained, then snapped. After that there was suddenly silence and peace and the stars above and blooms below, and his deep breaths marking the pulse of time inside her and between them.

  “We must go.” His voice, quiet and calm. Too close. Too real.

  “You go. I do not want to yet.” She had been watching the stars and smelling the blooms and finding herself again. The latter was taking some doing. He had just made sure, after all, that she could never totally find her old self again.

  It is time for this marriage to begin in truth. He had made sure of that too. She had allowed it. She had not fought or protested much. Not nearly enough. She may have been unwilling when she wed, but she could not claim she was unwilling tonight. He had known she did not want this, but he had seduced her into wanting it anyway.

  She had betrayed more than herself tonight. Also her father and her home and the people who mattered in her life. The implications of this impulsive act waited right outside the daze still making her dreamy and listless.

  She would have to face the fullness of her defeat soon. Tomorrow, or even sooner. She would never have most of the life she had wanted now. She wondered if she would be able to have any of it at all.

  He stood, and lifted his coats. His shirt glowed and his form loomed above her. “It is damp, and unhealthy to lie thus. Come now.” He extended his hand to her.

  She grasped her garments to her body and stood. Her nakedness seemed foolish and scandalous. She struggled to get her arms in the chemise and dress without exposing herself to his gaze again.

  He turned her and fixed the dress. Then he took her hand
and led her through the garden and back to the terrace. She glanced at the windows and listened to the silence quake. Had the servants truly gone away, above and below? No doubt all guessed what had happened even if they had. She had been gone for two years, after all. Their master would be expecting his due.

  She was glad that he did not speak while they walked up to their apartments. There was certainly nothing she had to say. However, by the time they arrived at her doors, a little anger had seeped into her because some of the shock had finally passed.

  He bent to kiss her cheek and she let him.

  “I think that you have been less than honorable tonight,” she said, so he would not think that she did not understand what had happened, and why.

  “Blame it on the pearls. They appeared so lovely above your naked breasts, Verity. You looked dangerously provocative, and I quite lost my good sense.”

  He kissed her again, then walked toward his own doors. She opened hers and slipped inside.

  Blame it on the pearls. What nonsense.

  Hawkeswell slept late and woke blissfully contented. He called for a bath, idled in the water until it cooled, dressed for the country, and ate breakfast while he quizzed the attending footman about county doings. All the while he contemplated what to say to Verity when he saw her.

  He did not think apologies were necessary. She was his wife after all. However, he had not been as careful with her as he had intended. Odd, that.

  Normally in taking pleasure he managed the requisite control to ensure he gave it as well. Damned if he knew if he had last night, though. The details were lost within memories of a rage of desire and an unearthly release.

  Unfortunately, he suspected that the intensity of his experience indicated he had not been very careful at all. He had ravished her, and while he had little experience with innocents, he did know that ravishing was not the way to handle them.

  When noon had long passed, he wandered up to Verity’s apartment. He decided this might be a good day to knock. He waited for her response with less contentment than he had known on waking. More of the details were emerging in his memory now. Enough to cause him to suspect that a very icy wind might blow out once the door opened.

  She did not come at all. Instead a servant did, a young blond girl who carried last night’s dress and a needle.

  “My lady is not here, sir. She was gone before I ever came to her.”

  Verity had not been down below this morning either, however. A shocking certainty jolted him. She had run away again. He had tried to force defeat on her. Worse, the seduction had been clumsy at the end, and he had hurt her. Now she had announced by bolting that she would never give up.

  Fighting the rise of his temper along with a sickening worry, he strode down and called for Krippin and Mrs. Bradley. He paced while he waited, and planned the letter that he would send to Summerhays and the much firmer one he would write to Daphne Joyes. Only when Krippin and Bradley hurried into the library did he realize that he had been yelling for them.

  “I want to know everything regarding my wife’s movements this morning. Quiz the servants; talk to the grooms. Do whatever you can to discern where she has gone.”

  Krippin glanced at Mrs. Bradley. Mrs. Bradley cowered.

  “My lord,” Krippin ventured. “Lady Hawkeswell woke early, came down, asked for some tea, and drank it in the morning room. She then let herself out. She is in the garden now. I just saw her. I believe that she has been there the entire time.”

  The garden. Of course.

  Feeling a fool, and more relieved than he liked, Hawkeswell strode out to the terrace.

  He spied her at the back, where the wilderness tried to reclaim yet more ground. She wore the blue muslin and bonnet that he had first seen in Cumberworth. She bent and rose, bent and rose, while he watched.

  He went down and walked toward her. The old gardener was trimming some boxwood near the terrace, right beside a bed whose center section of flowers had been flattened. Anyone looking at those crushed plants would guess what had happened there. Hawkeswell was sure that he saw the distinct impressions of a woman’s head, shoulders, and hips.

  “This bed should be cut back, Saunders.”

  Saunders stopped his clipping and bowed. “I set about that this morning, milord, but milady came out and saw me and forbade it. You cut a flower and it does no harm, but to cut a whole plant down at this time of year can kill it, she said.”

  “Is that true?”

  Saunders nodded. “She said the poor plants should not suffer because of some fool’s carelessness.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  Saunders flushed. “I can’t remember. My memory is not what it used to be, milord.”

  Hawkeswell strolled down the path until he reached Verity. She bent and rose once more, and threw a plant into a bucket by her side.

  They faced each other across the derelict plot of garden. Some flowers grew here amid the wilder greens, lilac ones with rough leaves and many petals, like small purple daisies.

  “Have you decided to restore this section?” he asked.

  “I think so.” She returned to her work.

  “Saunders said that you would not permit him to cut back those flowers we ruined last night.”

  “Please do not presume to think it was on account of sentimentality.”

  “I did not think that.”

  “There is no reason to kill the plants. The servants all know what happened anyway. Mrs. Bradley was far too solicitous about my health when I came down. She kept asking how I fared this morning, and if I needed anything.” She pulled out another weed. “They were all far away, above or below, indeed. You have your witnesses, as you wanted, I think.”

  “I am sure that they did not see or hear us, Verity. They just assume. It was two years, after all.”

  “No doubt they felt bad that I forced you to live like a monk for so long. Down here in Surrey, they did not know that you hardly abstained all that time. They do not read the London scandal sheets and do not know about all your lovers.”

  He almost said that a lover was not a wife. That, he was learning, they were very different in many ways. Common sense prevailed and he did not venture there.

  He smiled. “What else did you say to the gardener? He claimed he could not remember, but he was only being discreet.”

  She pulled off one glove to have a clean hand. She used it to dab a handkerchief at the beads of sweat forming at the base of her neck like tiny pearls. “I said the evidence of the night was so plain that perhaps we should set out a sign and be done with it. A memorial plaque. Here did Lady Hawkeswell lieyeth while her lord taketh her the first time.”

  He could not tell if she was angry, or teasing.

  “And what did you say when Mrs. Bradley proved too kind, and asked how you fared, Verity?”

  “I told her that I had difficulty walking this morning at first, but that it was passing.”

  “You did not really say these things.” The notion left him aghast. “Did you?”

  She swung another clump of plant and root into her bucket while she eyed him with a twinkle in her eye, too satisfied with his reaction. “My people are bawdier than yours, Lord Hawkeswell. But no, I did not really say them.”

  At least she was not too angry to make little jokes.

  She continued her weeding. Silence reigned. Perhaps some apologies were in order after all.

  “It was not my intention to hurt you, Verity. If I did—”

  “I know exactly what your intentions were, my lord. The good and the bad.”

  And the less said about that, the better, he could see. He was not so stupid as to respond.

  “As for any hurt, I was warned to expect it. I am indeed walking fine today. I thank you for your concern.”

  She bent and twined another tall stem around her arm and yanked. She shook off the dirt and tossed the weed toward her bucket.

  “What do you plan to grow in this bit of garden?” he asked.
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  “Bulbs. I will plant them in the autumn for next spring.”

  “The gardener can do this preparation.”

  “He is too old. It is hard work.”

  “We will be hiring younger ones before autumn.”

  “I want to do it myself. It is good to have a purpose.”

  He removed his coats and draped them onto the ground. She froze at the movement. Half-bent, glove wrapped with a vine, she watched him warily.

  He had done the same thing last night, of course, right before he ravished her on the ground. “Lady Hawkeswell need not be so cautious. Her lord is not planning to taketh her again while she lieyeth in the garden today.” He surveyed the overgrown bed while he rolled up his sleeves. “Do you want all of this out of here? This little tree too?”

  “Yes, all of it should go. We must start afresh.”

  He bent beside her, grabbed an errant sapling, and pulled.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For three days the curious neighbors stayed away. On the fourth day they began calling. Carriages came and went in the afternoons. Ladies examined her and gentlemen smiled indulgently. Eyes gleamed with more curiosity than mouths dared express.

  Verity learned to garden in early morning, then wash and dress for their arrival. She sometimes pored over her stack of newspaper cuttings, and reorganized them by the dates of events instead of dates of publication. She also wrote letters while she waited, to Audrianna in Essex and to her dear friends at The Rarest Blooms.

  She received mail as well. Daphne wrote to tell her that Katherine had arrived safely, and still visited with them. She went on to describe how four Mayfair households had asked to contract privately for flowers and potted plants. Audrianna also wrote, to report that she would return to London whenever Verity did.

  No letters came from the north, however. Audrianna forwarded nothing at all. Verity had hoped that the vicar would at least let her know that her own letter had been received and read to Katy. She wrote to Mr. Travis, but he never responded to her request that he describe the state of things at the ironworks either. She was left to worry that her own letters had not made it to their destinations.