Daniel sat up to frown his impatience with this unwelcome interruption to seducing his wife. “We have plenty of time before we need return in order to change for dinner, Alice.”
“I wish to take a bath first, my lord,” she retorted, looking wholly innocent in her green gown and her dark hair curling enticingly against her temples and nape.
Except Daniel did not believe Alice to be so innocent that she had not known exactly what had been about to happen between them. And avoided having it do so. He bit back his frustration with that evasion as he stood up to look down at her.
In some ways—in a lot of ways!—Daniel’s life in London had been so much simpler than here in the country, where he should have found only rest and relaxation but instead found neither.
In London he knew how he was expected to behave, felt at ease with his role as a rake and a gambler.
Having brought Alice to Wycliffe Hall he was aware that she expected more of him. That her actions and words demanded more of him. That she was slowly, insidiously, involving him in the running of the estate, and in the lives of the people who worked for him. That she had made him aware of his responsibility to such things as taking his seat in the House in the autumn. That earlier he had been contemplating taking on the managing of Wycliffe Hall and the estate himself.
It had to stop, Daniel realized. Now. Before he became everything that Alice wished him to be and he found himself in love with her into the bargain.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alice frowned at her husband as he began to fold the blanket, disappointed that he did not make further protest at leaving. “I could perhaps be persuaded into remaining here a little longer, my lord…?” she once again attempted to tease.
This time Daniel did not respond to that teasing, his expression coldly distant. “I have several matters I need to deal with before departing for London.”
Alice’s eyes widened; Daniel had made no mention before this of the two of them going to London. “I am not packed, my lord. You did not tell me we would be leaving today—”
“That is because we are not leaving, Alice,” he bit out dismissively, his eyes now as cold and bleak as a winter sky. “Your place is on the estate. I, however, am sorely in need of more sophisticated entertainment than I can possibly hope to find here in the country.”
More sophisticated entertainment than her, Alice easily guessed as she felt the heat of sudden tears prick her eyes. She had failed. Once Daniel returned to London—to the arms of Lady Teresa Benbow, perhaps—it could be weeks, perhaps months, until he returned to Wycliffe Hall. Until Alice had a chance to demonstrate the love she now felt for him. To have Daniel come to love her in the same way.
Her mouth firmed determinedly. “I wish to come with you—”
“You may wish all you please, Alice,” Daniel rasped harshly, at once feeling guilty when he saw tears glistening in her pained eyes. “I have spent a week in the country with my wife, and now it is time for me to shake the grass from my clothes and the ink from my fingers and return to the life I prefer!”
Alice felt each of his words flay her tender heart. The heart that belonged completely to Daniel. That would always belong to him. But which he now showed by word and deed that he had absolutely no use for.
Not so, her anguished heart cried. Daniel did care something for her, otherwise she did not believe he would have felt the need to act in the way that he had over her concern for her brother’s dilemma with Lady Constance.
Alice straightened, feeling even more determined, her shoulders back proudly, her gaze refusing to drop from Daniel’s as he continued to look at her with chilling intensity. “I will miss you if you leave, my lord.”
He looked startled. “What did you say, Alice?”
“I will miss you, Daniel.” This time a wistful smile accompanied her claim.
That smile, as much as her words, washed over Daniel like a healing balm. For it was a smile that Daniel found he craved. A smile that Daniel suddenly realized he needed as much as the air that he breathed…
That knowledge hit him with the force of a blow. Robbing him of breath as he could only stand and stare at the beautiful young woman who had rendered this change in him.
Alice.
Beautiful Alice. Lovely Alice. Compassionate Alice. Magnificent Alice.
Dear God, why had Daniel not realized his feelings for her before now?
He gave a dazed shake of his head. “I have always hated it here, Alice—”
“Surely not always, Daniel,” she instantly protested. “As a young child—”
“As a very young child I lived in ignorance of the unhappy undercurrents within my father’s household.” His expression was bleak. “It was only as I grew older that I became aware of my father’s complete disregard for my mother’s feelings for him, and consequently my mother’s deep unhappiness.” He sighed heavily. “I was sent away to school at the age of eleven, so it was easier for me then to ignore or simply forget about my mother’s misery. When I returned home for the holidays, she always made an effort not to let me see how unhappy she was.”
“She was your mother and she loved you deeply.”
“As I loved her.” Daniel nodded. “But my love was not enough, it did not prevent her from killing herself!”
Alice gasped her shock at his announcement. “But your mother died of pneumonia…”
A nerve pulsed in his clenched jaw. “Which she contracted after throwing herself in the lake with the intention of drowning herself.”
Alice gave a bewildered blink. “But there is no lake at Wycliffe Hall…”
“Not anymore,” Daniel acknowledged. “As soon as I became the earl of Stanford I had the lake drained and filled in, removing any sign it had ever existed.”
No one had told Alice of Diana’s last desperate act. Perhaps because no one on the estate knew of it. Perhaps the sixth earl, Daniel’s father, had kept that, at least, from becoming public knowledge. But not, unfortunately, from his son.
She hung her head. “It is no wonder that you hate it here.”
“But that is the point I am trying to make, Alice.” Daniel felt the heaviness lift from his heart as he looked at her. So tiny. So young. So monumentally important to his own happiness. “Alice?” He reached out and placed his hand beneath her chin, smiling down at her as he lifted her face so that he could look into the depths of her eyes. “I no longer hate it here. I meant it earlier when I said I approve of the changes you have brought to Wycliffe Hall. I—Alice, I accede to your condition unequivocably.”
She frowned her confusion. “I do not understand…”
“You wished to be wooed and won, Alice,” Daniel huskily reminded her of her request on the eve of their wedding. “It is my wish, above all things, that I be allowed to woo, and hopefully win you.”
Alice stared up at her husband blankly for several seconds, too stunned to fully comprehend the import of his words. Daniel wished to woo and win her…?
“I love you, Alice!” Daniel spoke fiercely when he received no response to his request. “I want—I wish for you to allow me—to give me the opportunity—to win your love!”
Daniel loved her?
It could not be true! He—“But you were returning to Lady Benbow in London,” she accused.
His expression was bleak. “It pains me that you should even have thought that. Whatever else I am, Alice, whatever I have become these last ten years, it was never my intention to take a mistress once I married. I would never put any wife of mine—but most especially you—through the pain and humiliation of such an act.” Daniel gave a determined shake of his head. “No, my love, by returning to London I was running away. From you. From loving you. I have never wanted to fall in love, Alice. Never wanted to leave myself open to the pain of rejection that my mother endured all her short life—”
“I would never reject you, Daniel,” Alice cut in fiercely.
“No, you are far too tenderhearted to ever hurt anyone in the way th
at my father hurt my mother,” he agreed. “By trying to protect my own heart, Alice, I have been treating you with the same disregard my father showed to my mother—”
“Never!” Alice avowed firmly. “You are not your father, Daniel.
You will never be like him.” She reached out to clasp his arms.
“Can you not see, you have too much goodness and compassion inside you ever to be like him? Daniel, you are—you are already the man that I love,” she breathed heavily. “The man I will always love.”
Daniel stared down at her searchingly, wonderingly. Could it really be true? Did Alice truly love him?
Once again she bathed him in the glow of her smile. “Why do you suppose that I wished for you to ‘woo and win’ me on the eve of our wedding if I was not half in love with you already?” she chided. “A love that is now so deep that you mean everything to me…”
“Alice…?” Daniel felt as if his heart was soaring. As if he was finally free of the chains of the past that had held him loveless and alone for so long.
Alice stepped back, smiling at him over her shoulder as she presented her back to him. “Unbutton my gown, please, Daniel,” she invited. “Make love to me fully. Here. Now. As I have so longed—ached!—for you to do.”
His hands shook as he dealt with the tiny buttons down the back of her gown. “Alice, are you sure…? I do not want your first time to be—” Daniel broke off abruptly, rendered speechless as his wife slipped off her gown and allowed it to drop onto the grass at her feet, her chemise following seconds later, leaving Alice standing completely naked in the dappled sunlight.
Her shoulders were slender and creamy, her breasts as firm and tempting as he remembered, her waist narrow, hips full and generous, her legs slender and silky, her feet delicately tiny.
Her gaze, that loving gaze, held Daniel’s as she stepped forward to slip his jacket from his shoulders and down his arms, his cravat, waistcoat and shirt following next. Then Daniel sat down upon the grass to remove his boots and breeches, his eyes never leaving Alice as she once more spread the blanket on the grass before lying down upon it.
Daniel quickly joined her, kissing her deeply, fiercely, taking all and everything that she had to give him.
“You are so beautiful, Daniel,” Alice murmured appreciatively some time later as she ran her hands over his naked back and torso. “I have dreamed of us being together like this again since our wedding night,” Alice encouraged achingly as Daniel began to make love to her in every sense of the word.
Daniel took his time to enjoy, to worship, every delectable inch of her, starting with her toes, which he kissed, one by one, before slowly traveling the length of her calf and then up to her thighs.
“Oh, yes, Daniel!” Alice’s legs parted invitingly. “Please, yes!”
“It will increase your pleasure if you watch me, Alice,” Daniel whispered as he slowly lowered his head to lick against the little pink nub her parted thighs had bared.
“I am not sure I will survive an increase in my pleasure,” Alice gasped shakily as she raised herself onto her elbows to look down at her husband.
Daniel’s tongue moved against her rhythmically, creating an ache so deep that Alice cried out with her need.
“Cup your breasts for me, my love,” Daniel urged throatily. “Yes,” he groaned as she sat up to obey him, her breasts feeling firm and heavy in her hands. “Now touch yourself—”
“My lord…?” she gasped, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Try it, Alice,” he murmured. “You will see and feel—Yes, just like that,” he groaned as Alice ran light fingertips across her own nipples, the caress causing her to gasp out loud as pleasure surged powerfully between her thighs, Daniel’s gaze riveted on the increasing boldness of her movements as he now moved his fingers so pleasurably inside her.
The climax, when it came, was so much more than Alice had ever known existed, so intensely, agonizingly pleasurable that she never wanted it to stop, her hands leaving her breasts to become entangled in the thick blondness of Daniel’s hair as she held him to her.
Alice moved up on her knees. “Now you—”
“Not this time, my love,” Daniel instructed as he grasped her hand, knowing his control was too finely balanced to stand more than seconds of that hot, delicious mouth on his arousal before he exploded. “I want to be inside you, Alice,” he groaned. “I want that so much!”
Her eyes glowed with love. “I want that too, my love.”
“I am afraid of hurting you—”
“Nothing you do could ever hurt me, Daniel,” she assured him.
Alice’s blind faith in him, the love she showed him so unreservedly, made Daniel’s own heart contract in his chest. To love, and be loved, by this beautiful woman was more than he had ever hoped, or dreamed of.
“You will be in control this time, Alice,” he told her as he lay back upon the blanket and placed her above him, a leg on either side of his thighs, Daniel moaning as the throb of his arousal brushed against her thighs. “You must be the one to take me inside you, Alice,” he encouraged gruffly, his jaw clenched as he fought to maintain his own control. “Slowly, so that I do not hurt you.” His arms moved about her fiercely as he pulled her down to once more capture her mouth with his, drinking of her deeply before, just as suddenly, releasing her. “Now. Take me now, Alice!”
Alice moved to guide him inside her aching sheath, one slow inch at a time, her gaze seeking Daniel’s frustratedly as he touched the barrier of her virginity. “I want all of you,” she demanded.
He chuckled softly at her impatience. “Then take all of me, my love,” he invited. “Quickly now, so that we do not prolong your discomfort—Aah!” Daniel was silenced as Alice moved her thighs sharply downward and took him fully inside her.
Daniel was so big, the part of him inside her so engorged that he filled her totally, seeming to touch the very heart of her as he held her hips and began to stroke slowly inside her.
Alice felt herself blossom, widen to accommodate those thrusts, placing her hands upon Daniel’s shoulders as she moved to the same rhythm, their gazes locked.
“Give me your breasts, Alice,” Daniel groaned. “I need to taste them. To kiss them.”
She bent forward to offer him what he wanted, her breath catching in her throat as he drew one nipple into the heat of his mouth and sucked fiercely, desperately, drawing her deeper and deeper into that heat, Alice crying out as the ripples of her release instantly began to claim her.
“My love!” Daniel said hoarsely, no longer able to hold back the desperate clamoring for his own release as he began to thrust faster, more deeply inside her, the ripples of Alice’s climax enough to drive him over the edge of control as long, shuddering waves of pleasure threatened to rip the very heart from his body. And into Alice’s safekeeping.
“How I love you, Daniel!” Alice cried out her ecstasy.
“I love you, Alice!”
Alice felt complete and fulfilled when she lay down upon his chest some minutes later. “We have wooed and won each other, Daniel,” she murmured happily.
Daniel knew, had absolutely no doubt, that was exactly what they had done. Knew that it would always be this way between himself and his beloved Alice.
That there was no more wonderful feeling than to love and be loved in return…
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Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and forty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon®. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5275-6
Convenient Wife, Pleasured Lady
Copyright © 2010 by Carole Mortimer
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