Under The Wishing Star

by Farr, Diane

  Chapter 19

  He shouldn’t have left her alone. This afternoon, in Malcolm’s arms, she had forgotten her maidenly fears. Left to her own devices in his unfamiliar bedchamber, her anxiety returned—with a vengeance.

  Natalie stared at herself in the full-length pier glass. Her new night rail drifted down her body in a cascade of nearly-transparent silk. She had never worn tiffany in her life. It felt luscious against her skin, but it made her look…a little too inviting.

  Actually, it made her look a great deal too inviting.

  She swallowed hard. Malcolm didn’t need an invitation tonight, she was certain. Perhaps she should don her old night rail, and save this one for a night when she felt more confident.

  She devoutly hoped that day would come. At the moment, she could not imagine ever feeling comfortable enough to display herself in this night rail. Not to anyone, let alone to Malcolm, whose opinion of her was the most important on earth.

  Her pulse fluttering with something like panic, she scurried to the enormous wardrobe at the side of the room and threw open its heavy doors. The wardrobe was filled with masculine attire. Ooh. She paused, fascinated. The wardrobe exhaled an alluring aroma of leather and polish and Malcolm.

  But her own clothing was nowhere to be found. Why? Surely someone would have moved her things from the guest bedchamber. She turned, frowning, and surveyed the room. Everything in sight appeared to be Malcolm’s. She remembered seeing an armoire of some sort in the small, adjoining room where she had bathed. Perhaps her things were there.

  She closed the wardrobe doors behind her and snatched up a lamp, heading for the bath room. The cupboard contained only towels, soap and sponges, but there was another door on the other side of the room. Could it be…? She walked through it and, sure enough, found herself in another bedchamber. Her combs and brushes were neatly laid out on its dressing table—and the wardrobe in this room held all her clothing.

  Well, for heaven’s sake! Why would a newly-married couple require two bedchambers? She chuckled at the self-conscious prudery of the notion. Was it an elaborate ruse for the staff’s benefit? How silly. No one would be taken in by it. She could just imagine Malcolm’s reaction if she slept here tonight.

  Then a sobering thought occurred to her. Perhaps she was expected to sleep alone. What did she know of marriage? This was no love match. Perhaps her marital duty consisted of meeting her husband in his room so he could take his pleasure, then politely withdrawing to her own quarters. It sounded cold, not to mention lonely, but that might very well be what he expected. The staff may have set up the rooms this way at Malcolm’s bidding.

  Perhaps this was the way the rooms had been set up when Catherine was his wife. Now, that was a thought to throw cold water on the most ardent of brides.

  Depressed, Natalie set down the lamp and dug through the neatly-packed drawers until she found her old, muslin night rail. At least it had been freshly laundered. She tossed it onto the bed and carefully lifted the fragile tiffany over her head.

  “What are you doing?” said Malcolm’s voice behind her.

  Natalie gasped and dropped the skirt of her night rail. It slithered back down her legs.

  “Sorry,” said Malcolm. Laughter lurked in his deep voice.

  Natalie whirled to face him. “You nearly frightened the life out of me.” Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment.

  Malcolm stood in the door she had left open behind her, leaning against the frame. He had obviously come to her fresh from bathing. His hair was still damp. She had never seen a man en deshabille before, and found the sight both alluring and scary. He looked dangerous, in her opinion. More like a jungle creature than a gentleman. A gentleman should be well-covered, neck to toe. Malcolm had dispensed with jacket and boots and cravat and stockings and ... well, nearly everything. He wore a clean linen shirt, but without a neckcloth to bind it it fell open to his waist. And although he had tucked it carelessly into the top of his breeches, with no waistcoat to bind it the shirt hung loose, exposing almost his entire chest.

  Goodness. She had never guessed that Malcolm was so well-muscled. And why did she find that so attractive? The sight of all that latent power should frighten her all the more. It did, in fact, but on some primitive level it called to her as well.

  She stared at him, speechless with confusion. She had braced herself for the well-known fact that a man was built differently, and would look different from a woman. She simply hadn’t bargained on all the little, extra ways in which that turned out to be true. And she hadn’t realized how powerfully all those little differences would affect her.

  Malcolm’s eyes traveled to the chaste, muslin night rail lying on the coverlet. His eyebrows climbed. He glanced back at Natalie, standing foolishly between the open wardrobe and the edge of the bed, wearing a night rail made of gossamer and starlight. He smiled. “Don’t tell me you were changing your night rail.”

  She felt a cowardly impulse to cross her arms protectively across her breasts. She quelled it. “Very well,” she snapped, head held high. “I won’t tell you.”

  His eyes traveled down her. She watched as his expression changed. Her pulse jumped and skittered in response to the look on his face. “I like the one you have on,” he said. His voice sounded oddly hoarse.

  Suddenly Natalie realized that she had set the lamp on the low table beside the bed. The table was behind her now. Backlit, the tiffany gown must be transparent as water. She stepped quickly back, flattening herself against the wall, and picked up the lamp. The light wavered in her shaking hand, and the shadows danced crazily. “It’s new,” she said lamely, and swallowed. “Part—part of my trousseau.”

  He didn’t speak. He did not seem to have heard her. His expression was so strange! He walked toward her, tugging the shirt out of his waistband so that when he reached her it hung off his shoulders, exposing acres of warm, bare skin. Natalie’s eyes dilated with alarm.

  Never taking his eyes from hers, he took the lamp from her and placed it back on the table. Then, without a word, he pulled her roughly against him and began kissing her.

  Merciful heavens. Everything was different. The shock of skin against skin made her gasp. She could feel the heat of him, the texture of him. She could smell his soap. Sandalwood, she thought, distracted.

  He smelled good. He felt good. But it was all happening too fast. Malcolm’s body against hers, skin on skin, was like water closing over her head when she had not yet learned to swim. She fought against the tide of unfamiliar sensations—instinctively panicking, almost as if she were drowning.

  And the lamp was still lit. He would see her. Oh, this was terrible! What if he didn’t like what he saw? She had no notion what Malcolm found desirable and what he found undesirable. She was almost certain to look different from whatever it was he had pictured. Embarrassed, she pulled him more tightly against herself. Anything was better than being stared at.

  Now that she was holding him so tightly, she became aware of a deep tremor coursing through Malcolm’s body. It was as if he trembled with the effort of holding himself in check. He was kissing her more deeply than he ever had, and yet she sensed a powerful battle going on within him as he fought to keep from ravishing her on the spot. This is lust, she thought, fascinated and terrified. She had never been an object of lust before.

  And then she realized, with deep dismay, that as Malcolm’s appetite for her increased, her own passion diminished.

  She wanted time. She wanted to sort out her emotions. She needed to think this through, compose herself. She was not yet accustomed to this strange, new intimacy. It was so odd, all this sudden touching and seeing of each other. She felt vulnerable. Exposed.

  She knew, intellectually, that her shyness of him was misplaced. It was false modesty, it was prudery, to seek to hide from one’s husband. But, she discovered, one could not instantly shuck off decades of careful adherence to propriety. Her instinct for self-preservation was sounding an alarm that would not be silenced,
revolting against this…this mauling.

  It was her own fault, she thought despairingly, struggling to hide her fear and embarrassment. She had deliberately led Malcolm to believe that she had had some experience with this sort of thing. How had he interpreted that? she wondered now. He must expect, surely, that she was a virgin. But perhaps courting couples did this sort of thing, whatever one called it, and he had wrongly assumed that the male form was not unknown to her.

  He lifted his face from hers. His breathing came in ragged gasps. He ran his hands greedily through her hair, pulling out all the pins. She heard them strike the floor in a shower of little pinging sounds. “Natalie,” he rasped, staring drunkenly at her tumbling hair. “Come to bed.”

  Fear sent her heart into her throat, where it pounded and fluttered like a trapped bird. Don’t let him know, she reminded herself desperately, and managed a weak smile. She did not trust herself to answer, but he seemed oblivious to her lack of response. He reached behind him with one hand and threw back the bedclothes in a single, impatient gesture.

  Here? He meant to do it here? She wasn’t sure why that mattered, except that it was one more detail for which she was mentally unprepared. She pointed a shaking hand to indicate the still-burning lamp. “The light…”

  “I like the light.” And with that, he tumbled her abruptly onto the sheets.

  The bed was soft and smothering. The linens were crisp and scented with rosewater. Natalie longed to dive under the covers. Instead, she forced herself to lie on her back, flushed with humiliation and trying to hide her distress. She wanted desperately to please him. She must please him. He would never love her if she didn’t please him. But how? What should she do? She had no idea. She wasn’t even sure how the male and female parts joined, although she knew that that must soon occur. And, of course, she knew that it would hurt. Every girl was told that much.

  Perhaps that part wasn’t true, she thought hopefully. It sounded just the sort of thing a girl would be told, to help keep her virtuous.

  Malcolm loomed over her. Off came his shirt, in one quick move. He tossed it on the floor. His eyes never left her. He looked like a starving man presented with a banquet. She saw him quaking with need. For half a moment her rioting thoughts quieted and her heart swelled with wonder. Malcolm. She had never been taught to think of masculinity as beautiful; why was that? His body was magnificent, in the way of some powerful animal.

  But then he was on her, covering her, and her view of him vanished. Her mind raced once more with fright. What must she do? Anything? She struggled to cooperate, to help him do whatever it was he was doing. It was all so confusing. Overwhelming. Eventually her mind completely detached and seemed to float above the bed, looking down in puzzlement.

  She did not enjoy the next few minutes. She merely endured them.

  The reality of deflowerment was not, she discovered, as painful as the horror stories would have one believe. But it was bad enough. She made no sound as Malcolm’s body plunged into hers. It seemed more of a stretching sensation than a rip, and she did not bleed as she had been led to expect. But the entire experience was awkward and uncomfortable. What made it worse was the vague sense that this bizarre act should be pleasurable. One felt it, somehow—a dim instinct that protested, resentfully, that what she was experiencing was abnormal. That things might have been different. Should have been different.

  Afterward, she slipped hastily back into her night rail and pulled up the covers with trembling hands. Malcolm sat, unmoving, on the opposite edge of the bed. His back was to her, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. The long line of his back was interesting, she thought, still with that strange detachment. She could see each vertebra and trace the powerful outline of his muscles. His body was so different from hers. She could look at him for hours.

  She watched as his breath, quieter now, rose and fell in a deep sigh. “That was not well done,” he said at last. His voice was dark with disgust.

  Natalie’s heart sank. She had been a bride for less than a day, and she had already failed her husband.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, agonized.

  His head snapped up. “You’re sorry?” He sounded astonished. He faced her then. To her dismay, his eyes were filled with self-loathing. It was an expression she thought she had driven from him forever. “Natalie, for God’s sake, you have nothing to apologize for. It is I who bungled it.”

  She blinked at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Did we—did we not do it right?”

  “Not quite, sweetheart.” He reached over to her and ran one finger across her cheek. “Not by a long chalk.”

  Was that tenderness she saw in his expression? And he had called her “sweetheart.” She held her breath, praying for a miracle.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked, his voice strained.

  She hated to tell him that he had, but the moment demanded honesty. She gave him a tiny nod. “A little,” she owned.

  His disgusted expression returned. “Then I’m a villain.” He dropped his hand from her face. “I cannot adequately apologize to you, my dear. I can only try to make it up to you in future.”

  She had no idea what he meant. She sat up, frowning. “Malcolm, I have always heard that it would hurt. Pray do not blame yourself. There was nothing you could do.”

  Soundless laughter shook him. “Actually, my innocent, there were several things I could have done. And someday very soon, you will find out what they are.” His smile was rueful, but the gleam in his eye hinted at some pleasant secret he meant to share. “There wasn’t time tonight because I was…” His smile became almost a grin. “Swept away by your charms.”

  That rather pleased her. She smiled a little. “In other words, I should have worn my old night rail after all.”

  He stretched out on his side, lying next to her. “It might have helped,” he admitted. “But probably not much.”

  He seemed comfortable in his own skin, not bothered at all by the lamplight shining on his bare body. She envied him that. She wondered if she would someday expose herself to his eyes with the same unconcern. Perhaps, she decided. But not tonight. She scooted back down under the covers, lying beside his long form. He placed an arm around her and drew her near.

  “Shall we sleep here tonight?” he murmured, his mouth close to her ear. “The fire’s been made up in the other room. Are you cold?”

  Natalie felt as if a weight had been lifted from her mind. They would sleep together. She wasn’t sure why that made her so happy, except that she loved being with him. She turned her face to smile at him. It was delightful to lie beside him like this, his head so close to hers. “I don’t think I need the fire,” she told him softly.

  “Nor do I.” He kissed her again, a slow and languid kiss. The kiss was intimate and tender rather than urgent. She relaxed, loving it. She loved being held like this, feeling him all along the length of her, and being kissed as if he had all night in which to do it.

  Perversely, this unheated, unhurried kiss sent fire rushing through her veins in a way his overwhelming passion earlier had not. She became newly aware of body parts she had never noticed before…possibly because Malcolm had just introduced them to her. At any rate, even in their current battered state, her private parts seemed to awaken at his kiss and hum with life. It was most peculiar, but not unpleasant.

  She felt oddly disappointed when Malcolm fell asleep.

  She put out the light and lay beside him for a while, wide awake, trying to accustom herself to sharing a bed with another person. And not just any person: Malcolm. It wasn’t easy, despite the fact that it was something she had longed for. He was large and male and totally nude. Every time she began to drift off to sleep, her awareness of him would jolt her awake again, disoriented and flustered.

  And then, finally, just as she had finally fallen asleep—or as nearly asleep as made no odds—something else jarred her awake. Out of nowhere, an idea hit her. An almost-forgotten puzzle her mind had been working
on fell into place. Natalie’s eyes flew open. She almost gasped aloud.

  Of course! Of course.

  She knew what was wrong with Sarah.

  Chapter 20

  Malcolm rolled lazily over and reached for his wife. The bed beside him was empty. Not only that, the sheets were cold. The place beside him must have been empty for a while.

  He opened his eyes and blinked groggily at the silent room. Bright sunshine slanted through a narrow opening between the carelessly-closed draperies. Morning had definitely arrived.

  He yawned, stretched, and lay back down, hands clasped behind his head. He tried not to think about last night’s shameful failure, but the memory would not be banished. Remorse and embarrassment swept through him, two damnably uncomfortable emotions. Bloody hell. He’d behaved like a perfect moonling. Worse: he’d behaved like a lout. He’d hurt her. A man of his age and experience ought to have known better.

  Never mind. When Natalie came back to bed, he would show her all the tender attention he had failed to give her last night.

  He had meant to woo her slowly. He had intended to see to her pleasure before taking his own. If she hadn’t looked so damnably alluring in that wisp of a night rail…but, no. No excuses. The fault was his, and his alone.

  Besides, he had better not remember just now the way she had looked in that night rail. He might lose control yet again.

  Where the devil was Natalie?

  He gradually realized that she was not, in fact, coming back to bed. He rose and dressed, trying not to feel uneasy. Doubtless there was nothing stealthy about her departure. She had simply awakened early and thought it would be inconsiderate to disturb him. She was probably waiting for him downstairs.

  But she was not. The servants informed him that she had departed early, with Sarah. Even Mrs. Bigalow did not know where they had gone.

  There was something deuced unsettling about this. Malcolm sat down to a morose and solitary breakfast. Had his clumsy lovemaking last night given her a disgust of him? He winced as the memories intruded again. He had taken her the way a stallion takes a mare. His desire for her had overwhelmed him with its unexpected intensity; he had never felt anything like it. He had run mad when he saw her in that thing… and when he held her, his nostrils had filled with the scent of her, honey and jasmine and everything he ever wanted…and then when her hair tumbled down…thunder and turf! That blasted, maddening hair of hers. It had simply robbed him of all rational thought. Even in the clear light of day, remembering that moment, Malcolm had to shake his head to clear it.