However, it was his eyes that drew her in as he closed and locked the door behind him. There was warmth in his expression as he let his gaze roam slowly down her body.
“You are quite fetching, wife,” he said softly, and stepped away from the door toward her. “I like your hair unbound. It resembles fire.”
Rose had never seen him without coat or cravat, dressed so casually, and she enjoyed the difference. The attire gave him a rakish bent. “I thank you, sir.” She tugged at a lock. “I seldom let it down, as it can distract men.”
“I can see why.” Thomas reached to touch her hair and her heart beat faster. “You could stand on the street and cause coaches to collide or men to declare war with one another. It is best you keep it up unless we are alone together.”
Rose smiled at his jest. “Your mother would not like to see me walking about with my hair tumbling to my waist. It would confirm her suspicion that I am Gypsy.”
Thomas looked displeased. “Do not let her barbs prick you. She has already ruined the lives of my sisters. They cannot turn around without asking permission first.”
“She is a formidable force,” Rose admitted.
He nodded. “Please tell me that you have not been cowed after one day spent with her. I thought my spirited wife would be the one opponent who could stand up to her ill humor and come out of the encounters unscathed.”
She reached out to touch his shirt. “I am only just finding my place here. Once I’ve been established as your wife, I will be better armed for battle.”
His chuckle filled the room. “That’s the spirit, love. Now, no more talk of my mother. We have a wedding night to enjoy.”
Rose watched as Thomas drew his shirt over his head and dropped it at their feet. Her breath caught. Though she’d heard men often padded their coats to add bulk to their skinny frames, Thomas needed no such measures. Broad-shouldered, his muscled body tapered down to a firm chest and rippling stomach.
“Goodness,” she breathed. No shrunken old man was he. Her body tingled beneath her nightdress.
“I apologize if my scrawny frame displeases you. I shall have to spend more time boxing at the gentlemen’s clubs to build up my muscles.”
“Oh, no, you are perfect,” she said, before realizing he was teasing her. Clearly, he recognized her attraction to him and it amused him. She frowned. “You are a cad. You know my experience was limited to a very old man. If I ogle your manly perfection, you should not poke fun at my expense.”
He put her hands on her hips. “Perhaps you should have chosen a virginal wife,” she continued. “She would not have anything to compare.”
A moment passed as he held her gaze. “I could have chosen a wife of impeccable breeding and innocence, but found the women of my acquaintance dull. Who would have thought I’d find my ideal wife at a courtesan school.”
Under his soft expression and sweet words, Rose was rendered speechless. But he was not finished.
“I am pleased you find me perfect, as I am completely besotted with you, darling wife.” He reached for her hand and pulled her to him. “I have been waiting for weeks for this night and plan to spend the evening exploring your lovely body.”
He leaned to brush his lips over hers and the tension from her trying day settled. When he stepped back, she froze in surprise as her nightdress slid down her body to pool at her feet. “Oh.”
“Better,” he said, and kissed her again, passion filling her bones and causing a pulsing between her legs. She was in awe of the wonder of this new and heady sensation.
Rose leaned against him, her nipples pressing against his warm skin. She felt his erection low against her belly and its hardness took her aback. His youthful vigor had offered her several surprises already and she wondered what else she’d discover once he took her to bed.
Thomas dipped and swung her into his arms. He took the few steps to the wide bed and laid her down on the colorful patterned quilt. She watched as he tugged off his boots and slid his breeches down hard-muscled legs. When the disrobing was complete, he came to her, sliding up and over her bare body.
His sizable erection was steely hard between them. She swallowed deeply, unsure whether her body would accept him.
“Thomas, I—”
“Lie back, darling, and let me love you.” Before she could respond, he was nibbling his way down her body. When he took a nipple into his mouth, she gasped while his hand caressed the other breast. She moaned as he claimed the other nipple, unsure of how to react to his attention.
This was certainly different from pushing up her nightgown for a quick toss. He seemed to find her body fascinating, and she had no complaints.
His hand moved lower to tickle the curls between her legs and Rose stiffened. She’d never been touched so intimately. The duke had never bothered with seduction beyond expecting her to brace herself for entry.
When Thomas eased a finger between the folds, she held her breath. When he touched the bud, she cried out.
“You enjoy that.” He slowly caressed her there until she was certain she would expire from pleasure. She pressed against his hand until her body shuddered and she fell back on the bed.
It took several breaths before she found the strength to open her eyes. He grinned. “I suspect by your innocent reaction to my play that your previous encounters were less than satisfactory?”
She nodded.
“Then it will be my pleasure to teach you new experiences.” He pushed up and over her, easing her legs open. He pressed his erection against her body. “First, we shall make our marriage unbreakable.”
Rose tensed as he eased inside her with a groan. Despite her previous concern, her body adjusted to his entry. She was familiar with this part of the bedding and lay back to wait for him to finish.
Thomas rocked against her as she stared up at the ceiling and moaned a few times to show she’d not fallen asleep. He paused. “Am I hurting you, love?”
She shook her head. She wanted very much to please him.
Slowly he began moving again and she emitted a few soft, encouraging sighs. The bedding was unexpectedly pleasurable. He nuzzled her neck and nipped her ear. Tingles raced over her skin where he kissed and caressed her pliant body. Confusion welled in her mind. She wanted to express her desire but did not want to appear wanton and disappoint Thomas. Everyone knew that wives were not expected to find pleasure in the bedroom. They were meant to please their men.
The last thing she wanted was to be anything other than a perfect wife.
Ignoring the response of her body to his touches, she focused on a cobweb fluttering in the corner of the ceiling and waited for him to finish.
It didn’t take long for him to find his release, and less time to roll off her. He stared up, expelling a deep breath.
“That was wonderful,” she said absently as she pulled the sheet up over her bare breasts.
She felt him stiffen.
“Rose, please refrain from hollow comments.” He sat up, looking noticeably hurt. “I understand that you have never found true pleasure in couplings, until tonight, and that your experiences have been with a man old enough to be your grandfather. But I will not have my wife pretending to find pleasure in our bed that she does not feel.”
“Thomas, I—” He climbed off the mattress and quickly donned his breeches and shirt. “I’d rather have you be honest than to lie there, counting the cracks in the ceiling and waiting for me to finish. .”
With that, he left her.
Rose leaned back on the pillows, stunned at his harsh tone. She’d only done what was expected and somehow she’d angered him.
The strain of the day pressed down on her with the weight of the baroness’s disapproval, the new and tenuous nature of her position here, and now knowing that in spite of weeks of training to be a wife, she’d failed
her husband on their wedding night. It all proved to be too much. With a sob, she turned her face into the pillow and cried.
* * * *
Thomas stalked the few steps to his room. Their bedrooms were narrowly separated by a small sitting room. However, it wasn’t the distance between the two rooms that separated them now, it was his frustration.
He’d expected difficulties when he paid to be included in Miss Eva’s Husbands’ Book. One couldn’t turn a courtesan into a wife without bouncing over pits in the road.
Truthfully, he’d given his information to Miss Eva as a lark. As busy as he was with managing his father’s estate, he had not had much time to seek out a wife, and the women he did know did not interest him enough to entice him to courtship. And as the younger son of a baron, he didn’t have the restrictions of looking for a virgin to carry his heirs.
He was free to marry out of affection, not duty.
In fact, he hadn’t really set out to marry a courtesan at all. He’d been pressed by a friend to try that avenue of matchmaking. He never expected to be called on to come to one of the matching parties. So when the invitation arrived, he went out of curiosity. The moment he saw Rose standing beneath a large oak tree, her eyes lit with humor at some witticism spoken by a potential suitor, he’d been smitten. Standing near her as they spoke and smelling her sweet scent had fired his blood. Having her became his single-minded focus.
And it had all gone well. She accepted his suit and they’d married without difficulty. She’d even stood strong under questioning by his overbearing mother.
How quickly the day had soured.
Rose wasn’t a virgin, she’d had a lover before him, and she was a courtesan. None of those things mattered. It was her heart and spirit he cherished. In the moment when he realized her passion was false, it had pricked his pride.
Perhaps marrying a former courtesan had been a mistake. All she knew was how to play a coquette for coin. Could he show her what it meant to feel real passion, to share her body without artifice? Even more, was it possible to teach his beautiful wife how to love him?
Chapter Three
Rose sat glumly while the lady’s maid Silvey fixed her hair. Even wearing a lovely dress of deep green did little to boost her mood. Yesterday, she’d had Thomas’s support. Today, she was alone to stumble through a day that could end with a public stoning, with the baroness throwing the largest rocks.
The bed called to her and she longed to send away the maid and crawl back beneath the quilt. But she was never one to cower when life dumped her into the mud. She wasn’t about retreat to timidity now.
This was her home. Now and forever. Thomas purchased it with funds he’d grown from a small inheritance through successful investments. His mother was a guest. In spite of everything, Rose needed to take her place as mistress of the household, or spend the rest of her life allowing the baroness to ride over her, as she’d done with her own daughters.
Rose pictured herself as a sour matron, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, wearing a gown with a neckline so high it limited her breathing and left her with a permanent pinched expression.
She glanced wickedly at herself in the mirror.
Those images certainly explained the baroness’s situation. Perhaps Rose should suggest lowering her necklines and loosening her corset. Or perhaps the baroness might be encouraged to take a lover.
From Thomas’s information, his father hadn’t touched the baroness since Priscilla was conceived, as his advancing illness had kept him from participating in their marriage. A handsome courtier in her bed would do much to improve her disposition.
With naughty thoughts dancing in her head, Rose sought out the breakfast room. She filled her plate and joined the family at the table.
Thomas rose from his place at the head of the table to pull out the chair closet to him. He managed a polite smile. “You look lovely this morning.”
“Thank you.” Rose hoped his mother wouldn’t notice the tension in his body. If the dragon sensed tension in the relationship, she’d likely use it as a wedge to ruin their marriage. “Good morning, Baroness . . . Prudence, Priscilla.”
The sisters—as Rose thought of them—murmured polite good mornings as the maid refreshed their teacups. As Rose watched them retreat back into silence, her resolve to do something to free them from their mother’s control strengthened.
“That is a lovely gown, Rose,” the baroness said, raking a cold gaze over her. “Perhaps you could ask the dressmaker to add lace to the bodice. Only women of questionable character wear necklines that low.”
Rose bristled. She didn’t need to look down to know her neckline was modest and perfectly acceptable. She opened her eyes innocently wide. “Truly? I have lived so long among the Gypsies that I fear I do not know fashion as I should.”
The sisters gasped and Thomas choked on a sausage. Rose didn’t need to look at him to hear suppressed mirth behind his cough.
She began eating with vigor. The baroness sniffed and grumbled and almost certainly silently cursed her son for making a match with such an impolite twit.
“Mother chooses our gowns,” Priscilla said. “Perhaps she could be pressed into service to assist you as well?” Her helpful tone faded as she looked down at the severe cut of her white gown and then at the fashionable green of Rose’s day dress.
Longing filled Priscilla’s eyes and Rose felt a tug of sympathy. If one looked beneath the severity of her hair and clothing, there was a touch of prettiness in the spinster’s features. In fact, both young women were not as plain as Rose’s first impression had led her to believe.
Interesting. Rose pondered the younger sister for a moment. If anyone would be open to matchmaking, it was Priscilla, she decided. What they needed was man to fill the position.
A knock on the door shook her from her plotting.
“Who would dare intrude at such an early hour?” the baroness snapped as a footman left them to answer the door.
The sound of several upraised voices filled the hallway before a trio of young men, jovial faces all, appeared in the open doorway.
Rose straightened in her chair. She’d hoped for a man, and now there were three. Could one of them be right for Priscilla?
“Stanhope, old man, we heard you’d married and had to come and see the new bride.” The speaker was tall, dark, and rawboned. He flicked his gaze around the table and settled on Rose. “Lud, she’s lovely.”
The second man, shorter and lighter-haired than the first, gaped. “Lovely? She’s exquisite.” He stumbled forward and reached out a hand. Rose paused then stuck out her fingertips. He kissed her knuckles loudly. “I’m Will, but you can call me anything you like.”
Rose darted a glance at Thomas. A frown narrowed his eyes.
The first man bumped Will aside. “I’m Jonathan Colley. I have a cottage just outside London. If we ride swiftly, I can have you settled in within the hour.” He looked at Thomas. “I’m also a barrister. I’ll have your annulment finalized within a month or two, then we’ll be off to Gretna Green.”
Not knowing if the pair was teasing or serious in their bumbling attempts to charm her, Rose did the only thing she could do: reclaim her hand and wait for Thomas to mount a rescue.
“Gentlemen,” he said, stepping up to place a proprietary hand on her shoulder. “You are on the cusp of being removed from this house. I ask that you behave.”
Will and Jonathan took the warning with smiles and removed themselves to greet the scowling baroness and her daughters.
The third in the band of miscreants moved forward to greet the baroness and the sisters before approaching Rose. Clearly shy, he tentatively nodded and reached to take her hand. “I’m Byron Andrews. Thomas and I have been friends since we were children.”
Rose smiled. “I’m Rose. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Byron flushed. He nodded and stepped back. Jonathan and Will returned like a pair of puppies, both jostling for her favor.
Rose would have found their attention amusing had it not been for the strain she felt with Thomas. The debacle of last evening was still fresh. She couldn’t quite comprehend what she’d done wrong.
Didn’t men get greater pleasure if they thought a woman found them amazing lovers . . . or at least pretended to? The more encouragement she’d given the duke, the more he seemed to strut around afterward like he’d conquered Rome.
It didn’t matter if he was nearing eighty and was rarely able to perform to full measure. As long as he thought she found him desirable, he was a strutting peacock.
Clearly Thomas wasn’t cut from the same cloth.
“Would you join us, gentlemen?” Rose ignored their effusive compliments and indicated several empty chairs at the table. Instead of taking his previous seat at the head, Thomas took the one next to her, carefully placing himself between her and Jonathan.
In spite of their boisterous arrival, the men proved to be a godsend. The morning repast instantly changed from a sober meal to one filled with lively conversation.
No matter the topic or amusing anecdote, the baroness remained pinched and somber. Even Prudence and Priscilla offered an occasional smile or comment when the conversation was directed their way.
Still, despite her hope that one of the men would show some interest in a sister, none of the three paid either Prudence or Priscilla particular attention. It was very disappointing.
When at last the trio was ushered out, the baroness took the sisters out for a visit to a family friend, leaving Rose and Thomas alone.
“I’d planned to make another visit to my steward to go over the accounts, but thought you’d enjoy an outing instead,” Thomas said. “I have yet to buy anything for my new wife. Perhaps a trip to Bond Street is in order?”
Bride Who Fell in Love with Her Husband Page 2