The Marrying Season

by Candace Camp

  Myles chuckled as he reached out to take her chin in his hand and turn her face up to his. His eyes were warm with sympathy. “My poor girl. Did you think I was going to force myself upon you tonight? That I would pull you into bed and ravish you?”

  She scowled. “Do not laugh at me. What am I supposed to think? We’re married; you are my husband. Grandmama said—”

  “Ah. I see.” His face cleared. “Your grandmother is a lady of the highest birth and the utmost dignity. She is the model of propriety. But she does not know me—nor, I suspect, men in general. Let me guess: she spoke to you of duty. Obligation. What else?” He paused in thought.

  “Pain.”

  “Oh, Genny.” He bent to press his lips against her forehead. “I am sorry. The countess would have done better to have remained silent.” He sighed, his breath tickling her skin. He gathered her to him, holding her loosely. “I have no interest in your duty or obligation. Most of all, I have no desire to bring you pain.”

  “I know.” Genevieve relaxed, lulled by the warmth and strength of his arms about her. “I know that is just the way of it.”

  “I shall do my best to make it very little of the way of it.” He stroked his hand down her arm. “Genevieve, I realize full well that I am not the groom of your choice. I know you expected your wedding bed to have a different man in it.” His fingers moved back up her arm, making languid circles over her skin. “Your heart was set on Dursbury.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Genevieve replied so quickly that Myles released a little chuff of a laugh.

  “Then that is all to the good.” He continued to trail his fingertips up and down her arm, awakening a network of nerves that Genevieve scarcely realized she had. She could not hide the shiver that ran through her. He kissed the top of her head again before he went on, “I am aware how dearly protected a young girl is from men and the passions that drive us. I know that you ‘have never . . . ’ And however long we have known each other, I am still in many ways a stranger to you. You may rest easy. I do not intend to take you to my bed tonight.”

  “Truly?” Genevieve pulled back and looked up into his face.

  “Yes, truly. I plan to sleep in another room. Will that put you more at your ease?”

  “Yes.” Genevieve studied him for a moment. “But then what do you intend? Are we—will we have a marriage in name only?” Curiously, that thought made her feel a trifle deflated.

  “No,” he said with some finality. “That is not what I had in mind.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He smiled in a slow, secret way, his eyes lighting. “What I have in mind”—he leaned down to brush his lips against her cheek—“is to woo my wife.” He kissed her other cheek.

  Her nostrils were filled with the scent of him; his body warmed her. His lips brushing her skin made her tremble. “Woo me?” she murmured, just to keep him talking.

  “Yes. Woo you. Court you.” Each statement was accompanied by the stroke of his lips over her skin, touching her so lightly, so softly, that her senses hummed. “Seduce you.”

  His mouth settled on hers. He kissed her slowly, tempting and pleasing and tasting. Genevieve’s entire body quivered under the sensual assault. Warmth flooded her, making her feel oddly loose and languid, and her fingers tingled so that she had to curl them into his shirtfront to keep them still. His kiss went on and on, his tongue teasing her lips open, then exploring her mouth in a way that was shocking—but not as shocking as the response that welled up inside her at his touch. She clenched her hands more tightly in his shirt, bombarded by new and startling sensations.

  She wanted to press herself against him, to move her hands over him, to meet his questing tongue with her own. Tentatively she touched her tongue to his and felt the shudder that ran through him. His arms tightened around her, pulling her up into him, and his body molded to hers in just the way she wanted. And now, she realized, she wanted more. Exactly what that more was, she wasn’t sure. Then his hands slid down the length of her back and curved over her buttocks, and she knew that was what her body craved.

  Genevieve slid her arms around him, holding on tightly, and an odd, low noise rose in her throat as his fingers dug into the fleshy mounds of her buttocks, squeezing and lifting. He raised his head, but only to change the angle of their kiss, then buried his lips in hers again. He kissed her over and over while heat flooded her.

  His hand curved around her breast, and she gasped at the surprise of it even as her nipples tightened in response. His lips trailed across her cheek to her ear, and he toyed with the lobe as he had this afternoon, teasing bright shivers of pleasure through her. All the while, his hand cupped her breast, his thumb drifting over the tight bud of her nipple in lazy strokes, so that pleasure washed through her from both sources. Genevieve had never dreamed of feeling such things, and it was all she could do to hold back the noises that threatened to bubble up in her throat.

  Myles was no more indifferent than she, for she felt the sudden surge of heat in his hand as he caressed her, heard the involuntary catch in his breath. It seemed somehow amazing that these things he did to arouse her incited pleasure in him as well. His arm still encircled her, and she was glad for that, for her knees seemed too weak now to hold her up. And when his mouth began to move down the side of her neck, her legs gave way entirely, and she sagged against him.

  She felt languid and warm and entirely given over to pleasure. She suspected that the way she felt was probably quite wrong, even sinful, but at the moment she did not care. It was too delicious. When Myles raised his head, she had to bite her lip to keep from protesting the loss. He looked down at her, his face loose with desire, his chest rising and falling in rapid pants. Genevieve could not look away from his lips, reddened and lush from their kisses; desire coiled deep inside her, and she wanted to pull his face down and take his mouth all over again. The need was so fierce, so urgent, that it frightened her.

  Myles let out a long, shaky breath and straightened, his arms falling away from her. Genevieve sank back down in her chair, not sure if she could stay upright. She dropped her face to her open hands, afraid of what might show there.

  “I should go now,” he told her huskily. His hand came out to stroke across her hair. “Else I shall move beyond mere wooing.” He bent and kissed the top of her head. “Good night, Genny. Sleep well.”

  Nine

  Are we there already?” Genevieve glanced out the window of the post chaise, her heart sinking. It was only midday, and she had thought she would have a few more hours at least before she had to meet Myles’s mother. It would have been a bit unnerving at any time, for Genevieve knew she was not at her best when meeting someone, but the circumstances of their wedding made the prospect daunting.

  “Not yet.” Myles was looking out the other window, a faint smile on his lips. “This is the village.”

  “Hutchins Gate?” Genevieve peered out the window. “Oh! There is the church. It is just as you described it.”

  The vehicle pulled up into the yard of a small stone inn, and Genevieve looked over at Myles, puzzled. “But why are we stopping?”

  He smiled. “It’s a surprise. You’ll see. Suffice it to say that we are going to continue on horseback.”

  “Really?” Genevieve’s brow lifted in surprise, but a smile immediately followed. “Myles! How lovely!”

  “I thought that would please you. It helps to have known you since you were ten.” He paused, then added belatedly, “I trust you brought your riding habit.”

  “Of course. But if I had not, I would make do. I haven’t had a chance to ride for weeks, and then it was just along Rotten Row. Oh!” She turned back to him. “I just realized: Sapphire—”

  “—will arrive with your maid and the rest of your things next week. I spoke to Rawdon about it.” Myles went on as they got out of the carriage, “It will mean going into the inn to change, so you will have to endure a number of stares. I am sure it is all around the village by now that I am bringi
ng home my bride.”

  Myles was certainly right in that regard, Genevieve found. The innkeeper’s wife, who whisked her into their best room to change, as well as the woman’s two daughters, peeping over the stair railing from above, not to mention the maid, slowly sweeping the hall, all gawked at her, but with no enmity, only an awed and eager curiosity. Besides, Genevieve was too happy at the prospect of getting on horseback again to care if others stared.

  When she returned to the yard a few minutes later, she found Myles standing chatting with the innkeeper and a groom who held the reins of two horses. Myles turned and smiled at her, and she could see the flash of unfeigned pleasure in his eyes. Her tall, spare figure, Genevieve knew, showed off best in a riding habit, its close-fitting, military jacket accentuating her slender form and straight shoulders.

  “Myles, she’s lovely.” Genevieve went at once to the dainty gray mare, running her gloved hand down the horse’s neck.

  “Not as fine a mount as your Sapphire,” Myles said, coming over to stand beside her. “But I think you’ll find her acceptable. I had them sent over from the Park.”

  “More than acceptable.” Genevieve turned to him, her eyes sparkling.

  “I should have known the way to your heart was a horse, not a necklace.”

  They rode out of the yard and down the street, Genevieve spending the first few minutes of the ride becoming accustomed to her mount, but then Myles kicked his horse into a gallop, and Genevieve was quick to follow. They raced down the road, Genevieve’s heart lifting within her.

  The land on either side of the road was rolling and green, separated by low, thick hedges, far different from the wide, desolate moors and stone-walled fields around Castle Cleyre. The innkeeper had sent a hamper of lunch with them, and they ate it beside a rushing brook. Afterward they followed the rocky stream as it wound its way deeper and deeper into a narrow valley until the cliffs rose steeply on either side of them. Beside the stream ferns and foxglove grew in profusion.

  They rounded a curve and the valley widened slightly, forming a small cul-de-sac. At the far end of the semicircular valley, the stream rushed down the side of the cliff in a rainbowed waterfall, splashing into a pool at the bottom before it rushed out in a rocky stream. Genevieve drew in her breath sharply. “Oh, Myles, it’s beautiful!” She turned to find him watching her, smiling.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes! How could I not? It’s—it looks like the sort of place where fairies and sprites live.” She gave a slightly embarrassed smile. “If one were being fanciful, of course.”

  “We definitely should be fanciful.”

  She looked back at the scene. For a moment all her attention was on the waterfall, but then she noticed a little cottage nestled against the cliff wall. Built of stone, it was half-covered in ivy and sheltered by several trees, and though it boasted no garden, a wild rosebush climbed up its front, heavy with red roses.

  “Who lives here?”

  “No one. This is part of Thorwood land. We call it Madge’s Cottage, but no one is sure who the original Madge was. The most popular story is that it was built by some long-ago Thorwood as a love nest for his mistress so that he could slip away to join her from time to time. My mother likes to think that his parents would not allow their marriage because of Madge’s low station, so he did his filial duty by marrying another, but built this charming spot for the woman he truly loved. A romantic tale.”

  “Mm. Rather less romantic for his wife, I imagine.”

  Myles laughed. “That’s my Genny.”

  She cut her eyes at him. “I realize I am stodgy and un-romantic, but I cannot help but think how the wife in such tales must have felt, tied to a man but never able to win his affection. It seems to me it would have been better for him to show some spine and marry Madge to begin with and leave the other poor woman out of it.”

  Her answer made him laugh again. “Come, let me show it to you.” He urged his horse forward. Beside the house was a large pen, built from the trunks of saplings, but it seemed sturdy enough. Myles unsaddled their horses and let them loose inside it.

  “Are we staying awhile?” Genevieve asked.

  “I hope so, unless, of course, you mislike the place.”

  “It’s lovely.” Genevieve glanced around the peaceful scene. “But shouldn’t we go on to the Park? We must not keep your mother waiting.”

  “Don’t worry about that. She won’t expect us yet.” Myles took her hand as they walked up the beaten-dirt path to the low door. “We used to come here often as children, either with our parents or with our governess and servants. It’s a wonderful spot for swimming.” He gestured toward the pool beneath the waterfall. “In truth, I think my parents sneaked up here sometimes to get away from all of us, as well.”

  He opened the door, and she walked inside, going to the center of the room and turning all around to look at it. The cottage consisted of only one large room, with a small alcove to one side where a cabinet and a small table stood. The bed was neatly made, and wood was laid in the small fireplace, ready to be lit. A simple vase on the table held a bouquet of summer flowers.

  “But, Myles—it looks prepared.” She turned to him in puzzlement.

  “When I wrote my mother to tell her of our marriage, I asked her to have the cottage cleaned and stocked with provisions.” He came over to her, taking her hands. “Since there wasn’t time to plan a proper honeymoon, I thought it would be nice to stay here for a while, away from everyone else. Of course, if you do not wish to, we can ride on to the manor house.”

  “No. I mean, yes.” Genevieve smiled. “It is a cunning little place; I like it indeed.” She surveyed the room again, her muscles relaxing. She had not realized until that moment, she thought, how taut she had been. It would be so comfortable here, without anyone else around. She would not have to worry about whether his family liked her or what she should say or do. “Thank you for thinking of it.”

  She had to swallow the lump in her throat to speak. It struck her all anew how kind and thoughtful Myles had been to her. Impulsively she took his hand and stretched up to kiss his cheek. She saw the spark of surprise in his eyes, but he did not speak, merely looped his arm around her shoulders, nestling her against his side. It felt quite good there, Genevieve thought, and that was another surprise.

  “A swim might be nice after our ride,” Myles suggested.

  “I don’t know how to swim,” Genevieve protested.

  “I could teach you. But you needn’t learn right now. ’Tis shallow enough where it narrows into the stream. You can easily stand in it.”

  Genevieve looked out the window at the tranquil pool. The ride had been warm, and the thought of slipping into the cool water was inviting. A smile hovered on her lips.

  “But what would I wear?”

  “You need wear nothing.” He chuckled at her alarmed expression. “But I think it would be easy enough to wear your shift.”

  “Only my underclothes?” Genevieve felt something sizzle through her, as much thrill as shock.

  “There is no one about to see you.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Ah, but I am your husband.” He grinned as he reached up to her hat, sliding the long pin from it and taking it off. Skewering it once again with the pin, he tossed it on the bed. “We are one body now, are we not?”

  “So looking at me would be no different than viewing yourself?” Genevieve arched one eyebrow skeptically, crossing her arms.

  “No, I think it will be vastly different. And infinitely more enjoyable.” He bent to kiss her quirked eyebrow, his soft lips tickling her skin. “It is my opinion that one’s shift shows little more than a nightgown. And I saw you last night in that.”

  “I had my dressing gown over it,” Genevieve reminded him drily.

  “Indeed, but if I remember correctly, it somehow came open.” His fingers went to the neck of her riding habit, opening the top hook.

  “I cannot imagine how.” Genevieve’
s voice was a trifle unsteady.

  “It is a mystery,” he agreed gravely, sliding down to the next closure. His eyes were steady on hers as his fingers worked the hook and eye open.

  “Myles . . . I thought you said that we would—”

  “Move slowly?” His lips curved up in a way that was more sensual than humorous. “Oh, I shall move as slowly as you wish.” He inched down the bodice. “This is a lesson on which I am prepared to spend a long, long time.”

  The bottom fastening opened, but his fingers still clutched her riding jacket as he leaned down and kissed her lips. He kissed her with infinite patience, taking his time to open her lips to him and steal inside, rousing her with slow strokes, his lips moving gently on hers. This time he did not slide his arms around her, and Genevieve found herself waiting for the moment he would, wanting it. Her heart picked up its beat as his mouth continued to explore hers. A throbbing set up deep inside her, aching and sweet, and her breasts turned heavy and full, anticipating his caress.

  As he lifted his mouth from hers, his hands moved apart, sliding the bodice of her habit back and down her arms. With a flick of his wrist, it joined her hat on the bed. His hands on her hips, he tugged her down into the chair. Kneeling before her, he grasped one of her riding boots and pulled it off. Something about his position at her feet was strangely titillating—his bowed head, his care as he slid the boot from her leg. One hand cupped her calf, separated from her skin by only her thin stocking, and his other hand caressed her foot, ending by running his thumbnail up the center of her sole. Genevieve’s insides clenched at the touch, and she was suddenly hot and damp between her legs, the vague ache turning to a throbbing.

  Myles repeated his actions on her other leg, then slipped his hands up one leg past her knee. Genevieve drew in a sharp breath of surprise, but before she could even move, he hooked his fingers into the garter and rolled her stocking down. Though it was not a surprise when he went on the same foray up her other leg, the sensations it evoked were even stronger. She could not help but think of how she had been tempted to press her own hand between her legs last night to ease that yearning ache. The image of Myles’s hand going there instead made the yearning even stronger. She blushed at her wayward thoughts.