by Mary Balogh
Chapter III
Judith stood with her back against the bedchamber door after she had shut it, and closed her eyes. Her head was spinning, her heart was thumping, and she was breathless. There were so many reasons for all three conditions that she could not possibly sort through them all to regain her customary composure.
Primarily, she had drunk too much wine. Four glasses in all. She had never before drunk more than half a glass in one day, and even that had happened only three or four times in her life. She was not drunk—she could think quite coherently and walk a straight line. But even so, she had consumed all that wine.
Then there had been the intoxicating excitement of acting before an audience—even if it had been an audience of only one. Acting had always been a part of her very secret life, something she did when she was quite, quite sure she was alone and unobserved. She had never really thought of it as acting, though, but as the bringing alive of another human being through the words the dramatist had provided. She had always had the ability to think her way into another person’s body and mind and know just what it felt like to be that person under those circumstances. Sometimes she had tried to use that ability to write stories, but it was not in the written word that her talent lay. She needed to create or recreate characters with her very body and voice. When she acted the part of Portia or Lady Macbeth, she became them.
But tonight acting had been more intoxicating than the wine she had drunk. She had played for her audience of one better than she had ever played before. He had been both Shylock and Macbeth, and yet he had been Ralph Bedard too, and she had been strangely excited, exhilarated by him. It had seemed as if the very air between them were sizzling with invisible energy.
She opened her eyes suddenly and hurried toward the screen at the far side of the room. She had only ten minutes in which to get ready—less than ten now. Her portmanteau had arrived and been brought up, she saw with relief. She would have a nightgown to wear.
But she stopped abruptly even as she bent down to open the bag. Get ready? For what? He had just kissed her again. He was coming in ten minutes’ time—less—to take her to bed. To do that to her. She was not even fully aware, except in the vaguest, most sketchy of ways, just what that was. Her knees felt unsteady. She felt breathless and lightheaded again. She was not going to let it happen ... was she?
It was time to end the adventure. But it had been—it was—such a very splendid adventure. And there would be no others. Not ever. She knew that women who fell into poverty and lived as unpaid poor relations in the homes of their wealthier family members stood little or no chance of ever changing the condition of their lives. There was only now, today. And tonight.
Judith tore open the portmanteau in haste. She was wasting precious time. How embarrassing it would be if he returned to find her in her shift or before she had relieved herself or washed herself or brushed her hair! She would think later about it, about how she would avoid it. There was a wooden settle in the other room. With a pillow and her cloak and one of the blankets from the bed, it would make a tolerable sleeping place.
He must surely have stayed away for longer than ten minutes. She was standing in front of the fire, clad decently in her cotton nightgown, brushing her hair, when his knock came at the door and it opened before she could cross the room to it or call out any summons. She felt suddenly naked. She also knew that she must be more inebriated than she had realized. She felt a rush of longing rather than the horror she knew she ought to be feeling. She did not want to end the adventure. She wanted to experience that before her youth and her life came to an effective end. She wanted all of it—with Ralph Bedard. He was breathtakingly attractive—she wished there were a more powerful word than that for his appeal.
He stood looking at her with narrowed eyes, his lips pursed, his eyes moving slowly down her body to her bare feet.
“Is it your profession or your instinct,” he said at last, his voice low, “that has taught you to understate your appearance? White cotton, with not a frill or a flounce! You are very wise. Your beauty speaks loud and clear for itself.”
She was ugly. She knew that. People—even her own mother—had always compared her hair to carrots when she was a child, and it had never been a compliment. Her skin had always been too pale, her face too disfigured with freckles, her teeth too large. And then, by a horrible cruelty of fate, just when her hair had begun to darken a shade and the worst of her freckles had begun to disappear and her face and mouth had started to fit her teeth, she had begun to shoot up into something resembling a beanpole. She had grown as tall as Papa. She had felt only temporary relief when the beanpole had begun to take on the shape of a woman. To add insult to injury, that shape had come to include very full breasts and wide hips. She had always been an embarrassment to her family and worse than that to herself. Papa had been forever instructing her to dress more modestly and to cover her hair, and he had been forever blaming her for the leering glances men tended to send her way. It had always been a severe burden to be the ugly one of the family.
But tonight she was willing to accept that for some strange reason—probably the wine, since he had drunk more of it than she had—Ralph Bedard found her attractive.
She smiled slowly at him without removing her eyes from his. Wine had a strange effect. She felt a degree removed from reality, as if she were observing herself rather than up front being herself. She could stand in a bedchamber in her nightgown with a man, knowing that he intended taking her to bed within the next few minutes, and yet smile at him with slow invitation without feeling quite responsible for what she did. The observer was doing nothing to intervene on the side of virtue and respectability. And Judith did not want her to.
“I suppose you have been told a thousand times how beautiful you are,” he said, his voice sounding wonderfully husky.
There! He really was drunk.
“A thousand and one now,” she said, still smiling. “And I suppose you have been told a thousand and one times how handsome you are.”
It was a lie. He was not handsome. His nose was too prominent, his eyebrows too dark, his hair too unruly, his skin too swarthy. But he was overpoweringly attractive, and attractive seemed ten times more appealing than handsome at this precise moment.
“A thousand and two now.” He came toward her and she knew the moment of decision was upon her. But instead of grabbing her, he stopped a foot away from her and held out his hand. “Give me the brush.”
She handed it to him, expecting him to toss it over his shoulder before proceeding to business. Would she allow him to proceed? Her breathing quickened.
“Sit down,” he told her. “On the side of the bed.”
Sit? Not lie? Were there still a few moments left to enjoy, then, before she must put an end to it all? The bed had been turned down neatly for the night while they were still in the dining room, just as the fire had been built up and her portmanteau and fresh water placed behind the screen.
She sat down, her feet side by side on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, watching him strip off his form-fitting coat, his waistcoat, and his neckcloth. He sat on a chair and pulled off his boots before standing up in his stockinged feet.
Oh, dear, she thought, she ought not to be watching this. But it was so very enjoyable a sight. He was a large man, but she would swear there was not one ounce of unnecessary fat on him. He was broad-shouldered but far slimmer of waist and hip. His legs were long and powerfully muscled. He showed to distinct advantage wearing only his shirt and breeches.
He picked up her brush again and walked around to the other side of the bed. She felt his weight depress the mattress behind her. She did not turn to look. This was the moment when she should get to her feet. Ah, but she did not want to. And then she could feel his body heat against her back even though he did not touch her.
Then he did—with the brush. He settled it just above her forehead—she could see the white of his shirtsleeve from the corner of her right eye—and drew
it backward through the length of her hair. He was kneeling behind her for the purpose of brushing her hair! As soon as she realized the innocence of his intention, she tipped back her head and closed her eyes.
She almost swooned from the delight of it. The brush set her scalp to tingling. She could hear her hair crackle. Occasionally she could feel his free hand moving her hair back over her ear or behind her shoulder. It was surely the most delicious feeling in the world, having one’s hair brushed by someone else—by a man. She could feel his heat and smell his cologne. She could hear his breathing. Soon she felt relaxed and languorous and yet strangely stimulated and alert at the same time. Her breasts felt tight. An aching pulse was beating pleasurably between her legs.
“It feels good?” he asked her after a while, his voice low and husky.
“Mmm.” She could not muster the energy for a more eloquent reply.
He continued drawing the slow, rhythmic strokes through her hair until finally he tossed aside the brush. She heard it thud to the floor at the foot of the bed. And then she was aware that he had moved closer to her. He had spread his knees and moved them to either side of her so that if she wished she could move her hands outward to rest on them. His chest came against her back, and his hands slipped beneath her arms and cupped the undersides of her breasts. She heard him draw a slow, audible breath.
She almost jumped to her feet in panic. Not her breasts. They were so embarrassing. But her slight inebriation slowed both her shock and her reactions. His hands were warm and gentle. And his thumbs were brushing over her nipples, which were strangely hard and tender. Yet he was not hurting her. Instead, his touch was sending raw aches shooting up into her throat and spiraling down between her legs and she was throbbing—inside.
He did not seem to be finding her breasts grotesque.
She closed her eyes again and tipped her head back to rest against his shoulder. Just a little more. Just a few moments longer. She would end it soon. His thumbs were gone from her nipples then, and she could feel his fingers opening the buttons down the front of her nightgown and folding the edges back so that she must be exposed from shoulders to navel. When his hands came back to circle the naked flesh of her breasts, to lift them and fondle them, to pinch and rub and pulse against her nipples, she knew that finally her adventure, her stolen dream, was perfect.
This was what she had always wanted. This. Ah, just this ever since she had become a woman. To feel a man touch her and see her and not judge her inadequate. To allow the touch. To revel in it without shame or fear. She willed the moment never—ah, please, never—to end.
“Stand up,” he murmured against her ear, and though she was reluctant to move away from his touch, she obeyed and opened her eyes to watch her nightgown slip away to the floor. She felt curiously unembarrassed even though the fire was still burning and two candles were flickering on the mantel, and she had always hated looking at herself in a mirror. She sat down again.
She was aware of him pulling his shirt off over his head and tossing it to join her brush on the floor. And then his bare chest was warm and solid against her back, and his arms were beneath hers again. He rubbed his hands hard over her breasts and then spread them flat over her ribs and moved them down over her waist and abdomen. She set back her head and closed her eyes again and moved her shoulders and back to rub against him. His chest was lightly furry. He slid his hands down her legs to her knees and back up again. She spread her arms and set them along his outer thighs, cupping his knees with her hands.
It was at the next moment that she knew she had passed the point at which she might have stopped what was to happen. But she did not care. She did not. Common sense and propriety and morality would show her the full extent of the error of her ways in the glaring light of tomorrow, but though she knew it, she simply did not care. This was the night that would give light and warmth and meaning to all the rest of her days. She knew that just as certainly. Fallen woman—who would ever know? Who would ever care?
His right hand had moved down between her legs to the warm, secret place. She should have been horrified. Yet she heard herself make a low sound of approval deep in her throat, and she opened her legs a little to allow him freer access.
She was very warm there. She could tell that by the contrasting coolness of his fingers. She feared she might also be wet. But he did not recoil. His fingers explored her, parting folds, rubbing lightly between them, finding the innermost reaches and sliding up a little way inside. She could hear the sounds of wetness but was beyond embarrassment. It did not take her long to understand that he knew exactly what he was doing. Desire throbbed through her entire being. And then he did something with his thumb, something so light that she could not even tell exactly what he did. Except that desire suddenly crashed into pain and beyond pain even before she could feel it. She arched her back, every muscle in her body tensing, and cried out before collapsing, panting and trembling, back against him.
What... what on earth had happened?
“Yes,” he was whispering against her ear, a note of exultation in his voice. “Ah, yes. Magnificent!”
Her breath was shuddering audibly out of her.
“Lie down,” he told her.
“Yes.” She no longer even considered not lying down with him. Her head was spinning, but whether from the effects of the wine or from what had just happened, she did not know.
She lay down between the sheets while he got to his feet, and watched him strip away the rest of his clothes. He looked even more magnificent without them, all hard muscles and flat abdomen, and ... For a few moments she wondered if she should feel frightened after all, but she wanted it, she realized. She desperately wanted it. She wanted him.
He came down directly on top of her, pressing his knees between hers as he did so and pushing her legs wide—very wide. She bent them at the knees and set her feet flat against the mattress to brace herself. He lifted himself from the waist up, bracing himself on his forearms, and lowered his head to kiss her. His mouth was open, and soon hers was too as he licked through the seam of her lips and explored the soft flesh behind. When she parted her teeth he pressed his tongue into her mouth, clashing with her own, stroking over the sensitive roof, arousing the rawness of desire in her again.
When he lifted his head again, he was smiling his rather mocking smile at her.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that I may explode as soon as I mount, quite as speedily as you just did. But we have the rest of the night in which to play at our leisure. Am I excused in advance?”
“You are excused.” She smiled back at him, though in truth she did not understand what he was saying.
He came down fully on her again and she felt his hands come beneath her buttocks to hold her firm. She felt him hard and probing at her entrance, but before she could draw a steadying breath he had plunged into her. There might have been pain. She was not at leisure to notice. There might have been shock. There was no time to absorb it. There was only a wondering surprise that a man could be so large and so hard and yet fit fully inside her. And then he moved in her, almost withdrawing and plunging deep again, over and over, faster and harder until he strained deep, cried out, and collapsed all his weight on her. She wrapped her arms about him. He was hot and slick with sweat.
She felt the shock then. Her virginity was gone. Just like that. And with the shock came knowledge. Knowledge not only of what happened between a man and a woman, but of what it felt like. It had been disappointing. And yet not entirely so. Part of her exulted. She had mated with a man. She would not go through life without that most primal of human experiences. She had mated. She still lay beneath him, her breasts pressed to his chest, her thighs hugging his powerful legs, his ... that part of him inside her.
She was not sorry. And if it was the wine telling her that, then she would tell the wine the same thing tomorrow. She was not sorry. She never would be. He had touched her and delighted her and made her feel feminine and beautiful as no one had ever d
one before—quite the contrary, in fact. And she had mated with him and satisfied him. He was sleeping, she realized. He was heavy. She was having difficulty breathing. Her legs were going to cramp soon. She would surely be sore inside. But she willed him not to wake up. She hugged her splendid, stolen dream to herself.
After Rannulf woke up and rolled off her, apologizing for squashing every bone in her body, Claire Campbell excused herself. He could hear her washing herself behind the screen, and grinned, lacing his fingers behind his head. A fastidious lover. He would soon have her wet and smelling of sex again.
She was magnificent. Her body and her hair were enough to keep any red-blooded male in a state of constant arousal, but there was more to her than just those attributes. There were her eyes with their drooping, come-hither eyelids when she was aroused, and her perfect teeth, and her low, seductive voice. There were her acting skills and her smiles and laughter. And there was her knowledge of the game.
An actress of her allure and experience might well have tried to lead the way, and their first sexual encounter might have become a clash of wills and expertise, each trying to establish mastery and control. He would have enjoyed it— how could one not enjoy any sexual encounter with someone like Claire Campbell?—but not as much as the game he had set out to play and she had complied with. The game of slow, quiet seduction.
She had sat on the bed like a prim virgin while he had brushed the red glory of her hair and felt desire course through him like an ever-building flood that would sweep all before it when it burst its dam. She had allowed him to lead every step of the way though he had felt her growing heat and seen her peaked nipples and felt the wetness of her desire. Her orgasm had been powerful and flattering. So many women faked it and imagined that their lovers did not realize. The genuineness of her release had given him permission to take his own swiftly without feeling inadequate, like a randy schoolboy.