The Arrangement: Number 2 in series (Survivors' Club)

by Mary Balogh

“Lady Trentham, Lord Trentham, Mrs. Emes, Miss Emes,” she said, looking from one to the other of them, “I do thank you with all my heart for opening your home to me, for being so kind, for arranging this wonderful wedding breakfast. And Mr. Germane, Lord and Lady Kilbourne, Lady Barclay, Lord Ponsonby, Lord Berwick, Your Grace, thank you for coming to our wedding, for coming here. We expected a quiet wedding day. It has been anything but that, and I will always remember it with pleasure. Your Grace, thank you for letting us use your home until tomorrow.”

  All conversations had stopped abruptly. Everyone was looking at her—in surprise, she thought, and she wondered if her heart would stop hammering or if it would simply stop. She was even smiling.

  Viscount Darleigh was on his feet too.

  “You have taken the words out of my mouth, Sophie,” he said, “and there is nothing left for me to say.”

  “You said enough at the breakfast table, Vince,” Lord Ponsonby told him. “It is your wife’s turn. P-personally, I hope you are the last Survivor to wed for at least a week or two. My v-valet will be running out of dry handkerchiefs to hand me.”

  “It is my pleasure, Lady Darleigh,” the Duke of Stanbrook said, giving her a look that was both penetrating and … approving?

  And then they were all on their feet, and Sophia found herself being hugged by the ladies—even Lady Barclay—and having her hand kissed again by the gentlemen. Everyone was talking and laughing, and she and Vincent were somehow swept out to the street and into the barouche.

  “Are the pots and pans gone?” Lord Darleigh asked.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  “And everything else?” he asked. “There were ribbons and bows, I suppose? And flowers? No, they are not gone. I can smell them.”

  “They all remain,” she said.

  “You are a bridegroom only once, Vince,” Lord Trentham reminded him. “And Lady Darleigh is a bride only once. Enjoy having the whole world know it.”

  And amid much laughter and cheering and good wishes, they were on their way.

  “Thank you,” Lord Darleigh said, taking her hand in his. “Thank you for what you said, Sophie. It was lovely. I know you found the whole thing an ordeal.”

  “I did,” she agreed. “But I realized suddenly that I was seeing it all through the eyes of the mouse I have been most of my life. Timidity is not appealing, is it?”

  “The mouse is to be banished forever, then?” he asked her.

  “To reappear only in the corner of some of my sketches,” she said. “But that mouse is usually a saucy little thing, winking or leering or looking frankly nasty or self-satisfied.”

  He laughed.

  “Have you seen anything satirical today?” he asked her.

  “Oh, no, my lord,” she assured him. “No. There was nothing to ridicule or laugh at today.”

  There was a short silence.

  “There was not,” he agreed. “But am I to remain my lord, Sophie? You are my wife. We are traveling toward our wedding night.”

  She felt a strange, sharp stabbing of sensation to the lower part of her body and found herself clenching inner muscles and fighting breathlessness.

  “Vincent.”

  “You find it difficult to say?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Even though your grandfather was a baronet, your uncle is a baronet, and your father was a gentleman?”

  “Yes.”

  She wondered what Sir Terrence Fry would say if he knew she had married Viscount Darleigh today. Would he ever know? A notice had, apparently, been sent to the morning papers. Was he even in the country? And would he care if he saw the notice? Would Sebastian see it? What would he think? Would he let his stepfather know?

  Vincent lifted her gloved hand and held it against his lips. Passers-by were smiling at the barouche and pointing it out to one another with smiles and even a few waves, she could see.

  “Think of me as that naughty boy Vincent Hunt, who used to sneak out of Covington House at night through a cellar window in order to swim naked in the river,” he said. “Or, if that is too shocking an image, think of me as that very annoying Vincent Hunt who used to hide in the branches of trees when he was seven years old, stifling giggles and raining twigs and leaves and acorns down upon the unsuspecting heads of villagers as they passed beneath.”

  She laughed.

  “That is better,” he said. “Say it again.”

  “Vincent.”

  “Thank you.” He kissed her hand. “I have no idea what time it is. Is there still daylight? Is it afternoon or evening?”

  “Somewhere between the two,” she told him. “It is still full daylight.”

  “It ought not to be,” he said. “It ought to be dark. It ought to be time when we arrive at Stanbrook House to take my bride to bed.”

  She said nothing. What was there to say?

  “Does it worry you?” he asked her. “The wedding night?”

  She bit her lower lip and felt that unfamiliar raw feeling low down again.

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “You do not want it?”

  “I do,” she told him. And of course she spoke the truth. “Yes, I do.”

  “Good,” he said. “I look forward to getting to know you better. In all ways, of course, but at the moment I mean specifically in the physical sense. I want to touch you. All over. I want to make love to you.”

  He would be bitterly disappointed, she could not help thinking.

  “Have I shocked you?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  He kissed her hand again and held it on his thigh.

  They had changed their clothes and partaken of a light dinner. They sat together in the drawing room afterward, talking about the day. She described the clothes some of their guests had worn; he described the smells inside the church. She described the way the barouche had been decorated; he described the sounds on the streets—what he had been able to hear of them above the din of the hardware they were dragging behind them, that was—and the smell of the flowers. She told him about Constance Emes’s young man and Mrs. Emes’s budding romance with Mr. Germane. He told her about Lord Trentham’s first meeting with the then Lady Muir down on the beach at Penderris. They both agreed that it had been a memorable day.

  “Is it dark outside yet?” he asked at last.

  “No.”

  It was early summer, of course. It did not get dark until well into the evening.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Just coming up to eight o’clock.”

  Only eight o’clock?

  She had taken his arm to come into the house and to go in to the dining room and to return to the drawing room afterward. Apart from that, they had not touched each other. Yet it was their wedding day.

  “Is there a time,” he asked her, “before which one is not allowed to retire to bed?”

  “If there is a law,” she said, “I have not heard of it.”

  He was humming with the desire to consummate his marriage, and although she had admitted that she was a little worried, she had also assured him that she wanted it too. The longer they sat here, the more worried and nervous she was likely to become.

  Why had he felt obliged to sit out the rest of the day until a decent bedtime? A certain nervousness of his own, perhaps? He had never been with a virgin. And this was not just an experiment that need not be repeated if it was not to his liking—or hers. It was important that he get it just right. Not too much this first time—he did not want to frighten her or disgust her or hurt her. But not too little either. He did not want to disappoint her, or himself.

  It was important to get it right.

  “Shall we go to bed?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  She had said in the barouche on the way here that she must cast off the mouse, her alter ego. It was not going to be easy for her, he realized. And he half smiled at the memory of the determined little speech she had delivered just before they left Hugo’s. It had
been gracious and pretty, and the attentive surprise of his friends and the other guests had been almost tangible.

  “Take my arm, then,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “Yes.” She took it.

  And then she surprised him again when they had passed out of the drawing room and ascended two of the stairs to the floor above. She stopped and spoke to someone else—presumably a servant.

  “Send Mr. Fisk up to Lord Darleigh’s dressing room, if you please,” she said, “and Ella to mine.”

  Ella must be the maid George had assigned to her for tonight.

  “Yes, my lady,” a man’s voice murmured respectfully.

  “My lady,” she said softly.

  “I still find myself wanting to look over my shoulder when people address me as my lord,” he told her. “I probably would if I could.”

  He knew the way to his room, their room for tonight. He always memorized directions and distances quickly when he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He did not like the feeling of being lost, of being dependent upon others to take him wherever he needed to go.

  He paused when he judged he was outside his dressing room. The door of the bedchamber came next and then her dressing room, which had not been needed until today.

  “I can go the rest of the way alone,” she told him.

  “Let us compromise,” he said. “I will stand here until I hear your door open and close. And I will see you in the bedchamber in half an hour’s time? Less?”

  “Less,” she said, slipping her hand from his arm.

  He smiled and listened for her door. As he heard it close, he could hear Martin’s firm footsteps coming along the corridor behind him. Martin had been stiffly formal this morning—and ever since the announcement of the betrothal.

  “Martin,” he said as his dressing room door opened and he preceded his valet inside. “Did you come to my wedding as I asked?”

  “I did, sir,” Martin said.

  Vincent waited for more, but all he could hear was Martin setting the water jug down on the washstand and preparing his shaving gear. He sighed. Had he gained a wife and lost a friend? For that was what Martin was, what he had always been.

  “She did not look like a boy today,” Martin said abruptly as Vincent slipped off his coat and waistcoat and Martin helped him with his neckcloth before hauling his shirt off over his head. “She looked like a little elfin creature.”

  It was stiffly, grudgingly said. And little elfin creature sounded like more of a compliment than an insult.

  “Thank you,” Vincent said. “She did not do this deliberately, you know, Martin. I, on the other hand, did.”

  “I know,” Martin said. “Idiot that you are. Keep your head still now or I’ll be slicing your throat. And you will be wondering if I did it deliberately. If you are still alive to wonder anything at all, that is.”

  “I trust you.” Vincent grinned at him. “With my life.”

  Martin grunted.

  “It’s just as well,” he said, “since I get to come at you with an open razor at least once a day. Take that grin off your face or you are going to get an uneven cut to take to your lady.”

  Vincent sat still and expressionless.

  Peace, he supposed, had been declared.

  A little elfin creature. He remembered holding her against him on the far side of the stile in Barton Coombs. Yes, he believed it. She was just the opposite of voluptuous. He had always favored voluptuous women—as what red-blooded male did not? But he was eager for his bride anyway.

  A little elfin creature.

  He opened the door into the bedchamber after he had dismissed Martin. He knew the room. He knew where the bed was, the dressing table, the side tables, the fireplace, the window. And he knew as soon as he stepped inside that he was not alone.

  “Sophie?”

  “Yes, I am here.” There was a soft laugh. “Do you know where here is?”

  “I believe,” he said, “you are standing at the window. And it is still not dark, I suppose?”

  “The room looks out on the back of the house,” she said as he made his way toward her. “Onto the garden. It is very pretty. One could almost forget one was in London.”

  He reached out and touched the windowsill. He could feel the warmth of her close by.

  “Would you like to forget?” he asked her. “Do you not like London?”

  “I prefer the country,” she said. “I feel less lonely there.”

  A strange thing to say, perhaps, when one considered the relative number of people in the town and the country.

  “I feel less of a lone being,” she explained, “and more a part of something vast and complex. I am sorry. That does not make much sense, does it?”

  “The emphasis is too much upon humanity alone in town?” he suggested. “And more upon humankind as part of nature and the universe itself in the country?”

  “Oh,” she said, “yes. You do understand.”

  He thought of her dream cottage with its pretty garden and a few friendly neighbors. Ah, Sophie.

  He reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand closed about it and his other hand about the other, and he drew her against him. She was wearing a silky nightgown, he could feel. One item of her bride clothes? He hoped so. He hoped she was feeling pretty and desirable. He could feel her draw a slow inward breath.

  He was wearing just a light brocaded silk dressing gown. Perhaps he ought to have had Martin dig out a nightshirt for him—if there was one to dig out, that was. It was possible none had been packed when he left home, for he always slept naked.

  He moved his hands inward, lifted her chin with his thumbs, and found her mouth with his own—that lovely wide mouth he remembered with its generous lips. He licked his own just before they joined hers, waited for the trembling in hers to cease, and stroked the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until they parted. He slid his tongue into her mouth and felt a shiver of desire as she moaned softly deep in her throat.

  He moved his hands to thread into her hair. It was soft and silky and not nearly as thick as it had been last time he felt it. It was very short.

  “Sophie.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “Are we putting on a display for anyone who happens to be strolling in the garden?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “But I will close the curtains.”

  He heard them sliding along the rail after she had turned from his arms.

  “There,” she said. “Now no one will see.”

  And she moved back against him and slid her arms about his waist. Ah. She was not reluctant, then.

  “I am glad you cannot see me either,” she said. She drew breath audibly. “Oh, I did not mean to be offensive.”

  “Because you are not worth looking at?” he asked her. “Sophie, who destroyed all your sense of self-worth? And don’t tell me it was your looking glass. Well, I cannot see you and never will. I can never contradict you—or agree with you. But I can touch you.”

  “That,” she said, “is almost as bad.”

  He laughed softly, and she did too, rather ruefully, he thought.

  “You are so beautiful,” she said.

  He laughed again and slid his hands beneath her nightgown at the shoulders and pushed it off and down her arms. He stood back and straightened her arms with his hands and heard the garment slither all the way to the floor.

  She inhaled audibly.

  “Do not worry,” he said. “I cannot see you.”

  Her breath shuddered out.

  He touched her. He explored her with light hands and sensitive fingertips—thin shoulders and upper arms, small breasts that nevertheless fit softly and warmly into the palms of his hands, a tiny waist, hips that hardly flared below it, a soft, flat belly, a slender bottom with cheeks that fit his hands as her breasts had done, legs that were slender and yet sturdy as far down as he could feel.

  Her skin was soft and smooth and warm. She did not have the boniness and angularity of many thin people. She was just s
mall and not particularly shapely. Not at all voluptuous. He could feel himself harden into arousal anyway. She was his bride. She was his, and there was a certain exultation in the thought. He had found her himself and married her himself, without any help from anyone. Eyes were not always necessary.

  He returned his hands to her face, cupping it and kissing her lips again.

  “Have the bedcovers been turned back?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Lie down, then,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  Was she being the mouse again? Her voice was higher pitched than usual.

  Or just a virgin bride on her wedding night?

  He removed his dressing gown before lying down beside her. It was impossible to know if the sight of him was shocking her. Her breathing had been audible and slightly ragged from the start.

  His hands explored her again. He lowered his head to kiss her mouth, one cheek, one ear—he drew the earlobe between his teeth and nipped it. He kissed her throat, her breasts. He suckled one while he rolled the nipple of the other gently between his thumb and forefinger.

  She remained passive, though her breathing was more labored and her skin was warmer and her nipples hardened beneath his touch.

  He kissed her stomach, found her belly button, and swirled his tongue about it while his hand slid between her warm thighs and moved upward to find the core of her femininity. She was hot and surprisingly moist.

  She drew a sharp inward breath and stiffened.

  “Sophie.” He raised his head above hers, though he did not remove his hand or stop stroking her lightly, parting folds with his fingers, circling the tip of one about her opening. “Are you afraid? Embarrassed?”

  “No.” Her voice was definitely high pitched now.

  He suspected she was both.

  And he suspected she considered herself physically undesirable.

  He took one of her hands in his and moved it to his erection. He curled her fingers about it and held them there.

  “Do you know what this means?” he murmured into her ear. “It means that I want you, that I find you desirable. My hands, my mouth, my tongue, my body, all have touched you and been well pleased. I want you.”

  “Oh.” Her hand was still about him and then released him.