by Gayle Eden
Two days before they were to leave for Crawford, she was with Lisette and the girl’s duchess mother, various other offspring came along to the shopping district.
“I cannot believe you don’t want an exotic honeymoon. Particularly with someone as well traveled as Monty.” Lisette rolled her eyes. She had decided that Juliette and Monty’s story was the most romantic on earth and could not get over that they would not have the most romantic honeymoon too.
“Maybe later on. In fact, I sure he will want to travel. But as I never had a home really, I am quite excited to make one at Wolford.”
“At least we will be neighbors.” Lisette supplied sighing. “I’m going to a cousins for the off season. By the time I return, you and Wolford will have cooled your passions enough for you to visit me.”
“Of course I will.” Juliette laughed. “And you must come to Wolford hall, as soon as you return.”
Later that day they dropped her off at Crawford’s residence. Juliette entered the duke’s mansion thinking that Lisette was also amazed she preferred the more intimate wedding planned she had protested that it should be a grand show—to show the world what she had achieved—or at the least to make them eat their mockery. Nevertheless, Juliette had been honest. She was more than ready to settle into a life with Monty. She was excited, nearly sleepless, with the prospect of nights without end in his bed. Shameless, but true. She did not need to show anyone or stage some grand wedding, she needed to be with the man she intended to love deeper and grow wiser with, every day.
“All is packed and ready. Monty has a few things to do so we will not see him before our departure,” The duchess told her later that evening. “We’ll go down in our coach and his will follow.”
Juliette said heartfelt, “Thank you. For everything.”
The duchess smiled. “It is only the beginning of the family we will make, Juliette.” The woman took her hand. “What more could I desire for Montgomery than his happiness, and when he is with you, he is—truly happy.”
Chapter Six
The wedding was lovely, quaint, and intimate. Every word and vow, every gesture, sincere, and spoken whilst looking into each other’s eyes. Juliette in her white silk gown with lace overlay, with pearl pins in her hair, and eyes glowing, Wolford, in his black and white formals, smiling in a way that melted Juliette’s heart—even if it was somewhat the smug conquers smile. The duke and duchess were reaching out to hold each other’s hand more than once during the ceremony.
There was a nice, relaxed, meal, a quiet chat and coffee shared, before Wolford and Juliette changed out of their wedding wardrobe. The duke and duchess retired to their suite, though it was early evening.
In her comfortable trousers, having been given a room just off from Monty’s apartments, Juliette met him in the hallway. They would leave for Wolford sometime in the morning, but she knew it was significant to them both that they consummate their union here.
He wore a white linen shirt, black riding trousers and boots.
Holding his hand out for hers, she took it, and they descended the stairs, Juliette smiling at the servants who curtsied and murmured, “My lady, My Lord.” To them.
At the stables, they mounted fine horses and she rode with him to that spot in the woods she had first seen him.
Leading the horses, Juliette stood beside him in the evening light. “I came here often though the years.” She glanced at him. “I thought you looked like a prince that day.”
He grinned. “You—looked like a rag a muffin.”
She laughed.
Taking her hand again, they turned and walked the mounts and led them for some time. They were in the dried marsh, wisps from the cattails floating in a soft breeze, and the sun lowering, when he murmured huskily but sure, “I love you, Juliette.”
She turned and looked up at him. Her heart felt a quivering, a squeeze as it overflowed. “I love you. I always have.”
Wolford took the horses and tied them a space away and then walked to her, cupping her face, bringing his head down before he kissed her long and sultry.
Breathless they parted for her to murmur, “What were you going to tell me?”
“I have a confession. I saved you, Juliette. But I saved you, for myself.” He kissed her again before murmuring, “No one can love you more than I do, Juliette. No one ever will. To me, you are everything that makes life worth living.”
“Oh, Monty.” Her tears spilled out on the next kiss. She held to him tightly. “I wanted you to save me. I always did. I wanted you to—want me for yourself.”
Holding her equally so, he managed, “I need you. I want and need you desperately, m’love.”
She pulled back, laughing and wiping her eyes. “Then let us hurry back.”
He laughed, jogging to his horse as she did, and then catching up with her as she rode swiftly ahead. Soon they were hand in hand, running from the stables. She took him with up the servant’s stairs. Maids and servants laughing as they were like children tromping up them and into the hall. On the way to his rooms, she squalled as he caught her up in his arms, their laughter mingling entering his suite.
Once the door closed however, they were kissing, passionately undoing shirts and pulling off trousers and boots, barely making it to the bed before he was lifting her onto him, filling her with his sex. Though sideways across the high bed, she let her legs ride high on his sides, her nails digging into his forearms while he drove his flesh into hers, silky, hot, wanting and hungry. Affirming, claiming, assuring and leaving no doubt he was her man, she, his woman. At that tenser moment of release, Juliette held him inside her body, deep. She wept with the feel of it, and moaned, with the depth of emotion stirred from his spending his passion inside her body.
A bit later, lying against the headboard, she viewed his masculine frame when he returned from the bathing chamber, having gone in after she had finished.
The sheets and covers were mussed at the end of the bed, her body flushed and heart full, Juliette admired the way he moved, loved the way he lay himself down by her feet. Having bent her knees, she looked aside at the long lines of his flank and the rounded buttocks, the breath of his shoulders, and finally at his face.
His hand skimming up her calf, she murmured, “You’re a beautiful man, Wolford.”
“Thank you.” His hand went inward, skimming down inside her thigh until he found what he sought. “Did you think of me when we were apart?”
“Every day. Every moment.” She opened to his touch, holding his gaze as his finger found her clit and he played there before touching her inside.
“At Wolford, we may enjoy these intimacies and more at our leisure. Anytime of the day or night.”
“I take it, you’ve thought of that.”
He smiled. “Um. Yes. I have much to show you, my lady.”
“I look forward to it.” She leaned her head back, closing her eyes as his finger entered her and he began to thrust, lost for some time in that, she eventually felt his mouth there, and hands sought his lush hair. She soared to the stroke of his tongue and the sensual kiss of his lips, feeling the pleasure he took in giving her pleasure.
Afterwards Wolford took her passionately, possessively, from behind, summoning passions that surprised her. It excited Juliette, the way and intensity of it, and showed her there was much she did not know of her husband. It showed her that given freedom to express his passion and desire for her, Wolford would enjoy showing her how to express her own, and revel in her erotic responses.
Before dawn came, she rode him, sensually, slowly, watching muscle flex and sinew tense and watching his brown eyes turn hazy with intense pleasure. However, there was another facet to his passion, and in the afterwards, bathed and bodies skin to skin, his arms around her, he held her with tenderness and protectiveness. She knew he thought her strong, but somehow he understood her vulnerabilities—always had.
She whispered in that deep hour before dawn, “I cried myself to sleep when you were gone. I prayed
always, that you would return. And those seasons in London, I would hope that every moment when we were together, would last forever.” Her hand rubbed his arm as it was across her waist. “I felt—as if you’d found me, saved me, and that I belonged to you. That it was destiny.”
“You do—belong to me.” He moved his arm and leaned up to look down at her. His image was shadowed but his brown eyes were softly glowing. “I could not wait for you to grow up once I saw you again. Then I was terrified—that you would fall in love with someone else.”
“You would have given me to Jahi.”
“Not so.” He shook his head. “As noble as I pretended to be, the thought of it tore me apart. It was not an offer tested, but given the depth of my love for you, Juliette. I couldn’t have let anyone else have you.”
She reached up and touched his face. “Would you have wed Lady Harrison?”
“No. I was daily obsessed with trying to find a way out of it. Ultimately, I decided that I had to admit how I felt for you. Although, I thought you deserved freedom and the need to know yourself first.”
“You make me feel beautiful, loved, and different about myself. I do know myself with you.” She whispered, “When I’m with you, I feel whole.”
“As do I.” He leaned down and kissed her.
Monty laughed on a sigh. “If we don’t rest, we’ll never make the ride to Wolford.” He lay back down behind her. “Whenever you need to weep, Juliette, I’m here to hold you. I cannot change your childhood, but I will make your future filled with love and with life.” He snuggled her into his strong body. “I didn’t save you just for selfish reasons. I want you. I want you always with me. But I want to give you, show you, let you see, experience, everything life has to offer.”
“I love you.” She found his hand and held it tightly. “Your passion excites me, so I cannot wait to see what the rest of our life has in store. You have my heart, my very soul, Wolford. You always saw me, understood me, reached me, and saved me.”
His eyes shone in the dark, glistened with emotion, a soft smile formed on his lips.
“I think—I was born for you, Monty.”
“My curse.” He jested gruffly, feeling his heart squeeze with utter joy and humbleness.
“Indeed.” She smiled, brushing his hand across her lips, and then pressing it into her bosom. “I will turn your hair as silver as your fathers.”
“I hope so.” His throat flexed.
“Monty?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t have to watch life happen to other people, we can create it together. And I won’t have to run away anymore.”
“No love. Only turn to me. I will hold you until the hurt eases.”
She yawned and nodded.
“Sleep love. I am here.”
She slept, dreaming of a giant oak and multi colored floating leaves and their twined bodies joined beneath it. In the dream she opened her eyes and Wolford was there, the sun behind him just like the first time, only he was older. The look in his brown eyes melted her. Juliette murmured in her sleep, “I was afraid to love you, but I couldn’t help myself. It took forever for me to understand what I saw in your eyes that I had never seen before.”
Monty, awake and listening, said hoarsely, “You trusted me. I knew you would love me. I needed you too. I needed to love you. Just as I confessed before, I was saving you, Juliette… Saving you, for me.
He sensed her smile in slumber and swallowed the tears men were not supposed to shed. Of all of his past adventures and life’s accomplishments, this would be his greatest pride and joy. That he could bring life and love to another’s heart, give her all that she had only seen at a distance, father, husband, lover, family, friendship, freedom to be herself. That he would walk through the rest of his years knowing there was a woman who could hold his secrets, his dreams, his desires and his passions in her heart and love him too. He had told his father, in their private chat, before the wedding, that it was his love for Mary, their relationship that had set the bar for his own dreams. To the world, Thaddeus had all the confidence and power, but to those observing them as Monty had, it was the love he and Mary shared that gave each their strong anchor in the world. Monty had never wanted what the world would see as perfect, he wanted what his heart knew was true. Although she had to grow up to become the woman she was, he had loved Juliette from the moment he found her in the woods. Somehow, it was not so surprising that their journey took the course it did, each needed that testing, that proving, and he above all needed to prove to himself that she mattered more than anything else did in the world.
Dawn crept in and Monty opened his eyes from a half doze, figuring he would nap on the way to Wolford and be refreshed enough to pleasure his wife most of the night, just a second or two more of sleep…
* * * *
The hall clock announced the dinner hour and the servants took trays up to the duke and duchess’s sitting room, but after a discreet knock, they left.
Thaddeus took his time untangling from Mary’s nude body, her long hair rippled and flowed over the pillows. He sat up, able to smell the tempting aroma of much needed flood. He was not as young as he used to be and lovemaking had muscles aching he had nearly forgotten about.
Eyeing the curve of her back, the dreamy sight of her profile, he remembered suddenly, their wedding night, and how she hid that body from him self consciously, and how delightful it was to coax her out of her gown and into the depth of her passions. Weeks, years, thousands of hours they had given and taken pleasure of each other. When Monty was born, they wept, grew together with their fascination of him, and felt the weight of being his mentors, protectors, parents, always conscious of trying to balance the expectation with his happiness.
He reached out and caught a strand of Mary’s silken hair that was threaded with silver, so happy that she was still with him, that she would be until God took him from the earth. Mary was the wiser of them and he knew she tempered his stubbornness many times, particularly this life altering time in their son’s life.
“Aren’t you going to fetch our dinner?” She rolled to her back, that strand sliding from his hand as she did so. “I am starved.”
Smiling, he gazed over her face.
Her own expression changed. “You melt me with that smile.”
“I thought I melted you with something else.” He lay back, propped on his elbow, to regard her.
A brow arched and she stretched letting the sheet slide where it would.
Thaddeus laughed on a groan. “So much for my arrogance.” He leaned over and kissed each breast. Kissing her lips next, he murmured against them, “I regret though, that I cannot go another bout without substance.” He rolled, sat up and left the bed, padding nude to fetch their trays and by then she had gotten up and in her robe fetched his. They sat in the window seat and ate.
“They are still abed.”
He laughed, eyes twinkling at her. “We did not leave ours for a week.”
Holding her wine glass, she leaned her head back on the sill, loose hair and bare feet reminding him of when she was his young bride. Mary mused dreamily, “Those are wonderful years, being young, in love, full of passion, discovering it.”
Finished, he moved everything aside and reached for her, pulling her into his arms. “There is nothing wrong with these years, being older, in love, still full of passion, knowing what pleases each other.”
Caught up in a passionate kiss and letting him take her to bed, Mary moaned and clung to him. She knew Juliette loved Monty this much, this deep, and this way. Moreover, when her husband loved her, she knew Monty loved Juliette the same.
“Perhaps we can all take credit for saving her,” she told the duke some time later as they at last waved the couple off.
Arm around her, he murmured, “She married her hero. We simply bore him.”
“I wed mine too.” She took his hand and they entered the hall.
Laughing yet wearing his smug conquering smile; Thaddeus held her to
his side and steered her to the study for coffee. If Mary wanted to believe that, he was more than happy to bask in it.
The End
Watch for the tie-in book, The Coachman’s Daughter, coming soon.