by Lauren Royal
“Has no one touched you here?” he asked in a whisper tinged with amusement.
Was he jesting? She shook her head wildly, incapable of forming words at the moment.
“Good,” he grated out and jerked away, rising on his knees to struggle out of his clothes.
Yes, it was good. Even better when his elegant clothing had hit the floor.
He was magnificent. And it wasn’t a yard. Plenty long, but—thank goodness—nowhere near a yard. She didn’t have much time to muse on that, because he hurried to help her rise, wiggled her out of her gown, and pulled her chemise over her head.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed, his hands reaching out to skim her sides, her hips, her legs. In the glimmer of the candles his eyes looked the deepest blue, and for that moment, she believed him. And then they were together on the bed, skin to skin.
She’d never imagined such perfect bliss. His hands went everywhere, tantalizing and teasing while he kissed her so thoroughly she thought her head might spin off and fly away. Near her seat of womanly pleasure, an ache was building, and a heat, an exquisite heat.
He stroked where she ached, kissing her, kissing her, kissing her until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. The violin music grew faint as the blood rushed through her ears. Her hazy mind seemed to remember the Master-piece saying a man was exquisitely sensitive, which meant she should be able to give him the same incredible pleasure he was giving her.
She reached down. His gasp made her pulse leap as her fingers closed around hardness encased in soft velvet. Warm velvet. She stroked experimentally—
“No,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “This time is for you. I cannot—No—”
Alarmed, she let go. And he slipped a finger inside her body.
Her world tilted.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to tell him how he was making her feel. But no words came out.
The externals are designed to receive, and by their swelling, cause titillation and delight in those parts.
Unbearable delight, the book should have said.
Her desire to carnal embraces was absolutely, positively insuperable.
“I need you,” she whispered.
“I know. I need you, too.” He still seemed to be gritting his teeth. “Are you sure?” he asked again
When she nodded, he raised her knees and moved over her, settling himself between her thighs. She felt him there, at the neck of her womb, and it was indeed of an exquisite feeling. And then she felt him slowly pressing, herself stretching, opening…
Attended with some little pain…
She sucked in a breath, but the Master-piece had been right. The little pain was fading already. Her sisters would be relieved to hear it, except she would never, ever tell them.
Then he moved in her, and her sisters were the last thing on her mind. Her entire world was filled with him. He moved again, and she moved with him, learning the rhythm of love. It built and built, until she was certain she couldn’t stand more. The great heat, the friction, and yes, the considerable quantity of moisture, which being expunged in the time of copulation—
She cried out, lost in the wonder. Then suddenly she felt herself convulsing around him, wave after wave of spectacular pleasure. She’d thought it would be a momentary thing, but it went on, intensifying when he groaned and shuddered and she felt him spill inside her.
He collapsed against her, and she held his dark head, stroking his hair while she struggled to catch her breath. The barge was still rocking, and the violin was still playing, a lazy, lilting tune that matched the utterly exhausted bliss she was feeling. The Master-piece hadn’t prepared her. Or maybe she hadn’t quite believed it. But “greatly delights the woman” struck her as an abysmally weak description for what she’d just felt.
It had been so much more than that. She actually felt tears of emotion prick behind her eyes.
“Is it like this for everyone?” she wondered.
“No.” Not knowing how to explain, Ford shook his head, feeling her fingers slide in his hair. “It’s hardly ever like this. At least it’s never been like this for me.”
He kissed her eyes, her nose, her forehead. She was everything he hadn’t known he wanted in a woman. And she wanted him. He was the luckiest man in the world.
“Violet?”
“Hmm?” She stretched beneath him, warm and languid.
He kissed her chin, her cheek, brought his lips close to her ear. “I cannot wait to get married.”
He felt her stiffen and lifted his head to meet her gaze.
“I never said I would marry you,” she said, her brandy eyes filled with confusion. “Why…you haven’t even asked me.”
“Oh.” Of course. She wanted to be romanced. He rose to his elbows, brushing fingers alongside her face, fingers that had brought her such pleasure minutes earlier. Then he gave her his famous smile. “Will you do me the greatest honor I can imagine and become my wife, Violet Ashcroft?”
Her eyes looking bare without her spectacles, she blinked. “No.”
“What?” It had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t wed him after surrendering her virginity. She was no courtier, but a sheltered country miss. And the only woman he’d ever met who didn’t make him feel thickheaded.
Until now.
He must have heard her wrong. “I…I thought you said you wanted me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He saw her jaw set and felt a pit opening somewhere in his gut. “Did you do it on purpose, then?” she asked. “To secure me as your bride?”
“No!” He sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. “I didn’t intend for this to happen. You said you wanted me, Violet, and I couldn’t resist you—because I love you. That’s what tonight was all about.”
“Seduction,” she said.
“Well, yes. But not this far. Just supper, candlelight, music…and then I meant to propose.”
“I’m not angry, Ford.”
The words were said much too calmly. After what they’d just shared, there ought to be passion in her voice.
He turned to face her, his gaze sweeping her lush body, still aglow from their lovemaking. “How could you not be angry? I misunderstood you, and I…I’ve ruined you. And now you won’t let me make you an honest woman.”
“I’m a bit more enlightened than to believe that. Honesty has nothing to do with this. I honestly wanted you. And I don’t regret what we did. But I’m not prepared to say I’ll marry you.”
At least I’m not prepared to say I’ll marry you wasn’t an outright refusal. But he couldn’t understand, would never understand, how she could not regret their lovemaking and yet not want to marry him now.
Even though he’d felt that way with other women.
This had been different. This had been more than mere lovemaking. And with every fiber of his being, he was sure it had been as special for her as it had been for him.
“Question Convention,” he quoted woodenly.
He was beginning to understand what she’d meant when she said the Ashcrofts weren’t a conventional family…but he wasn’t at all sure anymore that he liked it.
Forty-Nine
FORD WAS SITTING at his desk the next morning, struggling to make sense out of a mound of Lakefield’s neglected paperwork, when his family showed up.
And showed up, and showed up—three carriages worth of them.
He’d known, of course, when he’d ordered Colin and Amy not to visit or bring the rest of the family, they were going to ignore him. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Especially on a day like this.
Lucky for him, most of them stayed outside while his twin, Kendra, came into the study, wearing an all-too-cheerful yellow gown.
“We’re here!” she announced, as though they’d sent notice ahead.
“I deduced as much when I heard the children shrieking.” All seven of the precious angels. For the first time in weeks, he was pleased with the sorry st
ate of his garden—at least there was little they could do to harm it.
Kendra stopped beside his chair, her dark red hair glimmering in the too-bright sun that streamed through the window at his back.
He scowled up at her. “Who invited you?”
She leaned down to give him a hug. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“Right,” he grunted without rising.
Backing off, she went to find a seat. He’d piled ledgers on the only extra chair, so she perched on the old iron chest he’d never managed to open.
“How was Scotland?” he asked her grudgingly.
“Beautiful. Hamish is in good health, and Niall has done wonders with Duncraven.” He’d never met these people—her husband’s family—but felt he knew them from her lively descriptions over the years. “And Cait’s family is well, too. Cameron and Clarice had another baby.”
“That’s good.” And no surprise. Everyone connected to the Chases seemed to have plenty of babies. Assuming it would be the same for him, he thought amidst another round of shrieks that perhaps Violet’s refusal had been for the best.
“Well.” Kendra crossed her legs, the foot on top swinging up and down with its red-heeled shoe. “We’ve come to meet Violet, so enough of the pleasantries.”
“Have I been pleasant?” Ford wondered.
Her green eyes flashed with all-too-familiar annoyance. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“Besides the fact that the woman I love won’t agree to marry me?”
“Colin said you were over Tabitha,” she said, frowning, and then, “Oh. Oh! It’s this Violet, then, isn’t it? Oh, my God. I cannot believe you admitted that. Ford Chase in love, wanting marriage.” The annoyance faded from her eyes as they flooded with compassion instead. “Why on earth won’t she have you?”
“Look around,” he said, gesturing toward the peeling walls. “I believe you’ll begin to get the picture.”
“Well.” Now her eyes filled with outrage. “If she values gold above love, then she doesn’t deserve you, anyway.”
“It’s not like that,” he said with a long-suffering sigh. “She’s more interested in books than material comforts. But she has money of her own, and she’s convinced herself no man would want her save to have it. I’m afraid the condition of this place has done nothing to reassure her my motives are otherwise.”
When Kendra came to hug him this time, he rose and let her wrap him in her arms.
“Poor Ford. You’ve always managed to get everything you’ve wanted before, haven’t you?”
Everything but Violet. Torn between taking comfort and bristling at his sister’s patronizing view of him, he opted for the comfort. “I guess so,” he mumbled into her lavender-scented hair.
“Where is she?” Kendra demanded, pulling back. “I’ll talk to her and explain that your intentions are sterling. The sort of man you are—”
“Violet is busy today,” he said quickly. The last thing he needed was his family poking their noses in—which was exactly why he hadn’t wanted them here. Violet’s family might be unconventional, but his was mad as a cell full of Bedlam inmates.
The words Violet had left him with were I’m not prepared to say I’ll marry you. One glimpse of the family she’d be marrying into, and her answer would be an unequivocal no.
“Are you sure?” Kendra asked. “We’ve come all this way—”
“I’m positive.” He plopped back onto his chair, willing to discuss anything to get off the subject of Violet. “Sit down and catch me up on the gossip.”
She wandered back to sit on the chest. “Cait is with child again.”
“What took her so long?” he asked dryly. “It’s been nearly two years since their last.” Jason and Caithren had two boys already. “And you?”
“Oh, two girls are enough.”
“Trick isn’t wanting an heir?”
“If one comes along, he wouldn’t mind, I suppose…” The faint blush on her cheeks told him she and her husband, Patrick, were trying to conceive. She looked down, her fingers tracing the decorative metal strips on the chest. “You know,” she said, also a master at changing the subject, “this chest has always reminded me of the treasure chest Trick and I found and brought to King Charles. Every time I see this one, I wonder what might be in it.”
“I’ve always wondered that myself.”
Her head whipped up. “You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “It came with the place, and there’s no key for the lock, and—”
“I’ll have Trick open it, you fool. Let me go get the others.” Before he could respond, she’d shot out the door.
While he waited for the invasion, he leaned his elbows on the desk and dropped his head into his hands, shutting his eyes against all the paper. Bills, letters, a notice from his mortgage holder that a payment was overdue. If only he had enough money to settle it all, get a fresh start…
He would have to see how Rand was coming along with the translation. But even if Secrets of the Emerald Tablet did hold the key to making gold, it could take months or possibly years to get the formula to work…
He jerked upright, staring at the chest across the room. He’d always assumed it wouldn’t have been left here if it contained anything valuable, but what if Kendra were on to something? The chest she and her husband had found for King Charles had been filled with precious metal and jewels, and for all Ford knew, this one could be stuffed to the brim with gold.
The solution to his problems might have been sitting here all along: the means to pay the debts, the proof to convince Violet he didn’t need her for her inheritance.
His heart was racing by the time the family trooped in. Colin led the regiment with Amy, who was holding their baby son Aidan in her arms. Ford’s oldest brother, Jason, followed behind with his wife, Caithren. Kendra brought up the rear, her husband, Patrick—or Trick, as they all called him—by her side with their one-year-old girl.
Their remaining collective five offspring burst in after them, racing around Ford’s desk, hanging on his back, climbing on the chairs and the iron chest.
Whatever had made him think he wanted a couple of these wild creatures? Then Jewel climbed up on his lap in greeting, and as she pressed a damp kiss to his cheek, he suddenly remembered why.
“Here it is,” Kendra said, leading her tall, golden-haired husband to the chest. She plucked her nephew Hugh off of it and plopped him on his feet.
The boy looked up. “Can you open it, Uncle Trick?”
Trick grinned, displaying a front tooth with a slightly chipped corner. “I wasn’t a smuggler in my prior life for nothing, you know.” Handing his baby daughter to his wife, he pulled out his knife and dropped to one knee to get to work.
While his brother-in-law probed the heavy lock, Ford rose and set Jewel down, taking her hand as he walked closer. As though the chest were a magnet attracting metal shavings, everyone else drifted near and gathered around, until they were all hanging over it in anticipation. An expectant quiet descended on the room. Even the children stopped playing.
Ford’s heart hammered against his ribs. This could be the answer—
A rusty click shattered the silence. Trick twisted the old padlock from the hasp. Ford held his breath as the man’s hands went to the heavy lid and lifted it.
As one, the family exhaled.
Jewel tugged on Ford’s breeches. “It’s empty, Uncle Ford.”
“I can see that.” Concealing a sigh, he lifted his niece and buried his nose in her fragrant little-girl hair.
It would have been such a nice, neat solution. But he’d always known there was nothing of value in that chest. Otherwise, he’d have hacked off the lock years ago.
He might be slightly desperate, but he’d never been stupid.
Kendra reached to touch his arm. “I’m sorry.”
At that, Colin sighed. “Were you expecting this to solve all your problems?”
Ford’s jaw tensed. “Who says I have problems?”
Ford’s arms tightened around Jewel. Would his family forever see him this way? He’d made several important scientific discoveries, and he’d changed, hadn’t he? He’d fallen in love and wanted to get married.
“Who invited you here to pick on me?”
“We need no invitation. We’re family. Do you ask for an invitation before coming to Cainewood?”
“That’s different. I live there.”
“Do you?” Jason raised a brow. Maybe he sensed the changes in Ford, after all.
And Ford wondered: where did he live? At the Chase town house in London? Or the big castle at Cainewood? Or here?
He wanted to live here, he realized. Not in bustling London near the Royal Society and all his friends, not at his brother’s castle with his family. Here, in the staid countryside. With Violet.
Bloody hell, love changed a man more than he’d thought possible.
Amy and Cait exchanged a sympathetic glance. “Ford—” they started together.
“Milord, do you not think you should have left for Lady Violet’s celebration already?” Hilda bustled into the room, a steaming pie in her hands. “I’ve made a tart for you to bring. Cherry, the young viscount’s favorite.”
“A celebration?” Kendra’s eyes lit. “What is it for?”
“Her birthday,” Ford said shortly. “And none of you are invited.”
“But Uncle Ford.” Jewel turned her little face up, her eyes pleading. “Mama promised I can see Rowan.”
In the face of an argument like that, there was no hope in fighting this battle. Already, he had lost.
Fifty
TWENTY-ONE. It felt no different than twenty, which Violet found amazing, especially considering she’d also graduated from girlhood to womanhood last night.