Three Proposals and a Scandal: A Sons of Sin Novella

by Anna Campbell

  “We’re alone now. If you lock the door, we’ll stay that way.”

  “Excellent suggestion.” He leaned in to kiss her. His circumspect peck during the ceremony had merely stoked raging hunger. Ever since that breathtaking interval in Jonas’s music room a week ago, he’d burned.

  Her lips were soft and parted sweetly to his, but he raised his head before the kiss deepened into passion. He meant to be careful with her tonight, no matter how fiercely he wanted her.

  “After I’ve kissed you.”

  Her eyes slowly opened. She looked gratifyingly dazed. “You just did.”

  “Again then.”

  This time he briefly slipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting her. When he turned away and crossed to turn the key, he nearly stumbled. She wasn’t the only one knocked silly by their kisses.

  When he turned back, she was at the sideboard pouring two brandies. He heard a clink as her unsteady hand bumped the decanter against the rim of a glass.

  “Is my gallant bride afraid?” he asked softly.

  Ravishing color tinged her cheeks as she passed him a glass. “No.”

  He tilted his eyebrows at her. “Really?”

  She picked up her brandy. “Perhaps a little nervous. But that’s not the same as afraid.”

  “Do you remember the night in the music room?” He took a sip, although he already felt intoxicated with the knowledge that this marvelous creature had consented to be his wife.

  The pink in her cheeks intensified. “Of course.”

  He recognized that anticipation sparked her jumpiness. “Tonight will be like that.”

  “What we did then was wonderful.” Her voice lowered to seriousness. “That next night, I hoped we’d do it again. When I received that note asking me to go to the conservatory, I was sure you’d sent it.”

  He paused, glass halfway to his mouth. “The idea that you met Tranter willingly never crossed my mind.”

  He watched her tension ease as she sipped her brandy. “You trusted me more than I trusted you. I should have always known that you weren’t a liar.”

  After his second—thank God, successful—proposal, they’d parted so abruptly that they needed to clarify some issues. He took her hand. It rested trembling in his grasp. His thumb brushed the gold ring, that tangible symbol of their triumph over the obstacles separating them.

  “You were just a bit muddleheaded. And Cam’s defection had hit your confidence. No wonder you feared I was a fortune hunter.” Cam’s defection and her father’s subtle tyranny, convincing her that unless she was an obedient cipher, she had no value. But wisdom kept him silent on that subject. He wasn’t naïve enough to hope the scars Lord Baildon had inflicted had healed.

  Mischief brightened her face. “Cam who?”

  He laughed and slid his glass onto the sideboard. “Shall we proceed or do you need more Dutch courage, my love?”

  Without shifting her concentration from him, she placed her glass next to his. “Am I your love?”

  He regarded her, standing tall and proud for all her uncertainty. She was so brave. He’d noted that from the first. Fate had granted him a bride in a million. “I told you I loved you in London.”

  “And I was so awful to you.”

  He smiled. Astonishing how that wound no longer pained him, now that she was his. “You were rather cruel.”

  She frowned, although she must hear the teasing in his voice. “I’ll make amends.”

  “You’d better.”

  “So am I still your love?” Shyly, her eyelashes fluttered down. “I…hope I am. Especially as you know I love you.”

  He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles. The gesture didn’t begin to express the tenderness flooding him. “I’ve guarded those words like a talisman, darling. Don’t you know I love you?”

  “I’d like to be convinced.”

  He was relieved to note that with every second, she sounded more confident. “I fell in love with you at first sight, although it took me a while to recognize it. You wore blue at the Worthingtons’ ball and I said to myself, ‘That’s the woman I’m going to marry.’ Imagine my chagrin when I heard you were all but promised to what’s-his-name, that duke fellow.”

  Her eyes shone with shy delight. “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “How lovely.” Her fingers tightened around his. “I fell in love with you last Christmas. I was horribly cast down to think you only cared about my fortune.”

  “Now you know better, don’t you?”

  Regret darkened her delicate features. “It’s a pity I couldn’t solve the Thorne family financial crisis. Given it’s now my family, too.”

  Her allegiance pleased him. “We’re not quite on our uppers, my darling. You can have a new gown now and again, and we won’t have bread and jam for every meal.”

  She laughed. She always reacted with surprised pleasure when he mocked her. He suspected jokes had been rare in her father’s solemn household.

  “That’s a mercy.”

  He sobered, wanting to set her mind at ease. “It may take a few years before I can drape you in diamonds, my love, but the Thorne fortunes have recently taken a turn for the better.”

  “I like that.”

  “The promise of diamonds?”

  “No, the way you call me your love.”

  “You will always be my love. I fought an army of dragons to win my beautiful lady. I intend to spend the next fifty years enjoying the spoils of victory.”

  “I like to hear you call me beautiful, too.”

  He curled one hand around her supple waist. “You’ll believe it before the night is done.”

  She slid her hand up his chest with a naturalness that made his heart crash into his ribs. “Show me.”

  “You’re not afraid anymore?”

  “Hearing you say you love me has done wonders.”

  “Well, let me say it again.” The humor faded as he looked into her eyes and saw a devotion that would last a lifetime. “I love you, Marianne.”

  “And I love you, Elias,” she said with equal weight. “Now kiss me before I go mad.”

  He laughed with an unfettered joy he couldn’t remember feeling before. “With pleasure.”

  When his lips met hers, he was gentle. He was painfully aware that while he was ready to devour her in one mouthful, she was a virgin.

  At least his intentions were pure. But she immediately opened and flicked her tongue across his lips in unabashed invitation. Her wholehearted cooperation made him desire’s fool.

  She murmured her appreciation of his swift response and curved her body into his. He pulled her nightgown up, only stopping the kiss long enough to tug it over her head and fling it aside. Her warm, silky hair cascaded around him as he returned to the kiss. His hands traced soft curves, breasts and waist and hips and buttocks. All perfectly shaped for his delectation.

  Heat spiked when she touched his chest through the red dressing gown. His heart slammed to a stop when those eager hands pushed the robe from his shoulders. As the garment crumpled to the floor, he basked in the heady friction of her bare skin against his.

  He battled the haze in his mind and raised his head from where he kissed her neck. He wanted to stop and spend forever looking at her. He wanted to tumble her immediately onto the bed behind them. “Marianne, I’ll shock you.”

  “I want you.” She scattered a deluge of kisses over his chest. Her lips grazed one nipple, making him jolt.

  She stretched up and kissed him with open-mouthed enthusiasm, her lovely breasts pressing into him. As the pebbled nipples brushed his skin, animal hunger took hold. He growled and swung her up into his arms. He placed her on the bed and kissed her with all the love in his heart. He couldn’t get enough of that luscious mouth.

  Caution insisted that he delay to explore the glorious bounty of her body. But she surged up with a cracked whimper that set his blood afire. When she raised her knees to frame his hips, restraint rushed away. Instead there was welcome and
a need to possess that turned his brain to lava.

  Seeking hands shaped her flesh, slipped between her legs to make her ready. She bucked and cried out sharply as his fingers slid into her sleek heat. He stroked her, but breathtakingly quickly, they’d both reached the point where this wasn’t enough.

  Tensing his thighs, he nudged against her. On a moan, her fingers dug into his shoulders. Smoothly and easily his body slid inside hers.

  Through passion’s deafening clamor, he recalled her innocence. But she sobbed in desperation and pitched her hips to take him deeper. He couldn’t fight her. He was lost to everything except primitive compulsion. He thrust into heavenly tightness and claimed her.

  Through the roar in his ears, he heard Marianne’s shocked gasp. Then he gasped himself when she sank her teeth into the curve of his shoulder. Pain flashed through him, adding an edge to the unearthly experience of joining with her.

  “Hell and damnation, what have I done?” he groaned, lifting his head and seeing her clearly for the first time since appetite overmastered him. “Did I hurt you?”

  The drive to move deeper pushed him to insanity. The way she clenched around him felt like paradise, while devils of self-recrimination scurried around his head, kicking and pinching. He should have been more careful with her.

  “Marianne, say something,” he said urgently. In the shadowy candlelight, he couldn’t interpret her feelings as she lay staring up into his face. “For God’s sake, if you want to scream at me, do it.”

  The fraught silence extended before, to his astonishment, she smiled. Her expression conveyed an exhilarating mixture of self-satisfaction and elation.

  “You’re mine.” She trailed her hands along his shoulders and down his bare back like an explorer taking possession of a new land. “All mine.”

  “I’ve been yours since we met.” He rose on his arms so he could see her. He felt her body adjust to the change. Sensation blasted him. And the urge to finish.

  “I love that,” she sighed. A flush marked her slanted cheekbones and her eyes were heavy with arousal. Before Elias could stop himself, he edged forward. She wriggled and seated him more firmly. She conquered every inch of him, body and soul.

  “I love you. I can’t bear to think I hurt you.”

  “You didn’t.” She paused. “Perhaps a little. At first.”

  Relief flooded him and he sucked in a shuddering breath, drawing her scent into his lungs. Richer and earthier than before. “I wanted to spend hours worshipping you. I wanted you to feel cherished and special and adored.”

  She tangled her hands in his hair and brought him down for a lengthy kiss. “I do feel cherished and adored. I feel like you’re the answer to all the questions I’ve ever asked, the beckoning fire at the end of every journey, my shelter against the storm.” Her voice thickened. “Thank you for loving me, Elias.”

  “Oh, my darling,” he choked out. He wasn’t worthy of her, but he’d do his damnedest to keep her happy.

  When he stared into her glowing eyes, all doubt vanished. They’d come together as naturally as rivers ran to the sea. That recognition banished his last misgivings and he began to move.

  With the first slide of his hips, her eyes flared and she made a wordless sound of pleasure. “Elias,” she whispered in surprise.

  “With my body I thee worship,” he said smiling.

  “I’m the luckiest girl in England,” she murmured and rose to join him in the fiery voyage to ecstasy.

  * * *

  Marianne was in the grip of a whirlwind. Frantically her hands grabbed at Elias’s shoulders as his body thundered into hers. This was no gentle mating. Instead it was basic and brazen and untamed, as though what they did sprang directly from the earth.

  She panted for air and bowed up, stirring a tempest of responses inside her. His skin was hot under her dancing hands. She’d never been so aware of another person’s physical presence.

  At first, she’d felt overwhelmed by his size and vigor. Now she reveled in his will to possess her. Every time he thrust deep, he silently proclaimed his love. Bliss overwhelmed the memory of brief pain.

  After the night in the music room, she recognized the strange, coiling sensation rippling through her. He shifted in her like mighty waves crashing on a wild beach, driving her higher and higher. Desperate for relief from the ferocious torrent, she whimpered and dug her nails into his shoulders. He shivered in response, but kept torturing her with merciless rapture. Surely she must shatter.

  On a sob, she arched up, taking him further into her body to break the unbearable tension. Only to find the tension twisting tighter.

  She could endure no more.

  This tested every boundary.

  He plunged deep and something within her broke free to soar. All the frantic seeking blazed into heat and satisfaction, and joy beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

  “Elias!” she cried, arms and legs closing hard around him as she dived and swooped into the flame. He moved choppily in her grasp and muffled a guttural groan against the damp skin of her neck. His body hardened and shuddered, and liquid heat flooded her.

  For a long time, she lay quivering beneath him as the outside world slowly regained a place in her awareness. She returned to an opulent room and a soft bed and the hot weight of Elias crushing her into fine linen sheets.

  Eventually his breathing eased and he rolled off her, separating their bodies. She bit back a whimper. He lashed her to his left side, sliding up on the pillows and drawing the sheet over them.

  “Are you all right?” He brushed her tumbled hair back from her face with a tenderness that made her bare toes curl.

  She managed a weary, contented smile. “Absolutely wonderful.”

  Elias dipped his head and kissed her with a sweetness all the more profound for the passion that preceded it. When he pulled away, she looked into his eyes and wondered how she’d ever questioned that he loved her.

  “I bit you.” She strained to see his right shoulder, then blushed to find the mark of her teeth.

  “You did. I’ve married a barbarian.” The warmth in his voice indicated he didn’t really mind.

  “I’m appalled that it might be true.”

  She stretched to see across his chest. Her muscles protested the movement, a reminder of how powerfully he’d taken her. When she kissed the faint abrasion, his skin tasted of salt and male musk.

  How delicious that she’d claimed him in such a carnal way. He was right. She was a barbarian. Who would have thought? She settled back beside him and he wrapped his arm around her, bringing her close.

  “You’re smiling,” he said, cupping her jaw in one hand and idly rubbing his thumb in a line from her ear to her chin.

  She touched lips swollen from his kisses. “Am I?”

  His hold tightened. “Tell me why.”

  Beneath her fingertips, she felt her smile widen. “How lovely to know that we can do this for the rest of our lives.”

  Excitement sparked in his black eyes. “I say we should start as we mean to go on.” He shifted until she straddled him, his hands holding her hips. “I’ve spent months dreaming of having you in my arms. It’s time to turn those dreams into reality.”

  For all her new boldness, she was burningly conscious of her nakedness, although his glittering gaze told her that he loved to look at her. From this angle, she had a breathtaking view of his leanly muscled chest. She intended to discover the rest of him before much longer.

  With instinctive sensuality, she shook her hair back from her face. Intoxicating audacity seized her, made her brave. She swung down to share a sumptuous kiss.

  “Show me more, my darling.”

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Houghton Park, Lincolnshire, August 1836

  Elias followed the sound of happy shrieks and laughter through the verdant grounds of the Thorne ancestral seat. He swung open the walled garden’s gate and stood under the rose-covered arch to observe his family.

  P
eter, his oldest son, a tall six-year-old with his mother’s deep brown hair, did his best to fight off an attack from his five-year-old brother, Michael, who was the image of his Uncle Harry. The clack of wooden swords echoed off the ancient stone walls. Beyond the dueling boys, Baroness Wilmott did her best to catch the black-haired streak of lightning that was their daughter Selina. His wife’s best was, as usual with Selina, not good enough. Elias had often wondered how three-year-old legs could move so fast.

  As so often happened, Selina was the first to notice him. “Papa!” she bellowed and veered in his direction to fling herself against his knees in an ecstasy of adoration. He slipped the letter he carried into the inside pocket of his coat and lifted her up.

  “Are you teasing your poor mother again, monster?” he asked with a smile.

  “She can’t catch me,” Selina said with a self-satisfaction that made him laugh. “Nobody can.”

  “Then what are you doing in my clutches?”

  She stared up at him, her black Thorne eyes alight with devilry. “I wanted you to catch me.”

  “That makes all the difference,” he said solemnly.

  “I should have married Desborough,” Marianne said breathlessly, reaching his side and leaning in for a kiss. “He’d have given me perfect children instead of these hellions.”

  The boys stopped their game and watched their parents curiously. “Perfect children are boring,” Peter announced.

  “I was a perfect child and I certainly wasn’t boring,” his mother told him, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

  “None of the Thornes were perfect,” Elias said.

  “And we’re all Thornes,” Michael said calmly.

  “You are indeed,” Marianne said. “I blame your regrettable behavior entirely on your father.”

  “What’s gettable?” Selina asked.

  “It’s a barrel of fun,” Elias said.

  His wife regarded him with an unimpressed expression. “See if you believe that after they’ve had you at their mercy all morning.”

  Elias tightened one arm around his daughter’s slight weight and reached to touch his wife’s lovely face. “I could handle this lot with my eyes closed.”