“I would,” he said, stroking her hair.
She lifted her hand to his face, a gentle, thoughtful caress. “That was wonderful,” she murmured.
He turned his head to plant a kiss against her palm. “That’s how it’s meant to be, what I’ve been trying to show you all along. If it takes being tied to the bed to experience it, so be it. It’s worth it, don’t you think?”
She laughed helplessly. “It is. Yes. I’ve never felt so—so satisfied in all my life, about anything. Only—is it right? Is there something wrong with me that it took…that…to please me?”
He blessed Lucy’s logical mind for cutting right to the heart of whatever doubts and guilt she felt rather than bottling them up. “Here,” he said, indicating the bed with a wave of his hand, “anything that pleases the two of us is right. It’s our world, our pleasure and our secret. I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with you. You just needed to be in a position where you had to trust me, instead of yourself.”
She nodded, looking much reassured.
“I don’t think you’ll need all that the next time,” he continued. “Unless you want it.”
Her eyes went soft, her mouth fell open in a startled oh, and James knew she must be reliving the experience in her mind. He felt a quiver of desire he wouldn’t have believed possible so soon after so intense an experience.
After a moment, she shook her head. “Not next time,” she said. “But…if you’re certain there’s nothing wrong in it, sometime. That was so…so…I don’t have the words.”
He kissed her and gazed into her beautiful dark eyes, so soft and sated and trusting. “I know. It was the same for me.”
“It was?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” He yawned prodigiously. “And now all I want is to sleep with you in my arms.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I’m happy to oblige, but if what we do here is really to be our secret, we should take those off the bedposts first.”
Indeed. He’d untied the cravats from Lucy’s wrists, but not from the bed. They sat up and each untied the nearest, and James took them and the third that had served as a blindfold. “I’ll toss these in the hamper in my dressing room,” he said. “I promise you, neither my valet nor the laundresses count them.”
He did so, and upon returning to the bedroom snuffed out the candles before climbing into bed and gathering Lucy against him spoon-fashion. They were both still naked, and he luxuriated in the feel of her soft skin pressed against the length of his body. “Do you want your shift or one of my nightshirts?” he asked.
“No. I don’t think I do.” Her voice held a note of surprise. “I like this.” But she did pull the sheet and coverlet a little higher, tucking them firmly about their shoulders, and James grinned as he shifted into a comfortable position for sleep.
As he drifted toward oblivion, he realized that in his bliss with Lucy, he’d temporarily forgotten his sister’s plight. Something must be done for Anna, but if Lucy was right and she wouldn’t yet consider a separation, what other options did she have? He worried at the problem for a few minutes while Lucy slept peacefully in his arms, but no ideas came to him. Reluctantly he concluded he was too tired to think, closed his eyes and basked in his wife’s contented closeness until slumber claimed him at last.
Lucy awoke at dawn and did not know where she was. The light and shadows were all wrong, and even her skin felt odd. She rose up on one elbow, and as the sheet fell back she remembered she was entirely naked. Snatching the sheet over her shoulders, she sank back down just as James stirred without quite waking and nestled against her back, throwing a careless arm across her waist.
Of course. She was in James’s bed, not her own…and, oh, dear God, the things they had done in this bed last night. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but she wasn’t. If the only way for her to feel such bliss was to be blindfolded and bound, why, then James could do so every night. The things he could do with his hands and his mouth—especially his mouth!
The memories alone made her languorous, full of the pleasant ache of desire, and she shifted to lie yet a little closer to James, enjoying the press of his skin against hers. He showed no signs of waking, so she fell into a doze, only to wake abruptly when the door opened and the housemaid stepped in, none too quietly. Lucy held still and heard the servant’s sharp indrawn breath—of course, she would have expected them to be in Lucy’s room, as they had been every morning since the wedding. The maid’s ordinary walk became a slow, careful glide as she crossed to the washstand, but the soft clink as she shifted the porcelain ewer and poured fresh water into it was enough to wake James.
He did not make any sign that the maid could have noticed, but Lucy knew the instant he woke. His hand at her waist tightened and began a slow, deliberate caress, down to brush the top of the curls between her thighs, then up to cup her breast. Her desire for him turned into something closer to a smolder than an ache. She poked him in the ankle with a toe to let him know she was awake and that he really must behave until the maid left the room, but she also covered his hand with her own and settled it over her breast.
His erection grew against her back, hard and promising. James awoke in an aroused state more often than not. Before today, it had made her anxious, but now that she knew what he wanted for her and how blissful it was…well, she had never before thought that it took an eternity for a housemaid to set out fresh water and towels and to lay a fire in the hearth ready for lighting should the day prove cool. But in Lucy’s impatience she began to think the girl would never leave.
At last Lucy heard the door shut with a soft click. She stretched luxuriantly, pressing herself against James. He made a sound in the back of his throat—a happy, inquisitive “Mm?”—kissed the back of her neck and tangled his feet with hers. With the need for silence over, his caressing hand at her breast grew more provocative, fingers circling the hard peak of her nipple, and she returned him a long, pleased “Mmmm” of her own.
Lucy expected him to at any moment turn her onto her back and go about coupling in what she assumed was the ordinary, usual way, but he was in no hurry, evidently satisfied to explore her body with his questing hand while he kissed and nibbled at the back of her neck. It was different, but also somehow right, in the sleepy light of early morning, to simply nuzzle and play without rushing to completion. This was what he had been wanting all along, she realized, and she was sorry to have delayed it even a little.
But then his hand found its way between her thighs to that same exquisitely sensitive spot his tongue had stroked yesterday, and she could not think any longer. She gasped and arched against his erection. Surely now he would turn her to face him.
Instead he nudged her top leg forward, the slid his hand around to touch her again, now running a fingertip around her entrance and slipping just inside her. She cried out with pleasure, and he pulled her back against him, shifted her hips and his, and somehow managed to get himself inside her.
It wasn’t like having him on top of her. At this angle he couldn’t make a deep thrust, but it felt just as good as he slowly eased himself almost all the way out, then pushed back in with a short, sharp thrust.
His hands and mouth were busy, too. He worked his way up her neck to nibble at her earlobe, and he caressed her breasts in time with his thrusts until she was moaning to match his rhythm, a little startled at her own abandon but enjoying it far too much to resist it.
Now he dragged his hand down her belly and found that one particular spot again. He rubbed it, hard, and the pleasure exploded within her, leaving her gasping and shuddering.
A few more thrusts, and he went rigid against her back with a groan, his seed a warm pulse inside her. They lay still and silent for a few seconds, and then James withdrew and at last tugged her to lie facing him.
“Good morning,” he said with a rather smug smile.
Lucy couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
James’s expression turned indignant. “What is so amusing?”
>
“It’s only—I hadn’t noticed that we hadn’t even spoken to each other yet.”
Now he laughed, too, pulling her into his arms, and they lay together in a relaxed heap. It took them some time to speak again, as every time one tried, the other started giggling or chuckling afresh. But at last James caught Lucy’s face between his hands and pressed his lips to hers in a delicate, solemn kiss. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” he said.
“Couldn’t you tell?”
“Yes. But—I’d still like to hear you say it, if you can.”
“I did,” she acknowledged, feeling her face heat a little. “Did you?”
He smiled, no longer smug. “Immensely.” She pillowed her head against his shoulder, and he smoothed her hair. “Oh, Lucy,” he said. “We’re going to have such fun together.”
It proved to be a day of fun. They passed their morning in the usual way, with James reading the papers and his voluminous correspondence over the breakfast table, all the while talking to Lucy of the assorted important people and political issues that would become her world when they went to London together when next Parliament was in session.
After breakfast he gave her another riding lesson, and that too was ordinary enough until the very end. As they walked from the stables, he whispered that when she was more confident on her mare’s back, he would show her to a certain secluded grove where the trees grew thickly enough to screen them from any passerby’s view. They could take a picnic and afterward, perhaps…
“Outside!” Lucy gasped, shocked and thrilled together.
“Why not? I think you’ll like it.”
All at once Lucy pictured it, the two of them naked together on a picnic blanket—since she was not entirely lost to modesty, her imagination provided a second blanket to cover them—and she vowed to apply herself even more zealously to her horsemanship.
Once inside, Lucy met with the housekeeper, leaving James to answer letters in the library. When she had settled on the day’s meals and reviewed the household accounts, she thought of seeking him out, but instead decided to go to her new studio and draw. James had his business to attend to, and she did not want to interrupt him.
But she had not been at her easel for half an hour when her husband strolled in. “I thought I might find you here,” he said.
She set her pencil down and smiled at him. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I missed you, that’s all.” He tilted her chin up and stooped to kiss her, long and thoroughly. She slid her hands to his shoulders and kissed him back.
“Mm,” he said when he broke the contact, “but this isn’t very comfortable.” He pulled her to her feet, sat in the chair himself and tugged her onto his lap.
“James!” she yelped.
His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Much better.” He kissed her again. With one hand he held her securely while the other roamed her body, at last tugging free the fichu that filled in the low neckline of her dress to make it suitable for daytime wear. She gasped at the touch of his hand on the soft skin just above her breasts. He traced the edge of her bodice with his fingertips, then worked his hand beneath her dress, beneath her petticoat, stays and shift to find her breast. She whimpered as he caught her nipple between his fingers.
Then he reached for the hem of her skirts.
“Here? Now?” she asked.
He laughed. “Why not? No one will come in here without leave.”
Of course they would not. Lucy laughed too. There was something so luxuriously naughty about coupling in broad daylight like this—and she’d had so little luxury and no naughtiness whatsoever in her life before marrying James. She shifted to help him and then sat astride him as he unbuttoned his breeches.
“I hope we don’t break the chair,” she murmured.
He raised an eyebrow. “We won’t. I wouldn’t have such—” his erection sprang free and he guided her hand to it, “—shoddy workmanship—” he seized her by the hips, drawing her closer, and she rose up over him and eased down onto him, “—in my house.”
Lucy gasped and kissed him. “Hush, now.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said meekly. He arched up beneath her—the chair did creak a little—and she shifted till her tiptoes found purchase on the floor and she could ride him like a horseman posting to the trot. This was especially delicious somehow, taking their pleasures fully clothed, her hands clutching the blue superfine wool of his coat even while beneath her pooled sprigged muslin skirts they were joined in the most intimate way possible.
Afterward, when both were sated but while they still sat, joined, on the chair, the first thing she said to him was, “I feel naughty.”
He stroked her cheek with one hand. “The Lucy I first met would never have sounded so pleased about such a thing.”
“Then I suppose you’re a dreadful influence on me.”
He kissed her, and after a few more kisses and a fair amount of laughter, they straightened each other’s clothes and went about the business of the day.
That night, in the midst of what had been their usual sort of coupling, only more pleasurable than on previous nights, James abruptly rolled so that she lay atop him. A new thought occurred to Lucy. “You have a list somewhere, don’t you?” she accused, even as she shifted to get her knees under her for better leverage.
“Yes, like that…mmm.” He seized her hips in a caressing grip. “A list of what?”
“A list of positions. Or a catalog. We haven’t done it in the same way twice today.”
“Are you complaining about that?”
“No.” She laughed. “It’s simply amusing, to imagine you crossing off items, thinking, Better roll over this time. Lucy hasn’t tried that yet.”
“I do not have a list,” he protested. “Or, wait—perhaps I do. And we aren’t even close to exhausting the possibilities.”
Lucy blinked and paused in her rocking motions. How many more ways could bodies be linked? “Truly?”
“Truly. I’ll show you tomorrow. But now…” His hands tightened on her hips, urging her to move again.
Nothing loath, she complied. “You’re a madman,” she said, “but I love you for it.”
“Do you? Well, you’re the most dear, serious, dignified lady that ever was—and I love you. I love everything about you.”
As Lucy fell asleep in James’s arms that night, she wondered if she could bear so much happiness.
Chapter Nineteen
At breakfast on their second morning of bliss, James sighed as he read the last item in his little stack of post. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to go riding with you this morning,” he said. “This is from Mr. Rowley, telling me that Hartley is in Great Alston today exhibiting his thresher, but that tomorrow morning he’ll be well on his way to Cardiff.”
“I don’t mind. I think I’ll try a short ride on my own, perhaps with Sam to accompany me. Barbara and I begin to understand each other very well now, I think.”
“Yes, you’re a quick study.” He winked at her. “At a great many things.”
She colored and laughed. James wished he could spend the day doing nothing but enjoying her embraces, but a good landowner must give any potential agricultural improvement due consideration.
He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice even though no one else was in the room. “There’s something you might find of interest to study in the third drawer on the right-hand side of my desk—the one that’s always locked. I’ll give you the key before I leave.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Something of interest, you say?”
“Oh, simply a book my father brought from India. It’s quite, er, lavishly illustrated. I thought you might look at it to see if there’s anything you’d like for us to attempt together one of these nights.”
“I look forward to it. You’ve aroused my curiosity.”
She placed the faintest lascivious emphasis on “aroused,” and he grinned. A quick study, indeed.
James spent an hour evaluating the merits of the threshe
r before concluding it was not for him, at least not till certain flaws had been addressed. The inventor was disappointed, but they departed on cordial terms when James expressed his interest in seeing future models of the thresher or any other agricultural improvements the inventor developed.
James had left Ghost in the stables of the Rose and Crown, the better of Great Alston’s two inns, and his step quickened as he drew near. He was eager to go home to his wife, and he smiled at his own domesticity.
But as he was about to step into the stable yard behind the inn, he was arrested by a familiar voice just around the corner of the building and out of sight. Lieutenant Arrington.
“Of course I am heartily sorry for your sister’s plight, but I cannot marry her now.”
“You’re not sorry,” replied an angry Yorkshire-accented voice. “If you were sorry, you would’ve married her these two months ago when I first wrote you.”
“Be that as it may, there is nothing I can do for her now. I’m no bigamist.”
“No, you’re only a cad, Lieutenant. And a lieutenant you’ll stay. I will ruin you.”
Arrington laughed. “I wish you luck. But I must warn you that my wife’s cousin is Major Gordon of my own regiment, and General Mackenzie is also a kinsman. Of course, his health is such that he will not take a field command, but I’m sure you must know how well his voice is heeded at Horse Guards.”
“Bastard,” the unknown Yorkshireman spat.
“No,” Arrington said coolly. “That would be your sister’s child.”
James narrowly refrained from slamming his fist against the inn’s stone wall.
“If I might offer a suggestion,” Arrington continued, an unbecoming note of triumph in his voice, “rather than seeking to ruin me, your interests would be better served by finding some man who’d be willing to marry Clarissa. Someone of your own level. I’m sure a man of your resources could make it worth such a person’s while to look the other way over his firstborn’s paternity.”
A Marriage of Inconvenience Page 26