“Shall you weep now?” He held her close, his chin on her temple, and the very snugness of his embrace was reason enough to weep.
“Is it expected?”
“How does a man answer such a thing? From what I recall of my distant, misspent youth—you will note my tact—some women do, some of the time. I understand it now better than I used to.”
“You want to weep?” She cuddled closer, listening for his heartbeat. She couldn’t see anything of his expression in the dark, but she was newly wise to the nuances of his words and to the ability of her body to listen to his.
“Maybe I will weep a little, for joy.” He reached away from her. “Spread your legs.” She lifted a leg, awkwardly, and he tucked a flannel against her sex. “Lest my seed be so rude as to leave your body and mess the clean sheets, when it might be about putting my babe in your belly.”
He rubbed at himself with another cloth, and Gilly marveled that she should feel no lapse of dignity between them.
“You would weep for joy,” she said, nuzzling his chest with her cheek. “One understands this.”
“Does one?” His tone was dry, indulgent too. “You can’t possibly. Give me your hand.”
He took her hand, removed it from where she was caressing his chest, and put it over his softening length.
“Do you feel anything different, Gilly?”
“Of course it’s different. Men don’t stay…aroused but for a few moments, and then…it’s supposed to be like this, isn’t it?”
Had Greendale lied to her? He’d filled her head with all manner of nasty comments, but she’d regarded those as his opinions, to which he was entitled. He’d had his opinions regarding marital relations, too, but in those, she’d been so terribly at his mercy.
“I’m supposed to be soft, yes,” he said, kissing her brow, “because I am so thoroughly satisfied, but here…” He brought her fingers to the end of his shaft. “I have no foreskin.”
This was of some moment to him, she sensed that, but Gilly hardly knew what she was supposed to say. She wouldn’t have known if he’d had three foreskins, whatever a foreskin was.
“Your functioning doesn’t seem impaired. You were…”
“Yes?”
“A revelation, Christian. You were a wonderful revelation to me.”
He was silent while she explored him in the darkness, traced his length, shaped his stones and sifted through the nest of hair at the base of his shaft. His hand fell away, and he lay quietly while she learned him, until he grew aroused again.
“Was it the French?” She asked the question now, while she still could, while it was pitch dark and she could plead she didn’t know any better, though she’d known the answer the moment she’d conceived the question.
“Yes. The French.”
She moved over him, straddled him and curled down onto his chest as if she’d protect him bodily from the memories. He framed her face and held her still while he kissed her, and then he nudged at her sex with his cock.
“I can touch you like this,” she said, tracing her fingernails over his nipples. He drew in an audible breath, then settled a palm over each of her breasts.
“And I can touch you.”
They teased each other in lazy wonder, until Christian went still beneath her. “Gilly?”
“Hmm?” She let him find her then, let him ease that first glorious, sweet, tantalizing inch into her body.
“You are a revelation to me too.”
Fifteen
His Gilly counterpointed passion with a touching modesty. She had her nightgown back on before Christian had finished using the tooth powder, even as the first gray lights of dawn stole around the curtains.
“I should get back to my own bedchamber,” she said, shrugging into her black dressing gown, which sported more fantastical embroidery than Christian had seen on any one garment.
He picked up a sleeve and peered at the green, gold, and purple patterns chasing around the cuff. “Does this qualify as mourning attire?”
She belted it snugly. “It’s black, and who’s to see me?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she waited while he lifted her hair out of her nightclothes. “I’ve destroyed your braid, Countess.”
“And you’re proud of this,” she said, sounding proud too, as well she should.
“Sit you,” he said, guiding her by the shoulders to the chest at the foot of the bed. “We need to talk.”
Her expression went carefully blank, and he had to wonder what was going through her female brain.
“We’ll have the first of the banns cried this Sunday,” he said, hoping to allay any silly doubts she entertained.
She shot to her feet so fast she nearly knocked him on his arse. “We will do no such thing.”
She turned around to glare at him, her arms crossed over her chest, her hair streaming down her back like some Valkyrie of old, but diminutive, and all the more formidable because of it.
“What did you think I was asking you, not two hours ago under the covers, Gilly?”
“I thought you were asking to bed me, of course.” Her jaw snapped shut, and he saw he had blundered. She wasn’t angry, she was hurt. He could not stand the thought he’d hurt her, not over something as important to a woman as this.
He got down on one knee and took her hand in both of his.
“Gillian, Lady Greendale, my countess and friend, will you do me the very great honor of becoming my duchess?”
That ought to do it. He stayed genuflected before her in his dressing gown, feeling ridiculous as he waited for her soft, special smile.
She scowled, the sight of it enough to curse him with a brand of uncertainty he hadn’t felt since the last time Anduvoir had come sauntering into his cell, the stench of his cigar preceding him.
“What do you take me for, Mercia? Get up, and we’ll have a rational argument, which you will lose.”
He rose, careful not to let his bewilderment show, though referring to him as Mercia was a discouraging sign. “At least have a seat while we argue.”
She sat upon the carved chest with all the dignity of the aging queen, and swished the skirts of her night rail closed over her knees.
“You think to keep me safe by offering marriage. That is entirely unnecessary, though gallant of you.” Her weapon of choice was logic, which boded ill in a woman just come from her new lover’s bed.
“I can keep you safe more easily if we’re married. That isn’t why I offered.” A disconcerting realization, that.
“Guilty conscience then, or grief, or male urges. Thank you, but no. Marriage to me on that basis will not do.”
“Will not do for me?” He sought refuge by rummaging in the wardrobe, though he had an entire dressing room in which he might have hidden—except he didn’t want to give her a chance to bolt.
“Of course not. I was married to Greendale for eight years, Your Grace, and I could not bear him a child. You need heirs, and I cannot provide them, though I am sorry to have to bring up such a tender subject.”
This was a feint, a not quite convincing one. Christian discarded a pair of silk stockings necessary for court attire, searching instead for the wool variety he’d been happy to own in quantity in Spain.
“I’ve done some nosing about,” he said, when he’d laid hands on a clean pair of stockings. “Greendale had had four countesses, each of them coming to the marriage in the blush of young womanhood, and none of them conceived. I have no doubt where the blame lies for a lack of direct descendants.”
He knelt before her and brushed her night robe aside to reveal her bare, elegant feet.
“The present Lord Greendale is my heir,” Christian said. “And some second or third cousins in Dorset or Hampshire after that, jolly squires grown fat off their sheep. We correspond twice a year. I need not marry a broodmare out
of duty.”
“But you ought,” she wailed softly. “You are Mercia, and the next duke should be raised by you. Where did you learn to do this?”
“Argue with you? Natural talent, I suppose.”
Her lips quirked up before compressing into a severe line. “Where did you learn to put stockings on a lady’s feet?”
“Early in the marriage, I used to put my stockings on Helene’s feet, lest she catch her death. She had perpetually cold hands and feet.” Also a cold nose, of all things. The recollection pleased him, for only a noticing husband would have perceived it.
“I cannot marry you now. I’m still in mourning.”
This approached clutching at straws, and included the gratifying qualification that she could not marry Christian now. “You loathed the old besom.”
“I owe my own reputation proper decorum, nonetheless.”
“So marry me this time next year,” he said. “We’ll get a start on the intimacies betimes, and we’re already perfecting our ability to disagree civilly.” He tucked the other sock onto her second foot and remained kneeling before her, lest she go haring off clear to Greendale.
She twitched the collar of his dressing gown then smoothed it flat. “What we did in this bed was ill-advised, though I cannot regret it.”
“Ill-advised?” He did not like that term. He very much liked her lack of regret.
“Imprudent. Below stairs, there will be talk.”
“I was ill,” he said. “Were you to allow me to die or to suffer mortal agonies when you are the logical source of care for me?”
“Why me?”
“You are a widow, and you nursed your ailing husband for weeks before he succumbed. You were here when Evan fell ill. Who else would know as much as you about caring for an invalid?”
She closed her eyes, as if seeking patience. “I must return to my room.”
Retreat, which suggested he’d routed her, albeit temporarily. “In a moment.”
He kissed her, tasting surprise, curiosity, and capitulation in her return fire. Time to put his guns down, or at least pause to reload.
“I have surprised you with my proposal,” he said, his forehead leaning on hers. He’d surprised her with his ardor, and she’d more than surprised him. “I’m sorry you feel ambushed. Badly done of me. I want to marry you, Gilly, but you have a point: we’ve some matters to sort out that rather take precedence over setting a date.”
“I have not said—”
He kissed her again, but she was on to his tricks and merely endured the visit of his mouth upon hers.
“You needn’t say. Greendale was an awful old curmudgeon, I understand that. So you take your time, look me over thoroughly. Count my teeth, put me through my paces.”
Her hand smoothed his hair back. “You’re not a horse.”
“I’m a horse’s arse. You were harried into marriage once before, and that ended badly. Am I right?”
She shifted so her forehead rested on his shoulder, and Christian scooted in closer, as if he’d protect her from her own past.
“Yes. Too right. One day I was memorizing my fifth declension nouns, and the next, my mama was taking me shopping for a trousseau. When I met Greendale, I had to excuse myself with a megrim so I could sit in the carriage and cry all the way home. He was on his best, most jovial behavior when courting me. He did not improve with time.”
“I will. I’ll bring you more puppies, I’ll read poetry to you, even that stupid Blake, and I’ll—”
She lifted away, but the fight had gone out of her. “Groveling becomes you ill, Mercia.”
“I’ve amused you. Your smile is worth the affront to my dignity.” What little dignity he still had. Christian traced her hair back from her face. “You won’t run off? Somebody means you harm, my dear. I would much rather you stay here and castigate me for my impetuous ardor. If you leave…”
He’d come after her and fetch her home. He didn’t say that, because it smacked of taking her captive, which he could not do.
“I care for you,” she said, the words a grudging admission. “I did not choose my first husband well, and in that you’re right. I will not be rushed into marriage again.”
He waited, because she wasn’t finished, and because talking like this was something he and Helene had never learned to do, a realization that in itself gave him regret and…hope.
“I’m sorry. I did not mean to rush you.” He’d meant to marry her, though, and still did.
“I also…” She gathered her dressing gown at the throat and glanced over at the window, where another lovely summer day was gaining its wings. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Of me? I’m a duke, I’m wealthy, I’m twenty-seventh in line for the damned throne, I’m—”
She put soft, rose-scented fingers to his lips, the ghost of a smile playing around her mouth.
“So modest, Mercia.” The smile faded, and her hand cradled his jaw. “You are grieving so much, healing from so much, and your instinct to protect overwhelms your sense. I will remain at Severn, and we will talk later of marriage.”
She urged him against her so he could pillow his cheek on the silk covering her thigh. Yes, his protective instincts had overwhelmed his sense, and so they would continue to do until he’d identified her malefactor.
As her hands settled in his hair, another insight struck: Gilly’s protective instincts had overwhelmed her too, and when Christian had those instincts of hers settled down, he’d make the lady his next duchess.
***
Gilly had spent the night in Christian’s bed and slept wonderfully, despite the events of the previous day, and now she was…
She ran her hands over the soft abundance of his unbound hair.
Now she was so befuddled, by passion, by fatigue, by fear, by him. Christian nestled against her, knelt at her feet like a tired child, and he was no doubt fatigued, but he was also canny as hell.
“Perhaps you should send me away.”
He raised his head up, his hair in disarray from her attentions. “Perhaps I should take you away.”
“Where would we go?” She should not have asked that question. If she went away with him, she’d have no choice but to marry him.
“I have property in a dozen counties. You choose.” He rose and took her hand to assist her to her feet, then stood frowning down at her in the gathering morning light. “After our first night of loving, I don’t want to part from you.”
Their first, because he was confident they’d share others, and so—may heaven help her—was Gilly.
“I’m traveling clear across the hallway, Your Grace.”
He smiled crookedly at her form of address and put one of his hands on each of her shoulders.
“For last night, thank you, my lady. I wasn’t…” He tucked her closer, and Gilly allowed it because some things need not be said staring a woman directly in the eye.
And he’d already delivered her a lengthy lecture about the poison, and not eating or drinking anything unless he was with her.
“You doubted yourself,” Gilly said. “Doubted your manhood over that business with the French and their perishing knives, may they rot in hell.”
Along with Greendale. Gilly hadn’t thought she could be any more enraged at her late spouse, but the morning brought that revelation too.
“I doubted myself, yes.” Christian brought her fingers to his lips. “I have doubted myself for months, but a man doesn’t sort out such things easily on his own.”
“You’re sorted out now,” she said, smiling up at him, because this, too, was a scar they shared. “I am a bit sorted out as well.”
Not entirely, of course. She might never be entirely sorted out. She’d been married to Greendale for 3,147 nights—she’d done the math the day he’d died—and each one had been awful.
&
nbsp; No wonder she was hesitant to accept Christian’s proposal, even though every single particle of her heart, mind, soul, and strength craved to become his wife.
***
In the days that followed, Gilly felt as if her true grieving were getting under way. Christian came to her room each night, scooped her up, and bore her away to his bed. At first, he was careful with her, his attentions always tender and sweet and limited to one coupling per night. By degrees, he became bolder.
Gilly had the sense it wasn’t his confidence that was increasing, it was hers.
And therein lay some of the grief. As Greendale’s wife, she’d quickly grasped that her marriage was a sad caricature of what a marriage should be. With Christian’s example to compare it to, though, she realized her marriage hadn’t been merely sad.
Her union with Greendale had been tragic, a murder of a marriage. Thank God that Christian was a man who understood the futility of violence in any form.
May-December pairings were common enough, particularly among titled men who had the wealth and position to take their pick of the debutantes on the market each year. Gilly had known some of those couples among Greendale’s cronies, and even their marriages could be characterized by affection and respect.
She’d never been more relieved than when Theo Martin had told her Greendale was unlikely to recover. Her husband had taught her how to hate, how to loathe and abhor another human being. How to endure a nightmare with a fixed smile.
With Christian, she was learning how to cherish and esteem, and no matter how she chided him for his presumption or made noises each morning about him overstepping, each night, she clung to him and gave him her body and another piece of her heart.
“You’re quiet,” Christian said. How long he’d been standing in the doorway to her sitting room, she did not know. “You’ve made this place your own nest. I like it.”
He liked her, and Christian Severn’s liking was a precious rarity.
Gilly had appropriated pillowcases and slipcovers from her trousseau, such that embroidered flowers and designs from her wildest imagination were creeping over the couches and chairs.
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