“You’re not to fall asleep, Mr. Sherbourne.”
He saluted with his ale. “Yes, ma’am. Why is your hair still up?”
Charlotte put a hand to her head. “I became distracted.” By a tired, naked husband. “I’ll see to it.”
Sherbourne rose and set his ale on the mantel, water cascading off of him. “If you’d pass me the linen, I’ll take down your hair when I’m dried off.”
Triton in all his glory was not as magnificent a specimen as Lucas Sherbourne fresh from his bath. But for the bruise on his hip, he was male perfection, and though he was standing naked right before Charlotte, he was also still tromping around his bedamned, blasted, dratted colliery.
Charlotte passed him the linen…slowly.
“Thank you, madam wife. It occurs to me that a mudslide is not much of an introduction to married life.” He scrubbed his face first, then his chest and arms, then dragged the towel over his hair. “In spring, we’ll nip off to Paris or Lisbon if the colliery is coming along. I owe you a wedding journey.”
Doubtless the colliery would not be coming along for years, and then there would be a new colliery, or a shipping venture, a canal, something. This realization was daunting, but then, Charlotte didn’t want a husband who idled away the day, or worse, lay about underfoot, expecting her to entertain him.
“I’ve never seen the Lakes,” she said. “If we traveled there instead, you could also visit various mining operations in the north and show me your hotel.”
Sherbourne paused, the towel bunched to his chest, his hair in damp disarray. His expression was intrigued and then guilty. “I owe you a wedding journey, and coal mines are hardly scenic.”
Much less romantic. “Mr. Sherbourne, don’t you think you owe me a wedding night before you make too many plans involving a wedding journey?”
He lowered the towel, obscuring any evidence of his interest in said wedding night. “I do owe you a wedding night. Have you any particular night in mind?”
“Tonight will do splendidly.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sherbourne pitched the damp towel onto the hamper and reached for the dressing gown his wife had spread over the fire screen. A new husband needed a few fig leaves when discussing his wedding night.
“I thought you might want to recover from last night’s exertions.” He’d also thought of every undemanding way he could make love with his wife, until his inattention had landed him arse-first in the mud.
Charlotte took a seat at her vanity. “I’m recovered.”
Well, I’m not. “Delighted to hear it.” Also relieved.
She made a lovely picture at the vanity, candle light reflected in the glass, her hair shimmering with garnet highlights. Her dressing gown was…actually, she was wearing one of Sherbourne’s dressing gowns.
He took the place behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Is tonight your preference, Charlotte, or are you being accommodating?”
“I am seldom accommodating, Mr. Sherbourne, but I am married. To you. We could put off the consummation yet again, though I suspect mudslides of one sort or another will be frequent in this marriage. Tomorrow night is a possibility, but then Friday we have company. The house must be put in readiness for guests the following week, even if Brantford stays at Haverford Castle. Other predictable inconveniences will intrude as well.”
Sherbourne studied her coiffure which appeared to affix itself to her head by magic. Tentative exploration revealed a few nacre-tipped hairpins.
He eased them free one by one. “Haverford is a predictable inconvenience. I suppose we’ll have to call upon him and upon Radnor.”
He found more pins, and put each one in the tray on the vanity, twelve in all. Charlotte’s braid came down, a thick skein of russet and gold in the firelight.
“We will pay calls. That is not the predictable inconvenience to which I refer.”
He had her braid half-undone before he realized why the nape of her neck had turned pink. Awkwardness and tenderness assailed him, just as they had when Charlotte had become so upset on the lane.
Sherbourne wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Is it much of a bother? I haven’t any sisters, and one doesn’t ask one’s mother. What the university boys had to say on the subject was ridiculous.”
Charlotte’s cheek against his arm was hot. “Must we discuss this?”
He straightened and went back to undoing her hair. “You could leave me to guess. Does her back pain her? Does her womb trouble her at such a time? Should I sleep elsewhere? Should I order her a pot of some concoction from the herbal? Shall I bide in a tent at the works for the next week? Shall I rub her back?”
He demonstrated, pressing firmly low on Charlotte’s back, and she made a sound much like a tired hound settling to a cozy rug before a blazing hearth.
“I become easily annoyed,” she said. “Just before. Prone to displays of temper and sentiment. That feels good.”
Twenty-four hours ago, Sherbourne had been ready to make love with his new wife as enthusiastically as a considerate husband could. Then a hundred tons of mud had intruded into his plans, toppling his carefully balanced budget and putting an element of risk into his future that left him uneasy.
Marrying Charlotte Windham was to have been a prudent, even shrewd, business decision. Day by day, she was less a matter of business, and more a person who dragged, lectured, and surprised Sherbourne into emotions that hadn’t been part of his plans.
“If having your back rubbed feels good,” Sherbourne said, “then you ask it of me when I’m too dunderheaded to offer on my own initiative, agreed?”
Charlotte leaned forward, resting her head on her folded arms. “One doesn’t know when to presume, when to ask, when to wait patiently to be asked. I had not foreseen that marriage would be much like learning a foreign language without a dictionary.”
Apt analogy. So…“Shall I braid your hair?”
“Please. One braid will do.”
Tending to her hair soothed Sherbourne and gave him time to think. Perhaps they’d make it part of their nightly ritual, on those occasions when the colliery didn’t demand his presence even after dark.
“I didn’t want to rush you,” he said, drawing the brush down the length of her hair. “About the wedding night.” About anything, but he’d been uniformly precipitous where his wife was concerned. He’d rushed the proposal, whisked her from her family on the very day of the ceremony, and now she was to entertain guests not a week after arriving at their home.
Charlotte sighed sleepily as Sherbourne plied the brush. Her hair was thick and soft, a pleasure to touch. His braiding skills had been learned in the stables, though that seemed adequate for the occasion.
What had he been saying? “I wanted our wedding night to be memorable.” Perhaps this aspiration was a symptom of the first incidence of financial uncertainty Sherbourne had ever faced. He’d spend tomorrow with his ledgers, reassessing his situation, but a woman who enjoyed her husband’s attentions would be less likely to abandon him if finances became constrained.
Or perhaps Sherbourne was becoming attached to his wife.
Which made no sense at all. Fondness was acceptable, but attached?
“I want our wedding night to be memorable too,” Charlotte said, sitting up. “Last night was very memorable.”
Sherbourne’s cock heard that bit of encouragement. “Would you like to do again what we did last night?” How casual he sounded, and yet, he couldn’t get the damned hair ribbon wrapped around her braid, much less secured into a proper knot.
“No, thank you.”
Well, hell. He’d been fairly certain his wife had enjoyed herself. With women, though, a man never—
“I want to see your face,” Charlotte said. “I want to touch you too. I want to see your eyes.”
He finished with her braid, though his bow was lopsided. “I want to see all of you.”
She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Said the man who just spent the
better part of an hour lounging about in the altogether. I’m glad you’re not overly shy.”
“I was overly in need of a bath. One usually bathes in the altogether.”
Charlotte rose and disappeared behind the privacy screen. “Would you mind warming the sheets? The footmen can deal with the tub in the morning.”
When filled with cold, less than pristine water, the tub was not a fixture in any erotic fantasy Sherbourne could conjure. He pushed the whole business into the corridor, which exertion reminded him that his hip was sore, and likely to be downright painful in a day or two. He set the empty buckets outside the door as well, and gave himself up to a moment of resentment.
He resented being married. Resented having to think of a wife, share a room with a wife, consider her social priorities, and send her notes. Listening to Charlotte humming softly behind the privacy screen, Sherbourne resented all the servants who knew he’d abandoned the lady of the manor for dinner more often than he’d joined her.
He resented the weather, which would go from bad to worse to awful.
He resented Brantford, who couldn’t be bothered to spend a night under the roof of a business associate, but must instead prevail on His Grace of Have-A-Title for accommodations.
“Your turn,” Charlotte said, emerging from the privacy screen. “I left you some warm water, though you hardly need it.”
“The sheets…”
“No matter.” She unbelted her robe, and damned if the woman wasn’t naked. “I’m sure we’ll be quite cozy in no time.”
She climbed under the covers, depriving him of an opportunity to gawk—for now—but he’d glimpsed a slim haunch, the curve of her breast.
Sherbourne used his tooth powder and blew out the candles, but he didn’t bank the fire. Charlotte had said she wanted to see his eyes, or some damned nonsense to that effect, so a little illumination was basic husbandly consideration.
He shrugged out of his dressing gown and draped it over a chair. “My hair is still damp.”
“All the more reason for you to get under the covers lest you take a chill. You seem to have the constitution of a bull, but tempting fate is for fools.”
Sherbourne got under the covers, the sheets cool rather than frigid. He considered waiting until morning to make love with his wife—they were both tired, the hour was late, he wasn’t at his best—but in the morning, he’d be off to the colliery, arguing with Jones about moving a row of houses that should probably never have been laid out at the foot of the hill.
“Lucas?”
He found Charlotte’s hand beneath the covers and brought her fingers to his lips. “You’re sure?”
She tucked herself along his side. “I’m more sure by the moment.”
Sherbourne draped himself over his wife and kissed her. His hip hurt, which was good, because a little pain would offer a distraction when a distraction was needed. Charlotte kissed him back, which was very good.
He needed her kisses. He needed the pleasure he could share with her while he forgot, for one blessed, private hour, the tons of mud that had destroyed his schedule, his budget, and some of his confidence.
As Charlotte took his hand and tucked it over her breast, Sherbourne spared one last thought for his commercial undertakings: He, who thrived on a challenge and had schemed for years to bring mining into the valley, resented his colliery.
He resented his colliery mightily.
* * *
Charlotte considered letting Sherbourne drift off to sleep, or—more likely—lie beside her, fretting over his tenant houses, tram lines, and business associations. Two thoughts stopped her from pursuing that course. First, she refused to yield the very consummation of her vows to the press of business. Beginning as she intended to go on in the marriage meant that in this instance, she was owed her husband’s attention at the time and place of her choosing, exactly as he’d promised.
The second thought that weighed against allowing Sherbourne his rest was the growing realization of how alone he was, and how much responsibility he carried.
Finding a set of widow’s weeds for a ruined laundress or scraping together a few pounds for coach fare had been significant accomplishments in Charlotte’s eyes. Sherbourne sought to employ scores of people, to provide sustenance for many families, and this was only one of his ventures.
He deserved a respite from his obligations. He deserved one place where business could not intrude and where his satisfaction mattered.
“You make a lovely quilt,” Charlotte said. “All warm and friendly.”
Sherbourne nuzzled her ear, which tickled. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been accused of friendliness.”
The texture of his chest hairs against Charlotte’s bare skin was peculiar, his beard slightly abrasive. Blunt warmth nudged against her thigh.
“Should I be doing something?”
Sherbourne rested his forehead against her shoulder. “You and I are alike in this regard. We worry less when we’re busy. You should be enjoying yourself.”
Difficult to do, when uncertainty and arousal were evenly matched. “I liked it when you…” Charlotte could not say the words. She was naked in bed with her husband, and she could not say the words.
“Show me.”
She took his hand and closed his fingers around her nipple. Not too hard, but not too lightly either.
“As it happens,” Sherbourne said, “we both enjoy that. Let’s try something.”
In the next moment, he had her atop him, which meant Charlotte was more or less sitting on a particularly tumid part of his anatomy, and her abundant glories were on display.
And Sherbourne was admiring them. He smoothed his hands over her breasts, filling his palms, and curling up to press his face between them, rough beard and all.
Charlotte wrapped a hand around his head, his hair warm and damp where it had been against the pillow, cool where it grazed her breasts.
“Shall I use my mouth?” Sherbourne asked. “Did you like that too?”
“This is not an interview, Mr. Sherbourne.”
He laughed and hugged her, the sensation of bare skin tightly pressed to bare skin a lovely shock.
“You are modest and passionate,” he said. “An inconvenient combination for you, I’m sure. What if I bumble along as best I can, and you let me know if I’ve chosen the wrong direction?”
Charlotte put his hand back on her breast. “That will suit.”
His bumbling was an entrancing progression of kisses, caresses, and suggestions. Charlotte was to touch him too, apparently, for he used her third finger to draw light circles around his nipple, and when she added a slight pinch and a scrape of her fingernail, he arched into her touch.
All the while, his arousal was evident against her sex, a hot, hard, intimate promise all its own.
Charlotte cast about for how to form a question, but “Shall we get on with it, Mr. Sherbourne?” struck her as ridiculous. “When do we…?” wasn’t much better, but she hoped it was soon.
Very soon.
“You make me ache,” Sherbourne said, flexing his hips. “You make me ache and rejoice.”
He rearranged himself so Charlotte lay on her back beneath him as he slid that part of himself against her sex.
His slow caress sent need clamoring through her. “Again, please.”
A silent conversation took place, between his body and hers. He teased, he dared, he hesitated, and Charlotte moaned against his neck. All else fell away as Sherbourne shifted the angle of his hips and positioned himself to join with her.
The act was strange, physical, and unrelentingly intimate. Sherbourne eased his way into her body, and the yearning that had swamped Charlotte tangled up with tenderness for the man in her arms.
“Don’t be so careful,” she murmured. “Be passionate with me.”
He brushed her hair back from her forehead. “You’re managing?”
How odd, to trade words when nothing separated them. “I want to worship you with my body to
o, Lucas.”
He hitched closer, and pleasure welled from where they were joined. “Move with me, Charlotte.”
How could they move when—? Oh. Oh. He set a tempo like war drums, slow, resonate, full of leashed power and unwavering focus. Charlotte matched him, scooting down to lock her ankles at the small of his back. Her touch wandered everywhere, the span of his shoulders, the taper of his waist, the slightly warm, raised bruise along his hip.
As close as they were, she wanted to be closer, to be inside him the way he was inside her. Desire became a madness, obliterating all else—fears, worries, dignity, even dreams fell beneath Sherbourne’s passion—until Charlotte lost her very self in pleasure.
Her awareness clung to one reality: Sherbourne was with her. With her in pleasure, and with her in the panting, thunderstruck aftermath, as she curled beneath him, and his heartbeat reverberated with her own.
Puzzle pieces fell into place: This was what lay behind a thousand glances passed between Charlotte’s cousins and their spouses.
This closeness was where families began, where every marriage was both the same and unique.
This was what a ruined woman sacrificed her future for. Not the bodily sensations, amazing though they were, but the tenderness and cherishing, the oneness.
Sherbourne’s breathing slowed, and though he remained close, he braced his weight on his elbows. Charlotte wanted to hold him tightly, because on the heels of all these revelations came a tide of gratitude toward her husband.
She might have missed this. She might have spent the rest of her days shooting arrows through the hats of randy bachelors and turning down proposals from fortune hunters. She might have never known this wonder, never experienced the profound relief of putting aside every burden and hope to be one with her spouse for a few moments.
She kissed his biceps. “What does one say after that?”
He traced her eyebrow with his nose. “One says, ‘Lucas, fetch me a glass of water, please.’”
No, one did not. “I’m glad I married you.”
He went still, mid-nuzzle. “I’ll bring you a flannel.”
A Rogue of Her Own Page 18