by Gayle Eden
“Yes. I could do with a break from town, too.”
His eyes held some amusement. “I gather Jo is coming up later, with the duchess.”
“Father likes her—Sonja...”
“That’s obvious.” He nodded. “Even Edmund knows it.”
Val looked around the room then back. “She’s not—”
“—I know. Alexander knows, also. Your father is a suave and shrewd man. He could have most females despite his rep or age. They are not exactly shy and subtle with the invites. Though he may flirt and charm, he is a different man with the duchess. More his real self, I might add.”
She nodded, thinking, as are you, with me. However, asked, “When shall we leave?”
“Early in the morning.” He pushed away and set the cup down. “Have you plans, or shall we have a quiet evening...”
“No plans.” Val watched him head to the bathing chamber.
He requested before entering. “Order dinner served up here then. I’ll be out directly.”
Val left and spoke to cook; dawdling after informing the staff of their departure, discovering they already knew Archard planned to leave. A week or so was the usual break the Marquis took from the season, thus she went over things with the staff she did not need to, in order to give Archard time to finish his bath.
When she did go up, the servants had already set up a table and were pouring wine. They bustled down to fetch the trays. Val watched Van Wyc forgo his boots after pulling a linen shirt over his head, leaving him in snug black trousers. His hair was still wet enough to dampen the banded collar and back of the shirt. He went to the window, farther from the table, and packed his pipe, standing with them thrown wide whilst he smoked and watched traffic.
She smiled and thanked the servants, picked up her wine and sipped as they finished, musing that click of the door when they left somehow closed herself and Archard into some private world.
It was not—unpleasant—tense, but not in a bad way. The aroma of smoke and food, wine sweet on her tongue... and the sight of him, with one foot on the window ledge, leaning his arm on his thigh and holding the pipe bowl. Wind wafted blond strands to the edge of his brow. His lips pulled on the pipe, a motion that drew her attention to them, and his high cheekbones.
Releasing smoke, he commented without turning, “Dinner is getting cold.” Then he straightened and went to the fireplace to empty the pipe. He set it atop the mantle and joined her.
Dinner was pleasant, conversation easy and consisted of articles they had read, books either of them had been reading, his business and the latest inventions, a recount of her recent visit to Kew gardens. It was that established level of friendship that made talking with Archard uncomplicated—although glances, looks that lingered, told of the awareness beyond friendship below it.
After dinner, the servants came with coffee and brandy. Night was upon them. Val excused herself to disrobe and slip into a night rail. When she entered the room, only a low flame burned in the lamp. In his trousers, Van Wyc lay half propped in the bed, his brandy laced coffee on his flat stomach.
She went to the other side, taking up much the same posture, having put her hair in a loose braid to keep from either of them pulling it whilst sleeping. Valerie watched shadows on the wall, her fingers absently twining a ribbon that dangled from the neckline. When his cup clicked against the rosewood table, she turned her head, eyeing his face, which was turned toward her own.
He leaned up and over, cupping her cheek moments before kissing her. A kiss that said he had missed doing it. Val touched his bare shoulder feeling sensations raining inside and out, finding each swipe of his tongue exquisitely sensual.
Van Wyc parted their mouths, still touching her cheek, his lashes not completely lifting, a bit heavy looking. “Your kisses are intoxicating, wife.” His thumb brushed her skin before he was dipping and tasting her repeatedly.
Val would never know the exact moment her hand was in his hair and not on his shoulder, but his free one found her breast, and the thin night rail may as well have not been over it. The darker chamber, the taste of desire, and sluggish breaths filled endless moments.
Her other hand found him, sliding up his hard muscled arm while he eased down and kissed the mounds of her breasts through the gown. He breathed warm and damp, kissing them through the cloth, before she felt the tug of the ribbon. Her chin upwards, Val stared blindly at shadows on the ceiling, stomach cinched, and every nerve alive.
She knew, instinctively this time—and almost expected the spark of fire that jolted her whole body when his lips found her nipple. His hands now held each breast, his head moving during moments of madness and shocking pleasure from his tongue and lips, introducing her to the feel of warm breath on damp skin. Chills drew her breasts taut, and fire spread when those soft lips circled her nipple and he pulled and suckled.
The ripple effect of his suckling went through skin, muscle, nerve. Her breath lifted her torso with the rush of it. Val’s palm skimmed up, both hands in his hair, unknowingly, sensually tugging it. Her spine arched slightly. She felt his one hand slide under her, cupping her side, caressing her spine, as Van Wyc was feeling her flesh and curves with a labor-strengthened palm.
By the time her teeth bore into her lip, her mind was in a lightheaded spin, body completely beyond her control. He lifted to look at her, but she closed her eyes, nostrils quivering and her throat working from the tension. She could tell when he leaned back he was eyeing her breasts—her uncovered breasts. She had flashes in her mind of the fair skin, apricot nipples, large, save when aroused. They’d never felt so tight, so tingly and heavy, as they did at the moment.
“You are so beautiful, Woman.”
She hesitantly opened her lashes. The inward emotions making her sight as fogged as her brain. Releasing her lip, Val breathed out a loud broken breath. She had never felt beautiful. Nor like this—not this sensual. Leland had called her a cow, called her horrible names. He would never… No, do not spoil this, she told herself.
Archard rose so that his face was in her vision. Blue eyes so pastel and iridescent in the gloom, the outlined bones of his face were fiercely handsome.
“Did you like that?” Archard’s swarthy hand skimmed up her side and rib. “Your body says yes.” Searching her gaze, he murmured thickly, “I have wanted to kiss those beautiful breasts almost as long as I’ve longed for your mouth.” Touching their lips together, he rose with the same intent stare rasped, “Tell me I have pleased you, Val.”
“It was...” She searched for the words, her eyes holding his, “Intensely...pleasant.”
His hand covering one breast flexed, massaging. The other joined it, so both were attended, though it was a lazy soothing rhythm, it was equally arousing.
Val’s palms felt the mounds of his upper arms and impossibly wide shoulders, the sinew and strength in him. She was beginning to understand desire in a more normal way. Her body wanted to move, to arch and rub. Each time he touched her, gave her a kiss, sometimes a mere look, it made her react.
He kissed her several times before rolling to lie beside her, tugging her down with him, so they were flat on the bed. Archard drew her to him, his leg hooking behind one of hers, and tucking it between his muscular ones. Bare breasts against his hard chest, her stomach feeling what she knew was his arousal, contained by those trousers, Val breathed sluggish, warm air wafting out against his collarbone, and in drawing another scent mingled with all those pleasantly masculine ones, the sultry, earthly, bouquet of desire.
He rubbed her back, and occasionally stroked her hair. A shift of his legs and hers, and Val was glad her face was hidden—because the press of his big muscled thigh sent a shot of fire between her own. She wanted to wiggle, to adjust, to move a bit away, but he had tucked their legs so tightly, the gown riding up, that she could not very well start squirming.
One of his hands pressed at her spine, just above her backside.
Above her head, she heard him husk in his thickest ac
cents, “Your muscles are all tightened Relax.”
She did so, well, as much as she could, considering. Oddly enough, with blood flowing to relaxed muscles, she became acutely aware of wanting to press hard against him again.
He said, much to her chagrin, “I can feel you, warm and damp.” A shudder worked through him. Van Wyc sighed before scooting his torso back enough to look down at her. “I’ll keep my word about not bedding you until you’re asking me to.” His voice was deep, strained, “I can show you...bring you pleasure, without doing that.”
Heart thudding, skin almost too warm and tight, she believed him without having to be told the details. Everything about everything he did, pleased her. Val could have stopped and compared it to the whole of her relationship, even courtship with Leland, but she kept pressing that back in her mind. This was the first time in her adult life she felt like a man cared for her, wanted her, saw her as a person as well as a woman.
Val did not want to be that other woman with him. She wanted the past to vanish and never return suddenly. She wanted, Val realized, to be as if they had just met this way, a man and a woman, herself without the sex mingled with pain and degradation past.
Rising up slowly to lean on her forearm, she reached her hand out to his cheek.
A tremor in them, and her voice sounding rough, she whispered, “I’m tired of being her. That past and the woman who felt you would be cheated in this marriage. Maybe...perhaps, I do not even know who I am now, Archard. Changed, certainly, fortunately, altered in subtle ways with freedom from that, and yes...the normal life I’ve enjoyed even whilst you were gone.”
Her gaze commanded his, although those words were not easy for her. “I lost myself once. Not in a good way. You know that. I—I think that you see me, have always seen me as more than I could see myself...”
“Val...”
“No. let me get it out, even if ‘tis rambling and makes no bloody sense. I trust you, in every way that you think I do. It is never you, Archard. It is always me. I do not know how to explain it. I am the one I do not trust. Love, love is something I miss-defined along with duty, as well as paying for my own mistakes. Thinking I was in love caused me pain and shock, beyond what I could have imagined. I lost the affection for him soon enough, but trapped myself through weakness. I gave up my body, soul, and power.”
“I’m not asking that, Val. I would never—”
“Dear God. I know that.” She smiled, if wobbly, at him. “You give me choice and control, respect, and treat me as equal to yourself. And as wonderful as that is, as rare I suspect—it is so new to me, so amazing...”
“I am weak too, Val.” His hand skimmed her back. “Subject to my passions, desires and wants. Nevertheless, it is a different sort of struggle, because I have a greater desire to see things in your eyes that are for me only. You see, that is how we all are. Sometimes strong, sometimes, weaker.”
Val nodded. “You unravel something inside me, Archard.” She rested her forehead against his chin to hide her face a moment. “As subtle as it is, it is also, frightfully intense.”
His palm on her spine drew her closer to him.
Val gave up and lowered her body to the mattress again. One hand slid over his side, to his back, the other around his neck. She mumbled against his skin, “I doubt nothing you say. I feel and know it is truth. Since everything before was an illusion and lie. That, in some ways, makes it all the more frightening.”
His face brushed against her temple, lips kissed her there. “So long as you do not fear me...”
“No. myself. The feelings. I am sorry. I must sound dreadfully stupid.”
An almost relieved chuckle vibrated in his chest. His hand went to her head and the embrace tightened for moments. “No, love. It doesn’t.” He released her slightly and untangled their legs. Leaning he blew out the lamp and then resettled. “We’ve an early morning and time, Val. Plenty of time.”
She turned and he spooned against her back, his hand on her still bare breast. She covered it, honestly aware of tension in them both. After some silence she offered, “I did some reading on it.”
“Good.” His fingers flexed over the globe.
“It is not as if I don’t know—”
“Let me ask you a question?” he cut her off quietly.
“Yes?”
Archard leaned up and said against her ear, “Are you thinking about my tongue and mouth on your sex, the way I laved and suckled your breasts?”
Oh, lord. Face hot and body feeling odd, she managed, “I hadn’t quite thought of that, no.”
He kissed her ear and relaxed again. “That will come, before my flesh is in you, wife. That sensation you felt between your legs, from mine touching you, that will require some petting and stroking on a regular basis. Did you read that?”
“Not exactly,” her voice sounded weak.
Val suspected he was being wickedly seductive, deliberately graphic, when he offered, “You’ll be a wife well pleasured, Val. I do not bloody know to the extent other men are lovers with their wives. Aside from society and my own family, who wed for other reasons, there are few matches made on personal choice. However, there was no excuse for the way you were used, before, none. I looked at you and desired you, and every moment since I’ve thought of what pleasure we could have.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had known this intimacy was coming. Perhaps not like this but… “You’re very aroused—aren’t you?”
“Very.” He chuckled roughly.
She blew out a breath, raised, looking over her shoulder at him. Yes, it was in his eyes, his face, even the sinew of his neck.
He met her gaze and allowed her to search it before he drew her down again. In time, the arm around lowered. His hand moved downward from her breast. He delicately stroked her upper thigh. When he reached her curls, Archard put his lips to her ear.
His breathing was deep, hot and aroused. He reached, finding her dampness, ignoring the way she jerked slightly back from it until he had slid up and touched the swollen nerves. Giving it only a pet, a gentle press, he moved his hand away and back to her breast.
Val released a tense breath.
He husked, “I will take care of that, before we reach Hawksmoor, wife.”
She groaned before she could catch herself.
Van Wyc merely flexed his fingers on her breast and reminded, “We’ll be leaving before dawn.”
Sleep was long coming. In truth, she could have done so an hour before she did had Val not eased away and sat up in bed, once she judged him in a deep slumber. She watched her Viking husband for some time, until he murmured in some half sleep, half-awake state, and reached for her hand, laying it on his thick sex and rubbing slightly.
She felt similar tingles from him doing that. It was softly hot and semi thick, but she enjoyed what she could feel of him. Another surprise—considering her experience with Leland.
Later, as she curled back into him, Val sighed. The man almost read her mind. It was uncanny the way Van Wyc did that.
No, she was not ever going to be in love. She did not believe in that. Nevertheless, Alex and Edmund had happiness with an intense sexual relationship. Jo certainly craved one—Perhaps with a man like this, to do the thing right, she’d know what it was like in some sense, to be part of a couple, to share some intimate bond with a man—and enjoy it. She was tired of feeling broken, somehow tainted—tired, of the weight of guilt. She could have a new life, another chance, with Van Wyc.
* * * *
Archard rode his stud the first leg of the journey, joining Val for stops and conversing with her when they ate, at a small smoky tavern.
They refreshed for the second half at another Inn. He was glad to relax in his shirtsleeves and buff leather trousers and boots, which were his country ware and his normal duds.
It was past nightfall. Archard sat across from Val in the coach. She had discarded her carriage coat and was gowned in a light weight ruby skirt, and white lace blouse, with
her hair partly up, and curls spilling down from the gather in back. It was a more casual get up also, but with her distinct cut and style.
He reminded himself how much Val loved her rides and walks in the country, how different all the Marquis daughters were at Hawksmoor. Yes, it was much easier to further intimacy with his wife out of the distraction and pace of London. Aside from that, he himself felt that atmosphere and privacy, relaxation—was necessary to further the journey for her.
He had awakened with a memory of taking her hand, rubbing it on his sex. It had made that horseback ride a little uncomfortable, but he was all too familiar with the state. Control was slipping on his part. Her response gave him every hope he could toss that aside soon.
Truthfully, the more Val gave, the more he desired her. She had everything a man could desire, and looking into those lavender eyes sometimes buckled even his strong knees. She would be equally shocked to know that sensuality was instinctive to her. She kissed, tasted him, like a woman who had been doing it skillfully for years. Just the roll of her pink tongue in his mouth aroused him fully.
Archard invited in a voice husked by his thoughts, “Come, sit by me.” He leaned forward, giving her his hand to steady her as she did so.
Arm around the back of the seat, he propped his booted feet in the opposite.
She was settled.
Bending his elbow, Archard brushed his fingertips across her temple.
The coach interior reflected woodlands, trees, amid the fullness of the moon. Gazing at her when she turned her head and peeked up at him, he murmured, “Did my intimacy with you last night, offend you?”
“No.” She wet her lips. A sign he recognized as her breath accelerating.
Sliding his elbow off the seat back, he cupped her chin. “A word from you, and we will go back to mere kisses.”
He watched the pulse flutter at her throat, aware that her hands were clasped tightly. She turned more toward him. His hand fell to her shoulder. Van Wyc’s heart nearly burst from his chest when her small hand landed there.