by Julia Donner
“Thank you, Mrs. Wright, but I was married before accepting his lordship’s proposal. My late…former…husband was a war comrade of Asterly’s.”
Mrs. Wright hung up the outerwear and clothes as Elizabeth removed her shift, and began to wash. Behind her, she heard the bedclothes rustle as the warming pan was slid across the sheets.
“Will there be anything else, my lady?”
“No, thank you. Good night.”
The door closed with a gentle thump. Elizabeth peeked over her shoulder. Asterly hadn’t entered when Mrs. Wright left. Fingers shaking, she quickly finished bathing and reached for the nightwear on the bed. She sat at the vanity table and stared at herself in the mirror.
A single tap sounded on wood. The bedroom door eased open with a squeak. Nerves made her flinch. She snatched the hairbrush from the dressing table and clutched it on her lap. The flimsy robe slipped off one shoulder, exposing the inappropriate nightwear underneath. The silk nightgown under the robe closed with satin ribbons down the front, the slick material easy to slide the knots free. The décolletage dipped so low her bosom scarcely escaped complete exposure.
She had to remember that this husband had led a much different lifestyle than Devon. The upper ten thousand had their own social rules. One rule involved ignoring a spouse’s promiscuous behavior and the lack of respect for wedding vows, especially among men.
Elizabeth looked up after jerking the robe back over her shoulder and encountered his stare in the mirror. His expression spoke of his appreciation, but she lacked the experience to match the suggestiveness of her nightclothes.
Why hadn’t she remembered to tell Merrick to pack something more…virginal? She wasn’t one in physical fact, but the single wedding night she’d known hadn’t provided much education.
Shock held her gaze on the fact he wore nothing under the maroon dressing gown. Brown chest hair brushed the edges of the black velvet lapels. The loosely belted material revealed hair continued to flourish the length of his torso. His stance and expression relayed that he’d politely wait for her invitation. Underlying that, she recognized his eager purpose, one that turned her breath shallow and quick.
“Perhaps I should have waited for your permission to come in,” he said, when she said nothing. “Do I intrude?”
Speech was impossible. She shook her head.
He smiled tightly and came across the room. The door clicked shut on its own. He’d shaved and brought the scent of sandalwood soap. Her scattered wits recalled that Harry used the same.
She gripped the hairbrush tighter when he stopped behind her and said in a voice that sounded deeper than usual, “Still, it was impolite of me.”
With caution, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She sensed him evaluating her reaction to his touch, which felt comfortingly heavy and warm. His fingers moved slightly, the hint of a squeeze. “Tell me now, Elizabeth. Do not be afraid. Do you wish to postpone this night?”
She looked down at her lap, and whispered, “No.”
Behind her, she felt his body relax. He leaned over to pry the hairbrush from her hand. Gently, he freed her loose braid and began to brush, humming, low and soft, as he stroked. In moments, her eyelids drooped. The smooth movement of the brush across her scalp then down the length of her hair felt different. Nothing like Merrick. And the humming. A tune she didn’t recognize but so…soothing.
Her eyes fluttered open when she felt the first bow on the front of her nightgown slip free. What was he doing? Devon had kept the lights out. In the mirror, she saw the blush of confusion suffuse her face, but he never noticed. He intently watched the ribbons come undone, then his hand, so dark against her pale skin and the silk’s creamy white, investigating the weight of her too large bosom. She didn’t have time to pull away from embarrassment. His thumb brushed a distended nipple. A moan she’d kept trapped inside escaped, flushing color over her face, down her throat and across her chest
He tossed the hairbrush aside and swiftly knelt, spreading the gown fully open. The back of his head and broad shoulders blocked out the embarrassing sight of her nudity in the mirror. Scattered thoughts came with the embarrassment. At least it was comfortingly dark across the room by the bed. In the next second, the heat of his mouth and its work sent streaks of pleasure across her flesh. She gripped his shoulder with one hand and bit into her lower lip to stifle another moan.
He lifted her up as if she weighed nothing, strode to the bed, and set her on her feet. Her slippers had fallen off and bare wood chilled her soles. Anxious about what was to come, yet yearning for it, she watched him throw back the coverlets. Before she knew what he planned, he retrieved the brace of candles from the vanity table and brought light to the bedside. Swift and determined, he brushed the robe and gown from her shoulders.
He caught her hands when she moved to cover herself. “Please, Elizabeth, no. We belong to each other now. There is no such thing as shame.” He stepped back and her knees almost gave out from his reverent expression. “You are more than I ever dreamed.” After he kissed her surprise-parted lips, he added, “And believe me, I did a lot of that.”
“You did? About me?”
“Constantly. Maddeningly!”
The cool air made her flesh prickle. “Why do you get to wear a robe and I don’t?”
He placed a warm hand along one side of her face. “You’re gorgeous, Eliza. I’m not, and I’ve no intention of ruining this for you.”
“Not fair,” she whispered and undid his robe’s knotted sash. His expression turned to stone as she pushed the material off his shoulders. “Oh…my.”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I tried to warn you.”
“No…no. It’s that, you’re so…beautiful.”
His short laugh sounded harsh. “Then I’m grateful the light’s behind me so you can’t see the scars.”
She couldn’t stop herself from smoothing her palm up over a heavy bicep and across the flat expanse of chest muscle, fascinated with his hardness, the texture of the crinkly chest hair and delicious warmth.
She shivered, enchanted. “What scars?”
He wrapped his fingers around her waist and lifted, tossing her onto the bed. She couldn’t swallow the nervous squeak of laughter when he crawled on top of her. His body heat sank into her chilled flesh. Then he kissed her in a way she’d never been kissed before, aggressive, nipping, hungry.
He ran the tip of his tongue down the side of her neck. “I’m going to taste every inch of you…if I can hold out that long.”
Then he told her in explicit detail what he planned to do, shocking her, while filling her with a different kind of heat, making her writhing and impatient.
She inhaled a choke of surprise when his fingers touched her intimately, slipping inside and deep. He searched upwards until she gasped. His fingertips firmly circled a spot that made her hips lift into the maddening massage. She groped for the sheets and fisted the material. The pleasure refused to stay trapped inside. A horribly unladylike moan issued up and out from somewhere deep in her longing soul.
He muttered what sounded like a prayer, withdrew his tormenting fingers, and urged her legs wider. The familiarity of his heat and slow, relentless entry made her clench her teeth to hold in a wail from a different kind of pleasure. Demanding anticipation coiled and tightened between her legs. The frantic ache spread. Her lower half felt trapped in a vise of intense tension.
From within a haze of piercing sensations, she heard him say in his darkest, most delicious voice, “Tell me you like this, Elizabeth. Tell me how much you want this before I break.”
She gasped when he thrust high and paused over her, shuddering while he waited for her answer. Through panting breaths, she rasped out, “Yes. More. Please!”
He laughed against her mouth, and said, his own breath shaky, “That’s my lovely Eliza.”
His hands released her bottom and wrapped in her hair. When his gentle grip tugged for attention, a thrill shuddered down to her soles. He waited until h
er gaze reconnected with his. She recognized that look, the slumberous expression he had when he concentrated on a task. This time, she was the focus of the task he would bring to completion.
He spoke in an unrecognizable voice against her ear, a restrained growl that set her taut muscles quivering. “Elizabeth, unfasten your hands from the sheets. Put your arms around me. Hold on tight, love. I’ve been saving this up for a long while. Nod when you’re ready.”
Elizabeth swallowed and dug her fingers into the tough muscles of his back, her fingertips just touching. She felt overwhelmed by his size, looming over, inside, and around her. His hardness pressed into her softness, the promise of release awaited in his quivering restraint.
“Elizabeth, don’t make me wait any longer. I’m not sure I can be gentle about this.”
Made bold from his ardor, she slid her hands downward and said, “Then don’t be.”
Chapter 30
His nuzzling and questing fingers woke her before daylight. She rolled into his arms, but he pressed her shoulders back on the pillows.
“As much as I want to, Eliza, we can’t. You’ll be sore and it’s almost dawn. Time to leave.”
An ache unlike any other filled her chest. Dawn. He was leaving England to go into danger. She pushed away his restraining hands and threw her arms around his shoulders. “I don’t care. I say, again.”
His deep, contented laugh invaded her hair. “You will never know how relieved I am that we are so compatible this way.”
Leaning back to study his face in the flickering light of the nearly spent candle, she scolded, “How could you not have known? I positively ate you with my shameless staring. You are so much of what any woman must want in a man. Stop laughing at me.”
“Eliza, the things you say. You are either a treasure or a siren.”
She traced a fingertip over the bridge of his once-broken nose and glided across his lips. “Tell me the difference.”
He kissed the tip of her finger. “I suppose a siren tells a man what he wants to hear, and a treasure tells him what he needs to hear.”
Elizabeth held his steady gaze. “I will never lie to you, Peregrine. You’ll never know what you’ve given me.”
“Then help me understand. Tell me.”
She dropped her gaze to the cleft in his chin. “I have always envied the Trivertons. You remember them?”
“Yes. Why envy?”
“They are so content in their relationship. So trusting. More than friends. Unashamed of their respect and esteem of each other. I had always dreamed of having a marriage like theirs.”
Afraid she’d exposed too much, she quieted.
His forefinger lifted her chin. “Elizabeth, you are my friend. Look at what you have done for me.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear and yet it was in a way, so she avoided his probing stare.
“Look at me, Eliza, not at my chin.”
She looked into his eyes, waiting for him to say what she hoped to hear, but he said, “I really think you shouldn’t stay on here alone. The place is in ruins. Go back up to London. You and Harry can arrange some sort of story. Cass will help.”
So he didn’t love her. That wasn’t his fault. He’d never promised that when he proposed.
Covering her disappointment with the safety of practicality, she said, “But Peregrine, we’ve gone and done the planning. All the place wants is a good cleaning, new roof and a firm grip on the drainage problem. A coat of paint, new draperies, and you’ll have the old Marshfield back. The repairs work well with your absence and plan. Why shy away from it now?”
“Because I hadn’t realized how decrepit the place has become. It’s been some time since I’ve been here. I’d forgotten, or purposely forgot, and now I can’t feel right about leaving you with this crumbling pile. I don’t know where my mind was when I thought up this stupid scheme.”
When she tried to comfort by gliding fingers through his hair, a naughty grin erased his scowl. “No. I know exactly where it was. Getting you here, in a bed, with me.”
He grabbed her with a playful growl and gnawed at her shoulder. She slapped her hand over a squeal of laughter. Shoving him with her free hand did nothing to budge him or stop his teasing nibbles. She frantically whispered, “Stop! Crimm and Mrs. Wright might be awake by now.”
“Sorry. Forgot how shy you are.” He framed her face with his hands. “Then a kiss farewell, my Eliza.”
While watching him hurry to dress, she held sadness inside. When he left, she expected to weep for hours but fell deeply asleep. Sunlight streamed into the room when Mrs. Wright’s tap on the door woke her.
“Come in, Mrs. Wright.”
Bedclothes tangled her legs and arms. Unbound hair hung in her face. Her body ached in the most embarrassing places, and it wasn’t until after she struggled to sit up that she saw through the fall of her hair a love-bite bruise on the side of her left breast and another on her stomach above her hip.
Oh, dear. How embarrassing. Mrs. Wright stood by the bed, holding up a sensible robe, not the flimsy swatch of silk snagged on the bedpost.
“If I may be so bold, my lady,” Mrs. Wright calmly began, “Master Perry stopped by the kitchen to say farewell. I’ve never seen him so content. Thank you for making him happy.”
When Elizabeth didn’t know how to respond, Mrs. Wright conveniently helped. “Come along, my lady. Mr. Crimm has made chocolate the way you like and fixed bread and butter. He said you’d need it when you saw this place in the daylight. I quite agree.”
Elizabeth breathed a laugh and swiped back snarled hair. Good old Crimm. She crawled out of bed and slipped into the robe, sighing with bliss. Mrs. Wright had warmed it somehow. The wood in the fireplace was only beginning to crackle.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wright. I don’t wish to ask, since we have no footmen, but is there a way I could have a bath? Perhaps below stairs, since there’s so little staff in residence?”
“We shall provide, my lady. This room has an interior lift. After you’ve breakfasted, we’ll have it ready. And later, I would suggest moving into the dower house, as my lord’s mother did.”
Elizabeth sipped hot chocolate and avoided looking at the messy bed while Mrs. Wright neatened the room. After she’d put away the clothes and left, Elizabeth got up and took her cup to the window. Seated on the wide sill, she wrapped her fingers around the cup and stared out.
As promised, the magnificent view took her breath. The house stood on rising ground, surrounded on its east side by overgrown garden walks, parkland, and in the distance, the channel. If she strained her eyes and made believe, she might see her love sailing away to France.
She rubbed away a silly tear with the back of her wrist. Enough of that. Her own plans demanded attention. This house needed renovation and that required an army of workers and artisans, which was not a part of Asterly’s plan. No matter. While he was busy elsewhere, she had work to do.
Chapter 31
He’d been gone a week and it seemed like years. Not a word from France. No messages found in the bank dispatches. Had he been found out? Captured?
The project of restoring Asterly’s house had lost some of its allure but kept Elizabeth’s too imaginative mind off the dangers he could be facing. Outside, men called to each other. Hammering, shouting, and clunking noises reverberated throughout the ancient manor house.
She stood in Marshfield’s east wing, the one least damaged by time and neglect and considered colors for carpets and draperies. A hand seizing her wrist made her choke on a startled scream, which she swallowed on a gasp of surprise.
Asterly, bareheaded and wearing a rough jacket and patched trousers, pulled her swiftly down a hallway. She grabbed a handful of skirts when he urged her up a flight of steps, around a corner and into a narrow room. Dust motes floated in the bright slant of sunlight. A high window allowed a beam of late morning sun through, lighting the shadows.
Her heart thumped in her chest while she watched him swiftly lift a k
ey from the wall and lock the door. Were his hands shaking? She didn’t doubt it when he came to her, hauled her into his arms and kissed her like a starving man. His entire frame shivered against hers. From the heat pouring off him, she knew he wasn’t cold.
Withdrawing, he looked down into her eyes—a question. She answered by unfastening his jacket. His fingers encompassed her waist, slid up her sides, over her breasts, across her shoulders, down her arms and back to her waist. He jerked open his trouser buttons then gathered up her skirts. Air left her lungs when he bent his knees and lifted her up. Startled and excited, she found herself in the unexpected position of having her back pressed against the wall, the backs of her knees hooked on his elbows and her bare bottom clenched in strong fingers.
He paused before entering, testing her readiness. She tried to sink lower to prove her eagerness but he held her so firmly she couldn’t move. Aching tension coiled inside and around her hips. She feared if she had to wait much longer, she might tighten up to the point he wouldn’t be able to enter. But her slight movement sent him thrusting upward. Pleasure sliced through, streaking throughout her belly. He muffled her open-mouthed groan with his own, then sealed his lips over hers. His fingers gripped tighter. His thrusts came faster, deeper. She tried to move with him but he held her immobile in a grip of stinging sensations. Oblivion rushed at her. She clutched his hair, his shoulders. Intense tension pressed to the point of exquisite pain then release split the darkness. From somewhere within the deep well of pleasure she heard and felt an animal sound rise up from her soul.
A soft kiss on her panting mouth brought her back to earth. She opened heavy eyes and blinked at the shadowed ceiling. The aftermath of this sudden coupling created wondrous, quivering thrills that continued to race over her skin.
“Eliza, please forgive me for acting like a brute.’
She swallowed to find her voice while he gently eased her down to the floor on legs that melted. Strong fingers held her by the waist for support, while she brushed down her skirts into place.