Sir Gaspar ignored the snorts and snuffles. “Asides, marriage between you and Penny mightn’t be legal. I looked into it.”
That meant to West that Sir Gaspar had considered other alternatives than himself as groom, despite his spoutings about honor and contracts and a gentleman’s word. If the banker had seen an advantage to having his daughter marry his wife’s son, poor Penny would have been saddled with the ne’er-do-well. West would have been free, but that notion no longer appealed, not when it meant this scurvy fellow could put his slimy hands on Penny’s soft skin.
Nigel still had a fondness for the idea of marrying Goldwaite’s fortune, if not for the woman. “Persephone and I do not share a drop of blood.”
“No, but the law don’t care about that. They don’t care if you get hitched, either, until someone contests the match. Suppose you are twenty males away from the succession to your grandfather’s estates and nineteen chaps ahead of you stuck their spoons in the wall.”
“Sounds deuced suspicious to me, twenty swells dying at once.”
“Maybe there was an avalanche, or an invasion, an epidemic. That’s aside the point. You could inherit, but the twenty-first heir could challenge your marriage on some consanguinity rule or other. He could have the marriage declared null and void, making my grandson illegitimate.”
Nigel muttered something about any get of Sir Gaspar’s being no better than a bastard either way.
“Well, the boy’s father might be more mannered than moral”—now West felt even more like throttling the older man, too—“but at least his parentage ain’t in question. Traced back to William the Conqueror or such.”
“Not quite that old,” West said, but no one listened.
“I looked into that, too, you can be sure.” Sir Gaspar blew a smoke circle, and put his ring finger through it. “I hear Mittleman’s daughter blotted her copybook so badly that no one will have her. He might come down heavy for someone to take the hoyden off his hands.”
Nigel snapped the lid on his enameled snuffbox and shoved it across the table so West could see the erotic picture on the cover. Was he supposed to be impressed by such poor taste?
Nigel was not impressed with his stepfather’s proposal. “You think I would take used goods?”
“What, you can afford to be fussy now?”
“But Mittleman is a mill owner, not a gentleman.”
Sir Gaspar knocked the pipe against the table to knock out the spittle. Tobacco grounds scattered across his waistcoat. “So Mittleman ain’t a gentleman. He ain’t the one having to cadge off his mother, either.”
Nigel started to let his indignation show, then remembered the stack of overdue bills he had. If he had any hope of Sir Gaspar paying them, he had to hold his tongue.
He drank a swallow of the bad port. “Mittleman, eh? The fellow owns at least a dozen wool mills. What’d the girl do? More importantly, with whom? A chap might be willing to claim a gentleman’s brat as his own, but what if she’d serviced the gardener, the groom, and half the local militia?”
West had no interest in hearing of some female’s fall from grace, certainly not an unfortunate mill owner’s daughter. He decided she’d be better off with the butler than with Nigel. He stood up, saying Penny must be wondering what happened to him.
“She didn’t look all that eager to me,” Nigel said, earning him another black mark in West’s book. Someday those tallies would be counted and repaid, but not today, not in Sir Gaspar’s dining room. Decent manners demanded restraint, even if one could not get a decent meal, or a decent drink, there.
West had to find his own way to where the women were sitting. No footman appeared to direct him, another indication of Sir Gaspar’s cheeseparing, although the man made sure his own comforts were attended to. Penny gave him such a bright smile, a rush to his side, a swift embrace, when he stood in the doorway of the Gold Parlor, that the whole night seemed suddenly worthwhile. West wished nasty Nigel could see her. Not eager? Hah! West’s spirits lifted, until Penny whispered in his ear, “Help.”
He took advantage of the moment—what red-blooded man would not?—and put his arms around her, drawing her close for a lingering kiss, despite the watchful eyes of her stepmother and the younger girls.
“That is no help!” she yelped, pulling back, but still close enough to murmur, “Find an excuse, any excuse, to leave.”
“I could say you are breeding,” he teased in a low voice, “but your father would bring out the champagne.”
Luckily she could hide her blushes in his arms. “Heavens, not that. Do you want to stay?”
He saw the tea tray a servant was wheeling in: nothing but toast fingers and digestive biscuits. “I am sorry, Lady Goldwaite, but I fear we must leave.”
“What, so soon? I was going to have the girls perform for you. Mavis has a charming singing voice. Don’t you, darling? And precious Amelia plays quite prettily on the pianoforte.”
Penny groaned.
“Are you not feeling well, my dear?”
“I, ah, have the headache.”
“And we have much to do tomorrow, so Penny needs her rest,” he said. To placate Lady Goldwaite, he added, “We have to see about opening the ballroom at Westmoreland House, and making that list of guests to invite.”
Constance was content with that. “I’ll send my list of names around tomorrow morning.”
“Excellent, I’ll look forward to seeing which gentlemen you think might be suitable.”
Then he could warn them about Precious and Darling.
Once they were in the carriage on the way home, West pulled Penny into his lap and kissed her soundly.
“What’s that for?”
“For not making me sit through a recital of amateur efforts.”
“Worse, they are ill-trained amateurs, nothing but schoolroom misses.” But she kissed him back, to West’s delight.
“What was that for?”
“For not being rude to my family, although they deserved it.”
Now that they were well away, West could be generous. “Oh, they were not so bad. After Mr. Littleton and Marcel—”
She pulled back. “What’s wrong with Grandpapa and Marcel?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. I just meant, ah, I meant that after your grandfather refused to go, I was expecting far worse.”
She seemed satisfied, and comfortable on his lap. “Oh. Well, I doubt you could ever be too rude for my stepmother, anyway. You are a viscount, after all.”
“And you are a viscountess. My viscountess.” He pulled her closer, in the dark carriage, and kissed her nearly breathless.
“What was that for?” she asked when he set her aside to straighten his clothing when the carriage slowed.
“Because I might have starved to death without your kisses.”
“No, that is my father’s miserly meal.”
“No, that is lust for my beautiful wife.”
“Lust, not liking?”
“Silly goose, both. A lot of both.” He kissed her again, nearly senseless this time. Senseless enough that she said, “I like you, too.”
Which meant he had to kiss her once more, nearly home. “I don’t suppose . . . ?”
“Yes.”
“. . . that you would consider making your father a happy man, and me also, of course?”
“Yes.”
“You know, by starting a family.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, truly?” He was nearly ready to ravish her in the carriage. “Now? Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Not now, not the carriage, not outside his own house, not with the coachman waiting. No man ever had a woman out of a coach so fast and up the steps to his front door.
Parker was holding the door open, smiling. Penny’s face was burning, that the butler knew what they’d been doing. Parker coughed and informed West that Mr. Littleton was abed, and neither Lady Bainbridge nor Master Nicholas had yet returned.
“Fine,” West said, almost pushi
ng Penny toward the arching stairs. Then he stopped. “Wait. I, uh, have something important to do. I will be back in an hour, sweetings. Less if I can manage.”
Penny could not ask what was so important that he’d delay their lovemaking after seeming so ardent, not with Parker standing a few feet away. Her disappointment must have shown, for he asked, “Do you still have that sheer negligee?”
She looked back to see Parker pretending to polish the hall mirror with his sleeve, as if the proper butler would do such a thing. She nodded at West.
“Put it on, for me.”
She would, if he came back. And if he swore he was not canceling a previous engagement with another woman.
West sensed her withdrawal. He raised her hand, tugged off her glove, and kissed her fingers, one after the other. “Trust me, wife.” Then he kissed the inside of her wrist, and looked as if he’d work his way up her arm if she let him, with Parker still polishing nonexistent smudges.
“Hurry home,” was all she said as she ran up the stairs.
“Oh, you can be sure I will,” he called over his shoulder, before racing outdoors and giving directions to the coachman. “And spring ’em,” he shouted as he jumped back into the carriage. “My bride is waiting.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The match between Lord St. C. and his wife bore no children. He wanted an annulment. He wanted a divorce. He wanted her to accept one of his illegitimate sons as heir. Lady St. C. wanted a family, so she consulted a Gypsy fortune-teller. And a Gypsy lover.
—By Arrangement, a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber
A woman could change her mind a hundred times in an hour. She could suffer a hundred doubts and make a hundred decisions. Penny bathed. She lit all the candles. She put on the wisp of nothing and lace. She gasped and blew out the candles. Then she relit half of them, took off the sinful silk, and put on her flannel nightgown. She brushed her hair until it stood on end with electricity, like her nerves. Lie on the bed? Lock the door? Welcome him back? Wish him to perdition for leaving? Demand to know where he had gone? An hour was an eternity, waiting on a man.
Then she heard the carriage. She checked the clock. Forty-five minutes. Was that all? He must have rushed, whatever his business was, proving his hurry to get back to her. Penny tore off the virgin’s vestment and donned the soiled dove’s. She blew out all but one candle.
West’s hands were so full, he could only kick at the door for her to open it.
“Who is there?”
She heard a muffled curse that brought a smile to her lips. “Who the devil do you think is at your—”
She had it open before he finished the sentence. He looked at her smile; then he looked at her near nakedness. He shoved a huge bouquet of flowers at her, enough to make a bower of her bedroom. Then he pushed a sack of scented candles and oils into her hand and started to dash for the connecting door to his room. “I need to shave again. Five minutes. Four.”
Penny set down the flowers and the sack and grabbed his sleeve as he raced past. “You are fine.” She reached one hand out to caress his cheek and jaw.
He took her hand and turned it so he could kiss her palm. “No, I am not fine.” He was out of breath, and nearly out of his skin at her tender touch. The sight of her wearing that bit of silk and a smile of welcome stole his soul. He needed those four minutes to get ready, to get control, to make sure he did not embarrass himself or frighten his innocent bride.
“Three minutes.”
“Don’t go.”
Ah, the sweetest words a man could hear. West couldn’t leave now, not even if he still wanted to. His entire body was straining toward her, sure to disobey any command his mind might give. What mind? What matter?
He gave up and took her into his arms, took her lips, took his pleasure in feeling her pressed against his chest, his stomach, his thighs. “My God, you are so beautiful,” he murmured, his hands on her soft posterior pulling her closer yet against his hard warrior. He whispered of wanting, between kisses that were of searing intensity, of tongues and teeth and throbbing music.
“Music?” Penny pulled out of his arms and stepped toward the window. She pulled back the draperies and looked down. Three Gypsy fiddlers looked up and waved between bars. Penny recalled her state of undress and hastily let the curtains fall.
“What are they doing there?”
West grinned. “Why, they are serenading you, of course. The singer will arrive as soon as he finishes his piece at Lady Bannamere’s Gypsy masquerade ball. I managed to spirit these chaps away while they were on a break. I left her the orchestra, so you need not worry about her party.”
“They are playing so loudly they are going to wake Grandpapa.”
“I told them to.” He went to the window and made clapping motions.
They played louder.
“They’ll wake the whole neighborhood!”
“Ah, but there will be no bedroom noises to upset you.”
She waved her hand at the musicians, the flowers, the candles he had lit. “You did all this for me?”
“Hell, no, woman,” he said, both of them ripping at his clothes, then hers. “I did it for me.”
But he did a lot for her, first. He showed her that rising rapture again, with his kisses and his hands and his knowing fingers that understood exactly where she was most sensitive. When she thought she could not stand any more, when her cries almost drowned out the musicians, then he gave her that shattering release. Finally, when her body was still pulsing, he rose on his arms over her, poised to take his own pleasure, and add to hers.
Except she was a virgin.
“This might hurt, sweetings. I am sorry.”
Penny was sorry, too, to lose that afterglow of passion, that drifting, floating feeling of satiety and splendor. Fear took over, but she would not let him see it, or disappoint him again. “Do not worry. I’ll just close my eyes and recite a hymn.”
West gripped her chin and turned her face up. “No. Look at me, Penny. Think of me, of the feelings you just had, of how much I need you, of how much I want you to enjoy every minute of our lovemaking. You will, I swear, after this first time.”
“Do you promise?”
He’d promise to hire the man in the moon to play the mandolin next time, if he could get through this time, and soon. “I promise.”
He groaned when he felt the hot, moist tightness start to surround him. “Oh, Lord, I don’t think I can stand this.”
“I thought it was supposed to hurt me, not you.”
“It is killing me, sweetings, inch by slow inch.”
Now Penny did feel uncomfortably stretched. She squirmed, wanting the other feelings back, the soul-stealing, senses-stirring storm of pleasure, not this almost painful intrusion.
He groaned again. “Lud, don’t do that, Penny, or I cannot hold back.”
“But you were right, it hurts.”
He groaned louder, glad of the musicians or he’d howl the household down, or up. “Do you want me to stop? I am sorry to cause you pain, but I will be sorrier if you tell me to stop. I’ll shoot myself afterward, but I will stop, if I can.” His arms and elbows were quivering, his breaths coming in gasps, his voice pleading.
For answer, Penny raised her hips to meet him, enfolding him, encompassing him, encouraging him—and enjoying him, especially when he reached a hand between them, touching her again, loving her, giving to her, not just taking.
Oh my. Penny sighed in happiness. West immediately rolled off her. She sighed again, this time feeling the loss of separation.
He kissed her and pulled her into his arms and apologized, all at once. “Thank you, my dear. Next time I’ll do better.”
If there was better than this, Penny thought she would expire from the experience. Dying would be worth it. “When?”
West pulled the sheet over his lower half when she looked down in curiosity at his now pathetic, puny, but deliriously happy privates. “You’ll be sore tomorrow.”
&
nbsp; She shrugged, moving her breasts against him. “If I am already going to be sore, I might as well see what I have been missing.” She raised the sheet again. “Or do men get sore, too, from making love?”
“More so from not making love.”
Her forehead puckered in thought. “Shall I kiss it and make it better?”
She did, and he was a lot better, a lot faster than he thought possible.
“Where the hell did you learn that?”
Penny grinned. “You see the advantages of having a broad education and an eclectic library?”
“I see the advantage of having you as my wife.” He was feathering kisses across her cheeks, her eyebrows, smoothing that line of concentration, then moving to her breasts, her belly, between her legs. “Lord, I might even thank your father.”
She gasped, then said, “You must be grateful indeed.”
“Let me show you how grateful.” And he did. This time he could wait; she could respond; they could meet at the stars and float back to earth together. They never knew where one began, the other ended, or when the exhausted musicians took a break.
Tangled together, sharing breaths and heartbeats, they were about to fall asleep when Penny bit West on the shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“For making me wait so long.”
Lord and Lady Westfield were not to be disturbed . . . that night, the entire next day, and the night after. They were selecting furniture for their rooms, if anyone asked. What they were doing was testing out her bed, which was deemed comfortable, and his enormous mattress, which they decided suited the master bedroom quite well after all. They tried out the new bathing room, which was not as comfortable, not with water and bubbles and wet towels all over, so they made a more careful examination of the sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. They carefully compared the chaise longue in her room with the leather armchair in the sitting room for sturdiness. Pieces of the chaise were shoved outside in the hall.
The Bargain Bride Page 17