Christian leaned over and blew out the one remaining candle at the bedside table, casting them in the muted firelight. “You didn’t eat very much of your supper this evening.”
Grace shook her head. She then furrowed her brow as if she were suddenly troubled.
“Is something wrong?”
“I was just wondering why the room keeps moving even though I am quite certain my head has gone still.”
Christian frowned. Perhaps the brandy hadn’t been such a good idea after all. She was half-tipped.
“You didn’t care for what the cook had prepared for supper?”
“No. I mean yes. I did. It was very good, what I had of it, but I just … I just … I …”
Grace lost her words as she watched Christian walk around to the other side of the vast bed. He sat at the edge of the mattress, right beside where her leg was stretched out from under the bedcovers, and moved on to the next item on his checklist—to discern just how much Grace knew about sexual relations.
“Grace.”
She watched him warily as he positioned himself closer to her. “I know what yer going to do. Yer going to take my ‘ginity now, aren’t you?”
Christian leaned on one elbow above her. “Yes, Grace, I am.”
He put his hand on the knot that held the sash of her dressing robe and slowly loosened the tie. Grace barely gave the maneuver notice. She was far too busy staring into his eyes with an expression that wasn’t at all fearful or even nervous, but utterly curious. It disconcerted him, the openness of her gaze. It was not what he had expected from his virginal wife. He had told himself to approach this night simply as a task that had to be done no matter how disagreeable, like so many of the interminable philosophical lectures he’d had to sit through while he’d been at Eton. But how the devil, he wondered, did one liken lovemaking to Descartes?
“Grace, what do you know of the relationship between a man and a woman?”
Grace smiled, blinking slowly. “Oh, I know more than you think I know.”
He raised a brow. “Indeed?”
She nodded confidently. “You think I’m mishish… misssh… mi—” She gave it up, saying instead, “You think I don’t know what you are going to do to me… to take my ‘ginity.” She smiled. “But I do.”
“You do?”
“Uhmm.” She looked baldly down at the sash of his own robe and said quite matter-of-factly, “Needle and thread.”
Christian quirked a half-smile. “Did you just say ‘needle and thread’?”
She looked at him, seeming startled by his response. “You mean you don’t know? Grandmother told me men were born knowing these things.” She giggled. “How funny to think that I will have to teach you.” She sat up on the bed and looked at him then and said with utter seriousness, “You see the way it works is I am the needle and you are the thread…”
Christian stared at her, dumbfounded.
“…without one, the other cannot create a true stitch.”
Good God, he thought, the situation was more hopeless than he’d figured. She hadn’t the faintest clue what the sexual act entailed. Needle and thread…
“Grace, how many times have you been kissed by a man—I mean, other than an affectionate peck from a family member?”
Grace stared at him, carefully contemplating his question. “Including you?”
The memory of her visit to his dressing room the night of Eleanor’s ball flashed through his thoughts. “Yes.”
“Once.”
He had thought as much. Christian stood from the bed. Perhaps a bit of philosophical inquiry would serve after all. If he educated her on the facts of it all, prepared her for what would happen, it might prevent a fit of hysterics when the moment of consummation was at hand. He reached for her. “Grace, come to stand before me.”
Grace moved from the bed until she stood looking up at him in the firelight. Her hair was mussed from the pillows and her nightgown was buttoned all the way to her chin. Her bare toes curled against the thick carpet as she waited for him to do whatever it was he planned to do. Christian tried to ignore the soft floral scent of her as he leaned toward her and touched his lips to hers. She stood completely still, her mouth warm and giving, her kiss chaste and unversed. After a moment, he pulled away.
Grace opened her eyes and blinked. “Was that all? Are we finished taking my virginity already?”
“Not quite.”
Determined to keep things on a purely philosophical level, Christian said, “Grace, I am going to assume you have never seen a man’s body before.”
She nodded silently, then thought the better of her response and shook her head instead.
“A man’s body is very different from that of a woman. It is made that way for a reason, so that they may join together—physically.” Still she stared at him. “I don’t want you to be frightened. So I would like you to look at me, at my body, before we consummate our marriage.”
Christian loosened the belt of his dressing robe. Watching her closely, he parted the fabric in front and let the weight of it drop to the floor. He wore nothing underneath, of course, and kissing her had aroused him more than he cared to admit. He watched her eyes as they moved over his chest down to where his sex stood erect from his groin. She furrowed her brow as if confused by him, by how things might work between them. He saw the moment of realization in her eyes when she knew what would soon happen. But she didn’t move to back away or look at him in fear. Instead, slowly, tentatively she reached out and touched two fingers to his hardness. Christian’s body jerked in response. She pulled quickly away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Christian looked at her, swallowing hard in effort to take control of his quickening pulse. He was thankful for the darkness. “You didn’t hurt me, Grace. A man’s body reacts sometimes without his meaning it to.”
She didn’t understand, of course, and he didn’t have the ability at that moment to explain, so instead he urged her toward the bed and lay her back against the pillows.
Christian fought to take control of the emotions that were stirring within him. He positioned himself beside her and kissed her again, this time covering her mouth with his and drawing her fully against the length of his body. As he did, he took a journey back in time to Eton, to hour upon hour of dictum and lecture. He deepened the kiss, stroking his tongue slowly against hers. She tasted of tea and the brandy he’d laced it with and her hair fell softly against his cheek. He already knew that Grace had never known such a kiss but still she didn’t shy away as he had expected her to do. Instead his virginal little wife kissed him back. He felt Grace open her mouth against his, pressing her body even closer to him. He felt a jolt take him deep inside.
Affected more than he cared to admit, Christian pulled away and looked at her. “We will take this slowly,” he said more to himself than to her. He’d come to her this evening set on doing his duty as a husband, but only so far as he would need to leave the proof he knew the servants would be looking for on the sheets, her virgin’s blood. He had told himself he could separate his body from his mind. It appeared, however, that this wouldn’t prove easy, for already his blood was pounding through his veins—this after he’d only kissed her once.
He began reciting philosophic precepts in his head, anything to occupy his attention as he loosened the buttons that held the front of her nightdress, his fingers slipping them one by one through the tiny closures down to her belly. He pushed the fabric aside and drew in a ragged breath at the untouched whiteness of her skin, the tautness of her rose-hued nipples. She was perfect in every way. She would be tight around him, he knew, when he entered her and the thought of it taunted him. He pushed the fabric upward over her legs to bunch at her waist, taking in the sight of the golden down at the joining of her thighs. Inwardly he contemplated Socratic dialogues in an effort to cool his increasing desire.
Christian told himself it would go easier if she were at least somewhat aroused, so he kissed her again a
nd as he did, he brought his head lower along the swell of her breast before closing his mouth over her nipple. Grace arched her back, sucking in a sharp breath as she was taken by the first sensations of desire. She brought her hands upward, lacing her fingers through his hair as he drew on her, fisting her hands as he took her further and further into the untried world of her own sensuality.
When he pulled away, lifting his head to look at her, she opened her eyes, staring in silent bewilderment at him. The wavering glow of the firelight played across the burnished tawny gold of her hair, her rapid pulsebeat showing at the hollow of her neck. Christian felt his thoughts begin to blur. His hands queried her body with caresses, his mouth with kisses, introducing him to the delight of her collarbone, the thrill of the whispering of a touch against her shoulder.
With every gesture, every stroke of his fingers, Grace sought to return in kind, caressing her fingers over his back, against his neck. With each motion, each touch from her, Christian’s need for her grew. He ran his hand over her, smoothing down over her belly along her thigh. Slowly, tentatively he parted her legs, touching her skin, seducing her to readiness for him.
When he touched her more intimately, reaching her in places she’d never known existed, Grace gasped aloud. His own pulse was pounding now like cannon fire in his ears. His eagerness to know her, to satisfy his need, brought him to moving over her, positioning himself between her legs, joining his mouth with hers once again. With first one hand, then the other, he lifted her legs, bending them at the knee. His fingers found her, found her wet and slick, and he was desperate to feel her tightness around him. He stared down at her, hesitating only a second until she looked at him, telling him with her eyes that she had no fear. That look took away the last of his restraint and Christian quickly buried himself within her, his mouth taking her startled cry against the sudden sharp pain of him, her woman’s body naturally stretching to accept him.
From the moment he entered her, Christian was beyond anything but feeling the tightness of her around him. She was so tight, so good, he could not control the movement of his body as he groaned her name, his hips moving, thrusting into her, deep and then deeper, his eyes tightly closed. The scent of her body, the warmth and softness of her skin, her passion, her sexuality overtook him. With each thrust his desperation grew, so that only with another and another could he hope to find release from the torment she held him in. He buried his head against her neck, groaning against her hair, breathing her in, working again and again until, when it was almost more than he could bear, he came into her one last time, deeper than he could have thought possible.
He vaguely heard her cry out through the pounding of his heartbeat and his own shout as he climaxed and the need, the fury, the utter torment released him, giving him back to himself as his body shuddered, spilling his seed within her.
It took Christian several moments to regain full command of his faculties. Only then did he realize just what he had done. He pulled away from Grace abruptly, as if by doing so, he could reverse what he had just done. But it was too late.
He moved to sit at the edge of the bed with his back to her. All the passion, the desire he had felt moments before had gone, leaving him empty and numb and disbelieving that he had done the one thing he had vowed he would not do. He did not know what had happened, how he had lost such total control over a situation in which he had intended to be master. It was his wedding night and he’d bungled it beyond bungling. He had not withdrawn before spilling his seed inside Grace’s womb. In the end, his grandfather had won once again.
Christian stood defeatedly from the bed. The fire had died to where a solitary flame now flickered sluggishly among the glowing embers in the grate. Grace lay still upon the bed, naked in the firelight, watching him. She lifted her hand and beckoned to him, but he did not move to return to her. He simply stared at her, silent, solemn, and after another moment, she slowly lowered her hand back to the bed.
Christian reached forward without a word and pulled the edges of Grace’s nightrail closed over her breasts. He frowned, staring at her a moment more before he slipped on his dressing robe and started to walk away from her, saying as he went, “Good night, Grace.”
And as he closed the door behind himself, somehow, wherever he was, Christian knew his grandfather was gloating.
Chapter Ten
The morning dawned to the gleeful hweet of the chiff-chaff in the trees outside and the movement of the servants at various stations throughout the house—the echoing of footsteps, muffled voices, the opening and closing of doors. Lost amid a tumble of sheets and pillows on the ducal bed, Grace slowly opened her eyes to face her first day as a wife.
Sunlight poured through the tall windows across the room, creeping across the carpet and lighting the chamber’s interior through the veil of hair that fell over her eyes. Seeing the room now in the daylight, she thought it not nearly so harsh and gloomy as she had remembered it from the night before. The furnishings themselves were really quite nice—Tudor in style, the hangings a rich burgundy velvet with gold. Shadows no longer crept about the walls. The carvings on the bedposts no longer looked like frolicking demons but were in fact cherubs poised amid an enchanted setting of clouds. What a difference the light of day could make.
Grace lifted her head from the scattered pillows just as the door to the bedchamber inched open. A maid peeked an eye through to the inside, and then, seeing her awake, quietly pushed the door to enter.
“Good morning, my lady,” she said, bobbing a curtsey. She was the same maid who had brought her the tea the night before.
“Good morning.”
Grace’s head felt heavier than usual, as if oddly it were weighted somehow from the inside. As she sat up, she noticed a strange soreness between her legs. She immediately thought to the night before. Why, oh why had she drunk all that tea? Even now she could only vaguely remember what had happened—Christian kissing her, and how she had spouted some nonsense to him about needles and threads. She remembered the pain of him entering her body, but not much beyond that until he’d risen from the bed to leave her. The only thing she did know was that whatever it was she was supposed to have done, she had obviously done it badly. Why else would a bridegroom be so eager to leave his marriage bed?
“What is your name?” she asked the maid as she watched her move about the chamber, seeing to her duties.
The maid looked startled at the question. “Eliza Stone, my lady. But everyone calls me Liza.”
“Stone. You are related to Mrs. Stone, the housekeeper?”
“Aye. My aunt she is, my lady. ‘Twas because of her I was able to find a position in this household.”
Grace nodded. She heard the sound of horses on the drive outside and stood, walking to the window. The coach that had brought them there the day before stood waiting, the coachman making a great show of checking the harnesses and fastenings. Grace remembered then that they were to leave for London that morning. “Do you know the time, Liza?”
“Aye, ‘tis a quarter hour past nine, my lady.” Liza picked the topmost gown from Grace’s trunk and gave it a shake to smooth out its wrinkles. “His lordship is a’ready awake. He said to see you up and ready to leave for London by ten. You’ve a long day’s journey ahead of you.”
She draped the gown at the foot of the bed, a plain beige bombazine carriage dress, along with the other necessaries she’d taken from the trunk—chemise, stockings, half boots. “Breakfast awaits you in the parlor downstairs. I’ll have the boys come to fetch your trunks down after you’ve dressed.”
Grace was pulling on her robe when she noticed the maid staring at the bed behind her, the expression on her face quite peculiar. She turned to see what had caught her notice. Splotches of brownish red marked the white of the sheet beneath where Grace had lain. It was blood. Her blood. She drew in a startled breath, covering her mouth with her hand. She knew quite well it wasn’t time for her monthly—that had come and gone but a fortnight ago. She remember
ed the pain from the night before.
“Oh, dear… what has happened?” She looked at the maid, eyes wide. “Am I… am I dying?”
Liza came immediately to her side. “Oh, no, my lady. Not at all. Do you not know? Didn’t you realize? Were you never told?”
“Was I never told what? That one should expect to receive grave injury on one’s wedding night?”
Liza shook her head, taking Grace’s hand. “Tis all right, my lady. It is but your virgin’s blood. ‘Tis natural. When a lady beds with a man the first time, the man takes her virginity.”
Grace let go a frustrated breath. “Yes, yes, I know that, and the girl is then suddenly considered a woman and can participate in conversation and no longer is required to have a chaperone wherever she goes. She can even wear her hair differently. But what has that to do with this?”
“It isn’t that I’m speaking of, my lady. I’m speaking of what happens when a man comes into a woman’s body.” Liza looked at Grace directly. “I can’t say for myself, since I’ve never been with a man—other than Jemmie the stable boy who stuck his hand down my bodice and got his nose bloodied for it. But Ma says the Lord has made it so a man knows if he’s the first to bed with you. There’s a part of you called your maidenhead. I don’t know exactly what it is, but the man must break through it and it hurts something fierce and there is often blood, but it is only for the first time, my lady. After that, it never happens again. Ma says ‘tis what we must bear for the sins of Eve.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “But my sister, Mary, she says that after that first time, the rest of the times after that are like going to heaven without the dyin’.”
Grace looked at the girl, so much younger than she, but so knowing of things that had never been spoken of, much less thought about during her childhood. Suddenly she felt very much a fool. She shook her head. “No one ever told me.”
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