Sebastian studied her face. “But you will tell me when you are ready to do so?”
“If it becomes necessary, yes.” Her reply was guarded. “I have some enquiries I need to make before I can talk on the subject further.”
The answers to those question lay in London, Alys believed. To that end, she had told Devil her maid was spending time with relatives before joining them in Herefordshire, when in reality, Alys had given Meg enough money to take a public coach to the capitol so that she might make the necessary enquiries in Alys’s stead. She had also written a letter for Meg to take with her to help facilitate those enquiries.
Meg had no idea what that letter contained, only to whom it was to be delivered. Alys trusted Meg implicitly, that young lady having been her maid for the past four years and having proven her loyalty again and again when she bearded some of Teddy’s more cruel actions toward Alys. But she did not think it fair to place Meg in a position where Teddy might hear of her involvement.
It would not be too long, Alys hoped, before Meg joined them in Herefordshire with the answers she required, before Alys would then be able to confront Teddy with what she now believed to be the truth.
Devil had no choice but to accept Alys’s words as final. Instead of pushing her further on the subject, he glanced out the window of the carriage just in time to see they were now turning into the long driveway of Deveril Park. “Your new home,” he told Alys with a hint of pride for his well-managed estate.
She sat forward so that she could see out of the window. “Herefordshire is far more beautiful than I had imagined.”
“I am very fond of it, I must admit.”
Alys could see that Herefordshire, and the numerous members of household staff she was introduced to a few minutes later, were in turn very fond of the master of Deveril Park.
There was such a different feel about this estate than her own childhood home. It was a far bigger and grander house, of course, but the mainly cream-and-gold décor gave it a warm and even airier ambience.
Alys thought she could be very happy here.
Very happy indeed.
“Whatever you need, ma’am, you have only to ask.” Mrs. Milton, the housekeeper at Deveril Park, beamed at Alys warmly, having personally escorted Alys to her bedchamber. “We have all waited a long time for the day Master Sebastian would bring home his bride. And a beautiful one at that.”
Alys’s face blushed with pleasure at this unconditional welcome from the gray-haired lady Sebastian had told her had been in charge of the household at Deveril Park for many years.
At Alys’s request, during their journey into Herefordshire, Sebastian had told her the names and duties of all the people living and working on the estate. She might not have known for very long that she was to be mistress here, but she did not intend to hurt or slight a single member of Sebastian’s household by not knowing who they were.
“You are very kind.” She smiled at the older lady, having already heaped deserved praise on the other woman for the comfort of the feminine bedchamber in which she now found herself. The décor was all shades of lilac and cream, the furniture a delicate white, even the four-poster bed, with its gauzy cream curtains and satin-and-silk-covered pillows.
It was a beautiful room, facing south, and Alys already knew she was going to be very comfortable here.
“Not at all. I mean every word of it.” Mrs. Milton’s smile became rueful. “I have known Master Sebastian since he was in the nursery. He was even-tempered as a child, and he is fair and generous as a master.”
The housekeeper was not telling Alys anything she had not already surmised for herself. She had no doubt Sebastian was all those things and more.
Her father had always taught her that it was how one was perceived by others that was the true measure of a person’s nature.
Sebastian was beloved and respected for the fair and generous man, friend, and employer he was.
Teddy was not liked or respected within Society or by the servants at Newcomb Manor. Apart from Holmes, of course. Her brother also surrounded himself with hangers-on or men who were as much wastrels as he was.
Alys had no doubt she had chosen wisely when she decided to continue with her plans to marry Sebastian and come away to Herefordshire with him.
She smiled shyly at the housekeeper. “I hope you will find me to be as fair and generous as my husband.”
Her husband.
Sebastian was now her husband, as she was his wife.
From the little of Deveril Park she had seen so far, Alys believed her life was going to be a much happier one here than the uncertainty she had known living on her brother’s precarious charity since her father died.
“I’m sure I shall.” The housekeeper assured her warmly. “Cook is preparing a sumptuous dinner for you both, but is there anything I might get you before I go?”
“Nothing at all, thank you, Mrs. Milton.” Alys already felt lighter of heart for not having the constant fear of offending her brother to contend with. Sebastian was not half so mercurial in his moods.
She waited until the housekeeper had departed to check on the progress of dinner before taking off her bonnet, throwing it up into the air, and then falling back onto the bed, her arms thrown out to her sides as she gave a loud and happy cry of “Whee!”
“I am not sure a marchioness should behave with quite such…abandon as that.”
Alys turned her head to look at Sebastian, but made no more effort to move than that as she observed him leaning against the doorframe of the doorway adjoining their two bedchambers. He had discarded his hat in the hallway downstairs earlier, and had now removed his jacket, waistcoat, and neck cloth too. His shirt was unfastened at the throat, revealing the start of a dusting of dark hair on his chest.
He strode forward into the room until he stood beside the bed, looking down at her. “Unless she is behaving that way with me,” he added huskily.
“I am just so happy to be here,” she admitted.
“I believe Deveril Park is happy to have you here.” He nodded. “I have a very large bath in my bedchamber being filled with hot water. Would you care to join me?”
How strange, Alys mused, that the two of them had said a few words in front of a vicar earlier today, signed an official piece of paper that made them husband and wife in the eyes of the law, and now it was perfectly acceptable for the two of them to be alone together as often as they pleased.
To take a bath together, if they wished.
Chapter 12
She smiled shyly at Sebastian. “Mrs. Milton has said I might have the use of one of the maids until Meg arrives.”
“I shall act as your maid this evening,” Sebastian assured her.
The thought of that gave Alys a delicious shiver of anticipation down the length of her spine. “In that case, I believe I should very much like to share your bath.”
Sebastian held out his hand. His fingers curled about her much smaller ones after she had placed her own hand in his and he had pulled her up onto her feet. “I would like this door between our two bedchambers to remain open as much as possible.” He released her hand as the two of them passed through the doorway into his much more masculine room. The décor was in tans and cream, the furniture a heavy mahogany.
Riley was not present, thank goodness. There was only the huge porcelain bath half-full with water and placed near enough to feel the benefit of the fire that had been lit in the cool of the evening.
“You have a beautiful home, Sebastian,” Alys told him.
“We have a beautiful home,” he corrected lightly. “If there is anything here which does not please you, décor, servants, whatever, then you do not need my permission to change them.”
Her eyes widened. “That is very generous of you.”
Sebastian took her hands in his. “I want you to be comfortable here, Alys. For you to know that this is your home now, and you may do with it and within it as you please.”
“Another example
of how you do not intend to be cruel to me, despite the circumstance of our marriage?”
“Those circumstances were primarily of my making. You made it more than clear you did not wish for the marriage.”
She sighed. “You believed I only wanted the money.”
Sebastian snorted. “I doubt very much you would ever have seen a penny of that money, even if you had not married me.”
So did Alys. “I really was not complicit in Teddy’s blackmail.”
“I believe you.”
“You do?” Her heart lifted. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Sebastian confirmed, his expression turning grim. “Your brother has shown time and time again he cares nothing for you or your happiness.”
Alys glanced around them, the conversation having become altogether too serious for their wedding night. “What will you do if I should decide this bedchamber needs to be pink and white?”
He winced. “As I said, you may do here exactly as you please. Only allow me enough time to remove to another bedchamber before you decide to do it!”
Alys gave a happy laugh at his reaction. “I was only teasing you.”
It was a side of her Devil had not seen before, but one that he wholeheartedly approved of. As he loved to hear her lighthearted laugh.
He had noted that it was as if a heavy weight were being lifted from Alys’s shoulders the farther they got from Newcomb Manor. With the lifting of that weight, her eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks became flushed with happiness and pleasure.
She should always look and feel this way, and it was for Devil to see that she did.
Would her eyes sparkle and her cheeks be flushed with happiness once she knew Devil had only sought her out again so that he might question her as to whether she had been working for Napoleon against the Crown this past year?
Somehow, Devil doubted that very much.
Damn it, it was his wedding night. Their wedding night. His and Alys’s. For this one special night, at least, they could surely forget everything else but pleasing each other.
“You do look very beautiful in this gown.” He admired again the red silk perfectly complementing the honeyed tones of her complexion and reddish-brown hair. “But I believe you will look even more beautiful when you are out of it,” he added gruffly.
Her answer was to turn so that he could unfasten the buttons running the length of her spine, her hands moving up to remove the pins from her hair while he did so.
Alys’s skin felt soft as velvet beneath his fingertips as they skimmed along the length of her back, touching her bared flesh with the unfastening of each tiny pearl button. Devil’s breath caught in his throat once he was able to push the two sides of the material aside and reveal she wore nothing beneath the gown but white drawers.
One of her hands held the front of the dress over her breasts when she turned to face him, her cheeks now showing a becoming blush. “The style of the bodice does not allow for undergarments to be worn beneath it.”
Devil gently but firmly unclasped each of Alys’s fingers from their grip on the material before he allowed the gown to fall to her feet. Alys was the one to untie and push down her drawers before stepping out of them. Her garters and stockings quickly followed.
Devil ceased breathing altogether as he stared his fill of her. Parts of Alys’s body had been revealed to him during their lovemaking. His mouth had also been on her breasts and between her thighs, but a completely naked Alys was beauty beyond his imagining.
Her throat was long and delicate. Her hair a wild cascade of reddish-brown curls on her shoulders and down her spine. Her sloping breasts were full and tipped with engorged, dark rose nipples. Her waist was slender above the slightly outward curve of her hips. Reddish-brown curls nestled over her mound. Her legs were long and shapely. Her bare feet small and well-formed.
“You are beyond beautiful,” he murmured appreciatively.
Alys’s breath left her in a relieved sigh. Sebastian had chosen to enter into this loveless marriage, and he deserved to find pleasure in looking at his new wife. It was the least he could expect from their alliance.
“Now you,” she invited huskily.
He held her gaze as he pulled the unfastened shirt over his head and discarded it, revealing wide and powerful shoulders, and a taut and muscular chest and abdomen. Muscles bulged in his arms. His skin was lightly tanned, as if he did not spend all of his time inside fashionable London salons and his ancestral homes.
His dark hair was now tousled, giving him a rakishness which was not normally present in his meticulous appearance.
Devil’s body instantly reacted to the approval and desire he could see shining in Alys’s eyes as she looked at him, his cock becoming even harder than it had when he gazed his fill of her own nakedness.
Alys is now my wife, and this is our wedding night.
Even now, hours after the wedding, and with Alys standing completely naked in front of him, Devil had to keep reminding himself she was finally his. He had wanted her for years, knew that he had desired her for all that time too, and now she was his wife. A day he had long ago given up hope of ever happening.
To hell with everything else. Newcomb and his machinations. Stonewell, the Crown, and that wily bastard Napoleon.
Here they were simply Alys and Sebastian, husband and wife.
That decided, he quickly removed his boots and pantaloons before straightening, both of them now completely naked.
Alys had never seen a completely naked man before, although she very much doubted they were all as beautiful as Sebastian. That they had those muscular shoulders and chest, slender waist, powerful hips and thighs. As for the full and engorged length of his cock…
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she remembered the taste of him from yesterday. Sweet and salty together, and wholly addictive.
The very air seemed to have stilled in the room as they continued to gaze their fill of each other, nothing and no one else existing in that moment. Alys longed to touch all that masculine hardness. The width of Sebastian’s shoulders, each dip and hollow of those defined muscles, the thick length of his arousal.
Sebastian finally broke the silence. “The bath water is becoming cold.”
“Oh.” Alys snapped out of the sensual spell she had fallen under. “Of course.”
Sebastian held her hand to help keep her balance as she stepped into the still-hot water, waiting for Alys to sit down in that heat before getting in himself. “Move forward slightly,” he instructed before sitting down behind her, his legs now either side of and pressing against hers. “Now lean back against me,” he encouraged as his arms moved about her waist.
Alys turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I have the feeling you have done this before,” she teased half-seriously; it gave her an ache in her chest to imagine Sebastian sharing such intimacy with another woman.
“Never,” he instantly dispelled that notion. “But I have imagined it a time or two. With you,” he added huskily.
Her eyes widened. “With me?”
“Hm.” Sebastian eased her down so that she now lay with her back flush against his chest, and Alys could no longer look him in the eye. “My fantasies of you are all I have had until these past few days.”
Alys’s heart rate sped up. “You have fantasized about me?”
“For years,” he confirmed.
She could barely breathe at the enormity of that admission. Sebastian had desired her for years? Could it possibly be three years? The same amount of time she had desired and thought and fantasized about him? Could it indeed be true that Sebastian had looked upon her with favor then? That he had wanted her as she had wanted him?
It seemed impossible to think that might be the case, when the last thing she had done all those years ago was to accuse Sebastian of murdering her father.
Something she no longer believed, and ought to tell him so.
“Sebastian—” She broke off with an aching moan as the hea
t of his palms cupped beneath her breasts. “Oh yes,” she encouraged breathlessly as Sebastian rolled her nipples between fingers and thumbs, immediately sending hot waves of pleasure coursing through her body.
The back of her head rested against Sebastian’s shoulder, her bent knees falling apart to rest against the sides his and the side of the bath. The heat of the water caressed her swollen and tingling nether lips and the hardness of her erect clit.
It was deeply erotic to look down and watch those disembodied hands caressing her breasts and squeezing her nipples. Almost as if Alys was caught up in one of those fantasies she had indulged in about Sebastian during the last three lonely years.
In her fantasies, she was never shy or reticent but was as much the instigator as Sebastian, making love to him as he made love to her. Now she was his wife, could she be as daring and demanding as that fantasy Alys?
“What are you doing?” Devil protested as Alys sat forward and his hands necessarily had to release her breasts. That protest turned to a groan when she turned and then knelt in the bath between his parted legs, her palms cradling each side of his face as she lowered her head and her lips claimed his.
Devil allowed Alys her way for as long as he could with those sips and tastes of his mouth, crushing her against his chest and deepening the kiss only when he could no longer take the teasing passion which seemed just beyond his grasp.
They kissed long and deeply, tasting each other with their tongues, teeth gently biting, as their hands caressed and learned all the contours and dips and hollows of the other’s body.
Devil stroked along the length of her spine, feeling each delicate bone beneath the skin, then across her ribs and shoulder blades. Her skin felt like velvet, so soft, like the silk of the dress she had worn earlier, only better, because it was Alys.
Alys trembled in his arms, making tiny noises in her throat as his hands moved lower still to curve about and hold the cheeks of her bottom, kneading and caressing those twin globes.
She groaned low and long in her throat when one of his hands moved forward to cup her mound, fingertips lightly caressing the plump seam between her thighs. Her legs began to shake when his fingers touched and then stroked her clit, and only seconds later, she came apart in his arms, quivering, trembling, in the throes of her first orgasm of the night.
Wicked Scandal (Regency Sinners 3) Page 11