by Penny Jordan
‘Who knows? The best thing we can do now is to ignore it and to forget it,’ Marcus repeated. But he knew he wasn’t being entirely open with her.
He was grimly aware that only this morning he had heard that the woman Nick Blayne had left Lucy for had ended their relationship and thrown him out, and that he was now virtually penniless.
There was no note with the package, but Marcus suspected that the video and the accompanying photographs were the beginnings of a clumsy attempt to blackmail him into paying for the ‘master’ copies. It was the kind of thing that had Nick Blayne’s grubby mark all over it, but Marcus didn’t want to upset Lucy by telling her so.
Or because he was concerned that if she knew that Blayne was free again she might be tempted to go back to him?
‘Marcus?’
Tears of reaction were rolling down Lucy’s face. Her thoughts were a jumbled mass of fear and confusion, plus intense relief that Marcus had reacted in the way that he had. A wave of gratitude and love for him surged through her, filling her eyes with fresh tears
‘It’s all right, Lucy. It’s all right,’ Marcus told her gruffly.
‘I’m not crying because I’m upset,’ Lucy managed to tell him. ‘I’m just crying because I’m so happy that you didn’t think it was me.’
Marcus wasn’t aware of moving, only of holding her in his arms whilst her whole body shuddered with reaction.
‘Oh—but, Marcus, if you hadn’t known about my mole...’
‘Lucy, look at me.’
‘My mascara’s run and my nose is red,’ she objected, sniffing.
‘True,’ Marcus agreed wryly, but his expression was warmer than she could even remember seeing it. ‘But I can still recognise you, Lucy. And even if you had not had your mole I would still have known that the body in those photographs and in those situations could never have belonged to you.’
‘How could you know that?’
‘Because I know you,’ Marcus answered her, simply and truthfully.
And it was true. He did know, at the most primitive and deepest level of his being, that Lucy could never and would never be the girl in those photographs.
And now he was beginning to know now something else as well; its message was being thumped out to him via the heavy thud of his own heartbeat.
But he still wasn’t ready to give in. His desire to marry Lucy came from logic and not love. Came now? Or had originally come?
Lucy give him a small, tremulous half-smile, which wobbled slightly despite her best efforts to prevent it from doing so. ‘So you still want to marry me, then?’
Marcus arched one eyebrow and told her dryly, ‘Of course. It would take a far braver man than I to disappoint a mother who has planned a wedding breakfast for five hundred people.’
‘I did tell her that we only wanted a quiet wedding,’ Lucy assured him.
‘Five hundred, five thousand, or five—frankly, my dear, I don’t give a tuppenny ha’penny damn how many guests there are. All I care about is that you’re there, Lucy.’
‘Because you’re nearly thirty-five and you want an heir?’ She held her breath, hoping against hope that by some miracle he would deny her comment and declare that he loved her.
‘Of course,’ he agreed immediately.
Her foolish hope leaked away, leaving her starved of its comfort and filled with pain.
‘I’m going to take you back to your parents’ place now,’ he told her.
‘Marcus!’ Lucy protested.
‘I mean it, Lucy. You can’t stay here, tonight of all nights. We both know that.’
And he knew that if he touched her he might just not be able to let her go, Marcus was forced to acknowledge.
CHAPTER NINE
LUCY had refused point blank to wear a white wedding dress, and had been on the point of giving up finding anything suitable in the short time she’d had available when she had seen a Vera Wang dress in Harrods, in ecru silk. Wonder of wonders, it had fitted her.
The long sheath-like gown had a tight-fitting corset-style bodice, a detachable skirt, and a fishtail demi-train. In order to satisfy family tradition a copy had been made of its matching close-fitting bolero-style jacket from a piece of antique family lace.
She hadn’t wanted to wear a veil either, but in the end had agreed to wear a small pillbox-style hat with a very small ‘almost’ veil.
The promise of heavy-duty wedding-style cream lilies with appropriate greenery, a positive phalanx of pages and bridesmaids of assorted junior ranks from both their families, and the pomp and circumstance of the Oratory and Handel’s music had been enough to soothe her mother’s maternal angst about her not looking like a ‘real’ bride.
Marcus knew that she had entered the church from the excited rustle of movement that seethed along the pews behind him, and to his own astonishment felt compelled to turn and watch her as she walked down the aisle towards him.
He felt his body tighten and his heart lurch in a reaction he had been determined no woman would ever arouse in him—least of all Lucy.
* * *
It had really happened. She and Marcus really were married, Lucy realised dizzily as the Bishop intoned mellifluously, ‘You may kiss the bride.’
And Marcus leaned towards her and then did just that. A cool and very distant brushing of his lips against hers that filled her eyes with painful despair and made her hand tremble within his.
Handel’s musical paean of triumphal joy rang out as they walked together back down the aisle and then out into the crisp sunshine of the November afternoon, to be bombarded with rose petals by their well-wishers and guests before being swept off in a cavalcade of shiny black limousines to the imposing building built originally by a grateful nation for its hero, the Duke of Wellington, for the wedding breakfast.
* * *
‘Are you sure you aren’t disappointed that we didn’t book into a hotel for tonight?’ Marcus asked.
They were standing in his bedroom at the Wendover Square house—now their bedroom. It still smelled just faintly of its refurbishments—a sort of new paint, new fabric and new carpet smell, all mingled together.
‘No, I’m not disappointed at all,’ Lucy reassured him. ‘After all, we’re flying off to the Caribbean on honeymoon tomorrow, and besides...’
‘Besides what?’ he demanded.
Lucy shook her head. They might be married, and she might be his wife, but that didn’t mean she felt she could tell him that she didn’t care where they were just so long as they were together, and that anyway his house had now become inextricably linked in her emotions with the wonder of the first night she had spent there and the joy of what it had led her to.
‘Nothing,’ she fibbed, before admitting ruefully, ‘I did feel a bit of an idiot coming back here in the taxi still wearing my wedding dress, though. Why did you want me to keep it on?’
The look he was giving her made her whole face colour up.
‘Because I want to have the pleasure of taking it off, of course. All those tiny buttons down the back have been tantalising me for hours,’ Marcus told her truthfully, ‘and the sooner the better, I think. Certainly before we make use of our very sensuous new en suite bathroom.’
‘You were the one who suggested it,’ she reminded him a little defensively. Her parents—very much of the old school—had shaken their heads over the waste of so much expensive London floor space on a mere bathroom.
‘Mmm. I’ve got very fond memories of the bathroom in our suite at the hotel in Deia.’
As part of the refurbishment of Marcus’s house they had expanded Marcus’s already large bedroom to include a new dressing room made from one of the smaller bedrooms, plus a huge and very luxurious en suite bathroom which combined the best of modern, clean bathroom lines—all chrome and limeston
e and marble—with the sensual luxury of a large semi-sunken bath along with a separate wet room area and, of course, plenty of mirrors.
‘Mrs Crabtree said that she would leave us a cold supper, and there is some champagne on ice downstairs. Don’t run away while I go and get it.’
‘Run away? Marcus, have you seen how narrow this skirt is? I can’t run anywhere in it. In fact, I can barely walk.’
He wasn’t gone very long—just long enough for her to glance round their bedroom and admire the clean fresh lines of its new décor.
‘Here you are,’ he told her, handing her a glass of the champagne he had just poured.
‘I’m not sure that I should,’ Lucy demurred, remembering Great-Aunt Alice’s birthday party.
‘I am—you most definitely should. To us,’ Marcus toasted her firmly.
‘To us,’ Lucy whispered back, shivering with delight as Marcus leaned forward and kissed her. She could taste the champagne on his mouth, and somehow that gave an added intimacy to their kiss.
As he released her she took another sip of her champagne, and then put the glass down. She was far too excited to need any champagne-induced euphoria.
Marcus had removed his jacket and pulled off his cravat.
‘When I watched you coming down the aisle to me today, Lucy, I thought I had never seen you looking more beautiful.’
‘Oh, Marcus!’ Lucy bit her lip, determined not to let him know that she would far rather have heard him say that he loved her.
He kissed her again, more passionately this time, and then said thickly, ‘Now, exactly where do I start with this dress?’
‘I’ll take the jacket off first, shall I?’ Lucy suggested. ‘Ma wants to keep the lace and have some of it sewn on a christening robe for us, so I daren’t damage it.’ She blushed again as she saw the look in Marcus’s eyes.
‘The skirt is Velcroed to the bodice, so it might be an idea to unfasten the buttons on it first and then I can just step out of it. The bodice is a sort of corset thing as well, you see.’
She was babbling, Lucy recognised, and all because of how she felt at the thought of conceiving Marcus’s child—and she did not know yet whether or not she had already done so this month!
Marcus had moved behind her and was slowly unfastening the two dozen tiny buttons closing her skirt and train.
When he had eventually completed his task, and unhooked the skirt and train from the low-waisted corset-like bodice of her gown, she was left standing there in high heels, cream silk stockings fastened to a suspender belt that matched her gown, and a tiny pair of knickers.
‘I know it all looks a bit obvious,’ she told him, gesturing towards her body. ‘But it wasn’t my idea...’
His face, she noticed, was slightly flushed—from bending down to gather up some of the rose petals that had fallen inside her gown?
But he didn’t make any response to her slightly nervous comment.
Instead he dropped down on one knee in front of her and started to kiss his way around the bare flesh at top of her stocking, pausing to slowly unclip her suspenders and then roll the fine silk down her leg, following it with the caress of his lips.
When he lifted her foot free of her shoe and then slid off her stocking, holding her foot firmly and then kissing her instep, Lucy exhaled tremulously in delirious lust.
The other stocking and her suspender belt were removed equally sensually. But Marcus hadn’t finished. He slid his hands inside her knickers, pulling them down to reveal her new wax—not a summer-holiday-style Brazilian, but instead a small heart shape of silky blonde hair, something the beautician had told her was a favourite with a lot of brides.
‘Mmm...pretty. Very nice,’ he commented. ‘But not as nice as this.’ And then, while his hands held the top of her legs, his tongue probed delicately between the rose-petal-scented lips of her sex and stroked lingeringly along the whole length of her opening, right up to the now swollen and eagerly pulsing jut of flesh that was her clitoris.
Lucy moaned out aloud and buried her fingers in his hair as shuddering waves of pleasure gripped her.
‘Who needs champagne when they can have nectar?’ Marcus told her thickly, after his tongue had stroked her to a sweetly urgent climax.
It had still been light when they had arrived at the house, but by the time they finally made it onto the big bed it was quite definitely dark—and she was quite definitely eagerly willing to consummate their marriage. He thrust slowly and deeply into her and her muscles closed lovingly round him, her body making him its prisoner—just as he had made her love his.
* * *
‘Tired?’
‘Just a bit,’ Lucy admitted, as they stepped out of their taxi and into the cool haven of Mustique’s Sugar House Hotel.
The long flight from England in November to the warmth of the Caribbean, on top of yesterday’s wedding and the long night of passion they had shared, had left her feeling slightly weary, Lucy acknowledged. Weary and disappointed—because nothing had changed—because Marcus, although a wonderfully sensual lover, did not love her.
Mustique was somewhere she had never previously visited, and she had been delighted, if somewhat surprised, that Marcus had chosen such a romantic venue for their honeymoon. A tropical darkness had already descended on the island in the short time since their plane had landed, and a handful of guests drifted through the foyer in a very relaxed manner as Marcus signed them in and waited for their room keys.
‘Mrs Carring?’
‘She means you,’ Marcus told Lucy wryly as a smiling girl approached Lucy.
Blushing slightly, Lucy returned her smile.
‘We have a complimentary gift pack of vouchers for you, for treatments at our spa facility.’ As Lucy thanked her and took the envelope, the girl added, her smile deepening, ‘I can recommend our couples massage, which is a massage that is given to you both at the same time in the privacy of your own room.’
‘If all the girls are as pretty as she was, then no way are you going to be having a complimentary massage,’ Lucy informed Marcus pithily ten minutes later, when they were alone in their suite.
‘Aha—now you sound like a wife,’ Marcus told her. ‘Are you hungry? Would you like to eat now, or later? The hotel provides an unpacking and pressing service...’
‘I’d like a shower. But more than anything else I’d love—’
‘Some coffee,’ Marcus finished for her. ‘I’ll order it for you, shall I? And perhaps we can have an exploratory walk whilst they unpack for us?’
‘Mmm. Oh, Marcus, come and look at this,’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘It’s a pillow menu. You can choose your own pillow.’
Ten minutes later they were walking hand in hand through the Great Room of the hotel. Built around an old coral warehouse and a sugar mill, the hotel had been refurbished recently to a wonderful standard of luxury.
Their own master suite in the main hotel was furnished in the style of the eighteenth century, the bed hung with voile, the furniture elegantly styled and painted a soft, rubbed off-white. A large freestanding double-ended hip-shaped bath and a private plunge pool added to the romantic luxury, and as they explored the gardens and stopped to admire the beach that lay beyond Lucy could well understand why this luxurious hotel was so very prestigious, and so loved by its guests. By the time they returned to their suite, via the privacy of the night-cloaked gardens and several impromptu stops to exchange kisses, their cases had been unpacked for them.
‘Perhaps just a Room Service meal tonight?’ Lucy suggested, stifling a small yawn.
‘Good idea,’ Marcus agreed.
* * *
‘Oh, Marcus, this is brilliant...’ Lucy sighed happily as she leaned back against him in their plunge pool, her body between his spread legs, her head pressed against his chest, with his arms wrapped around
her and his hands cupping her naked breasts.
‘Mmm, absolutely,’ he agreed, nuzzling the sensitive spot just below her ear and making her shudder so hard that the water shuddered with her.
‘You don’t think anyone can see us, do you?’ she whispered to him several seconds later, as they lay naked together in the water and Marcus teased her eagerly expectant body with all the touches he knew it loved.
‘No...but we can go inside, if you want.’
‘No, I like it here,’ Lucy told him. ‘There’s something so nice about lying naked in the water and the sun.’
‘Mmm, something very nice,’ Marcus agreed, as he took advantage of her nudity to enjoy unlimited access to her body whilst encouraging her to do the same with his.
She had woken up this morning to Marcus stroking teasing fingers against her breast whilst feathering kisses on her closed eyelids, and they had gone from there on a slow journey of foreplay that had ended up with her abandoning herself willingly and completely to his thrusting possession. Now, scarcely a couple of hours later, her desire for him was already an urgent clamouring force.
Sliding away from him, Lucy slowly stroked her hand down over his body to embrace his erection.
Marcus watched whilst she focused on his pleasure, wondering if she knew just how much of it was attributable not to what she was doing but to the look of erotic delight in her eyes as she did so. Even her own body was registering its pleasure in what she was doing, her nipples tightening and her breasts lifting slightly. Beneath the water he could see how the lips of her sex were swelling and flushing.
‘Marcus, we can’t—not here,’ Lucy protested as he reached for her, but it was too late, and as Marcus positioned her over the erection she had just been caressing she straddled him and sank slowly onto it, luxuriating in the erotic intensity of taking him into her, centimetre by centimetre, her slick muscles and flesh gripping and caressing him. He groaned fiercely and reached for her hips, pulling her down hard against him whilst he thrust into her, over and over again, then lifted his hand to place it over her mouth when she screamed out in wild ecstasy before sinking down on top of him in quivering release.