by Mary Balogh
“Perhaps we should cool down,” he said, “and discuss this.”
“If I were any cooler,” she said, “I would turn into an iceberg. I am leaving. I am going upstairs to fetch my bag. When I come back down I will expect to find a hackney coach at the door. If I do not, I will simply walk away until I find one myself.”
She crossed the room toward Aidan, made a wide detour around him, and went out through the door before shutting it behind her. Bewcastle turned and looked at the door.
“My carriage is available to you,” he said.
“Blast you, Wulf,” Aidan said viciously, “I would like nothing better than to ram all your teeth down your throat. She wants a damned hackney coach. That is what she will get.”
He turned and strode from the room without waiting for a reply.
CHAPTER XI
EVE DID NOT GO BACK DOWNSTAIRS IMMEDIATELY. She wanted to give them time to call a hackney coach for her. She did not want to have to wait in the hall until one came. She paced the sitting room of the sumptuous suite to which the housekeeper had shown her on her arrival earlier.
She was angry and humiliated. More angry than humiliated. Angry at him. Furious at herself.
I told you she was to be left at Ringwood.
As if she were some unwanted, discarded package.
I told you I did not want her here.
Brutal frankness, considering the fact that she had been there to hear him. But she had known that. There had never been any pretense between them that either wanted the other. Oh, she was so angry at herself.
I do have the power to command my own wife.
How could he! There had never been any question . . . How incensed she was with him.
And the Duke of Bewcastle. He had sat opposite her in the carriage all day—in retrospect it was surprising that he had not made her sit with her back to the horses—haughtily silent much of the time, talking about his family and its illustrious history when he did deign to converse with her, as if she were a particularly ignorant and uncouth pupil who needed educating in the important things of life. She would not be surprised to discover that if he were cut it would be ice water rather than blood that flowed from his veins. He was a shudderingly horrid man.
She could not wait to be back at Ringwood. Why had she left it in the first place? It had been agony to leave the children. Becky had clung wordlessly to her neck, unconsoled even by the promise of presents. Davy had gazed at her with silent reproach, as if to say that he had known all along she would prefer flitting off to the pleasures of London than staying with children who were not her own and whom no one else had wanted since the death of his parents.
Finally, when she considered that she had allowed enough time to elapse, she picked up her bag—the duke had instructed her to bring only a few changes of clothing—and went resolutely down the stairs. It was not an easy thing to do. She fully expected them to be standing shoulder to shoulder in the hall, dark and menacing and bad-tempered, to order her to do her duty. But only the stiff, stately butler was there with a couple of footmen, one of whom immediately relieved her of her bag.
“Is there a hackney coach awaiting me?” she asked.
“There is, my lady.” The butler bowed and opened the front doors.
“And does the coachman know to which inn to take me?”
“He does, my lady.”
She swept past him out the door and down the steps to the pavement, her chin up, thinking illogically that he could at least have come to bid her farewell. And then she saw that he had come, that he was standing at the carriage door, while the coachman was sitting up on the box. He opened the door as she approached and she climbed inside without either looking at him or availing herself of his offered hand. She was disappointed in him. Yes, indeed she was. She had begun to like him back at Ringwood. At the same time she felt guilty and humiliated—she had complicated his life by coming unbidden after he had thought himself free of her forever.
And then he climbed in after her, shut the door, and seated himself beside her. The seat was narrow. He pressed against her arm and her thigh, converting her anger from coldness to instant heat.
“If this is gallantry, Colonel Bedwyn,” she said, “It is misplaced. I do not need your escort.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, “you have it, ma'am. I will see you safely settled at your inn.”
She averted her head pointedly to gaze out at the busy streets of London, which had so enthralled her less than three weeks ago. Could it really be so short a time? It seemed like an age ago, a lifetime ago. Neither of them attempted any conversation.
She intended to dismiss him quite firmly as soon as they arrived at their destination, to tell him to remain in the coach and return to Bedwyn House. But The Green Man and Still was such a large inn and the cobbled yard so bustling with noise and activity that truth to tell she was bewildered by it all. She made no protest when the colonel, having descended first in order to take down her bag and hand her out, strode off in the direction of the door through which most of the human traffic seemed to be proceeding. The hackney coach drove away. He must have paid the fare in advance.
She went and stood inside the door while the colonel spoke to the man behind the counter. This inn was far more crowded and noisy than the Pulteney had been but just as daunting in its own way. She felt like a cowering country mouse.
“I have taken a room for you,” the colonel said when he came back to her. “It is on the second floor facing the street. It should be a little quieter than one overlooking the yard.”
“Did you pay for it?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he said.
She opened her reticule. “How much?”
There was a slight pause. “There is no need for this,” he said.
“On the contrary.” She looked up at him. “There is every need. And thanks to you, I am not impoverished, am I?”
His jaw tightened. He looked more than usually grim. “I will take care of my wife's needs when I am in company with her, ma'am,” he said.
“Does that include her need to be treated with respect?” she asked, snapping her reticule shut and stooping to pick up her bag. His hand closed about her wrist.
“Much more of this,” he said, “and we will be attracting attention. If we must quarrel, at least let us do it in the privacy of your room.”
“I am quite capable of finding my way there if you will tell me the room number,” she said. “I will not keep you from the rest of your life one moment longer, Colonel Bedwyn.”
But he had possessed himself of her bag again and was striding off with it in the direction of the wide wooden staircase. Eve went trotting after him, doing a far poorer job than he of avoiding bumping into hurrying guests and servants. They climbed to the second story and walked the length of a long gallery before stopping outside a door at the very end of it. He opened the door and she stepped into the room ahead of him.
It was not large or ornate or crowded with furniture—it was nothing to compare with the Pulteney. There were just a large bed, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and one chair. But at least everything looked clean. And some of the noise of the inn seemed to recede after he had come in behind her and closed the door.
There was no need for him to have come inside. Eve removed her bonnet and gloves and set them on the dresser, her back to him.
“Why did you come?” he asked. “Or does the question need to be asked? Bewcastle went to fetch you, and very few people can withstand Bewcastle's will when he has his mind set upon something. How did he persuade you?”
“It does not matter,” she said. “Tomorrow I will be back at Ringwood and you will never see or hear from me again—or I you. You will be no worse for today except for the cost of an inn room and a hackney coach.”
“The devil of it is,” he said, “that I cannot remember exactly what I said to Wulf when I saw you there in the library and realized what he had done. Something about having told him to leave you w
here you were, I believe.”
She went to stand by the window, as far away from him as she could get and set both hands on the windowsill. Below her a coach and four was slowing, about to make the turn out of the street into the inn yard.
“You said,” she reminded him, “that you did not want me here. That is quite understandable. I do not want to be here either. It was part of our agreement that neither of us wished to spend any more time in the other's company than was strictly necessary.”
She heard him set down her bag. She did not want to turn and look at him. He was wearing his uniform—the old, almost shabby one—and was looking altogether too formidable to be dealt with in such a restricted space.
“But the words were ill-chosen and ill-mannered,” he said. “I did not mean them quite the way they sounded.”
“And you said,” she continued more deliberately, turning after all to glare accusingly at him, “that you do have the power to command your own wife. That was more than despicable, Colonel. We married for our mutual convenience. We parted with every intention of never communicating again. The question of your mastery and my subservience was never raised between us, the reason being that I am not your wife. Not in any way that matters.”
He was angry too now. She could see it in the hardness of his jaw and the narrow set of his eyes. “Perhaps, ma'am,” he said, “that is where we made our mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“Agreeing to a marriage in name only,” he said. “We should at least have made a real marriage of it even if we were to live the rest of our lives apart. Then there would be none of this ridiculous debate about whether you are really my wife or not, about whether I should pay certain of your bills or not, about whether I have the right to command my brother to leave you in peace or not. Perhaps we ought to have carried our wedding day to its natural conclusion.”
She stared at him, her cheeks hot. But during the precious seconds she should have used to find words with which to express her outrage, she instead paused to feel the physical effects of his words—a certain loss of breath, a tightening in her breasts, a pulsing ache between her thighs and up inside her, and a weakness about the knees.
“It would have been wrong,” she said. “Neither of us wanted that.”
“Wrong? We are man and woman,” he said harshly, “and a few weeks ago we married. Men and women, especially married ones, go to bed together. They satisfy certain needs there. Have you never felt such needs?”
She licked her lips and swallowed. She wished the window were open. The room felt airless.
He made an impatient sound then and came striding across the room toward her, detouring about the foot of the bed. She set her back firmly against the windowsill and gripped it from behind with both hands. He stood before her, his legs braced apart, his large hands coming up to cup her face. She closed her eyes and his mouth descended on hers, closed, hard, pressing her lips rather painfully against her teeth. But almost immediately the pressure became lighter as he parted his lips over hers and licked at the seam with his tongue, coaxing a response and causing a sharp sensation there and a deeper throbbing between her legs.
When her lips parted, and then her teeth, he pressed his tongue deep into her mouth, exploring its surfaces with the tip. One of his hands was splayed against the back of her head, holding it close.
Her first conscious thought was that she was being disloyal, unfaithful. But unfaithful to whom? Colonel Bedwyn was her husband. She was married to him. If she did not do these things with him now, she would never do them with anyone. Ever. The thought brought with it a desperate yearning and she moved her hands to his shoulders. They were impossibly broad and hard-muscled, even allowing for his heavy military coat. She kissed him back, angling her head, opening her mouth wider, touching his tongue with her own. She allowed herself to acknowledge her own desire.
Heat flared between them in a rush of passion. His hands had moved away from her head. One arm was wrapped about her waist. The other hand was spread behind her hips. It drew her firmly against him so that she was breathlessly aware of heavy leather boots, hard, muscled thighs, and masculinity. Her arms clasped him about the neck while her body strained toward his, desperate to move closer, closer . . .
When he lifted his head and looked down at her, she was jolted for a moment by the realization of just what was happening and with whom. His hook-nosed face was as dark, as harsh as ever. She should have been a little frightened, perhaps a little repelled. Instead she felt only more deeply aroused, especially when she looked into his heavy-lidded eyes and saw an answering passion there.
“We are going to consummate this marriage of ours,” he said, “on that bed behind me. If you do not want it, say so now. I am not issuing any commands.”
It had not been a part of their bargain. Indeed, it had seemed very important at the time—to both of them—that they be married in name only, that they part as soon after the ceremony as they could. She could no longer remember their reasons. She would later when she was thinking more rationally. She would hate herself later if she continued now, if she gave in to sheer lust. But why would she? If there was a reason, she could not think what it could be. They were, after all, man and wife.
“I want it,” she said, surprised by the low huskiness of her voice. But she held up a staying hand almost immediately. “There is something you must know first, though.”
She almost lost her nerve. He raised his eyebrows.
“I am not a virgin.”
He went very still and searched her eyes with his own while she listened to the echo of her words, appalled. She had never once dreamed that she would have to confess that to him.
“Ah,” he said then, very softly. “Fair enough. Neither am I.”
It was the last moment of rationality, of sanity, for a long while.
He turned with her and held her to him with one arm while stripping back the bedcovers with the other. He undid the buttons at the neck of her cloak and tossed it aside, tumbled her to the bed, pulled off her shoes and stockings, and lifted her dress up along her legs and over her hips while she raised them from the mattress. He sat down briefly on the side of the bed to drag off his boots. His coat came off inside out. He unbuttoned the flap of his breeches and came down on top of her, pushing her dress higher as he did so.
His weight was full on her. He was terribly heavy, robbing her of breath. His hands came beneath her, lifting her, tilting her, and then he was inside her in one firm, liquid rush. She caught what little breath was available to her. He was large and very hard. She was stretched and filled almost to the point of pain.
Almost.
She twined her arms tightly about him, and lifted her legs to wrap about his. She heard someone moan and thought it was probably her.
He braced some of his weight on his forearms and began to move almost immediately, withdrawing and pressing inward over and over again, setting up such a firm, fast-paced rhythm that it seemed perfectly natural to move with him, to flex and relax her inner muscles in a matching rhythm. Soon she could hear harsh, labored breathing—from both of them—and feel the wetness of their coupling. She could smell his cologne, his maleness, and something else that was raw and exciting and unidentifiable.
The ache of desire she had felt from the start became all focused there, where they worked their frenzied pleasure. Soon it became more than an ache. It became a yearning and a pain that did not quite hurt. It engulfed her from head to toe, moving outward in waves from her center—from their center. It threatened to become unbearable. It was unbearable. But even as she thought so, even as she cried out, everything shattered as if there had been some explosion deep inside. Instead of pain, though, there was only a deep, bone-melting peace.
He made a sound very like a growl, and his weight collapsed down on her again even as she felt a gush of liquid heat deep inside. He was hot and slick with sweat. So was she.
He rolled off her, though he did not take his arms from about her
. They lay face to face, gazing at each other. He was Colonel Bedwyn, she reminded herself foolishly, and a vivid image came to mind of her first sight of him in the parlor at Ringwood, tall, powerful, dark, and forbidding. But she was too tired to digest just what had happened or to understand why it had been so very pleasurable. She was surely wearier than she had ever been before in her life. Her eyes drifted closed.
She wondered as she floated off to sleep if she would regret this when she woke up. Or if he would. Surely they would. But she would think about it later.
COACHES, BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, WERE incessantly coming and going at The Green Man and Still. Passengers, guests at the inn, and servants were constantly to-ing and fro-ing, with a great deal of noise and energy. Someone was forever calling out to someone else instead of moving close enough to be able to talk. There was all the cheerful bustle here that Aidan always associated with England and of which he thought with nostalgia when he was beyond its shores.
He was sitting in the dining room with his wife, eating dinner. There was enough privacy provided by the noise itself that it was unlikely their conversation would be overheard, but not as much privacy as he would have liked. They were behaving like polite strangers. They might appear like polite strangers to anyone who did not look too closely. He wondered if the slight flush in his wife's cheeks, the slight swelling of her lips, the slight heaviness of her eyelids would make it as obvious to a stranger as it was to him that they had recently risen from bed and a vigorous bout of sex.
He still could not quite believe it had happened—that either of them had wanted it to happen.
“How did the children react to your coming?” he asked. “Were you not afraid to leave?”
“Afraid, no,” she said. “Reluctant, yes. I was expecting to be here for a few weeks. But they are safe and well cared for. I do not believe they will feel as insecure as they did last time. Aunt Mari likes to fuss over them—she is teaching Becky to knit. And Nanny Johnson and Thelma are good to them. The Reverend Puddle visits often and has won their affection.”