“I have welcome news for you, Lady Danvers.”
She froze and placed her hand to her collarbone, not even daring to allow herself to hope.
“Lord Danvers has arrived in England. He shall be here soon.”
She dropped her hand and cried out. With shock. With joy.
He came closer. “Now don’t tell the boy, for Danvers may be delayed. But he is here. And most eager to see you.”
She sniffled and nodded then wiped her eyes with a swipe of her sleeve.
“Now come, Lady Danvers, no more tears this evening. Come to the withdrawing chamber, with me and my wife, and Davey and Becca and we all shall pass this evening in a celebration. We will have some cakes and you ladies may play the piano and we will all sing.”
She nodded again.
He grinned and offered his hand.
For the first time, she felt her resentment towards him ease. She returned his smile and took his hand and allowed him to lead her back into the house.
****
From the tall, narrow windows that lined the withdrawing chamber, lightning flashed. Davey lifted his brush from the watercolor he was working on. A fair yet somewhat messy replica of the bowl of fruit that rested on the table. Miranda was teaching him to paint and he seemed to have some talent for it.
He counted aloud.
The thunder rumbled through the old house. And he smiled. “Eight!”
The storm was moving fast.
“It is almost time for your lessons,” she reminded him for Drake had provided a tutor and was personally paying that young man to come here and share their isolation.
“I want to continue painting.” He touched his brush to the canvas. “I like to paint.”
She walked to him and gave him a quick hug. “I know, my darling boy, but you must also prepare yourself to one day go to university.”
He frowned. “When will I go to university?”
She hugged him again. “Not for years.”
He grinned. “Then I have plenty of time to prepare.”
“There is much for you to learn between now and then. Now go clean your brush and put your materials away.”
He sighed and complied. He had just laid the cloth over his easel and canvas when the door to the chamber came open.
Miranda turned.
A tall, lean male figure stood in the doorway. Her gaze took in his coal-dark hair and she met eyes of darkest sapphire.
She caught her breath.
“Papa! Papa!” Davey cried.
She was frozen. But Davey ran to his father. Adrian knelt and embraced his son, giving him a hearty kiss on his cheek. Davey laughed—a sound of pure joy.
Adrian looked up and met Miranda’s eyes above Davey’s head.
He was different.
His eyes bore hardness—coldness she had never seen before.
A chill passed through her.
Her husband had left her a young man and he had returned… older. Silver threads glinted in his dark as night hair. Lines of experience marked the corners of his sensual mouth, giving his handsomeness a harsher edge.
He was not exactly lean. He was thin. His elegant cheekbones made the hollows in his cheeks more exaggerated. It brought home the reality that this man had faced almost certain death and won.
But won at a price.
Adrian arose and approached Miranda.
Her heart beat faster as elation tingled through her. Yet, she remained frozen and had no idea why, she just kept staring at her husband, noting his changes and unable to release the odd notion that here stood before her someone familiar and dear and yet a stranger.
He pulled her into his embrace then put his lips to hers. The same scent. The same taste. His body was no stranger. She closed her eyes and drank him in. He pressed her back with fierce hands. Finally, she had to break for air and pressed her hands against his chest.
And she could feel his bones, through his clothes.
She caught her breath. Then met his eyes. There was a warning there.
Say nothing yet.
She released her breath. “Please my lord, your son is here,” she said, to fill the space, to keep from blurting all her questions.
Adrian grinned, white teeth flashing against his sensual lips. “Davey should see how a man properly greets his beloved wife.” He maintained one arm still about her then turned back to Davey.
Now that his internal excitement had burst, Davey became shy answering Adrian’s fatherly questions with one word answers and looking to Miranda, as though for reassurance.
The topic came around to Davey’s studies and Adrian smiled with satisfaction to hear that a tutor had been employed. The gesture accentuated his thinness and Miranda’s heart contracted. Before she could help it, a sound between a gasp and a cry escaped her. She clamped a hand over her mouth.
Davey’s eyes grew wide and he glanced from her to Adrian.
“Go find your tutor, Davey,” Adrian said, giving Davey’s hair a tussle.
“But surely I don’t have to study today!” Davey turned sad eyes to Miranda. “Papa has only just returned.”
She let her hand drop from her mouth. “You must always obey your Papa.”
“But Mama, please.”
Adrian shot her a surprised look.
But there was no condemnation in his eyes.
“Hurry along, Davey, we’ll all have supper together later,” she said, firmly.
“Aye, so we will,” Adrian said, placing his hand on Davey’s shoulders and ushering him out of the chamber then locking the door.
Adrian approached her.
Chapter Nine
So many questions burned the tip of Miranda’s tongue, she scarcely knew where to begin.
Adrian’s eyes glowed with desire. He grasped her waist and jerked her to himself. His thinness alarmed her all over again. Made her melt with sympathy so strong, it made her chest ache.
Emotions overcame her, freezing her brain.
She wanted only to get closer to him.
To hold him firmly and pray this was not a dream from which she would soon awaken.
He bent and pressed his lips to her neck. “Miranda, Miranda.” He spoke her name breathlessly. His erection throbbed against her, attesting that despite his relative thinness, he was recovered.
Very much alive.
Joy spread through every part of her. Making her weak at the knees. He cupped her breast then he groaned, the deep sound vibrating through her, filling her with desire. Driving all her questions away. He lifted her into his arms, shaking as he did so.
And he had certainly never shaken with the effort to lift her before.
Everything that Sexton and Drake had told her had not seemed real. Not completely.
Not until this moment.
All this time she’d thought herself suffering with the pain of longing for him, worrying over him.
And she had suffered.
But now it was as if a veil of shielding, layers of self-protection, had been stripped away and she felt for the pain he had suffered with raw intensity.
She felt her love for him with painful intensity like never before.
He could just as easily have been lying in his grave now as here, alive and touching me.
Tears of concern and pain sprang to her eyes, even as she accepted his burning kiss and answered with a fiery passion of her own. He placed her on the settee then knelt before her, reaching behind her and deftly unfastening her gown, pulling at tapes and laces and soon had her breasts free.
He caressed them, teased them and suckled her nipples, sending delight tingling through her. Sending her swooning.
He lifted his head. “How I have longed to touch you.”
He lifted her skirts then parted her legs and shoved his head between them. “How I have longed for the scent of you.”
He let his tongue dance over her aroused flesh. She closed her eyes and moaned with the intense sensation.
“And I have longed for the swe
et taste of you…” He continued to tongue her. Not the soft, feathery strokes he usually teased her with but bold, hungry strokes.
She tightened her thighs, squeezing his head, clutching his shoulders and moaning his name.
He thrust his tongue into her core.
She arched. “I want your cock.”
He moved his tongue inside her.
She arched more desperately. “Please, please! I want you inside me, I want your cock!” she whispered, hearing the frantic note enter her voice.
He arose and crawled up her body to kiss her. She pushed him back and reached to help him shed his clothing. But when she had him bared to his shirt and reached for his long shirttails, intending to lift them to access his erection, he stopped her. “Not yet, not this moment.”
And she knew he meant that he didn’t wish to reveal his injury. His scars…
How bad could those scars be? How deeply had he been wounded?
“Is it so horrible?” she asked.
“Hush,” he said as he mounted her.
After all he had been through, he would still strive to lock her out of something so intimate… A prickle of hurt threatened to break through her passionate haze.
“But I am your wife,” she said. “I want to share everything about you.”
“Later.”
His voice held that same implacable tone she’d heard time and time before. No amount of reasoning or pleading would change his mind. That little prickle of hurt grew deeper.
He leaned forwards and pressed a series of open-mouthed kisses to her breasts. “Everything must wait until later. Until after this.” He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, sending wave upon wave of pure delight shuddering deep into her belly.
Chasing away her lingering hurt.
Or at least submerging it for now.
“Miranda, my God, —that first sight of you again, in this prim day dress, the pale green color such a mirror to your eyes—the lushness of your breasts—your modest collar could not conceal the utter lushness of your form. I think your prim bodice, for all its plainness, accentuates the voluptuousness of your breasts far more than all your glittering bodices, those maddening, tempting little scraps of cloth. I used to dream of yanking those bodices down and having your breasts spring free into my hands.”
His impassioned tone thrilled her.
He cupped her breasts, squeezing them, sending wave upon wave of sheer sensual delights tingling through her. You know how the beauty of your breasts consumes me, drives utterly mad.”
She moaned with the increasing pleasure, the increasing desire that his somewhat rough touch gave her. He adored her body and the way he loved her body, it did give her astounding pleasure.
Yet, it made her slightly uncomfortable, someplace beneath the physical pleasure, that he would choose to focus on her outward traits at this moment.
His lust, whilst igniting her passions, was also a source of hurt.
Her inner feelings confused her. And he had asked her not to judge him for loving her physical beauty. He was only flesh and blood. Only a man. Human.
She tried to push the discomfort deep inside her.
He caressed her breasts, a gentle stroking. “But your inner character outshines all your physical beauty. Do you know how the sight of you struck me in my heart? How can you possibly know? You were standing there with the firelight playing on your bright, lovely hair, making it shine like crimson silk. I love the true color of your hair.” He looked up at her and stroked her hair, his beautiful sapphire eyes burning with his ardor. “You are so gorgeous, like a goddess. And yet, it was the beauty of your soul that shone in your eyes. You are so strong, so kind, so giving of yourself, so loving. And I knew I must have you. Here and now.”
His words were a balm soothing all her fears.
Warmth curled into her belly that had nothing to do with her arousal and yet provided the sweetest fuel for that desire.
She had never before known such a heady feeling.
He bent to kiss and suckle her breasts. “I must have you. I must claim you again so that you will not run from me.”
She thought again of Jane Sutherland. Jane had run to other men, seeking solace in other beds.
“I will never run from you.” She entwined her hands into his hair. “I am here for you always.”
“I feared that you would prove to be no more than a dream and would disappear into a mist, as you did time and time again during my fever. I called for you and you were never there. Not really. My imagination tormented me with visions of you. It was a torment, it was hell itself.” Emotion made his voice hoarse.
Love for him spurred her on.
“Oh Adrian!” She grasped his shoulders and held him tight. “I am here now. Love me. Take everything I have to give you. I am all yours.”
He groaned harshly then moved to position himself to take her. “Miranda…” He pushed into her.
Though she was wet, beyond ready for him, his thick, hard length caused her slight distress after all these months of celibacy. She suppressed a wince and hugged him tighter glorying in the feel of him inside her once more.
“God, Miranda, you are so tight, so wet, so hot. How I have longed for your sweet cunny.” He grasped her hip and jerked his pelvis hard to hers. “God, how I need you.”
Hungry for more of him, despite the discomfort, she wrapped her legs about him, driving him in deeper.
He gave a series of hard thrusts and her discomfort gave way to pure bliss. Each stroke of his cock within her only made her crave more and more and more of him. She wrapped her legs as snugly about him as she could. “Please, please, please,” she begged, striving to bring her pelvis as close to his as possible.
But it wasn’t enough.
After all these months of being without him, how could it ever possibly be enough?
He grasped her hips and tilted her body to suit his desire. The head of his cock touched her deeper inside, touching the mouth of her very womb.
He thrust into her again and again and again, giving her the deepest possible stimulation.
Her flesh clenched his thickness, a frenzy of spasms, pleasure exploding within her. The intensity made her dig her nails into his linen cover shoulders. He put his mouth on hers, sucking away her cries. Her inner walls clenched and squeezed him.
He groaned—the sound was almost pained. His body shook and he poured his seed into her, a series of ferocious jetting of hot liquid inside her.
He collapsed against her, his panting breaths harsh in her ears.
Elation lifted her, sent her spirits soaring. This was what she had been meant for. All those years when she wondered why she, such a wretched and unwanted child, had ever been born, now the question was answered.
This.
This was more than just mere sensual pleasure.
She hugged his broad shoulders and pressed her lips to his sweat-damp cheek.
This joy was what she had been born for.
To be one with Adrian.
To accept his seed.
To conceive his child?
Yes, yes, please God, yes, let it be so.
He panted, trying to catch his breath, for longer than she had ever known him to do so and his body shook slightly against her. With fatigue? Yes, surely.
Her heart contracted all over again at what had happened to him. At the strength this normally virile man had lost. It was almost incomprehensible.
She hugged him tighter and pressed several kisses to his cheek and jaw line, giving vent to all the tender passion within her.
He grasped her hair, held her still and kissed her mouth, a long and lingering tasting and blending of their souls. “I love you, Miranda. God, how I love you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “I love you, too.”
“The American doctors said that I should not have survived. But how could I do aught else but return to you when I love you so deeply, so desperately?”
“Promise me that you will never leav
e me again. Promise that we will never parted again.” She choked back a soft sob. “I could not bear it.”
Miranda’s gentle plea cut into Adrian like a thousand glass shards. How could he promise her anything at this time? Damn, he allowed Winterton to draw him off his course, to dictate the rules of engagement. Yes, Adrian was the victor yet, for all that he was a nobleman. He was now also a wanted man. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I could not bear to be parted from you either.”
She turned her face up towards him.
Her beauty… oh God, her beauty.
He caught his breath.
He loved her, utterly.
“Let’s go upstairs, to bed,” she said, those pale, pale green eyes warm with passion.
Yet, haunted with sadness.
He knew then that she understood. This was but a short reprieve before the storm. But she would take what they could have. He wished that he could lift her and carry her all the way to her bed. But he knew he was too weak. He would regain his former strength, given time.
If he lived long enough.
“Please my lord?” She smiled broadly, welcoming, despite the shadows deep within.
She was so strong. Was he really worthy of such a woman?
He buried his face into her hair and exhaled. “Of course, my love.”
He quickly donned his trousers then helped her to set her dress to rights. Then, holding her hand, he allowed her to lead him up to her chamber. There, he slowly removed her clothing, stopping again and again to place gentle kisses on her flesh.
He suckled her nipples, licked along her belly.
He closed his eyes, inhaling her spicy, floral scent and groaned.
Christ, she was sweet.
Sweeter even than he’d remembered. No woman had ever delighted him so thoroughly, in so many ways.
He turned his head and pressed his cheek to her belly.
Thank you God, thank you for allowing me to come home to her and to have these moments.
She caressed his hair. “Let me see your body, my love.”
Her words sliced like a knife to his heart. He would do anything to spare her this. But she was his wife and he had no intention of spending the remainder of his years hiding his form from her. That was no way to manage a marriage. At least not a marriage that he wanted any part of.
Sacrifice (Fashionably Impure Book 3) Page 9