“Oh! Wilhelm! I apologize, I didn’t see you there.”
“I am glad you took a lantern tonight instead of a candle. It would have been a shame to catch your lovely dress on fire.”
“Or your house.”
“Yes, I would miss the piano, particularly.”
“I am sorry — ”
“No, it serves me right for sneaking up on you.”
“And now neither of us has a light, and I have covered you in lamp oil.”
“No matter. I am accustomed to your ruining my clothes.”
“I believe this episode makes the fourth.”
He smiled in the dark. “If you are so eager to see me without them you should just say so.” He shrugged out of his jacket which had taken the worst of the oil spill and tossed it onto the nearby table.
“You are wicked! Have you been drinking?” She set the extinguished lantern on the table.
“No. Well, yes, a little, but I am mostly behaving badly this time.”
“I should say so,” she retorted. “You were in the library just now?”
“Yes.”
“Then you were reading without a light? How remarkable.”
Wilhelm laughed as he lied smoothly, “I was on my way to the kitchen for a bite to eat. My appetite got the better of me.” He held out his arm, praying she would take it despite three weeks of lonely, wary distance between them. “Join me?”
Six eternally long seconds until she nodded in agreement. Instead of resting her hand on his sleeve, she slid her palm down his arm and threaded their fingers together. He resisted howling in victory like a wolf. She had no idea of the pleasure he found in simply holding her hand, perfect inside his. The stairs down to the kitchen came too soon.
Wilhelm made a show of searching around the shelves and crates. He never actually raided the kitchen, and so she would know he lied, since he had no clue where a single blooming scrap of food should be. He did find lard. And cornmeal. Sophia crossed the kitchen and uncovered a basket on the counter near his elbow full of grapes, berries and peaches. She smirked, “Your Royal Highness.”
“Oh, now you see? I was waiting for you to serve me. You should bring a palm frond and feed me the grapes while I lounge on the sofa.”
“But I am only the housemaid. You will have to give me a substantial rise in salary for that sort of service.”
“Is that all we are waiting for? Done. Name your price.”
“Even the distinguished Earl of Devon could not possibly afford it.”
Ah, to spar words with her again. It felt like springtime. He dared laugh a little and leaned back against the counter. His elbow knocked over a jar of beans. He scrambled to catch it but bowled into a rack of hanging copper pots, then something else moist and odorous, which made him lunge back, setting the pots in motion again as well as another blasted jar of beans. A few pots escaped their hooks; he only caught two, and the rest clanked to the stone floor. Several pounds of dry beans scattered across the counter, dancing with a thousand little ping sounds. The clamor from the disturbed pots surely woke every ghost in the mausoleum. Monsieur Girard would probably give his notice in the morning when he saw the mess.
Then a miracle happened. Sophia made a sound like Humf, covered her mouth, and then she laughed. Louder, in beautiful melodic peals. Like rain to the desert. He smiled, enjoying it. She laughed herself into a fit and tried to sit down, but in the dim light sat upon Msr. Girard’s cat napping on the seat. The cat hissed, and Sophia shouted in surprise as she leapt away. Wilhelm roared with laughter while Sophia recovered from the start.
They were both howling when Martin emerged through the swinging door in his nightcap, wearing a bewildered expression and carrying a candle. He took in the mess on the floor and the pots swaying on the rack.
When they finally quit laughing, Wilhelm explained simply, “Just a little midnight madcap. No assistance necessary.” Wilhelm chuckled at Martin’s professionally bland expression, knowing how ridiculous he looked, wielding two pots and standing amidst a bean graveyard.
Martin furrowed his eyebrows. “Do I smell kerosene?” But he could not continue. Wilhelm and Sophia started again, and he could not be heard over their laughter. He turned to leave, resigned and completely baffled.
Not that anything was amusing so much as it felt divine to laugh. The house had been painfully devoid of mirth the past three weeks, but if the lord and lady decreed laughter permissible again, the others would follow suit. Brighter days lie ahead, surely.
Wilhelm gestured for her to join him on the windowsill and they sat looking out over the east field and stables. She bit into a peach, and Wilhelm tried not to watch her mouth. He had already been ignoring the tantalizing way the moonlight outlined every curve of her soft figure in silver light and shadow. Sophia often dressed simply, forgoing those dreadful corsets and crinolines, and more often than not he found himself gawking at her lovely natural shape and reining in his imagination.
And then she would melt his heart with a kind word to Madeline or arouse his fascination with an intellectual insight that seemed alluring coming from her lips. She was intoxicating, the way she stimulated his mind, and… well, everything else.
Sophia, why can’t I make you happy?
Oh, damn. He had said it aloud.
She licked peach juice from her lips and furrowed her brows, and he was a captive audience. She stared, daring him to explain his stray comment, but he only shrugged and winked. Not a chance would he tread those dangerous waters. The one thing he understood about managing women was when to seal his lips shut.
“Wilhelm, are you certain you are not drunk?”
“Not at all.”
“You mean you are not certain, or you are not drunk?”
“Only jealous.”
“Jealous? Of what?”
Of the man who will one day do for you what I cannot seem to manage. “Fate,” he answered simply, then truncated the argument by taking a bite out of whatever he had grabbed from the basket, hardly tasting it. He found himself yearning for oblivion, but already knew he could float his eyeballs in cognac and still not wipe his addiction to her from his mind. Burning alive, and relishing every scorching moment of it.
“From time to time, I too am prone to worry about that which I cannot help.” She tilted her head toward him, and he perceived an invitation to hug her shoulder. Sophia didn’t seem to mind that he left his arm around her. He let his hand slide down her arm and rest against her waist, drawing her against his side. She fit perfectly.
A rush of cool water, steaming over white-hot coals… He could lie back against the window frame and pull her onto his chest. Then he would lace his fingers through her hair and brush the velvet skin of her neck until he coaxed her into that kitten-like submissive state…
And then what? And to what end?
In a nasty trick of his subconscious, he blurted “Sophia, I was eavesdropping on your music. I confess I, ah, bluffed — ”
“I know, Wil.”
“You knew I was outside listening?”
She gave him a sideways nod, leaving him to wonder what had given him away. Well, he had opened Pandora’s box, so he might as well address the rift between them. Before he could gather his thoughts, Sophia turned and placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed, hard. It demanded every ounce of his attention.
She shuffled closer on her knees, straddled his lap, and flattened herself against his chest. He felt her breath on his lips as she muttered, “Make it go away, Wil.”
And then she kissed him, not the way a wife kisses a husband, but like a lover. She combed her fingers over his temples and framed his head in her hands, holding him captive while she delved deeply, teasing him into participation with a nip on his bottom lip and a provoking slide of her tongue tracing his top lip.
He heard haunting strains of Beethoven in the back of his mind, a simple dark string trio in low notes, complimenting the silver moonlight and the perfume of peach juice. None of it c
ompared to the lush feel of her in his arms, tempting him with a taste of the sublime.
“Please, make it go away,” she pleaded into his neck, dragging her lips to his ear.
He knew what she meant, no need for explanation. No other words could have moved him, not even red-hot desire. Begging for oblivion? That he understood.
Just a little, he promised silently.
• • •
Even when she pulled her shift over her head, leaving her wearing only her skin, Wilhelm apparently did not comprehend her intentions. Lovely how he seemed content to pleasure her, but she had a plan to set in motion. He let her open his shirt; she knew he liked her hands on his chest. She traced and kneaded, saying with her touch, Gorgeous. Masculine. Arousing.
She tried to make him forget about scars, forget about bounty hunters, money, and dead babies. Only Wilhelm and Sophia, alone in the dark. She kissed him again with a mood of challenge, which she knew excited him. She massaged from his navel to his shoulders, then dug her nails into his skin and scored down his chest. He groaned, his eyes sparking like polished silver.
He settled back against the wall, balanced sideways on the stone ledge framing the open window. She meant to test that balance. With a smile she opened his trousers and teased him for a while, waiting for a particular thought to occur to him.
Like magic it happened, as simple as puzzle pieces. He choked and she sighed, then she saw his alarm. He froze, shaking his head as though clearing fog from his brain. No, she couldn’t allow that. Befuddled would serve better. She rose and sank down, relishing his strangled gasp as he leaned his head back, flexing every muscle in his body. Again. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, and she watched his eyes cast over in dark steel before fluttering closed.
He seemed to register the revelation that she didn’t have to lie flat on her back for this to work properly. Why he lacked the imagination was a mystery to her. She felt a little wicked, tricking him, seducing him. Come morning he would be angry, citing the risk of another miscarriage. If she performed her part well, he would be too stupid to do anything but grin in the morning.
She nudged his thighs with hers, coaxing him into a semi-prone position across the ledge. He reached down and cupped her knees, protecting her skin from scraping over the stone. His feet propped on the opposite wall, and then it was perfect, the delicious gentle rhythm. He shook with restraint, but he let her wield control.
Bliss — his large, strong body sliding against hers. She craved it, her own soft lines giving way to his more stark ones. She wanted to feel him shudder again, to make her feel protected. Feminine. Last time, the moment he had let loose, she had been drunken with dark, primal gratification. She wanted that again. That he leashed his strength spoke of his humility and kindness, but she wanted something entirely other from him now.
“Come, Wil. Fight back.” She grasped him behind the neck and pulled, prompting him to rise to a standing position. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and his hands gripped her by the small of her back — exactly what she wanted. His hands felt hot on her skin, holding firm. She could move any way she wanted, and he could hold her effortlessly; she felt the strength in his arms.
Satisfied, she moved against him, experimenting with the balance of motion; her force against his. Like an itch that needed scratching, yet still a sensation of burning pleasure roaring from her core and radiating outward. Finally the desperate hunger she sought reared, consuming her.
She stretched backward, arching her spine. His hands held steady but he stepped to prop his back against the wall, indulging her acrobatic whim. Erotic — a dabble in the unusual. Then she rolled forward and finally noticed his expression. She swallowed a bark of laughter. His eyes practically bugged out of his head; she had surprised him. It was endearing, really, and she reminded herself that he was as new to this as she.
She thought askance that society had it all wrong, expecting men to come to the marriage bed experienced. She would not trade Wilhelm’s eager, enthralled glances for all the practiced skill of an Arabian prince. He was like Christmas morning. She framed his face with her hands and pulled him in for another kiss while he held her, following her rhythm. Like an argument, like a wicked dance, but a race to scale a hill with no top.
Moments later it was all out of control, and she could not have explained how it was physically possible to be everywhere and nowhere at once, how she could partake in every possible way yet still claw for more, as though only he could douse the fire immolating her from the inside out.
Long deep waves seized her body, exploding in aching-sweet, rich flavors. It sang in her head, curled her toes, harnessed the heat of the sun … . Wilhelm buried his face in her hair, his strangled shout echoing along the rafters as his back arched off the wall … She knew the moment he spilled his seed in her, the hope of a child tantalizing and bittersweet.
She hung onto his shoulders, delirious with an ecstatic disembodied sensation. She soaked in the feel of his heart hammering over hers and relished every residual shudder and twitch. Here was true power; having this man helpless in her arms, so spent he didn’t seem to realize he was muttering amorous oaths he would hardly own in his fully conscious state. She never knew such scandalous words could sound poetic.
The singular most blissful moment of her life.
He heaved for breath and dropped his head back against the wall, making an erotic pose she wished she could capture and frame. Beads of perspiration shined on his skin, reflecting the moonlight which also highlighted his cheekbones, the curve of muscle, the ends of his hair, and especially his steely eyes. She wanted to blurt, Oh, how I love you, Wil, but he didn’t seem the sentimental type, and she never forgot that he married her out of a sense of heroism. No need to embarrass him with such a heavy sentiment. Perhaps he would reciprocate in time. Right now she thought riding a star was possible.
“My knees,” he complained, shifting his weight. Still gripping her, he plodded toward a wooden platform and set her down gingerly without unraveling their pose. “My ears,” he added groggily, shaking his head and leaning his weight on the plank. “I can’t hear. Everything sounds underwater.”
She waited until he recovered his senses before asking him to process speech. “You are a clever man, Wilhelm. I felt not even a shadow of fear.” She squeezed the tight columns of muscle on the back of his neck, coaxing him to relax. She would never tell him the spasms caused a sympathetic cramping in her abdomen, that irritating dull throbbing she had come to loathe. Mending the discord between them was well worth it and then some. “Whatever shall we do with your discovery?”
“Repeat it, I suppose.” Nice, how he stroked her legs from ankle to thigh. He probably didn’t even notice he did it. “But I thought — ”
She waited, and waited longer. “Oh, no you don’t, Wilhelm Montegue. I mean to hear the second part of that thought.” She braised her fingernails along his jaw, rasping his evening whiskers. Did his skin heat? He could not be blushing?
“I assumed you — ah, that a lady would have no taste for, ah… Oh, hell.”
She smiled, brushing her lips against his neck. He thought the only way to bed a blueblood is on her back? She spared him the crass admission. “Well, I am no lady. By all means, exercise your creative genius.”
He raised his head to find her lips and gave her a deep, lazy kiss. “I want to curl up on this table and sleep naked with you,” he mumbled in her ear. “But then I remembered this is the kitchen. And there is an odd smell in the vicinity of the broken jars.” He released her and stretched, presenting an inspiring silhouette.
He gathered her discarded clothes but didn’t give them back. Instead he lifted her and carried her through the dark house straight to his bedroom. All the way she heard sweet strains of triumph, like some glorious Beethoven symphony unfurling a melodic theme with forty violins. And cymbal crashes, timpani rolls; plenty of percussion.
She expected a whole lot of noise.
Chapter 21
>
On The Benefits Of Losing A Game Of Croquet
A faint beam of light woke her, tickling her shoulder, warming across her navel and down her thighs. This unfamiliar sensation came by virtue of the curtain panel which had been pulled down. Or perhaps the incessant deep cracking sound outside had stirred her from her sleep.
She failed at her first attempt to open her eyes and dozed until the rhythmic boom-crack-crack-thunk! sound came again. She looked upward, and the sagging cobalt bed curtains wrapped around the splintered stump of a bedpost came into focus. The scene felt dreamlike as flame-orange light from the sunrise painted the blue room with its fundamentally opposite color. Not the Scarlet Suite, but the earl’s bedchamber.
Wilhelm was gone.
Boom-crack-crack … thunk!
Sophia rolled, since the small muscles in her belly protested sitting up, probably because of her amateur acrobatics the night before. And the broken bedpost? Well, Wilhelm had reached back to hold onto it for balance, and the narrow top joint had broken off in his hand. The loosened corner of the bed curtains fluttered around them, but he hadn’t broken rhythm even draped as a tent. Now she sat at the foot of the bed, the same spot where she had collapsed the final time, tangled in Wilhelm’s arms. She still felt the echo of a sated achy feeling like having laughed until it hurt. Beneath that was a bone-deep glow, the thrill of anticipation.
Not only was he not here, but the sheets had long cooled. What, did he mean to dismiss her like some shameful mistress? Or perhaps he had gone for his morning exercise, slave to habit. If he came through the door with a breakfast tray, she vowed she would make it worth his while; tease him into letting her try something he had been too bashful to attempt last night. Any minute now.
Boom-crack-crack-thunk!
Moriah Densley Page 20