“I agreed to sleep in your bed, not to be dragged there by force.” Odious man. “And I want my journal now. Please.” She held one hand out with the other on her hip, waiting.
Quin marched to a bureau and retrieved the bound pages. “Here. But do not let me hear of its contents ever again, Aurora. Not from anyone but you.” He tossed them to a table nearby and then was before her again.
Too close. His heat would burn a hole in her nightrail within moments. Aurora ought to be furious with him. But then he was kissing her, and her ability to deny him anything fled like clear water running through a sieve.
Not good. Not good at all. She should not just allow herself to melt from a heated look and the kind of caveman-like behavior she had dreamed about. She should hold firm to her convictions. She ought to break the kiss, back away. If only she could free her lips, of course. Because after all, if she allowed him to lie to her this time with no consequences, only a day into their marriage, what could she expect for their future?
But she did nothing, and then it was too late.
His tongue slipped into her mouth, and her ability to form rational thoughts slipped out of her mind.
And Aurora couldn’t care in the least.
Chapter Thirteen
5 April, 1811
Oh, dear good Lord. Marriage is a far more complicated matter than I ever imagined. And husbands have an entirely unfair advantage in terms of arguments, in that they are able to incite rabid lust in their wives with a few simple touches in the appropriate places. God must have truly wanted to punish Eve for eating the forbidden fruit, to put all women at such a monstrous disadvantage. Admittedly, the results of said disadvantage are rather pleasant. But it is highly annoying to know that arguments will be that much harder to win from now on. And I do imagine that there will be a good many arguments to come. Life with Quin is hardly shaping up to be an uncomplicated affair.
~From the journal of Lady Quinton
Was he cursed to hate himself a little more each day? Damnation!
Quin’s life had been far less complicated before he had a blasted wife. Why Rotheby thought taking one would help him to settle down, he would never understand. With Aurora trying to involve herself in things that were none of her concern, Quin only wanted to drink himself into oblivion.
He couldn’t do that, though. He oughtn’t to fall back to his old habits, because he’d be sure to drive her off. God knows he wanted just that, at least on occasion, but if he lost Aurora, he’d lose everything else, too.
It was bad enough that the minx had overheard Rotheby’s weighty reminder to fill his nursery. But for her then to confront him on the matter, like she had any right to know his business! And then—then—to think she could sleep in her own chamber, just because he had not been entirely truthful with her? She’d lost her bloody mind, and was well on her way to forcing him into a similar situation.
No, Aurora would sleep in his bed every night, and he would take every opportunity he could find to fulfill his obligation.
But he’d be damned if he was going to do more with her than just that. There was no reason whatsoever to let his troublesome little wife get too close. With his luck, as soon as she did, he’d end up hurting her—losing her. Just like he’d lost Mercy.
Quin would rather die than feel that kind of pain again.
So when Jonas called the next morning and suggested they take a trip to Gentleman Jackson’s, Quin avidly accepted. A round of boxing or two would do wonders for working out the aggression that had built up inside him over the last two days.
Two days! No more.
Within such a short span of time, he was amazed that she could vex him so thoroughly and completely.
He couldn’t allow her to continue to affect him like this. But the more time he spent in her presence, the more she consumed his every thought. One look into her eyes, and he was drowning in her sea. One whiff of her hair, and he was caught in her snare. One touch of her skin, and he could think of nothing else but burying himself within her velvety womb again and again.
Granted, that might prove a hastened end to his means rather than restricting himself to such pursuits only at night. But however eager and willing Aurora was to learn once he stoked her fire, she remained incredibly innocent.
Quin would like to keep her that way, at least somewhat. He couldn’t sate his lust with her in the same ways he would a paid whore. She was his wife, after all. She deserved a bit more decency than that.
He would have to keep some distance between himself and Aurora during the days—nights would be impossible to avoid, if he intended to impregnate her. Not to mention he didn’t want to avoid her at night. Far from it. But the last thing he needed to do was become besotted with his wife.
If he did, he’d be doing neither of them any favors.
~ * ~
“Thank God you’re alone,” Aurora said when Rebecca sashayed into the downstairs parlor at Number Fourteen, the soft pink of her afternoon gown brightening the room considerably. The appalling grey everywhere would have to be changed. Perhaps that should be her first order of business as the new Lady Quinton. “We need to talk, and it is simply impossible to do that with Lord Norcutt with you. He is such a bore, you know, only wanting to discuss the weather.”
Rebecca clucked her tongue. “I thought you agreed not to disparage Lord Norcutt in my presence, Aurora. And he talks about far more than just the weather. If you would only listen to him sometime…”
That was about as likely to happen as Aurora spending an entire week without opening her mouth to speak. She waved a dismissive hand. “I have no intention of speaking of him today. There’s something far more important on my mind.”
“Such as the details you’re desperate to tell me about what happens in the marriage bed?” Rebecca prompted.
Aurora’s cheeks heated immediately. She wasn’t entirely sure she could talk of such things. Not yet, at least. Maybe someday, after she’d had some more experiences to help her articulate it all. How would one describe that? She’d have to attempt it—but in her journal first. It might take several attempts to get it just right.
But her mind was focused on matters of far greater consequence than that. “Such as whether I might be barren or if having a child might be as difficult for me as it was for Mother. Such as what Lord Quinton’s grandfather will do if I’m not carrying his heir within a year.”
Rebecca frowned. “You are worrying about all of these things two days into your marriage? I do care for you, Aurora—deeply. But these are things you cannot control. You’ll worry yourself sick if you don’t stop it this instant, and that is no way to begin a marriage.”
“But I have to worry about them!” Aurora argued.
Her friend raised a single, perfectly arched eyebrow. “Why? Will worrying help you to produce a baby? More likely the antithesis,” she scoffed. “Will it do anything about Lord Rotheby’s opinion on any matter? Hardly. You should focus your efforts more on getting to know Lord Quinton.”
Getting to know him might be important, but the matter of her pregnancy seemed far more important at the moment. “I don’t particularly want to get to know him. He lied to me.”
“About what?” Rebecca prodded, her expression dubious, at best.
“About…” Hmm. Well. She didn’t know what he’d lied about. Just that Quin was lying about something. “I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s lying about, but he lied to me. I’m as sure of it as I am of my own two feet. He’s a liar.” And she was married to him. Permanently, irrevocably, indubitably married to him.
“I think,” Rebecca said, rising from her seat and making for the door, “you should worry more about how to find some common ground between the two of you than about what he may or may not have lied to you about. And you shouldn’t worry about the rest of that, either. You’ll find the answers you need to know in good time. Until then, there’s nothing you can do about it one way or another.”
In good time. Tha
t wasn’t particularly helpful. Nor was it very comforting. Some friend Rebecca was turning out to be now that Aurora was a married woman and Rebecca was not.
Rebecca faced her again just before leaving. “Nothing. Understand?”
Aurora merely scowled in response.
~ * ~
For the better part of a fortnight, Aurora spent her days primarily alone. Of course, there were meetings with Mrs. Gaffee where they went over the household budget and plans for furnishing and decorating the various rooms of Number Fourteen, and visits with Cook to plan the menu.
Two or three days a week, Rebecca stopped in—usually accompanied by Lord Norcutt or by Her Grace of Aylesbury, or perhaps by a maid, but never alone after that one visit. Father made a weekly visit, but claimed to be too busy with Parliament to visit on a more frequent basis—Aurora believed it far more likely that he wanted to give her time alone with her husband. A few ladies of the ton had dropped in for her at-homes to pay their regards. But, more days than not, Aurora sat alone.
Worse than that, she grew more and more lonely with each day that passed.
Quin left with Sir Jonas shortly after breaking his fast each day, and seldom returned before supper time. Even at those meals, they rarely spoke.
The bulk of their interaction occurred each night in bed.
Aurora enjoyed the marriage bed. Far more than she thought healthy, actually. But she could feel herself going slowly mad with no one to really talk to, with no real interaction beyond, “We’ll have mutton for supper this evening, Cook,” or, “I should like the parlor to be a lovely rose color, Mrs. Gaffee.” She had no one to gossip with, no one to discuss the undiscovered territory that was matrimony, no one to allay her fears that seemed to ever introduce themselves to her overindulgent mind.
So she decided it was time, yet again, to write.
But what ought she to write? As a married lady, she had no more dreadful suitors vying for her hand, so she saw no need to convince herself one way or another of their inability to suit. The finer details of her marriage to Quin had proven far more inventive than even her own imagination, so she doubted she could add to them in any profound manner.
Aurora pondered the predicament she found herself in for several days before finally settling on her plan of action: she would simply write. She would write anything and everything that came into her mind, whether it seemed like the type of thing she ought to be writing or not. But if she continually thought about what she was going to write, she might never actually write anything.
With that matter settled, Aurora waited for her husband to leave (as he always did) on a particularly sunny April morning, then headed for the escritoire in the sitting room between their separate chambers.
She dipped her quill into the ink pot and set the tip to the parchment of her journal. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her mind to wander until it settled upon something—anything, really—which beckoned to her.
The first image that settled in her mind was of Quin. Aurora frowned. She didn’t want to write about him. The blasted man did nothing but infuriate her, giving her silence all day, and then causing her to wail like a mad woman at night with the wicked things he did to her.
Besides, look at the trouble writing about him had gotten her into in the first place.
No, writing about Quin just would not do.
Next came a picture of a puppy. Very cute, but not particularly something that was just begging her to write, either. She shoved that image out of the way.
A mistle thrush singing from the hawthorn tree outside the window distracted her to the point she debated writing about it. That, however, would hardly take up any words at all. Aurora was not, after all, a Lord Byron, able to write verse after verse, page after page, symbol after symbol, on and on ad nauseum to infinity about a silly pilgrimage. She had far more weighty matters on her mind.
Yet again, a vision of her husband passed before Aurora’s mind—this time, clad in only a cravat hanging limply about his neck and his Hessian boots, polished to a high luster. Oh, dear good Lord. The room felt like the fire in the hearth had just that moment roared to life, engulfing her in its heated embrace.
It seemed there was nothing to be done for it. She was simply going to have to indulge her fantasy and write another story about Quin.
He came to me in the nude save an inadequately starched neck cloth and two Hessian boots that fairly sparkled in the warm candlelight. My stomach quivered in anticipation from the look in his eyes.
Quin looked ravenous—like he hadn’t eaten in weeks and I was his favorite Yorkshire pudding. He growled low in his throat; if I hadn’t heard the sound so many times before, I’d think him an animal in disguise as a man. But since I had heard it in such regular intervals, it sent a shiver down my spine and caused that all-too-familiar wetness to pool between my thighs.
I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to do all the things he had done before, and everything I didn’t even know was possible between a man and a woman. I wanted it all.
He did come to me then, and he kissed me in that way he has of making my head spin and my toes curl and all my thoughts fly out of my head faster than on-dit can spread through a ballroom.
But just when I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life, he broke off the kiss and turned me away from him. I was too bowled over to protest. I was also too surprised to argue when he placed his cravat over my eyes, rendering me blind.
Blind? Oh, my. Where on earth was her mind taking her this time? Aurora really needed to get a firmer rein over her imagination.
This was apparently not the moment for that to happen, though. Before she could stop herself, her quill was flying across the page, filling it with devious and fantastic images, entirely too risqué for her to ever share with another human being.
Not even Quin.
~ * ~
Quin ducked to avoid Hodgson’s right. Close one. Hodgson’s fist glanced off the top of Quin’s head.
Not enough to make him sweat. Not yet.
Two steps to the side. Another to the front. He pummeled Hodgson in the stomach with his left, planted his right squarely to the eye.
Hodgson came up again like it was only the tickle of a feather to the roar of the crowd gathered at Jackson’s.
Blast, the man was built like Hercules.
Then again, that was what Quin had wanted. He wanted someone to knock him senseless. He wanted to forget about his lovely little Siren of a wife long enough to convince himself he wasn’t falling head over ears in love with her.
He wanted oblivion.
The kind of oblivion he used to find in brandy—but that he couldn’t get from brandy anymore because he was supposed to be a bloody respectable, married gent.
Quin blocked a blow from the right just in the nick of time and spun away. When he faced Hodgson again, he aimed a jab at the larger man’s jaw.
Too late.
Hodgson connected with his left straight in Quin’s eye.
Everything went black.
~ * ~
“Wake up, you arse,” Jonas said, his voice cutting through the blessed fog filling Quin’s mind. “You should have listened to me.”
“Sod off. If I had listened to you, I’d be exactly the same as I have been for the last two weeks.” Married to a temptress that he was falling for faster than he knew what to do with, without anything to remind him of reality. Sparring with Hodgson at least gave him a dose of the latter, even if it could do nothing about the former.
Naturally, Jonas grabbed Quin’s neck and dunked his head in a pail of water.
He came up spouting obscenities. “Why the devil did you do that?”
“Because you are exactly the same as you have been these last two weeks, aside from the split lip and blackened eye. Which, by the way, is swelling and looking rather putrid.” Jonas grimaced and backed away. “A boxing match isn’t going to change the state of your marriage, regardless of who
you choose to spar with.”
The state of his marriage, indeed. Quin started to frown, but stopped when it hurt. “You have no business speaking of my marriage. You aren’t even married, yourself. What do you know about it?”
The crowd at Jackson’s had thinned considerably. Only a few gentlemen stood about, watching the sparring match in the ring half-heartedly. A random shout rang out in the otherwise quiet boxing salon while Quin waited for an answer.
Finally, Jonas spoke. “You’re right. I know nothing of being married. Not that I don’t wish to know, but for now, I’m ignorant. But I do know you.”
Could Jonas be any more cryptic? “Meaning?” Quin drawled.
“Meaning I know that you’re avoiding your wife. I may not know why you’re avoiding her. I honestly can’t understand why you’d want to. She seems perfectly amenable, and frankly, rather enjoyable—in more ways than one.”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll draw your cork. Right here. Right now.”
Jonas raised his hands in defense. “Hold on a minute. I never said I had enjoyed her, or that I would enjoy her. I just said she seems enjoyable. Jealousy is ugly on you.”
Quin’s head snapped around. Jealousy? Hardly. He didn’t care enough to be jealous. She was just his bloody wife—his, damn it all—and Jonas would do well to remember that fact.
Right?
Sitting where he was and brooding over matters would solve nothing. He pushed to his feet, only to wish he’d taken a bit more time in the process. Quin reached for the wall to steady himself. Hodgson must have knocked his head harder than he realized.
“I’m going home,” he said, pushing away from the wall. Home. He hadn’t thought of anywhere as home in so many years, he couldn’t recall when the last time might have been. How very odd.
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