“So early?” Jonas called out behind him. “It’s hardly past luncheon. Lady Quinton will not know what to do with you at such an hour.”
Good thing for her, Quin knew exactly what to do with her at such an hour. Sparring hadn’t been enough that day. He needed something—something more. Something else.
He needed Aurora.
When he pushed through the front door a few minutes later, she was nowhere to be seen. “Is Lady Quinton above stairs?” he asked the butler, who stood by to take his hat and gloves.
“Indeed, my lord.”
Quin removed his greatcoat as well, leaving it with the servant. He took the stairs two at a time, practically bounding with anticipation, loosening his cravat as he went. Good God, he seemed like a randy schoolboy, off to visit his first whore.
But Aurora was not a whore—she was his wife. He ought not to even think along those lines. Hell, she was virtually still an innocent, despite the fact that they’d been married for over a fortnight and she had become rather adventurous in the marriage bed. But he couldn’t very well bed his wife in the same manner he would bed a whore. Could he? It just didn’t seem the thing to do.
If he didn’t get the thought out of his head right that moment, he didn’t know what he would do.
She sat at the writing table in their sitting room, asleep with her head lying on something. Likely her journal. The blasted minx probably couldn’t help herself. The quill still rested in her right hand, hanging at her side. A few black ink marks stained her otherwise perfect and demure gown. For some reason, those few imperfections nearly drove him to distraction, they were so enticing.
He ought to leave her alone. Clearly she needed the rest, if she’d fallen asleep in such an uncomfortable position. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kept her up so late the night before with their lovemaking, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
Or maybe he should carry her to her bed. Tuck her in. Be a gentleman. But God knew he struggled with that on a good day. Today was most emphatically not a good day.
He desperately wanted to know what she might be writing about now, since her previous writings had focused on her suitors. What could possibly be calling to her now, as a married lady of the ton?
Quin walked over to stand behind her, making as little sound as he could. He peered over her shoulder and scanned the page.
Damnation! Even without reading every word, he knew exactly what she’d been dreaming up. Quin looked ravenous—animal in disguise—cravat over my eyes—blind. In an instant, he was harder than he’d ever imagined possible. And he did happen to have a cravat handy. Lucky him. He could give his devious little wife exactly what she wanted.
He pulled it free from his neck and placed it carefully over Aurora’s eyes, tying it tight behind her head. She stirred slightly when he removed the quill from her hands, but didn’t wake—not even when he lifted her from the chair and carried her to his bed.
Ever so quietly, he slipped into his dressing room and retrieved two more cravats, before returning to Aurora and gently slipping the gown free from her luscious body.
Chapter Fourteen
15 April, 1811
I honestly do not know where these ideas have come from. They’ve sprung up like the Sirens from the water, unbidden and unexpected, and I am entirely uncertain I should ever share them with another living soul. I shall have to be sure my journal never escapes me again. However, I now believe wholeheartedly that I am not the proper person to educate the young, unmarried misses of the ton about the joys of the marriage bed. After all, one never knows what will come to my mind. I would likely shock them all to the core, and have them all go screaming off to the Americas to live in a more civilized society with the Indians than the one which could produce such thoughts in an otherwise proper, married lady. Even I am scandalized, and the words were my own.
~From the journal of Lady Quinton
Oh, dear good Lord. Aurora was experiencing the most delightful dream, one she never wanted to wake from. Strong, hot hands slid over her naked body, stroking her to a fever. Then a tongue, wet and insistent, laved at her tender nipples. The scratchy stubble abraded her skin all over.
Quin. It had to be Quin. She’d know his hands anywhere, at least when they were driving her to the brink of madness like that.
She wanted to touch him, too, to see him. But when she tried to lower her arms, they wouldn’t budge from their position stretched high over her head. And her eyes couldn’t see, even though they were open. Aurora whimpered in frustration.
“Hush now, love,” Quin whispered into her ear. His breath tickled like butterfly wings against her cheek. Which was all very lovely, but she desperately wanted to touch him, to do for him what he was doing for her.
“I want to”
A finger pushed against her lips, forcing her to stop speaking. “I know what you want. Trust me to give it to you.” Quin’s voice seemed magnified, rougher and huskier than usual. His voice alone was enough to have her squirming for release under normal circumstances, but this was a highly irregular situation to say the least.
Perhaps it was all so very different because it was a dream. A dream rather like the story she had been writing just before she dozed off. But still a dream.
His mouth came down upon one of her breasts and she jumped up from the bed in shock. Then something snaked across her mid-section, and she felt everything come alive. Could she possibly feel like this if she were dreaming—like a thousand tiny dancers were waltzing across her stomach, the trails of their feet sending her insides to quivering like an un-poked egg yolk on a passing plate?
But he couldn’t possibly be doing these things to her. Not really. Could he?
Her scream when his thumb found the nub of her sex shattered any illusions she held about being asleep. She was very much awake, and Quin was very much performing delightful and wonderful things to her person—all while keeping her blindfolded and tied to the bedposts.
Then he ceased touching her anywhere. She felt empty and cold without his caress. Aurora desperately wanted to see, to know where his attentions would fall next.
But the not knowing only intensified her response when he did touch her again—this time with a tongue to the inside of her thigh, tracing a slow, arabesque path upward, closer, infinitely closer to her center.
Oh, dear good Lord! “You can’t. You can’t do that.” She tried to close her legs together, to stop him from doing what surely must be depraved and sinful, even if it occurred between a husband and wife. Blast, why had he tied her arms? She had to stop him. She couldn’t allow him to do that.
But his strong hands pushed her thighs apart and his tongue continued its torturous path to what must surely be hell. When his tongue flicked against that part of her where his thumb had rubbed only moments before, it proved to be her undoing. Her hips rose up in that way they always did when he was sheathed inside her, driving ever closer to him, forcing even more of the lewd act.
She was wanton. Wild. Desperate for more.
So more he gave, until she collapsed in a heap of limbs upon the bed.
Sated.
~ * ~
Quin liked to watch Aurora sleep after their lovemaking. She looked so glorious, so peaceful. So unencumbered by the guilt he always carried around with him. After they had acted out her fantasy, she had rolled to her side and tucked her derrière up against him without even waiting for him to remove the ties from her wrists or eyes, practically mewling like a well-fed kitten before she was unconscious again. Even now, with the afternoon sun setting the room ablaze like a fire, her skin shimmered with the remnants of their combined efforts.
For once in his life, Quin wished he had some skill with a brush. He’d love to capture her like this, so he could forever look on her just in this moment. He couldn’t break the spell. So he lay there, watching her, dreading the moment she would move and life would go on.
Which, of course, she did and it did. Perfection could never last. His life had
ever been a testament to that fact.
Aurora stretched her limbs and rolled to face him with slumberous deliberation. She smiled, a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that only comes after sex.
And she gasped. “Gracious. Quin, what happened to you?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch, rather similar to the one his mother would use when he and Jonas trekked muck and mire into her house of an afternoon. Before he could issue any denials of wrongdoing or otherwise explain himself, Aurora bolted upright in bed, pulling him along with her, and proceeded to poke and prod at his exceedingly sore eye and lip.
Bloody impertinent chit. “Stop that,” he warned, pulling away.
His wife failed to listen. She pressed a finger against the precise point of impact over his eye repeatedly, ignoring the fact that he visibly winced in pain each time she did so. “This is not good. You need to put a beefsteak over this. I’ll ring for it at once.”
Quin grabbed her arm to stop her. “You will not.” He took a breath to calm himself. He did not need to lash out against his wife. Not now. When she tugged against him though, he nearly lost control.
Count to ten. Breathe.
“Might I remind you, Aurora, you are in my bedchamber?” Quin asked. She looked up at him with incomprehension in her eyes. “And you are unclothed?” he continued, with greater emphasis. Finally, her eyes widened as realization dawned.
Good. He wasn’t quite breathless in anticipation over searching for a new valet after he was forced to kill his present one for the act of walking in upon his wife in the nude. Particularly not when such a thing would be her fault.
Aurora tugged the counterpane to cover herself from his gaze, as she always did when they weren’t in the midst of their lovemaking. He hated that she was still so shy, so reserved with him. She’d been anything but reserved when she called out his name—Niles, again—when he’d brought her to climax not so terribly long before. She only used his given name when she climaxed.
“Will you please put a beefsteak over it, Quin?” she asked after several moments passed in silence, each of them staring at the bedding between them. “It looks awfully painful.”
Pain—physical pain—would never hurt him. Not really. Not after his Father had beaten him to the point of not caring anymore. But if it would make Aurora feel better…“Yes,” Quin said. “After you’ve dressed.”
She reached a tentative hand across to caress it, soft as gossamer against his rough exterior. What a perfect contradiction they were together. He almost flinched from the tenderness in her touch.
“Will you tell me?” she asked, her voice almost verging on timidity, for once. “What happened?”
There was more to her question than the surface implied. It hung heavy in the air between them, dangling for something to latch onto. But he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Jonas knew the full truth of Quin’s growing years, only bits and pieces.
“Boxing,” Quin said. “I was boxing at Gentleman Jackson’s. Nothing to worry about. Just a friendly sparring match.”
Aurora’s eyes welled with tears. She knew there was more. But blessedly, she pushed them back and changed the subject. “Why did you…you know?” she asked, shrugging and pointing to the limp cravat hanging from the bedpost that had held her wrists captive. The blush that washed over her cheeks had his cock hardening again.
He smiled then, a practiced smile he usually reserved for paramours of the night. Then again, she was now his permanent paramour of the night. “Did you like it?”
Her blush intensified and she looked away.
Quin caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “You did like it. Very much, from all indications,” he said with a satisfied laugh. “What did you like the most?”
Aurora slapped at his hand, frowning when that earned no response. “I asked a question first.”
“I’ll answer when you answer.”
He could answer her now. But he loved the look on her face when he frustrated her. It aimed for matronly-disdain, but fell much closer to displeased-but-brazen-governess.
She huffed in response, her breath sending a stray tendril of her dark waves flying over her shoulder. “Fine. I liked” Aurora stopped and gave him an ardent frown. “If you breathe one word of this to another human soul in the whole of your lifetime, Quin, so help me God I’ll rip every hair from your chest one at a time in painstaking fashion until you cry out for mercy. Is that clear?”
He did his best to maintain a straight face. “Abundantly so, love.”
She nodded. “Good. Then the part I liked the best was that I felt everything more acutely than normal. Since I couldn’t see, my other senses seemed to be enhanced. I never knew what to expect, so I couldn’t anticipate what you would do next.”
With his left hand, Quin drew lazy patterns over the counterpane between them, working his way inch by inch to where it covered her body. “I see,” he said, his fingers following the ornate patterns of the fabric as it twisted over her thighs. Her eyes followed his every move. “So would that be something you’d like to repeat in future?”
“Not fair,” Aurora retorted. “I answered your question. You have to answer mine.”
“Touché.” He followed the pattern up, up, up to where it fell over her breasts, which rose and fell heavily with each breath.
“Why did you do that?”
“I could say because I wanted to, and it would be the truth. But it isn’t the whole truth.” And on this, at least, he could provide her with that. The same couldn’t be said of very many things in his life. “The truth is I did it because you wanted it. Because you wrote it in your journal. I read it over your shoulder and decided to act on it.”
“But I didn’t—I mean” Aurora searched for words as he dipped his fingers below the counterpane to tease her ruched nipples. Her breath hitched.
“I took some creative freedoms,” Quin said. “I added a few of my own special touches.” He leaned in and captured Aurora’s mouth for a searing kiss that left him breathless, as well. Even after he ended it, he held onto her hair, breathing in the scent of her. Fresh, spicy. “No one is to ever see your journal but me. Is that clear?”
Aurora nodded. “Why do we only talk in bed?” she asked. “Why can’t we have a conversation with our clothes on?”
Because it was the only time he let his guard down. But he couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t let her in that much. Quin placed some distance between them. “Why don’t we go out tonight?” he asked. “They’re performing The Taming of the Shrew at Covent Garden.” Hopefully she wouldn’t press the matter. He didn’t want to tell her more than he already had.
She sighed but then smiled up at him. “Really? We can go out? I should like that very much, indeed.”
“That’s settled, then. Off you go. Get dressed.” At least she was distracted for the moment. Perhaps he could manage to surprise her further. Quin pulled on a pair of trousers and rang for his valet. He needed to send an invitation.
~ * ~
The Taming of the Shrew, indeed. Was Quin trying to make a point? Perhaps she ought not to press him so much. But really, she was only trying to have a civil conversation with the man. He couldn’t very well fault her for that, could he?
Likely, Aurora was overreacting. After all, he couldn’t well have commissioned the performers to prepare that particular play for that particular evening, certainly not without notice. It was just a coincidence. It had to be. Didn’t it?
She chided herself in silence for succumbing to vanity during the entire carriage ride to and from Covent Garden that night. Truly, everything he did was not all about her. Quin, as usual provided they weren’t in bed, remained mute as a church mouse for the duration of their short journey, which made it entirely too easy for Aurora to take herself to task.
Rather unsporting of him, if one should ask her.
Somehow, without her knowledge, he’d also sent invitations to Lord Norcutt and Rebecca to join them in their box. It
had been quite the pleasant surprise.
At least the Rebecca part of the equation had been pleasant. Lord Norcutt hadn’t been entirely unpleasant. He actually made rather enjoyable, if not altogether unique, conversation in the box before the play began and out in the foyer during intermission. No prosaic talk of the dreary weather in sight.
Rebecca must have warned him. Aurora could think of no other reason for the sudden change in his disposition.
She likewise could think of no good reason why her husband would suddenly have taken to surprising her. Thrice in a single day, if one counted the way he woke her from her nap. What on earth could he possibly be after? Lively conversation didn’t seem to be high on his list of priorities, as evidenced by his return to silence in the carriage. There had to be some sort of ulterior motive for the change in his demeanor.
Still, Aurora wouldn’t complain. A husband who tried to surprise her on occasion was far better than a husband who never even looked her direction unless he had designs on how to impregnate her, whether she was capable of being impregnated or not.
Now, if she could just manage that last little part.
~ * ~
Blast. Blast, blast, blast, damn, blast.
Three weeks ought to have been plenty of time, right? Any normal lady, with normal ability to carry a child, could expect to have one on the way within three weeks of regular marital relations, couldn’t she?
But not Aurora.
Of course, no one had ever accused her of being normal. But that was beside the point. Oh, heavens, why had her courses decided to arrive that morning? Why couldn’t they have stayed away, so she could perhaps share the good news with Quin? Maybe then he would speak to her again. Maybe then they could pretend to have a normal marriage.
A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle Page 16