All I Ever Needed

by Jo Goodman

  "You already apologized."

  "I see." He had been hoping the answer would be no. "You believe me, don't you, that I don't remember?"

  "Yes." She hesitated. "Does it frighten you?"

  "Frighten? No, not precisely. It is... disconcerting, I suppose you would say."

  "I would say it is frightening." She felt East's soft chuckle vibrate against her thigh. "I imagine there is very little that makes you afraid."

  "Few things," he said. "But they make me very afraid." Before she could ask him what they were, he asked her.

  "It is far simpler to tell you what I'm not afraid of," she said. "I like lightning storms and spiders and jumping Apollo over the largest fence in the field."

  He waited for her to go on. When she didn't, he turned on his back and looked up at her. "I have never known a female who likes spiders."

  Sophie shrugged.

  "Bravery is stepping out to meet the things that frighten you," he said gently. "It doesn't matter how few or how many fears you have; it is what you make of them, or what you allow them to make of you. I would not want to test my courage against yours, Sophie."

  She was silent. Her hand cradled the back of his head, and her fingers were still. "I'm afraid of you."

  He smiled a trifle crookedly. "No, you're not. I think you'd like to be, but the sad truth for you is that I belong on your short list with the lightning and spiders and riding hell-for-leather. I don't pretend to understand why it should be against your will, but I know that it is so."

  "How can you not understand the why of it," she said, more to herself than to him, "when you give voice to the thoughts in my head as if they were your own?" She looked down at him, studying his shadowed, teasing grin. "Do you think it is comfortable having you forever in my mind?"

  "I wish I understood you half so well as you think I do." When she made no response, he said, "Concerning that list of all you find darkly fascinating... May I flatter myself to suppose that I come before the spiders?"

  The sharp tug on East's hair was sufficient answer. Sophie nudged him so that he turned on his side. He lifted his head, and she slid out from under him, not to remove herself from the bed, but to lie fully clothed alongside him.

  "Sophie?"

  "You should sleep, my lord."

  "East."

  "Go to sleep, East."

  The curious thing, he decided, was that it was so easily accomplished.

  * * *

  Sophie was alone in bed when she woke and not at all comfortable with the twinge of disappointment that accompanied this realization. She rose, stretched languidly, and stripped down to her chemise. She had only put a damp flannel to her face when she was overwhelmed by nausea. Kneeling at the bedside, head bent over the chamber pot, was how East found her a few moments later.

  Shaking his head, he set a tray of tea and stale biscuits on the table and hunkered beside her. He grabbed a fistful of her hair to keep it from falling forward into the pot and patiently waited for her to empty the contents of her stomach. Sophie tried to wave him aside, but this time it was he who would not be moved. When he was certain she was quite done, he briskly removed the pot and put Sophie back to bed.

  "You are pitiful," he said, placing the tray across her lap.

  "Only that? I feel wretched."

  "You look wretched."

  She smiled wanly. "I think it is an odd sort of diplomat who speaks his mind so frankly."

  "I can be politic when I have to be." He sat on the edge of the bed and encouraged her to take some tea. "I do not have to be now. I am concerned for you, Sophie, and I would be negligent if I did not say so. You are sick every morning and sometimes late in the afternoon. It is little wonder you have no belly to show for this child. It cannot be healthy for either of you."

  Sophie regarded East over the rim of her teacup. "You know a great deal about it, do you?"

  "More than you might suppose. I spent a good many years attached to Wellington's army. One can't avoid the camp followers and the wives who march to the drum. It is impossible not to learn something about how the women managed, and from what I have observed—and heard—since my arrival, I would say you are not managing at all well."

  She bristled a little at his assessment but said nothing.

  "When Mrs. Randolph arrives, I am sending her for the physician."

  "I am perfectly healthy." Sophie bit into a cracker and chewed it determinedly. "He will only complain that you have made demands on his time for no good reason."

  "He will be very well compensated and may complain all he likes."

  Sophie understood this was a battle she should not wage with him. Still, her surrender was reluctant. "Oh, very well. I suppose you mean to have your way."

  "Yes," he said. "I do."

  Somewhat to Sophie's surprise, he left her then. She finished her tea and biscuits and tried not to think about the niggling ache that owed nothing of its existence to morning sickness. She could not even be properly put out with his high-handedness, owing to the fact that she had been somewhat the same with him the night before. It had been a mistake not to turn him in the direction of his own room. She had thought it even as she was helping him negotiate the path from her door to her bed but couldn't bring herself to act on it. He would have taken his leave later if she had insisted, but she hadn't had the sense to do that either.

  Sophie was still trying to sort it out when he returned to her bedchamber, this time carrying two bowls of porridge. It was not decent, she thought, that he was freshly turned out in buff breeches and a splendid fawn-colored waistcoat, while she was still in her chemise with only her face and teeth cleaned. They had done so very well to avoid these situations for more than a sennight, and within the space of a single evening it was all coining undone. "You might have knocked," she said, pivoting away from the washstand.

  "Indeed, I might have," he said. He watched both her eyebrows lift at his pleasant, no-quarter-given tone. "Sit here, Sophie, and eat some porridge. I promise you will not be sorry."

  Sophie considered defying him, but she could think of no good reason why she should. Sighing, she went to the table and sat. "It would be preferable if your demands were unreasonable, I think. I should like to have a good row with you this morning."

  "Marry me."

  Her mouth curved upward at the readiness with which he obliged her. "You are quick to..." Sophie's voice trailed off as she measured his intent and saw that he was perfectly serious. "You think you have worn me down?" she asked.

  "No. Not nearly as much as I might have wished, but I am not a man of infinite patience. If I had any doubts on that score, last evening put a period to them. I mean to have you, Sophie." He used his spoon to gesture pointedly toward the bed and watched her eyes widen as she followed the direction of his hand and his thoughts. "I would rather you were my wife."

  It stole a little of her breath away to hear him announce his designs so boldly. He was regarding her steadily, pinning her back in her chair so that she could not look away without calling herself a coward. "You are certain that your patience is at an end?"

  East merely smiled.

  Sophie returned it.

  It was East's experience that in a standoff it was always the other fellow who blinked. That was not the way of it now. He set his spoon down and pushed his bowl away. "Sophie?"

  "I suppose you think the thread of my patience is longer than yours," she said. "I suspect the truth is that it is far shorter. I have been on a very tight tether these last days if you would have had but the sense to know it." She rose and rounded the small table to stand beside his chair. "Will you lie with me now?"

  He wondered at his hesitation when he should have already been closing the distance to her bed; but then she smiled again, a trifle less confident than a moment ago but no less willing, and he was not proof against it. When he stood she was immediately in his arms, her mouth was on his, and the kiss surged between them.

  He lifted her, not sweeping her
across his arms, but just the few inches necessary to remove her feet from the floor. For the length of the room there was no break in their kiss, and when they tumbled to the bed their mouths separated only long enough to draw air.

  Neither of them made claim to a side. They rolled into the middle of the bed, ropes creaking, the mattress nearly curling around them from the force of their descent. Sophie welcomed the weight of East on her, and she arched under him to feel the entire length of his body pressed hard against her. Almost frantic with need, she helped him raise her chemise until it was rucked about her waist. She lifted her knees. His hand slid between their flush bodies and fumbled with the buttons on his breeches. Her fingers found his erect penis and curled around it, and then she was taking him into her.

  East's first hard thrust made her moan softly. Her hips jerked upward, and she dug her heels into the mattress. She raised her arms around his back and bit off a second cry when he thrust again. Her head was flung back. She could feel his hot breath on her throat, at the curve of her shoulder, then once more just above her mouth as he lifted his head and surged forward.

  The buttons of his waistcoat rubbed the midline of her abdomen. They made an impression on her flesh through the thin material of the chemise. The sensation was barely discernible from every other assault on her senses. She had the taste of him on the tip of her tongue and his scent in her nostrils. He filled her vision, eclipsing the room and the sunlight. She knew his breathing better than her own, took his rhythm for hers, understood every curve and angle of her body in contrast to his.

  He came to her with a certain violence that she did not try to tame. She felt it, too. It was there in the press of her nails in his arms and the way she nipped at his shoulder. She wound her fingers in his hair and tugged hard, making him take her mouth again and take it deeply. She did not so much cradle his body as make it her prisoner.

  Sophie drew breath in short measures, each one building on the last, filling her lungs with no release in between. Her breasts rose, aching. She rubbed against him, wanting the touch of him there, his lips, his hands, his chest. He took her with the hot suck of his mouth, dampening the chemise around her nipple and drawing both in, using his teeth and tongue to alternately tease and soothe.

  She was hardly aware of what she asked him to do to her, only that he seemed to understand what she wanted. She had told him she was afraid of most everything, but here she knew herself to be fearless, even when he brought her to the point of release and kept her there, just hovering at the edge so that pleasure became as sharp as a finely honed blade.

  It could not last forever. In the end it was not that he pushed her, but that she leaped. The intensity of her orgasm forced a cry from her throat, and his mouth was not on hers to capture the sound. She thought he looked for a moment as if he wanted to laugh, and the truest measure of her fearless state of mind was that she didn't care if he did. She would have welcomed his laughter, embraced it in the same way she did his own release, absorbing the shuddering strength of it because it was meant to be shared.

  Eastlyn lay on his back, his forearm covering most of his brow. He lifted his arm a fraction, revealing one eye, and looked askance at Sophie. She was also lying on her back, her breathing just steadying. The rise and fall of her breasts became slow and even until he could no longer make out the faint pulse in her throat. "They will have heard you at the harbor," he said.

  She sighed. It was not much of an exaggeration, she supposed. She had cried out quite loudly. "Do you suppose it might be mistaken for anything save what it was?"

  "No. And if they missed it in the cove, I'm sure Mrs. Randolph did not."

  Sophie turned her head. "She's here? You heard her come in?"

  "Yes," he said. "To both questions."

  She glanced at the door to make certain it was closed, though she recognized it was late to be doing so. "This is rather awkward, is it not? I mean, if she heard us, then she must be thinking the most awful things."

  For a moment East did not understand; when he took her meaning, he gave a shout of laughter. "She doesn't think we are really brother and sister, Sophie. I would not be the recipient of so many disapproving stares if that were the case."

  Sophie tugged on the neckline of her chemise, smoothing it properly into place as she turned on her side. "She stares at you?"

  "Disapprovingly." He saw that Sophie was much struck by this, confirming his belief that she had never once noticed the housekeeper's censure. "And she clucks her tongue."

  Sophie made the tsking sound three times with her own tongue. "How that must chafe. I think you are not accustomed to being cast in the role of the scoundrel." She fell on her back again and stared at the ceiling. "I wonder if we might depend upon her discretion?"

  "I think we can depend on not depending." East sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He applied some effort to making himself presentable, tucking in the loose tails of his shirt and pressing the creases from his waistcoat with his palms. He removed his hopelessly wrinkled neckcloth and buttoned his breeches. Standing, he leaned over the bed and stamped Sophie's rather bemused smile with his kiss. "I will not be gone long."

  Although Sophie took him at his word, she was sitting at the table eating cold porridge when he returned. He glanced from her to the bed and back again, his disappointment not entirely feigned. He dropped into the seat opposite her but let his own bowl of porridge remain where it was. "Mrs. Randolph is gone," he said. "I sent her away."

  Sophie nodded. "Not to bring the physician, I hope."

  "No. She is gone for the day." Before Sophie's hopes were raised, he added, "I have not changed my thinking entirely. It is only a reprieve of sorts. She will return with the physician tomorrow." He watched her composure falter just a bit as a pale pink tide of color washed over her face. As always, Sophie was not as unaffected as her serene countenance would suggest. Her warm honey-colored eyes darted away from his and then returned uncertainly. She was shy of a sudden, and he realized he liked this look of her as much as he did her bold one.

  "You have the most splendid eyes," he told her. The compliment had rather a different effect than the one he intended. East was almost set back in his seat when those splendid eyes narrowed skeptically. "I am not flattering you. I have always thought they were excellent in their coloring and directness." This made them slide away again. "And even when they are not direct, I find they have much to recommend them." He reached across the small table and lifted a heavy lock of hair from her shoulder with his fingertips. "They match this exactly. You must have noticed."

  Sophie brushed her hair back so that it slipped from his fingers and fell behind her shoulder. "I do not find it at all singular."

  "Perhaps because you are not sitting where I am. The view from here is extraordinary."

  Discomfited, Sophie dropped her hands to her lap and began making pleats in the loose folds of her chemise. "I am unused to pretty compliments."

  East considered this a moment. What Sophie did not say was that she could not judge the sincerity of them. He suspected this was at the heart of her confusion. "Mr. Heath did not remark on your eyes?"

  "No."

  "Or your hair?"

  "No."

  "Your lips?" The line of that lush mouth flattened immediately, forcing a grin to Eastlyn's. "Did he never kiss you?"

  "No."

  "Perhaps it is because your acquaintance was so brief."

  "I think it was because he was in love with Miss Sayers."

  "Oh, yes, I had forgotten that."

  "I don't believe you. You are teasing me to amuse yourself."

  "A little now." His eyes slid toward the bed. "And later, a lot."

  Sophie felt a surge of heat, not all of which could be seen properly in her face. The centers of her eyes darkened, and between her thighs she was damp. She drew in her lower lip a fraction, setting the tip of her tongue to it.

  Watching her, East thought Sophie knew something about teasing, even wh
en she did not set out to do so. "I would have your answer," he said, his voice pitched low and husky. "It occurs to me that you gave me none before."

  She could not pretend ignorance. There was only one question of any import between them. "It was not a request that you put before me earlier. It was in every nuance a command."

  "And that makes little or no difference to you. You ignore one as well as the other."

  Sophie stared at her folded hands for a long moment before she slowly raised her head and faced Eastlyn. There was no lingering amusement in his eyes; they matched hers for gravity of expression. "I do not know how to say yes," she told him quietly. "I know you do not expect romantic notions to enter into this marriage arrangement, but it is no simple thing for me. Perhaps it could be different if I had never come to love you; I could agree to your proposal as coldbloodedly as I agreed to poor Mr. Heath's. The choice of loving you, though, was removed from me at the outset; indeed, it never felt like an act of conscious will. Rather, it was as if you had tapped a wellspring in my heart and left me without any means to dam it."

  She took a small breath then, steadying herself. It seemed to her that East was perhaps paler than he had been when she started her speech, but she did not try to interpret what it meant, only observed that it was so. "I do not blame you for it. I do not think you were careless of my feelings, only unaware of them. I trust that you are not the rogue I named you once; you might be cruel to be kind, but I acquit you of being cruel. I think you make it a point to avoid innocents like me for all the reasons that have come to pass." She was moved to smile faintly, recalling something he had confided to her. "You told me you prefer transportation to Van Diemen's Land to partnering a young woman in her first waltz. It is unfortunate that your sense of duty and obligation means you cannot always have your way in such things. It is easy to imagine that more hearts than my own have been attached to you in the course of those steps."

  Sophie saw him frown slightly, and she realized she had said something more than she meant to. To distract the course of his thoughts, she quickly pushed her bowl and spoon aside and rested her clasped hands on the table. She meant the posture to show resolve and firmness, not an attitude of pleading or prayer. "I would not have shared my bed with you outside of marriage if I had not loved you. You could have forced me to that pass, but you did not. That was a choice I made, and I can still find no reason to regret it."