Lady Arabella's Scandalous Marriage

by Carole Mortimer

  She could no longer form a coherent thought as Darius deepened his kiss. As lips, tongue and teeth laid siege to her own and he swept her firmly into his arms, moulding the softer contours of her body against his much harder one, making her fully aware of the long length of his arousal as it pressed against her.

  Leaving her in no doubt as to what Darius wanted.

  He wanted her.

  Arabella St Cl—no, Arabella Wynter. His wife.

  As she surely wanted him. Darius Wynter. Her husband.

  Her arms moved up and her hands became entangled in the thick golden hair at Darius’s nape as she returned the intensity of his kiss. Following his lead, she nibbled upon the fullness of his lower lip before sliding her tongue into the welcoming heat of his mouth, her tongue duelling briefly with his before Darius drew it deeper inside. Arabella felt hot, so tinglingly, sensitively hot. Each sweep of Darius’s hands, as they moved restlessly across her body, ignited tiny licking flames of awareness from her breast to her thigh, and then back again. Cupping beneath her breasts, thumbs caressing her hardened nipples time and time again, until she pressed against him, silently pleading for more.

  Darius broke the kiss to slip the strap of her shift down her arm so that he could move to the gentle slope of her breast with his mouth. Tasting, caressing, until he reached her nipple and could take its bared fullness inside his mouth. His teeth and tongue became a dual sensual attack that caused Arabella to moan longingly even as she cupped the back of his head and held him to her.

  She wanted more. Wanted—Oh, God, she wanted—

  ‘Help me off with the rest of my clothes, love.’

  Arabella stared up at Darius dazedly for several long seconds, until his meaning became clear and she looked down to where his arousal strained so obviously against the material of his breeches. Her fingers were clumsy, trembling as they moved to unfasten the buttons, her breath catching in her throat as the last button came undone and she stared down at that hot and heavy fullness as it leapt free to rest against the palm of her hand.

  His arousal was so thick and so long that Arabella doubted she would be able to span the width of it with her hand. She ran her fingers experimentally along its length.

  Arabella had never imagined that this part of a man’s body would look as it did. So beautiful she wanted to touch it. So silky she wanted to caress it. So responsive to her touch that she longed to kiss and caress it with her lips and tongue in the same intimate manner Darius had kissed her the previous night.

  ‘Yes, I will feel that same pleasure in being touched and kissed,’ Darius encouraged as Arabella looked up at him questioningly once he had completely removed his breeches.

  Although he was far from sure of the wisdom of encouraging that intimacy when Arabella moved down onto her knees in front of him. Darius closed his eyes, his jaw clenching as he fought to maintain control as Arabella began to move her hand, testing, experimenting, as she learnt which caresses gave him the most pleasure.

  Everything about having Arabella make love to him in this way gave Darius pleasure. Everything!

  Touch. Sight. Smell.

  The hand about him felt like velvet. The intense expression on her beautiful face as she watched his response to her caressing hand was like an aphrodisiac to his own roused senses.

  He—Dear God…!

  Darius’s knees almost buckled beneath him as he felt her flicking the moist end of her tongue along the very tip of him. A hot, wet stroke that caused Darius to gasp and clench his fists in an attempt to find some self-control.

  He managed to withstand that caress for only a few seconds longer. ‘I think not!’ he managed to rasp as he bent down to place his hands gently on Arabella’s arms and pull her to her feet.

  She gazed up at him almost shyly. ‘You did not like it?’

  ‘I liked it almost too much,’ he admitted gruffly as his hand curved gently about her flushed cheek. ‘Another time, love,’ he promised as Arabella frowned her disappointment. ‘I have waited too long to make love with you to be able to withstand that particular intimacy any more tonight.’

  Arabella looked up at him searchingly. Darius had waited too long to make love with her? Did he mean these past ten days? Or longer than that?

  She had no chance to ask him those probing questions as he slipped the second strap of her shift down her arm and allowed the silky gown to fall to her feet, resulting in Arabella standing naked before him.

  Any awkwardness she might have felt at her complete nakedness was forgotten as she saw the heated admiration in Darius’s gaze. He made no effort to hide it from her. Even if he had, the response of his naked body would have given him away as he seemed to grow even larger the more he continued to look at her!

  ‘You are as perfect as a statue of Aphrodite I once gazed upon in Greece,’ he murmured throatily.

  Her eyes widened. ‘You have been to Greece?’

  He chuckled huskily. ‘I have been to many places. And someday I will enjoy telling you about all of them. Just not now, Arabella.’ He ran a finger lightly across her swollen lips as he teased her. ‘The only thing I want to do now is kneel down at your feet and worship you.’

  ‘I do not want you to worship me, Darius.’ Arabella shook her head, emboldened by his obvious admiration of her nakedness. ‘I want—I want you inside me.’ Her cheeks burned at the admission. ‘I need to know how it feels to have this…’ her hand caressed along the length of his arousal ‘…inside me.’

  Darius’s breath caught in his throat. He had known many women intimately, but none so honest, so open in her needs, as Arabella. ‘And so you shall, love,’ he promised softly, and he took her hand and moved the two of them to lie down upon the rug in front of the fire.

  Darius leant on his elbow to look down at his wife. Her curls were even more golden in the firelight, her body bathed in that same soft glow. ‘You are beautiful, Arabella,’ he said gruffly. ‘So very, very beautiful.’

  Her hands moved up the nakedness of his chest, her fingers becoming entangled in the hair at his nape as she gently pulled him down to her. ‘Kiss me, Darius. Make love to me,’ she pressed shakily.

  He kissed her long and deeply at the same time as his hands caressed her, readying her, making sure that she was prepared to receive him before he moved to lie between her parted thighs. ‘I do not want to hurt you, Arabella,’ he muttered as he paused and rested his forehead against hers.

  Arabella had questioned her sisters-in-law enough to know that Darius could not help but hurt her a little this first time as he breached the barrier of her virginity. It was a pain Arabella welcomed if it meant she truly became one with him. If he felt unable—or unwilling—to take that final step because he did not want to hurt her, then Arabella would have to do it herself…

  She allowed her hands to move caressingly down the muscled column of Darius’s back before spreading her fingers over his buttocks, able to feel the way he tensed at her touch. Her fingers tightened about him at the same time as she arched her hips in a thrust that brought Darius fully inside her.

  He lifted his head to frown. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want this, Darius,’ Arabella told him determinedly. ‘I want all of you!’ She thrust again, at once feeling the barrier of her innocence tear beneath that invasion.

  The pain was sharp and brief. The length of a sharply indrawn breath and passing just as quickly. To be replaced by the wonder of knowing that Darius was finally inside her.

  ‘Easy, love.’ He soothed Arabella into stillness as she arched again in her need to take all of him inside her. ‘I want us both to savour this moment.’

  He slowly kissed the tips of her breasts, licking the tightness of her puckered nipples, then gently biting. His hand moved between them to touch that swollen nubbin nestled amongst her curls, fingers lightly caressing as he increased Arabella’s pleasure.

  She gasped, her eyes widening as that pulsing pleasure centred hotly between her thighs. She clung to h
is shoulders as she moved instinctively to meet the thrust of Darius’s thighs.

  ‘Yes, love. Yes!’ he urged through gritted teeth as he began to move his hips, pulling back slightly before surging inside her, again and again until he was so deep it felt as if he touched the very centre of her, sending Arabella into a vortex of unimagined pleasure.

  Darius tried to hold back, fighting to control his own release, wanting this never to end. But as she convulsed around him Darius knew it was a battle he was destined to lose, and he rushed towards his own climax before he collapsed weakly onto her breasts, breathing heavily, both their bodies hot and slick from the exertion.

  Arabella smiled in dreamy satisfaction as she ran tender fingers through Darius’s hair, loving its silky feel as he lay with his head upon her breasts.

  She was no longer a virgin!

  She was now officially a woman. Darius Wynter’s woman.

  It was glorious. Wonderful. Unimaginably delightful.

  No wonder her brothers and their wives so often walked about with silly smiles upon their faces if this was what they shared in their marriage beds. And Arabella was convinced that they did.

  It was like being a part of some exclusive club, its members privy to a secret too special, too excruciatingly wonderful, to be shared by any but themselves.

  ‘Your Grace?’ A knock sounded on the dining room door in accompaniment to the urgent demand.

  Arabella’s movements stilled as she recognised the burly butler’s rough tones as he spoke on the other side of the closed dining-room door.

  ‘What the hell?’ Darius was scowling darkly as he raised his head to look across at that closed door.

  ‘I am sorry to—to disturb you, Your Grace.’ The unlikely-looking butler sounded more than a little anxious.

  ‘He’s going to be more than sorry when I have done telling him what I think of him,’ Darius muttered beneath his breath. ‘Give me a minute, man,’ he called out.

  ‘I am sure Westlake would not have disturbed us if he did not have an important reason for doing so.’ In truth, Arabella was having difficulty holding back the bubble of laughter inside her that was threatening to break loose.

  She and Darius had been married three days. Three days of constant interruptions, for one reason or another, to every attempt at intimacy between them. And now, when they had at last managed to find some privacy for their lovemaking, the butler at Winton Hall had interrupted them yet again. Even after Darius had assured Arabella that he had instructed the servants to do otherwise!

  Darius’s scowl deepened. ‘Did you hear a shot being fired? Or perhaps a herd of wild elephants, loose and threatening to trample down the house with all of us inside it?’

  Arabella giggled at the unlikelihood of either of those things ever happening here in the safety of the Worcestershire countryside. ‘You know I did not.’

  ‘Well, I assure you, Arabella, they are the only two reasons I gave Westlake for interrupting us this evening,’ he grumbled.

  Her giggle developed into a fully fledged chuckle at his disgruntled expression. ‘Admit it, Darius, it is very funny,’ she encouraged, as her husband continued to look distinctly unamused.

  ‘You would not have thought so if the interruption had occurred five minutes earlier,’ he retorted.

  ‘No,’ Arabella acknowledged, with remembered frustration at the previous interruptions to their lovemaking. Even more so now that she was fully aware of what she had been missing all this time!

  Darius gave an impatient shake of his head and gently disengaged himself before standing up. ‘I am beginning to think someone is deliberately trying to sabotage even the consummation of our marriage,’ he growled as he reached for his breeches.

  Arabella made no effort to disguise her curiosity concerning Darius’s nakedness.

  Her fingers ached to touch him again. To caress and handle him until he was once again hard and throbbing with the need to be inside her. Perhaps this time to be allowed to use her lips and tongue to taste and arouse him.

  Darius groaned as he obviously saw the intent in her expression. ‘Do not look at me like that when there is no chance I am going to be able to make love to you again—in the next few minutes, at least.’ He settled his breeches on his hips before fastening them.

  Arabella stretched languidly, feeling and no doubt looking much like the satisfied kitten Darius had earlier promised to make of her. ‘I am sure, no matter what the problem, that it will not keep you from our bed all night.’

  Darius pulled his shirt on over his head before looking down at Arabella once more, relishing the fact that she obviously did not feel the need to cover herself, but instead seemed completely comfortable being naked in front of him.

  ‘Perhaps you should dress too, love?’ he suggested gently, reluctantly.

  Damn it, if Westlake had not interrupted them Darius knew he would even now be enjoying making love to his wife for a second time.

  Unfortunately, given his specific instructions to the butler earlier this evening, Darius was nowhere near as sure as Arabella that the reason for this most recent interruption would be dealt with as quickly as he hoped it would…

  Chapter Eleven

  Despite the unimagined pleasure of their lovemaking the previous evening, Arabella was not feeling in the least kindly disposed towards her husband as she swept down the wide staircase of Winton Hall at nine o’clock the following morning. On the contrary, she felt there was every reason for the frown upon her creamy brow as she crossed the large hallway on her way to the breakfast room.

  Leaving Darius to converse quietly with Westlake the previous evening, Arabella had retired to her bedchamber to bathe and dress in one of her prettiest nightgowns. She had then lain awake in her bed, waiting for Darius to join her, sure that he would do so at any moment, as eager for their lovemaking to continue as she was.

  Their marriage had got off to a somewhat shaky start, but Arabella had begun to believe that now they were truly one the tension would start to ease between them. She’d certainly had reason to rethink her decision to leave Darius come the next morning!

  But as the minutes and then hours had passed, without any sign of Darius joining her in her bedchamber, Arabella’s eagerness had turned to uncertainty. Perhaps he had not found their lovemaking as satisfactory as she had? Or had he been shocked by her obvious enthusiasm? Although she somehow did not think it was the latter; Darius had encouraged—no, positively demanded!—that loss of control.

  That uncertainty allayed, Arabella’s anger had returned with a vengeance. So much so that it had been the early hours of the morning before she’d managed to fall asleep, only to awaken an hour ago to find the bed beside her still empty. A glance into the adjoining bedchamber had revealed that Darius had not been to bed at all the previous night—in her bedchamber or his own.

  Arabella most definitely required an explanation from him this morning—for the way he had abandoned her so completely the night before. And, if she were not to renew her decision to leave him, it had best be a good one!

  Prepared for a verbal exchange with him, Arabella felt her ire only increase when she found the breakfast room empty except for the footman waiting to serve her. ‘Has His Grace already breakfasted this morning, Holmes?’ she enquired lightly, as the footman served the cup of tea she had requested.

  The middle-aged man maintained a stony expression. ‘I don’t fink—er—I don’t believe so. Er…Your Grace.’

  Arabella’s frown deepened. ‘Has my husband been seen at all this morning?’

  ‘Not that I know of, Your Grace.’

  Arabella’s irritation deepened at the man’s unhelpful replies. ‘In that case, send Westlake to me immediately.’

  The footman paused in replacing the teapot upon its stand. ‘You wants to see Mr Westlake, Your Grace?’

  ‘Immediately,’ she snapped. ‘Is there a problem?’

  She arched enquiring brows as the man hesitated. She really could not imagin
e where Darius had found the strange collection of people waiting upon them at Winton Hall. From Holmes’s accent and the awkwardness of his demeanour, the footman gave every impression of originating from the backstreets of London!

  ‘Er—I…I believe Mr Westlake is busy this morning, Your Grace,’ the man said awkwardly.

  Arabella’s brows rose even higher. ‘Too busy to make himself available to his employer?’

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ the man assured her happily. ‘Mr Westlake is always ready and willing to ’elp the Duke whenever the need arises.’

  Arabella deliberately took a sip of her tea before replying, in an effort to allay the footman’s suspicions concerning her increasing interest in this conversation. ‘And does the need arise very often?’

  ‘Not as often as it used to do,’ Holmes confided with obvious disappointment. ‘But often enough, I suppose.’

  Arabella’s interest was well and truly roused now. ‘So, Mr Westlake is too busy to talk to me, and you have no idea where my husband is?’

  ‘Now, I didn’t say that, Your Grace,’ he protested, his Cockney accent deepening in his agitation.

  Arabella held on to her temper with effort. ‘So which statement was incorrect? Westlake is not busy? Or you have seen my husband this morning?’

  ‘Well…the second one, I s’pose. I ’asn’t seen the Duke, you understand,’ he defended as Arabella’s frown returned. ‘But I do know as where ’e is.’

  ‘And where would that be?’

  ‘’e’s in the Blue Salon wiv ’is guest.’

  Guest…?

  What guest?

  The betrothal and wedding of Lady Arabella St Claire and Darius Wynter, Duke of Carlyne, might have taken place with more haste than was usual, but surely it was known here in Worcestershire, as much as in London, that the Duke and Duchess of Carlyne were only recently married and as such not yet receiving visitors?

  Could the arrival of this guest be the reason Westlake had felt compelled to knock on the dining-room door, disturbing them yesterday evening? Possibly the same reason Darius had not joined her in her bedchamber the night before…?