The Marriage Act

by Alyssa Everett

  They’d spent another agreeable evening with her family, even if Sophia had insisted on playing one song too many on the harp-lute. John had sung again—one song only, for despite her family’s importunities, he clearly had no intention of wearing out his welcome—but it had been one of her favorites, “Farewell! But Whenever You Welcome the Hour.” When he’d reached the end of the first verse, his eyes had found hers, a warmth in their dark depths that Caro could have sworn was real.

  His griefs may return, not a hope may remain

  Of the few that have brighten’d his pathway of pain,

  But he ne’er will forget the short vision, that threw

  Its enchantment around him, while ling’ring with you.

  The strange thing was, though she’d enjoyed attending church with her family that morning and though it had been pleasant to catch up on the local gossip after the service, she’d taken every bit as much pleasure in John’s company. The old familiar hymns had seemed new, singing beside him, and she’d laughed over dinner at his droll opinions on the enormous bonfire the village merchants planned for Gunpowder Treason Day and the growing likelihood that 1821 would come to be known as The Year of The Great Kegworth Conflagration. When her father mentioned that the Lincoln Flyer had overturned at Bourne, and its coachman—a family man with a wife and several children—had broken not just one bone, but both arms and a leg, John had shared her dismay. She wasn’t sure how much of this new fellow-feeling was real and how much was merely a part of the deception they were practicing on her family, but she liked it just the same.

  And though she couldn’t be sure, Caro suspected John had felt the same way about spending time with her. There’d been a point during dinner when she’d looked over the top of her wineglass, laughing at something her father had said, and met John’s eyes. She’d encountered a spark of amusement in them—amusement mingled with admiration—and they’d wound up grinning at each other like two children up to mischief.

  Now he shrugged and said somberly, “And I doubt our talk went as well as you hoped. Why didn’t you tell me Ronnie spent that night in the hunting box drinking? I am his guardian, you know.”

  He sounded forbearing enough—certainly not angry—but Caro sighed. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I thought you’d be cross with him, and quite possibly with me too. After all, it was my idea for him to come along with us.”

  “I’ll admit I was a trifle cross with Ronnie, if only because he was supposed to be studying that night. But as for being cross with you...” He gave her an uneasy look, one side of his mouth pulling down in a rueful expression. “I was more disappointed in myself than angry with you. It’s troubling to learn my own wife was afraid to come to me with a problem, for fear of the way I might react.”

  “You can be a touch intimidating at times.” Caro sat on the bed and rolled down one stocking.

  “And judgmental?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted after a moment’s hesitation. “Though I must say, you seem readier to listen and to amend your judgments than I’ve been giving you credit for these past five years.”

  He took off his coat. “In all the successful marriages I’ve known, the husband and wife worked together as one, a united front.” He turned a look of appeal her way. “The next time you have a concern or a problem in which I have some stake, rather than feeling you have to hide it from me, would you kindly come to me with it instead?”

  “I will if you’ll promise to keep your temper when I do.”

  He made a rueful sound, something between a laugh and a grunt. “I take your point. Is it enough if I promise to try to keep my temper?” He stopped undressing to gaze at her, steadily and earnestly. “This is important to me, Caro. If we’re really going to make this arrangement work, we have to put old habits behind us. Keeping secrets, not trusting me to handle mistakes and disappointments like a reasonable man—that’s a large part of what spoiled our marriage in the first place.”

  The old Caro would have answered that what had spoiled their marriage in the first place was his unyielding coldness, but she let the thought die unsaid. It wasn’t merely that her family might hear, or that she didn’t want to start another quarrel with John when he’d been wonderful all day, even talking to Ronnie as she’d asked. No, what held her back was that he was right. She might have been young and foolish, but the first mistake in their marriage had been hers. If she’d only trusted John enough to be honest about her feelings instead of keeping her flirtation with Lawrence Howe a secret and then attempting to run away, they would never have wound up married, let alone estranged.

  She nodded. “I promise, John. No more secrets.”

  He smiled, and it was a warm, attractive smile—a smile that sent a flush right down to her toes. “Thank you.”

  Though she regretted her past mistakes, she was finding it increasingly difficult to regret their marriage. She watched appreciatively as he shed his clothes—his neckcloth, his boots, his waistcoat—and he appeared equally interested in watching her. Each layer he removed revealed something new to admire, lean hips and broad shoulders and strongly muscled arms.

  The rear view was equally rewarding. She liked the way his closely tailored trousers hugged his backside. Really, Welford looked good from every angle.

  “It’s a bit chilly tonight to sleep so far apart, don’t you think?” Caro said. “I promise not to screech if you’d like to lie a little nearer each other.”

  He gave a soft huff of amusement. “I was expecting the end of that sentence to be ‘if you promise not to try anything.’”

  She sensed a question behind the words. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Today had been a good day—a very good day—and something inside her was loath to let it end. Besides, she was ashamed of her reaction in the hunting box. Tonight could be her chance to make amends.

  She turned the question back on him. “Were you thinking of trying something?”

  His brows rose. “Were you expecting me to?”

  She almost came back with Would you like to? But it seemed silly to go on answering one question with another. “That’s up to you.” She gave him a conciliatory smile. “Though if you did try something and someone were to overhear us...Well, it might go a long way toward convincing my family we’re happily married.”

  She expected him to smile back, but instead his mouth drew down sharply in a look of disappointment. “So if you don’t turn me down tonight, it will be because you wish to exploit the theatrical potential.”

  “That isn’t what I meant at all.” Why was he always taking the things she said the wrong way? “I never said it would be only because someone might overhear. I’m truly sorry about what happened in the hunting box.”

  He unbuttoned his trousers. “So am I.”

  It didn’t sound as if he meant the apologetic kind of sorry. No, he meant the regretful, I-wish-I-could-erase-the-entire-episode-from-my-memory kind of sorry.

  She reminded herself that only last night she’d proposed that they do their best to be civil and treat each other with respect. He hadn’t said anything overtly insulting, so she was going to take So am I at face value. “Well, I appreciate all you’ve done, these past few days. You’ve made a most convincing ideal husband.”

  “Hmm.”

  Now, there was a noncommittal response if ever she’d heard one. Hmm could be pleased or doubtful or merely preoccupied. But when she reached behind her back for the laces of her stays, he immediately stepped up to help her, his large hands moving deftly.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I meant what I said about the hunting box, John. I’m sorry. Things could’ve been so much more agreeable—”

  “‘Things’?” he echoed with a sardonic quirk of one eyebrow.

  She wiggled out of her stays, but he remained where he was, only a hand’s-breadth behind her. “You know. T
he—the conjugal part.”

  “I believe,” he said, his lips so close to her ear that his whisper sent a shiver up her spine, “the word you’re looking for is fucking.”

  He was being crude again. But if it was his aim to insult her, he’d chosen the wrong method. Instead the word sent a shock of excitement searing through her, raw and hot and powerful, as if a mere whisper had all the force of the action.

  “What? No slap across the face?” he asked when she didn’t object. “No outraged protest?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned back ever so slightly into his arms. “I did promise I wouldn’t screech.”

  From behind her, he set his hands on her hips. She liked the weight of them there, heavy and a trifle possessive. “Interesting...”

  “What’s interesting?”

  He nuzzled her neck, just behind her ear. “Nothing, really. Just that I deserved a good shove, and instead you leaned back against me.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but his breath was warm on her skin, his lips soft. She shivered. “That feels good.”

  “Does it?” His voice was low and husky.

  “Yes, very good.” Kiss me, she urged in her head, the wish having nothing to do with what he’d termed the theatrical potential, but only with a longing inside her. Turn me around and kiss me on the lips.

  Instead John said, “This Mr. Ryland your uncle mentioned on the walk home from church, the one you fancied...”

  The spell of longing that had fallen over her abruptly cleared. Nicholas Ryland? Why on earth would John be asking about him, and now? “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

  She would’ve pulled away, but his strong hands on her hips held her fast. “No, not jealous. Merely curious. He was your first love?”

  John didn’t sound cross. Instead he sounded almost...playful? Caro settled back against him again, her shoulders against his chest. “I don’t know if I’d call him a love. An infatuation merely, I would say.”

  “How old was he?” John asked, his lips grazing her ear, his voice like velvet.

  The longing she’d felt came creeping back. “Eighteen or nineteen, I imagine. Just a boy, really, though he seemed dashing enough at the time. He danced two dances with me at the Kegworth assembly.” She laughed. “He had a bit of a reputation, even then.”

  John’s lips brushed her neck—barely a kiss, but the contact sent a throb to the very core of her. “And he walked you home after the assembly?”

  John still didn’t sound angry, but his questions seemed more pointed now. Caro’s pulse quickened. “Yes, though Sophia was right. He never kissed me.”

  John’s right hand slid a few inches over her hip, until his fingertips were only a tantalizing inch or two from the hot, tingling place between her legs. “And how did it make you feel, that he chose not to kiss you?”

  How did it make her feel? What a strange thing to ask. “Disappointed, I suppose. Perhaps a little hurt. I had just turned sixteen, and I’d never been kissed before.”

  “Hadn’t you? Hmm. We’ll come back to that some other time.” John nuzzled her neck again. “So you wanted to know what it was like to be kissed, and you wanted Mr. Ryland to teach you.”

  “Yes.” Just as she wanted John to kiss her now, wanted his hand to slip the mere two or three inches lower that would bring his long fingers against the aching place between her thighs. “I was curious, and he was handsome enough.” She added hastily, “Not as handsome as you, but—”

  “Never mind about that now,” John said easily. “We’re talking about you and this boy.”

  She wondered if she ought to be alarmed, if John was jealous, but he sounded reasonable enough. Unless she was much mistaken, he’d gone hard, for that had to be his erection pressing against her lower back.

  “So you wanted Mr. Ryland to kiss you,” John picked up the thread again. “But as much as you wanted it, you didn’t ask him to kiss you, did you?”

  “Of course I didn’t ask.”

  “That would have been immodest—improper, perhaps?” John’s voice was silken. “For a gently reared girl and the daughter of a bishop, I mean.”

  “It would have seemed too forward.” She gulped. “Fast.”

  John’s strong grip drew her back more tightly against his erection. “So you needed this rascal with the fledgling reputation to take charge, to make the decision for you. To push the limits, so you didn’t have to.” His right hand finally slid lower, cupping her between her legs. He rocked his fingers against her hot, aching center. “In order for you to remain the good girl, he had to be bad. It had to be his idea, or seem to be.”

  “I—I suppose...” Her agreement died off in a sound that was more moan than real speech. Even through her chemise, his touch made her legs tremble.

  His hand was gentle but firm, and his breath tickled her ear. “Was that what that night in the hunting box was about—saying ‘no’ and then goading me to do it anyway?”

  She sagged back against him, boneless with pleasure, her eyes fluttering closed. “Perhaps a little. At first I truly didn’t want to, but then...”

  His hand went still. “That wasn’t very generous, to make me think I was forcing myself on you.”

  Her eyes flew open at the change in his voice—no longer velvet or silk, but rough sandpaper. “I never said you were forcing yourself on me that night. I told you to go ahead.”

  “If you were truly amenable to the idea, ‘Do it, or be quiet about it’ and ‘Hurry up’ are hardly conducive to mutual enjoyment.” He released her abruptly.

  “But—”

  “I don’t want a one-sided kind of marriage, Caroline.” He got into bed, a troubled look on his face. “I’m willing to give you what you want, but you have to give me something in return—some sign, at least, that it’s not an unwelcome imposition every time I touch you.”

  She had the strangest, keenest feeling of disappointment—as if someone had been dangling a treasure in front of her only to pull it away at the last second. As if she’d been dreaming she could soar unfettered through the air, but had suddenly remembered she didn’t know how to fly and had come crashing back to earth.

  It took a moment for the truth to dawn on her. My God. She actually wanted him. Not just his kiss or his touch, but him.

  How was that possible? For five years, she’d thought him horridly cold and disdainful. He’d left her alone at Halewick when he’d gone away to Vienna, and hadn’t even contacted her upon his return to England. He’d seemed to enjoy insulting her. Worst of all, he’d never forgiven her for leaving him for Lawrence Howe, until his very existence had felt like a rebuke.

  But there was no denying John’s physical appeal, even if she’d once been too young and immature to see it. When they’d first met, she’d scarcely given his dark good looks a second thought. He’d been rather like a painting she might walk past in a gallery—certainly pleasant to look at if one chose, but not exciting or important enough to capture her attention.

  Now she wondered how she could have been so blind. Englishmen ran the spectrum from ginger to sun-tanned, but Welford’s dark good looks were especially striking. The lean, athletic lines of his body made her pulse quicken. And the way he’d been touching her only moments before...

  “It’s not an imposition,” she said meekly. “I’ve already told you I’m sorry about what happened in the hunting box.”

  His face changed with the shift in her tone, his dissatisfied expression giving way to a faint, hopeful gleam. “What does that mean, you’re ‘sorry’?”

  “I suppose it means I want another chance, a chance to make amends.”

  He eyed her speculatively for a moment from where he lay stretched out on the bed. “So you think I should—well, for want of a more accurate euphemism, let us say ‘make love’ to you.”

&nb
sp; Her cheeks warmed. Was he really going to make her say it? “Yes.”

  “Really do it, or just pretend to do it? Because in the event anyone is listening through the walls, all we need do is sound as if I’m making love to you.” When she remained momentarily at a loss for words, he elaborated. “Bounce up and down on the bed, pound the headboard with the sides of our fists, that sort of thing.”

  She had the feeling he was toying with her.

  “You could moan a little if you like,” he added.

  Yes, he was definitely toying with her. Strangely, though, it wasn’t the kind of toying she was used to, in which he seized the moral high ground and then proceeded to torment her from his superior position. No, there was something genuinely mischievous about him this time, a humorous glint in his eyes she wasn’t used to seeing. She found it strangely exciting.

  “We’ve only done it twice before,” she pointed out, “and one of those times was all of five years ago. I’m not sure I would know how much to moan, at least not convincingly. And...well, you did say you’d like to become a father.”

  “Hmm.” He considered a moment, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

  She tossed her hands in the air and made to turn away. “Oh, fine, Welford, have it your way. If you don’t wish to—”

  “No, I didn’t say that,” he replied quickly, sitting up. “But you’ve taken me rather by surprise. Having steeled myself all day to pass another night in lonely celibacy, it may be that I could use some encouragement.”

  She eyed him askance. “Encouragement?”

  He settled back against the pillow, once more tucking his hands behind his head. “You know. Wooing. Coaxing. Something to put me in the mood.”

  There was a suspicious bulge under the quilt. She flipped back the covers to reveal the lower part of his torso. Even through his smallclothes, his erection was impossible to miss. Rather impressive, actually. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the hitch in her breath when she saw it.

  “Really?” she said in a skeptical tone. “You honestly need encouragement to put you in the mood.”