Miss Carlyle's Curricle: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix)

by Karen Harbaugh

The door opened easily when she turned the doorknob, making no sound. She stepped in and looked cautiously about; the room had only a brace of candles lit, near where Gavin sat with his back to her, brandy glass in hand. He swirled the liquid in the glass, staring at it, then sipped it, then swirled it again.

  The words Diana had thought she would say stuck in her throat; she could only stare at him, mute. She looked at his bed—it was very large—and thought she should at least get into it. Slowly she went to it, her feet making no sound on the soft and heavy carpet. She was glad; she did not wish to disturb him if he wanted only to drink and stare into the fire.

  The bed creaked when she sat on it, however, and he stood abruptly and turned to her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Diana swallowed, then lifted her chin. “You did not come to me, so I came to you.”

  He set down his glass with a sharp click on the side table, then strode to the bed. She could not see his face; the firelight behind him made him seem a tall, looming shadow. He stood there, silent, his fists on his waist. “I want no sacrificial lamb, Diana.”

  “I am not—you see I came here willingly.”

  “Really?” He walked to the bed, then pushed her down to the pillows. He moved upon her, his lips hovering over hers. “You are shaking, my dear.”

  “If I am, it is because I do not know what to expect of you,” she retorted, anger flaring. “You have made sure of it.” She was glad of her anger; it banished her trembling.

  “You could have stayed in your room.”

  She could feel his breath upon her lips, and his heart beating against her own wildly thumping one. “If you must know,” she said angrily, “I did not want to be alone. I was afraid.”

  A sigh slipped from him, and he moved off of her. “I will summon a maid to stay with you.”

  “No.” She clutched his arm. “I wish to be here, with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Ohh!” She thumped the bed with her fist. “Must I always be the one to reveal myself? It is not fair! I will tell you nothing more of myself if you do not tell me of you. I will stay here, and you will stay here. If I must, I will hold you down with all my might—and you will have to fight me, for I am very strong, stronger than you might think.” Her words spilled from her lips, stumbling over each other with mixed anger, frustration, and chagrin.

  “Now that is an interesting prospect,” Gavin replied. “I have never been held down by a woman before. I wonder if I shall like it? How would you do it?” He held out his hands. “Perhaps you should try.”

  “Ohhh!” Diana cried in frustration, and covered her face with her hands. “I wish you would not—oh, you are odious!”

  “What, are you not going to hold me down?” A large sigh came from him. “I was beginning to look forward to it.”

  There was silence for a moment, while Diana thought of how she might wreak vengeance upon his head, and then she moved her fingers apart and looked at him. He was lying on his side, watching her, a wide grin on his face.

  “You are a horrible man,” she said. “I do not know why I consented to marry you.”

  “Because it was better than . . .” He paused as if thinking over a difficult problem. “Than being alone by yourself in a strange room.”

  “You are also very silly.”

  He laughed. “Come, then.” He pushed aside the bedcovers, and she slid in, and he pulled them up again under her chin. His hand went to the belt of his robe, and she closed her eyes, feeling the trembling come over her again. The bedcovers rustled, the bed shifted and dipped, and then was still. Diana opened her eyes again—he was lying as he was before, except she could sec he had no shirt on. She made herself look at him, at his bare chest and then at his face. “I won’t do anything you will not like,” he said gently. He stroked her cheek, and slipped his arm beneath her head, drawing her closer.

  Diana stiffened then relaxed. He was only holding her, that was all, and it was like a hug, only lying down. It was, in fact, very comfortable. She let herself put her head upon his chest, rubbing her cheek against it, and heard him draw in a long breath and let it out again. She waited, but he did nothing more except stroke her arm and then her waist.

  She began to feel warm and a little drowsy, and she turned a little, snuggling into him. Another sigh came from him.

  “Diana,” he said softly, “you are a mystery. So strong and brave, but very afraid. Afraid even of people looking at you. And yet you look the wildest stallion in the eye without the slightest qualm. I wonder what makes you so.”

  Her mind drifted over her life, touched upon her resolution to face what questions she avoided, and flinched. She opened her eyes—she must have almost fallen asleep. “If I tell you, you must tell me about your life.” She did not know what made her say it; perhaps it was because she felt so comfortable.

  There was silence, then: “Very well.”

  She was fully awake now. “Do you promise?”

  A pause. “Yes, I promise.”

  “I do not like people looking at me because . . . because I am afraid they will see the bad thing about me.” There, she said it. The trembling shook her again. But he held her close and rocked her a little, and it subsided.

  “I have not seen anything bad, Diana,” he said. His voice was gentle and comforting. “Did I not say I fell in love with you the moment I saw you? I did not see anything wrong then, and I do not now.”

  “But you were joking.”

  “No, I was not.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “You were not?” He bent down and kissed her. “I was not,” he said again. A sigh escaped her. “I am glad.”

  The fire in the hearth crackled in the room’s silence while the tolling of a distant clock came from somewhere in the house. “What is the bad thing you think you have?” he said at last.

  His arms were still around her, and his hand was still stroking her waist, circling down to her hip and then to her ribs. How soothing it felt! “I don’t know,” she said. “But I had it when I was a girl, before my uncle came to take my mother and me away.”

  “How do you know?”

  Perhaps it would not be so terrible to tell him, Diana thought. Her mother said he was a listening sort of man. “It is a long story,” she said.

  “Tell me.” He held her closer, and she could not help letting out a deep sigh.

  “It was just before my uncle came for us. My father was dead, and we had little money, so Mama and I moved to smaller rooms. Mama was very good with the needle, so she went every day to a dressmaker’s shop to work, while I stayed behind and kept up our room, for we could afford no servants . . .”

  The memories came back, too clearly, as if they had been preserved in some cold, dark corner of her mind. They had had little food, and Diana’s mother had carefully parceled it out, but Diana could remember how her stomach had growled. “But I grew used to it,” she said. “One does, I think.” She felt Gavin press a light kiss on her hair, and she sighed again.

  She took pride in helping her mother, and made sure their room in the boarding house was clean and well-swept. She even took out the chamber pot, going down the stairs to empty it. But there was never enough money, and their clothes grew threadbare. Diana had wished she could somehow earn money, but could not think of a way to do it.

  But a man had approached her, one of the boarders—she had seen him before, watching her as she passed him from time to time, and he would smile, as if he liked her. He had offered her money if she would do something for him, and she was at first glad she could find a way to help her mother. She had even asked for the money first, and he had agreed with another smile.

  “And then he took off my clothes and looked and looked at me, and . . .” Diana faltered. Gavin’s grip upon her had tightened, and his hand had stopped stroking her.

  “You need not tell me,” he said, his voice a whisper.

  “Are you angry?”

  “Not at you,” he said. “Do
es your mother know?”

  “Yes, for I told her, and showed her the money. She was so angry, Gavin, and threw the coins away, then held me and kissed me as if I were a baby instead of a big girl. She did not let me go for a long time, weeping. She did not go to the dressmaker’s shop the next day, but wrote a letter to my uncle, and for more than a week we did not go out of the room, for that man who—that man would come to our door at all manner of times, and say hateful things through it.” She closed her eyes, and tried to slow her breathing, which came in gasps. “I could not go out, Gavin! Mama had locked the door, for she was afraid he would come in, and we could not even go out to buy food. She grew ill, and I was so afraid, but she would not let me go out to find a doctor. So we stayed, locked in, and sometimes I would tell myself stories, and pretend I was not inside, but outside, with nobody about but me. I pretended I would run, far away and fast, so no one could catch me. I did not feel so hungry that way.”

  Diana felt herself shaking again, and despised herself for not being strong enough to stop it. Gavin must despise her, too, for succumbing to the fear, for it had happened so long ago. Perhaps now he, too, could see what it was about her that was bad and caused that man to look and look at her as if she had something forbidden and evil in her. She rolled away from Gavin, but he only pulled her to him again, her back against his chest.

  “Stay with me, Diana.” He put another kiss upon her hair, and held her tight—if he kissed her, he must not despise her very much, she thought. His hand rubbed her waist, and then her back and shoulders, and the shaking dissipated. He kissed her cheek, a brief touch, and she felt her body loosen and relax. “Your uncle came for you then, am I right?”

  She sighed again. “Yes, and the door opened wide, and he took us away, and I have never seen so bright a house as Brisbane House, or a place as free and green and clean as this area of Somerset. It was heaven to me. I could go out-of-doors whenever I wanted, and ran and ran, just as I had pretended in that dark room in London. I learned how to ride horses, and it was better than any pretending, for it was as if I could fly, anywhere.”

  “And the man—what of him?”

  Diana tensed, but Gavin’s fingers were rubbing her neck, and she could not stay tense for long. “I remember Uncle Charles told me he had got rid of him.”

  “Ah, well,” he said in a conversational tone. “Since your uncle was an efficient and thorough man, I imagine he must have got rid of that damn bloody”—he rattled off a number of unfamiliar words—“quite well.”

  “You are angry,” Diana said.

  “Only because your uncle has robbed me of the chance to get rid of that”—more unfamiliar words—“myself.”

  She rolled over onto her back. “Would you have?”

  “Yes,” he said, kissing her gently. “Except I would have tortured him first.”

  “Really? How?”

  He grinned suddenly. “You are a bloodthirsty wench. I would have strung him up through his”—he paused—“his ankles.”

  Diana shuddered, then thought about how agonized and ill with weeping and hunger her mother had been so long ago. “Very appropriate,” she said firmly. She released a long breath, and with it a dark, hard knot inside of her also loosened. She gazed at him smiling at her, and touched his face; he took her hand and kissed her fingers.

  “What a pity Brisbane House does not have a dungeon,” he said, his grin growing wider.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I would have had him chained up so that you could have thrown hot irons at him. Think how satisfying that would have been. Do you think your mother would have liked to have participated, as well?”

  Diana laughed, for the image of her gentle and delicate mother savagely flinging hot irons at the villain was absurd. But she said, “I think she would have enjoyed it immensely,” and realized perhaps her mother would have.

  “I see I have married into a family of very fierce women,” he said, and kissed her again.

  “Do you mind?” she said, a little breathlessly.

  “No,” he said. “I adore fierce women.” And kissed her again, gently, but she opened her mouth to him as he had asked her that time in the maze and the kiss turned deep.

  It was a gloriously rich kiss, full and slow, and she could only move languidly, her arms sliding up around his neck and around his back. She felt his hands move down her shoulders to her waist, then to her hips, pulling her up hard against him.

  Then, abruptly, he moved away from her. He gazed at her, an intense heat in his eyes, but he only stroked her cheek. “I think perhaps you might not be ready for this.”

  At first she was bewildered, not sure what he meant, then remembered what her mother had told her regarding the marriage bed. “I do not know, either,” she said honestly. “But I shall not know if we do not try.”

  He kissed her again, gently. “If you wish me to stop at any time, then tell me and I shall.” His smile was wry. “It’ll be damned difficult, but I shall stop. I won’t even look at you if you would prefer I do not.”

  She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “I will have to try not to be so afraid . . . and you have said you have not seen anything bad about me—yet.”

  He chuckled. “I shall never see anything bad about you.” “Then I think I shall not mind it much if you look at me.” “Good,” he said, and kissed her again, and began unbuttoning her gown. He slipped his hand inside the bodice and then stopped. “What is this?”

  She gazed at him uncertainly. The fire and candlelight illuminated surprise, not anger or disgust, and she let out a deep breath. “It is my bindings.” He looked at her questioningly. “When I don’t put them on, I receive too many looks, and so I have taken to putting them on most of the time.”

  “Even when you sleep?” He looked incredulous. “They must be damned uncomfortable.”

  “Not when I sleep.” She bit her lip, embarrassed. “Tonight I was afraid . . .”

  “My dear, you need not be. I did say I would stop if you did not like what I do.”

  She thought about this for a moment. She had resolved not to be cowardly, and so she would not. “I will take them off, then,” she said.

  She sat up, and pulled down the top of her nightgown, blushing, for Gavin slowly sat up as well, watching her, the bedcovers dropping down about his hips. The candlelight burnished the lean, hard planes of his chest and the muscles of his arms, but he did not at all seem self-conscious about his bareness. She supposed such things were allowed between a husband and wife. She tugged at the knot at one side, then grimaced. “I am afraid I tied it too tightly.”

  She thought he uttered a small groan, but he said, “Let me try.” His fingers fumbled with the knot, and his hands seemed oddly unsteady. “Devil take it,” he muttered, and moved off the bed. She quickly averted her eyes, but not before the firelight caught the long lean stretch of thigh and buttock. A glint caught her eyes, and she gasped.

  A dagger. It was small and neat, and she gazed at him, wondering why he carried such a weapon. She watched him as he pulled at the knot, and quickly slit the fabric behind it. The two ends fell apart, and he tossed the knot aside, then tucked the knife somewhere to the side of the bed.

  His eyes met hers, almost a challenge, and her questions died on her lips. She took the ends of the bindings in her hands instead, and began to unwind it from around her. A glance at his face made her hands shake; he was watching with a very odd expression, one she did not know how to interpret.

  Finally she was done, and forced her hands to her sides, though they curled up into fists. She would not be a coward, and if Gavin despised her or was repulsed by her, then she would make herself bear it. She would even bind herself up again, and not mind being uncomfortable.

  “Dear God in Heaven,” he whispered.

  She could not stand it. “I am sorry,” she said, and hid her face in her hands. “I am sorry if I disgust you.”

  “Disgust me?”

  Was the
re a laugh in his voice? She brought her hands down, fists once again, and looked at him. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said angrily. “And . . . and you should not take God’s name in vain.” It was a ridiculous protest, considering the amount of vulgar cursing she had heard from him already, but she could think of nothing else to say.

  This time he did laugh. “Madam, that was no curse, but a prayer of the most heartfelt thanksgiving.” His arms came around her and pulled her down to the bed, kissing her hotly. “I have been blessed,” he said, with each word trailing kisses from her throat to the tip of one breast. “Not only have I managed to marry the lady with whom I have fallen desperately in love, but she has the most magnificently endowed figure I could have ever imagined.” He kissed her lips again, and kissed another line from throat to her other breast. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said between each kiss.

  She began to giggle, because the kisses tickled, and then she began to laugh because she felt suddenly free—and she was, of course, because she had not her bindings on, but she felt free inside, as if some binding on her heart was also gone. She could not stop giggling, for his hands went all over her and his fingers sliding over her breasts and belly and thighs tickled terribly.

  Her laughter ceased, however, when he pulled her hand down upon him, and she looked at him wide-eyed. She bit her lip, wondering if it would be proper if she looked. Well, she had allowed him to look at her; she certainly should be allowed to look at him! Carefully she glanced downward.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “I do not think that was a curse,” Gavin said, breathing deeply himself.

  “No, it was not,” Diana said. “You see, I have seen how horses go about breeding, and I was afraid yours would be as large as a stallion’s. I am very thankful it is not, for I believe I would have a difficult time of it if it were.”

  A choking sound came from him, and he suddenly buried his face between her breasts, his shoulders shaking. She pushed at him, and he rolled over, roaring with laughter.

  “That’s a devilish thing to say to one’s bridegroom,” he said, gasping.