He shook himself and penned down another name on the foolscap. Joseph Beefly. Miserable last name, but the man was nice and steady, and a girl could do much worse for a husband. He did have a bit of a paunch, but on the other hand he didn’t drink too much and he didn’t abuse women. His breath wasn’t offensive and he bathed often enough. He rather thought that Emily would do well with Joseph. As Sara had said, Tess her echo, a husband, after all, was a husband, and had to, perforce, stay put. Ryder paused for a moment to stare pensively into the wispy flame cast out by the single candle at his left elbow.
The list he’d compiled was impressive and he’d managed to add a couple more names. Alongside each woman’s name he listed at least four men’s names. It was a good thing he’d lived here all his life. He knew nearly everyone within a fifty-mile radius. So many men, thank the good Lord. Choice was important. The good Lord knew, too, that not all the women would want husbands. But he wanted to be certain each of them was well taken care of. He would naturally provide them all with dowries if they wished to wed. Those who didn’t—well, they would get dowries too. He wondered if he should also compile a list of possible protectors to be found in London. No, it was too crass, far too crude for a polished sort like him.
He thought of his children then and smiled. They were a constant in his life and would always remain so. He didn’t doubt for a moment that there would be more. Lord, he missed them. He anticipated the following day with pleasure.
Finally, having tired of his list and of making Sophie writhe in uncertainty, he rose and stretched. He blew out the candle. He knew every inch of Northcliffe and had no need to light his way.
Sophie wasn’t asleep. She was sitting up in bed, staring toward the far corner of the bedchamber. Ryder quickly lit a candle and quietly approached the bed. At first she didn’t pay him any heed. Then she turned and he saw that her face was pale, her eyes dilated, and she blinked into the candlelight.
He frowned down at her. “What’s the matter? Did you have a nightmare?”
She shook her head. He stared a moment at all that tousled thick hair that fell onto her face and over her shoulders. She ran her tongue over her lips. Her hands fisted at the covers at her waist. “I think I just met your Virgin Bride.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Virgin Bride—the Sherbrooke ghost. I guess Sinjun was right, she wanted to welcome me to your blasted family. Maybe.”
“Bosh. You had a strange dream, nothing more.”
Sophie just shook her head. She’d been afraid at first, very afraid, but then the young woman, a ghost presumably, had merely looked at her, and she would have sworn that she spoke, but she knew she hadn’t because she’d been looking at her face and her lips hadn’t moved. But she knew she heard her soft voice clearly saying softly, but with absolute conviction, “Don’t worry. Even when they come it will be all right.”
“Who?” Sophie had said aloud. “Please, what do you mean?” The young woman had shimmered in the dim light that hadn’t really been there, just shimmered and retreated, quickly, yet there hadn’t been any real movement, nothing jerky, just the quiet grace of the still air. She’d seen her clearly yet the bedchamber was dark, too dark to make out the details she knew she’d seen. Then she was simply gone, her hand stretched out toward Sophie, just as Ryder had come into the room.
“Sophie, there’s no such thing as the damned Virgin Bride. It’s a simple legend. Sinjun is a fanciful girl—it wouldn’t surprise me if she occasionally plays the blighted young lady just to tease us. No, you dreamed her up.”
“No I didn’t. She spoke to me, Ryder, only she didn’t, not really, but I heard her, and the words were very clear.”
He was caught, he couldn’t deny it. He set the candle on the tabletop beside the bed and sat down beside her, not touching her. “What were the words she didn’t really say?”
“She said that I wasn’t to worry, that even when they come it will be all right.”
He frowned at that. Such a message was unexpected. He’d rather thought the words would hark to some sort of secret treasure or some such. Perhaps that Sophie would bear twins and they would grow up to wed English royalty.
“What the hell does that mean? Who are ‘they,’ for God’s sake?”
“I asked her but she just disappeared. Then you came in. I think you chased her away.”
“Nonsense.”
Sophie turned to him, frowning, then realized that she was in her nightgown and he was sitting next to her, fully dressed, thank God, but still. He was here, sitting on the bed, and he was her husband. She forgot the ghost and the message. She forgot her lamentable behavior of the afternoon. She even forgot, for the moment, those two very lovely young women. She very slowly began to move away from him until she was on the edge of the other side of the bed.
Ryder pretended not to notice. He rose, stretched, and began to take off his clothes.
She wouldn’t watch him this time, she wouldn’t. She said, “What have you been doing? It’s quite late.”
“Ah, just a bit of this and that.”
“You were with one of your legion of women, weren’t you?”
“Legion? No more than a small battalion. I’m only one man, Sophie, no matter how much you stand in awe of my strength and vigor.”
“I don’t care. Your claims to such prowess is absurd. You are jesting with me, mocking me, and I don’t like it. Keep a hundred women, nay, five hundred. It matters not to me.”
“Are you certain about that, Sophie? You saw only two today and you went really quite charmingly mad.”
She looked at him. He was naked. He was just standing there on the other side of the bed, quite without a stitch of clothing on. He was tall and lean and very nicely formed, she would give him that. She looked furtively toward the bedchamber door.
“No, no more races down the corridor. I prefer to be the only man to see you wearing only your beautiful hide.”
“It was very embarrassing. It was difficult to face your brother today.”
“I imagine that it was. However, perhaps Douglas is excessively myopic. Now, just to clear the air between us, I know that you’ve wanted to box my ears all evening. Please feel free to box metaphorically, to express your heartfelt rage, to expound freely on your woman’s ire.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you? You would enjoy me squawking like a fool so it would make you feel important. Men like to have women fighting over them, they like to be the center of everything. Well, I will tell you, Ryder Sherbrooke, I felt nothing! Absolutely nothing, less than nothing. It was merely that I felt angry for your brother. It must be beyond embarrassing for the earl to have all these women hanging about Northcliffe Hall, hanging on your arm and whispering nonsense into your ears and kissing you.”
“Really? That sounds very rehearsed to me. Not bad, don’t misunderstand me. Just practiced, perhaps a dozen times.” He scratched his belly and her eyes followed every movement of his long fingers. He wasn’t all that hairy, but the thick light brown hair at his groin ... she managed to look back to his face. He knew she’d been looking at him, he knew, but he said only, “Goodness, so you wish me to believe that all your curses at me were in defense of my poor beleaguered brother’s sensibilities?”
Sophie knew she was digging a hole that would eventually reach to China if she didn’t stop now. She tightened her lips until it hurt. She just shook her head.
“It pleases me that you’ve found a bit of control. But, my dear wife, if you wish to continue to rant, please do, I don’t mind.”
“Go to the devil,” she said, then concentrated on keeping her mouth shut.
Ryder raised his arms and stretched. She was looking at him again and he knew it, and his sex swelled quite predictably, there was nothing he could do about it. She stared at him for a very long time, then jerked, as if finally realizing what she was doing. She looked away, toward the windows.
“You quite terrified both Sara and Tess,” he said, dumping a bi
t of oil into the fire. “They couldn’t accept at first that I would enjoy a possessive, quite jealous wife.”
She managed not to take the bait.
He smiled at the back of her head as he stepped to the bed. He pulled back the covers and climbed in.
She felt the bed give and knew if she were going to run it had to be now.
“Don’t, Sophie.”
“Don’t what, you wretched bounder?”
“Try to run again. I locked the bedchamber door.”
This was ridiculous. She knew it and so did he. She closed her eyes a moment, then slowly she turned to face him. “Ryder,” she said, “I don’t want you to force me again. Please don’t shame me or make me beg you.”
“Lie down, Sophie. On your back.”
She shook her head.
“Now, if you please. If you’re good to me, I will tell you a story. Would you like that?”
“No,” she said, but she lay down.
“Good.” He leaned over her, looking down, studying her face. A beautiful face to him. He touched his fingertip to the tip of her nose. “I’m very glad you’re here,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re you and I managed quite by a wonderful stroke of luck to find you and I even had the good sense to marry you.”
“That’s absurd. I’m nothing, when will you admit it? You were simply caught up in a series of very strange happenings. You felt sorry for me, finally, nothing more. Your mother despises me. I don’t belong here. Please, Ryder—”
“I was thinking about that,” he said slowly, and his fingers continued to lightly touch her jaw, her nose, her mouth. “About not belonging here. You’re right.”
She froze, a blaze of unexpected pain going through her.
“No, no, you misunderstand. This isn’t your home. Alex is the mistress here, though I imagine she must fight my mother to gain what she wishes, the poor girl. No, this isn’t your home. I have a home, Sophie, in the Cotswolds, not far from Strawberry Hill. That’s where my cousin, Tony Parrish, and his wife, Melissande, live.”
“You have a home?”
“I’ve never lived there. It’s called Chadwyck House. I visit it three or four times a year. There is a good deal of farm acreage and there are some twenty tenant families living there. I have a steward—a fellow named Allen Dubust—who deals with the daily affairs.” He paused, frowning a moment. “I’m beginning to believe that a man should deal with his own affairs. What do you say, Sophie? Shall we go to Chadwyck House? Would you like to be the mistress of your own home?”
Her eyes had lightened. He wasn’t mistaken about that. There was pleasure there that temporarily had tamped down her fear of him.
“Yes,” she said only. She opened her mouth but he lightly touched his fingers over her lips.
“No, my dear, I know you would like to ask me all sorts of questions to keep me from making love to you. We will speak more of Chadwyck House afterward.”
“I want you to stop reading my mind before I have a chance to do it properly for myself.”
“I have this affinity for you. I can’t seem to help myself. Now, Sophie, I want you to do me a favor.”
She stared up at him, frozen and wary.
“I am your husband. I won’t ever hurt you. I have your best interests at heart. Nod your head if you at least understand what I’ve said.”
She nodded.
“Good, a healthy start. I want to make something else very clear to you. I will make love to you every night. I want you to become used to me, to trust me. I want to erase all the other men, I want you to simply dismiss all the meanness and violence of your uncle from your mind. I want you to think only of me, of us.”
“It is very difficult.”
“I know, but today you were a hellion again, a possessive wench, the savage Amazon who saved my hide in Jamaica from Thomas’s knife. So I have hope. Now, let’s get that nightgown off you. I want no clothes between us, Sophie, not at night, not when we’re alone. I want to look at you. I want to feel your breasts in my hands.”
“Ryder, I really don’t want—”
“I don’t give a good damn, Sophie, so stop your bleating. Tonight, perhaps you will allow yourself to have some pleasure. I’m going to kiss you, every sweet inch of you. I will never give up on you, so you might as well accustom yourself to coming about to meet me halfway.”
He kept talking, nonsense really, some of it quite amusing, and he would have given anything for a simple smile from her. But she just lay there, silent and withdrawn. She didn’t fight him, but she held herself stiff, her hands fisted at her sides. Ryder wanted to nibble on her toes, he wanted to taste the soft flesh between her thighs, but the woman who lay on her back beneath him wasn’t about to give an inch. Oddly enough, he wasn’t unduly disturbed: he hadn’t lied to her. He would never give up. She didn’t realize it yet but they would be together until they shucked off their mortal coils. “I see I will have to wait a while longer to kiss every white inch of you.” He did kiss her breasts, enjoying the taste of her, the texture of her flesh, and his hands were on her belly, and then lower, his fingers finding her and lightly stroking her. She tried to pull away. He stopped. It was a beginning.
Ryder wasn’t about to enter her until she could take him without pain. He’d promised her and he wouldn’t break his promise. No more savaging her as he’d done the previous night. He simply drew away from her, patted her cheek, and told her to stay put. He fetched a jar of cream from the night table beside the bed.
“What is that?” Her eyes never left his fingers, which were dipping into that jar.
“You will see. Hush.”
He pushed her back down onto her back and held her there, his hand on her belly, pressing her thighs open with his legs, while he eased his slick finger inside her. He closed his eyes a moment at the feel of her. Dear God, he wanted her. He smoothed in the cream slowly and gently, his finger going more deeply into her, and then he inserted a second finger to widen her. It was almost more than he could bear. She was trembling and trying to pull away from him, but he held her still.
“Stop, damn you!” She tried to bring her legs together, but succeeded only in pushing his finger deeper inside her.
“Shush, sweetheart. No, I will use cream on you until you let me love you properly. Don’t you like my finger sliding inside you, Sophie?”
“No.”
“I like it very much. I will do it every time we make love. Get used to it. Ah, you’re more yielding, Sophie. Can you feel it? You’re softening for me though your active brain doesn’t like it.”
When he’d widened her, when he had made her soft and ready, he came over her. Very slowly, he came into her, controlling his entry, watching her face in the candlelight. There was no pain, he knew it, and he knew that she wouldn’t ever be able to throw that up at him again. He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to bring her to pleasure this time either. What was important was that her body begin to recognize him, that when he touched her, she would eventually respond without her mind trying to dismiss him.
He would have her yet. Patience was all he needed. He stroked deeply into her now, then pulled nearly out of her. He continued slowly, every feeling in him attuned to her. It suddenly occurred to him that he was behaving quite differently with Sophie than he had with every other woman in his male life. Before, when he’d come into a woman, he’d known almost instant irreversible lust. He couldn’t have stopped if a tidal wave had swamped him. But not with Sophie. She was at the center of all his feelings. His body, his mind, both were focused entirely on her. He would do anything to bring her around and he didn’t care how long it took him to succeed. He would win. His own body would wait. Another novel occurrence, and one Douglas would doubtless disbelieve.
He remembered his brother’s joke about having his valet sew his britches shut because Ryder couldn’t stop once he’d begun, he couldn’t make himself withdraw from a woman. With Sophie it was different, simply because h
e was different.
He wished he could make her laugh. He lightly caressed his fingers over her belly, down, to find her again. He teased her soft woman’s flesh, nothing more, just teased and stroked. Soon she would respond to him. And he kissed her and didn’t stop kissing her.
He found his release eventually, but he didn’t yell like a wild man. He moaned his pleasure into her mouth, holding her close to him, letting her feel the movement of his sex deep inside her, letting her feel the heat of his body.
He was amazed at himself and pleased. It was a start. She was lying there, but this time there were no tears. If he wasn’t mistaken, she looked surprised. Exactly about what, he wasn’t sure. He continued kissing her until he eased off her. Then he pulled her against him, stroked her hair, massaged her scalp, and said quietly, “Now I will keep my promise. Remember? I said I would tell you a story if you were good to me. You did well, Sophie. You will do better the next time and the next time after that. Now, this story is about a one-legged pirate who found himself marooned with three lusty women. The first woman’s name was Belle and she was a strapping girl, all breasts and wide hips. Well, she fell instantly in love with him—of course he was the only man she’d seen in a good three months. She flung him onto the beach and ripped off his clothes. But then the second woman came along—her name was Goosie—and she saw that wooden leg and knew this was the man for her. Her favorite hobby was carving wood into ships and such. She’d carved up a good dozen palm trees during those long three months. So the two women were arguing and shouting at each other and the pirate was lying there quite naked and grinning like an ape at his good fortune, when the other woman—her name was Brassy—came along. You wouldn’t believe what she did.”
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