She silently watched David Lochridge ride away from her. She did her errands. The draperer, Mr. Mulligan, shook his head when she left his shop. Poor Mr. Sherbrooke had wed himself to a half-witted female. It was a pity.
When she returned to Chadwyck House, she went upstairs to the master bedchamber that she and Ryder had changed completely. The walls were painted a soft pale yellow. There was a lovely pale cream and blue Aubusson carpet on the floor. She went to the now sparkling-clean window and stared out over the newly scythed east lawn. So beautiful. It looked like a Garden of Eden. It was her home. But not for much longer. Slowly, very slowly, she eased down to her knees. She bent over, her face in her hands, and she sobbed.
Mrs. Chivers, the newly installed housekeeper, saw her, managed to keep her mouth shut, and searched out the master. Ryder, not knowing what to expect, and firmly believing that Mrs. Chivers had misinterpreted Sophie’s actions, still came to her immediately. He stopped cold in the doorway, staring at his wife. He felt a coursing of sheer fear.
He strode to her, nearly yelling, “Sophie, what the hell is wrong with you?”
She whipped about, staring at him. Oh God, what to tell him? That everything was over now? That the Sherbrooke name was on the verge of being ruined and that she was responsible? Oh God, Ryder had temporarily lost his furniture but she had brought utter devastation on his family.
She tried to get a hold of herself. He dropped to his haunches beside her and she felt his hands close over her upper arms. Slowly and very gently, he turned her to face him. Her face was without color, her eyes swollen from crying.
“No, no, don’t cry,” he said and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “There is one very good thing about marriage, Sophie. You’re not alone. There’s another person to help you, no matter what the problem, no matter what the hurt. Talk to me, sweetheart, please.”
She shook her head against his chest.
Ryder frowned over her head. It was she who had kept his spirits buoyed since they’d arrived here. It was she who’d directed the servants, who had overseen the meals, who had herself swept and cleaned and dusted and smiled through it all. She’d been happy, dammit. He knew it. What the hell had happened?
Her crying stopped. She hiccuped. He felt the soft movement of her breasts against his chest and felt instant and overwhelming lust. Her monthly flow had ended several days before but she’d been so tired, so utterly exhausted at the end of each day, that he’d simply held her at night.
But now, he wanted her. Very much.
“Talk to me, Sophie,” he said again.
She straightened and leaned back, still held in the loose circle of his arms. “My knees hurt.”
“We have a bed. Come, let’s sit down.”
She eyed that bed, knew that he wanted her, she wasn’t blind. His sex was swelled against his trousers. She saw Lord David naked and stroking his sex, she felt again how he’d kissed her, stabbing his tongue into her mouth before she’d managed to distract him, and how he always stripped off his clothes at the cottage and showed her his body and his sex and how big he was and how he was going to take her.
And Charles Grammond, middle-aged, his belly sagging, not a bad man really, pathetically grateful when she’d first told him she would take him as her lover, and then how he’d changed, catching her in the middle of the day to force her against a tree and she’d had to hit him with her riding crop and he’d only laughed and pulled his sex from his britches and told her he wanted his sex in her mouth and she could do it now. And, dear God, she’d helped to ruin him even as she’d told him what a wonderful lover he was. And he pranced about, so pleased with himself, bragging about his virility—didn’t he have four living children to prove it?
Now both of them were here. Both of them believed her a whore. Both of them would take great delight in ruining her. She clearly remembered the looks both men would give her whenever they saw her, and what they said to her in their lewd whispers, how they spoke about the nights they’d spent with her and what they’d done to her and she’d done to them....
She jerked away from Ryder. He stared at her, his head cocked to one side in question.
She bounded to her feet, turned, grabbed up her skirts, and ran from the bedchamber.
He stared after her. He’d seen the blankness on her face when she’d looked at the bed, followed by the myriad facial expressions he knew were from her damned memories of Jamaica, and all when she’d seen his sex swelled against his britches.
He had hoped, prayed, that she was coming around to trusting him. His jaw tightened. He wouldn’t let this continue, he couldn’t.
He bided his time for the remainder of the day. There was always so much to be done that there wasn’t any particular discomfort between them, even during dinner when they were alone. That night, at ten o’clock, Ryder stepped into their bedchamber, and saw that Sophie wasn’t in bed. She was seated in a wing chair in front of the fireplace, her legs tucked beneath her, a book in her lap.
“I finished my work,” he said.
The book, a collection of essays by John Locke, slipped off her lap. She made no move to retrieve it.
Ryder leaned down and picked it up. “Where the devil did you find this?”
“Your Mr. Dubust left it.”
“I don’t blame him. Listen to this: ‘Latin I look upon as absolutely necessary to a gentleman.’ What an appalling notion. I imagine that my youngest brother, Tysen—the future cleric—is now quite fluent in Latin. He says that his congregation will glean his meaning from his intonation, that the words aren’t important, that God didn’t mean for common folk to really understand in any case, only to gain the holy essence—whatever that may be—which will come from him, naturally.”
“Your brother really said that?”
“He tried, but he hasn’t the facility to be as fluent as I am.”
“Nor has he your modesty, I doubt.”
“Good,” Ryder said, tossing the book back into her lap, “a bit of vinegar. Now, Sophie, it’s time for you to come with me over to that bed. I know you had a bath earlier so that excuse went out with the bathwater.”
“I don’t want to, Ryder.”
She was twisting her hands. It was amazing, his strong Sophie, the woman who had directed a score of servants during the past week, humming while she worked, was wringing her hands like a helpless twit.
“Nor do you want to tell me why you were crying this afternoon?”
“No. It isn’t important, truly. It was just that... I lost some silverware.”
Ryder only shook his head at her. He stripped off his clothes then came back to stand in front of the drowsing fire, naked, to gaze down at the orange embers.
She stared at him, she couldn’t help it. He stretched out his hand to her. “Come along now, sweetheart. I’m going to try my damnedest to give you some pleasure tonight. And if I fail you tonight, why then, there will be tomorrow night and the night after that.”
She shook her head even as he was jerking her to her feet. He picked her up in his arms, carried her to the bed, and gently laid her on her back. He quickly unfastened the sash on her dressing gown.
He ignored the stiffness of her body, the pallor of her face, the damned wariness he saw in her eyes. He stripped off her nightgown, then straightened and stared down at her.
“No, don’t cover yourself.”
She turned her face away from him, and fisted her hands at her sides.
“You’re beautiful, Sophie, not a dream princess like Melissande, certainly, but as she pointed out, you’re pretty nonetheless. I’ll keep you. Now I’m going to ... no, let me just show you.”
He came down beside her, lying on his side, and very gently he stroked his fingertips over her jaw, her lips, her nose, then smoothed her eyebrows. He simply looked at her and touched her face.
She looked up at him then.
“Ryder,” she said, “I know that you want to take me. You don’t have to play about with me as you�
��re doing now. Please, just get it over with. I won’t fight you. I know that it will do no good. I’m tired and want it over with.”
He laughed.
“Ah, all those other damned men. ‘Take you’... what a wonderful way to say ‘making love.’ Well, let me tell you something, Mrs. Sherbrooke, you’re my wife. I want to play with you until you’re yelling with pleasure. I want you to enjoy yourself. I want you to laugh and kiss me back and play with me. No, you can’t begin to understand that, can you? But you will come to understand.”
He leaned down and kissed her mouth, very gently, his own mouth light as moth’s wings. He continued kissing her until he finally felt her ease beneath him. “Do you know how wonderful you taste to me? How much I enjoying kissing you?”
“It isn’t bad,” she admitted, sounding a bit worried. Even as she parted her lips to speak, he gently slipped his tongue inside her mouth and touched hers.
She started, becoming stiff as a bed slat.
Ryder was again in firm control of himself, just as he’d been before. Everything in him was focused on her, on her reactions, her shifts of expressions, the lightness or darkness of her gray eyes. All that he wanted was for her to become one with him, to replace all her memories with him—his laughter, his sheer joy in life, his pleasure in her.
He simply continued what he was doing. There was all the time in the world. The night was long. He figured she didn’t have a chance.
He talked to her, distracting her from the memories he knew crept into her mind whilst he touched her. He told her how much he admired her breasts, that they were as white as fresh snow and as round as her belly would be when she was carrying his child. Ah, and her belly, he spanned his fingers to her pelvic bones and told her she should easily carry their children, as many as she wished to bear, and then he began to caress her, his fingers light and caressing her warm belly. When his fingers lightly touched her woman’s soft flesh, she lurched up in bed and scrambled away from him.
He was so startled that she escaped him. He watched her blankly dash naked across the bare floor to the windows on the eastern side of the bedchamber. She stood there, her back to him, her head bowed.
He went to her, frowning, but said nothing, merely placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her gently back against him.
“Now, what is all this about?”
“I feel so dirty.”
Good Lord, he thought, staring at the back of her head, the dam had finally burst. About time too. He said slowly, “Finally you tell me the truth. It’s about time, Sophie. Now we will deal with it.”
She was silent.
“Somehow I don’t believe it was my fingers between your thighs that brought this on, but it helped, didn’t it? It made you remember—did you see one of the men doing that to Dahlia? Did one of the men force himself on you in that way?” He waited, but she said nothing. “All right then. You’re not built as I am, Sophie. For you to reach a woman’s pleasure, you must know caresses there between your thighs. There is no reason for you to feel dirty or ashamed or anything else except excitement and anticipation.”
“It’s not that entirely.”
“Ah,” he said, and felt a wrenching in his gut. As for his sex, all desire was long gone. “So some of those men touched you there? Fondled you there? Is that what this is all about? You would still have me battle memories, bloody ghosts?”
Ghosts, ha! she thought, shaking unconsciously.
“Sophie, talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, Ryder.”
He shook her then. “Damn you, woman, stop bleating like a twit sheep! You were a hellion when I met you and now you become a pathetic scrap on me. Stop it, dammit!”
She screamed at him, “All right, damn you, all right!” She jerked away, looked frantically around the bedchamber for something to hit him with, didn’t see anything, and dashed from the bedchamber.
“You’re naked!”
“Go to the devil!”
He was grabbing for his dressing gown when she ran back into the bedchamber. She was carrying a broom. She rushed at him, like a horseless knight in a joust, and he couldn’t help himself, he laughed. He hugged his belly he laughed so hard, at least until she hit him on the head. Then hit him again and again, cursing at him all the while.
The pain of the sharp bristles finally got through to him as well as the sharp throbbing over his left temple, and he grabbed the broom handle. But she was strong, bloody strong with determination and rage.
It took a good deal of strength on his part to get it away from her without hurting her.
He tossed it aside, and grabbed her, pulling her roughly up against him. He kissed her hard. His hands were on her buttocks, bringing her up to fit intimately against him. She arched her back and tried to bite him.
“The good Lord knows I’m glad you’re back,” he said, and kissed her hard again. He threw her over his shoulder and carried her to the bed.
“You feel dirty, do you? Well, my dear wife, let’s just see how you will feel when I get done with you.”
CHAPTER 19
SHE FOUGHT HIM, kicking, twisting, panting with effort. She shrieked at him, called him every name she’d ever heard hurled at another in Jamaica.
He only laughed and held her down.
When he was kissing her belly, she yanked viciously at his hair. It was then that Ryder just sighed, stripped off one of the pillowcases, and tied her hands above her head to one of the huge carved bedposts.
She could still hurt him with her legs but he could bear that. He went back to his pleasurable task. He kissed her white belly, slipping his tongue into her navel while his hands were stroking her inner thighs. He paused then, and looked at her. “You will like this, Sophie.” He dipped down, suddenly, and lifted her hips. He covered her with his mouth and she screamed, a high wailing sound that moved him not one whit.
He gently eased his middle finger inside her. Ah, he thought, she was damp. But still so very small. Well, it wouldn’t matter once she’d come to pleasure.
And she was loosening and opening, feeling something near to pain deep inside her, low in her belly, and it held her, made her want, and despite herself, despite her screaming curses at him, she was raising her hips to bring herself closer to him. His finger was deep inside her, moving in and out, and his mouth found a rhythm that drove her wild.
She knew something was coming, she wanted it desperately, and she still wanted to curse him for what he was doing to her. Then she moaned, jerking so violently he nearly dropped her, and she froze, but just for an instant.
Ryder raised his head from her for just a moment. “Still feel dirty, Sophie?”
She yelled at him even as her hips jerked and heaved, “You damned bounder, you bastard, you—”
“Just another moment, sweetheart, and you’ll understand. Keep cursing, it makes me want you to scream with pleasure all the more.”
She was crying now, her breath short and gasping, and he knew she didn’t understand that she was close, very close, and in the next instant, he pushed her, his finger deep, his mouth just as deep. He felt her legs stiffen, then felt the heaving contractions, the spasms that lifted her back off the bed.
He kept her there, locked into the climax, forcing the pleasure to continue, not to stop, but to go on and on until she was crying from the power of it, the finality of it, her acceptance of it. When finally she grew soft and yielding in his hands, he pulled her thighs wide apart and came into her, deep and hard.
He felt the sweet aftershocks of her climax and it was more than enough. He found his own release in the very next instant and he yelled his pleasure, not at his own climax, which was incredibly powerful, but at hers, at what he had finally given her.
She was slick with sweat, her breath deep and fast, and he lay on top of her, his sex still deep inside her, and he gently laid his palm on her heart.
He kissed her slack mouth. He simply looked down at her until she finally opened her eyes.
Shock, dazed shock.
He kissed her again, and she tasted herself and she simply couldn’t believe what had happened, couldn’t believe that she’d lost herself so completely, that even as she’d hated him and cursed him and wanted to kill him, her body had exploded into ferocious pleasure, and she’d wanted it, oh yes, she’d wanted it more than anything. And he’d watched her, and felt the wild spasms and known, known what he was doing to her, known how he was controlling her, known exactly what she was feeling. He kissed her again, then came up on his elbows.
“Your heart is finally slowing.”
She looked at his chin but felt the warmth of his chest against her breast, against her heart. He would mock her now, she thought, he would blare his triumph over her, he would grind her under and proclaim his mastery. She stiffened, waiting, knowing what would come.
He gently pushed the hair off her forehead, hair damp with the wildness of her pleasure, and he said very slowly, his voice deep and rough, “I love you, Sophie Sherbrooke. I never thought such a thing existed, but evidently it does. I love you and I will love you until I cock up my toes and pass to the hereafter and I will still love you even as I float about in eternity. And I will continue to force you to pleasure until you accept my love and take me into your heart as well as into your body.”
He suddenly looked startled. She felt him hard within her once again and, to her horror, she squirmed.
He didn’t laugh, didn’t mock her. He threw back his head, closed his eyes, and groaned. “Do you have any idea how you feel to me? Come with me again, Sophie, all right? Just let yourself go, forget all the past, those damned ghosts, just think of me and how I feel deep inside you. Just think about what my fingers are going to do to you, and my tongue—”
She didn’t want to fall apart again, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. In but an instant of time, she forgot about choice anyway. When he told her to wrap her legs around his flanks, she did so willingly and quickly, hugging him hard, lifting her hips to bring him deeper, and he groaned and she felt a burgeoning of those same feelings, those frantic barbaric feelings that stripped off everything except that wrenching pleasure that was so great it was nearly pain, but it wasn’t, it was within her and within him and somehow it made them as one. His hand was between their bodies, stroking her, caressing her, and then his mouth was against hers, his tongue deep inside her mouth just as his sex was inside her body. And she was howling and bucking in her frenzy, and he encouraged her, telling her what to do, telling her what she made him feel. Then, just as he plunged so deep he touched her womb, she convulsed with pleasure and screamed.
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