Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

“I’d like to be a country gentleman,” Owen said, as they passed a row of neat villas with well-kept gardens. “It would have suited me much better than a viscounty.”

  “You can be a country gentleman at Rothbury Chase,” Tess said.

  Owen laughed. “I didn’t want twenty-thousand acres,” he said. “That seems greedy. I don’t need so much.”

  There was such a warmth in his eyes when he looked at her that Tess’s heart tripped a beat.

  “I like these outings with you,” she said. “When we did this before we wed it felt as though we were becoming friends. Naively I thought how good it was to have a male friend. But now …” She stopped, trying to untangle her feelings. “I feel as though I have lost you in some way,” she said slowly.

  Owen shifted along the carriage seat and took her hand. “Why can there not be friendship between us?” he asked.

  “Because men and women generally cannot be friends,” Tess said.

  “As I recollect,” Owen said, “you were the best of friends with your first husband.”

  “That was different,” Tess argued. “Robert and I had known each other from childhood. In most cases, however, other things get in the way.”

  “Other things?” His brows rose.

  “You know what I mean!” Tess said. “Sex always gets in the way.”

  She saw that Owen was trying not to laugh. The amusement danced in his eyes and lifted the corner of his mouth. “You mean you do not think we will remain friends if we sleep with one another?”

  Tess was starting to feel very hot and bothered. She wished she had not introduced this topic of conversation at all. Talking about sex was one of the things that she never did, second only to not doing it. Sitting in the enclosed space of the carriage, holding Owen’s hand beneath the pile of rugs, felt cozy and intimate but there was an edge of something else to it now as well, something sensual and hot.

  “You are twisting my words,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon.” He sounded extremely courteous. “Correct me.”

  Tess made a little huffy sound. “Now you are making fun of me.”

  “On my honour I am not.”

  Tess dared a quick look at him and saw he could not quite banish the glimmer of amusement from his eyes. She felt a strange, giddy, sliding sensation inside her as his fingers interlaced with hers.

  “I swear it,” he said. “I am … fascinated … to hear your thoughts on the relationship between us and how it might change if we … ah … make love with one another.”

  Oh. Tess’s breath caught. She wished Owen had not used those words. Her mind translated them instantly into pictures of erotic excess. She felt very heated. The giddy sensation had transmuted into a tight coil of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Her lips parted. She felt no fear now, only an intriguing sense of what might happen.

  Owen was watching her, his eyes so intent on her face it was almost like a physical touch. His thumb was brushing the palm of her hand and it was creating the most delightful sensations in her.

  “Teresa,” he said. “You won’t lose me, if that is what you fear. We will still be the best of friends. Our marriage will simply be—” He paused. “Different.” His voice dropped. “Better, possibly, if you find you like it.” There was a thread of amusement in his tone. He brushed the hair away from the hollow of her collarbone. “My worship of your body,” he said softly, his eyes intent on the slow, sensual stroke of his fingers against her skin, “as well as my sincere admiration for your mind.”

  Her mind, Tess thought dazedly, was in danger of splintering into tiny pieces if he carried on like this.

  My worship of your body …

  She gave a tiny sensual shiver, remembering the way she had felt when he had kissed her on the ship, remembering that shift of sensation deep inside. Her body twitched again in recognition. It shocked her. Somewhere she possessed a knowledge she had not even guessed at.

  “I would like to worship every curve and every hollow you possess,” Owen whispered, “with the touch of my hands and my lips …” This time his mouth brushed her throat and Tess felt the echo of that touch in the pit of her stomach. The images rampaging through her mind now were setting her on fire. She did not understand what Owen was doing or how he could make her feel like this. His fingers were against her cheek and his touch felt good, as gentle as his next words. “There will be no more fear or revulsion,” he said. “I promise you, Teresa. There will be nothing but pleasure.”

  The tight knot of heat in Tess’s belly intensified. Instinctively she leaned into the caress of his fingers as they fell to the hollow at the base of her throat.

  “You like me touching you,” Owen said. “That’s good.” There was an edge of roughness to his words that unsettled her nerves. And she did like it. She was shocked at the knowledge, shocked by her reaction. She was so accustomed to thinking herself cold, but this heat in her blood was like a fever. Yet from the first, she had liked Owen touching her; his palm against the arch of her foot when he had helped her with her slippers outside the brothel; his hand on the small of her back when they had visited the Picture Gallery. Her heart contracted as she realised the truth.

  She not only liked him touching her, she ached for him to touch her. She wanted him.

  She closed her eyes and allowed the fear to empty from her mind so there was no thought, nothing but sensation, and when Owen’s mouth claimed hers a second later she felt pleasure so hot and sweet she almost groaned aloud. She recognised the taste and touch of him now and she craved it. When she felt the tip of his tongue coaxing her to open for him she parted her lips and allowed him in, and was at once lost in the mysterious feelings created by each delicious sweep of his tongue against hers.

  Nothing but pleasure …

  She felt starved for him, pressing closer into his embrace, hearing Owen groan against her lips with a ragged need that was an echo of the emotion that drove her.

  The carriage jerked to a halt, almost depositing her in Owen’s lap. Not that she would have minded.

  “We are here,” he said. His voice was a little hoarse. “I’m tempted to drive around in circles for a while but we had better not. I have no intention of consummating our marriage here any more than I had on the ship, and if I do not exercise a bit of control that is exactly what will happen.”

  “You are very particular,” Tess said. She sat for a moment trying to work out how she felt. The overriding sensation was one of strangeness. Her body felt thwarted with wanting. It was the most unfamiliar and curious feeling. Just as the kisses on the ship had ended too soon, so she had started to want to explore the feelings this kiss had aroused. Owen had definitely stopped before she was ready. She wanted him to kiss her again, for longer, thoroughly, properly or perhaps more improperly. A wedge of frustration lodged inside her.

  “Are you going to join me?” Owen was waiting to hand her down from the carriage.

  “I suppose so,” Tess said, sighing. “Though why you imagine I should wish to explore some sort of cave is quite beyond me.”

  “For the same reason you wished to ascend the Monument or visit Greenwich,” Owen said. “You like being with me. You said so yourself.”

  “Such arrogance,” Tess said, biting her lip to repress a smile.

  Owen swung her down to the ground and kept his arms about her for a second. “You know you like me, darling,” he murmured, his lips nuzzling her ear. “You have just shown me how much.”

  “I do,” Tess said. “I confess it.” She put a hand on the nape of his neck and brought his mouth down to hers. “I think,” she whispered against his lips, “that I am discovering something I enjoy almost as much as sightseeing.”

  Kissing Owen in the open air made her feel as wicked and carefree as a young girl, she discovered. It was a very long time since she had felt so light and alive. Her lips parted to allow his to fit them and delicious sensations swept through her again. Oh, she had such a curiosity about this now. It all but consumed her.
Cold snowflakes drifted down to melt against her face as the hot, languorous desire took her.

  “Teresa,” Owen said, pulling back, “we will become a tourist attraction in our own right if we carry on like this. Besides—” Tess heard his voice change as he felt her shiver in the bitter winter breeze “—on a practical note, it will be warmer underground.”

  “I had heard that Greenwich was an indecorous place,” Tess said, allowing him to take her hand and lead her towards the entrance to the caverns. “Now I know it’s true.”

  The attendant took Owen’s money and handed him a candle. Tess followed him down the deep steps cut into the rock. As they descended under the white archway of chalk the air grew warmer and the shadows deeper.

  “How frightfully gothic,” Tess said, shuddering as the caverns below glowed ghostly white in the candlelight. “When were they discovered?”

  “They were rediscovered a few years ago,” Owen said, “though no one knows when they originated. Perhaps they were quarried by the Romans.” He held the candle high as they reached the bottom and the natural light receded to a speck above their heads. “They hold dances down here. See the chandelier?”

  As Tess looked up, a stray draught of wind blew down the steps and set the chandelier tinkling like ghostly music. It doused the candle flame with a soft puff. Far above them the door slammed shut. Immediately the darkness closed around them and with it came a damp chill that seemed to seep from the walls and sink into her bone-deep. Tess shivered. Suddenly she felt much colder in the unrevealing gloom. Her memory was full of darkness, of a door closing and the light being extinguished. She fought the fear but it pressed in on her. She gave a little gasp of panic.

  Owen groped for her hand. “Are you all right?” he said urgently.

  “Yes.” Tess’s teeth were chattering. “I’m sorry. I am scared of the dark.”

  Owen gave a soft curse. “I was a fool for bringing you down here.”

  “No!” Tess squeezed his hand. “You said it yourself, Owen. I cannot spend my life in fear.”

  Owen drew her close. His arms were strong and comforting around her chilled body. Tess’s world steadied.

  “They will be down with a candle to light us out very soon,” he said.

  Tess turned her face up to his. “Why did it happen?”

  “A draught from above, or a lack of oxygen, perhaps,” Owen said. “Such things are enough to douse the lights completely.” His cheek brushed hers in the darkness, cool and a little rough. She felt his breath ruffle her hair. Instantly her senses filled with the scent of him, of cologne, ship’s tar, fresh air. She felt dizzy. She remembered their kisses, the feel of his lips against hers, the blaze of desire and the driving need to be closer still.

  But this felt different. Tess hesitated for a moment and then took a step closer and rested her hands against Owen’s chest. She pressed against him, instinctively seeking reassurance and comfort. She felt safe and loved and at the same time her heart pitched over and she felt as though she had stepped right off the cliff and into thin air.

  She felt his chest move against her cheek, felt his lips brush her brow, and her need transformed from the search for comfort to something sharper and hotter. Desire. She had so seldom felt it before. Now it burned her at every turn.

  She could feel Owen’s heartbeat beneath her fingers, felt it accelerate as she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips inexpertly to the corner of his mouth. The darkness was intimate, tempting. It made her feel brave. He had kissed her before, taken control. Now she wanted to try.

  Tess heard him draw a sharp breath and in the same moment realised that she had never kissed a man and did not know how to do it, particularly when she could not even see what she was doing. She stood still, frozen into mortification, her lips an inch from his. Trapped between desire and embarrassment, feeling her body heat with what was surely the latter, not the former, she was about to withdraw when Owen bent his head.

  “You think too much,” he whispered against her lips. “Just do it.”

  That this was not bad advice was her last coherent thought before his mouth claimed hers unerringly in the darkness. Tess felt relief but it was banished as soon as it came, swamped by a wave of excitement and lust so fierce that she gasped against his lips. She had not expected it to be so ferocious; it swept her away. Owen’s tongue was in her mouth, twining with hers in a kiss so intimate and intense she thought she might melt. His hands were on her shoulders and the cloak fell. She felt one of his palms warm against the small of her back, holding her still against him as the kiss deepened with escalating hunger.

  Tess clutched at Owen’s forearms to steady herself and felt him shift, felt her back come up against the cold wall of the cave. Hot and cold, her body shivered as though with a fever. Owen was pressing kisses against her throat now and she tilted her head back against the wall to make it easier for him. His lips brushed the hollow at the base of her throat, then the edging of the neckline of her gown, and she arched against him in sheer instinctive need. She drove her hands beneath the superfine of his coat, feeling the smooth linen of his shirt beneath and the warm muscles of his back beneath that. Owen groaned and Tess felt a flash of power so victorious that she smiled with the pleasure of it.

  His fingers slid over the curve of her breast beneath the bodice and her nipple rose instantly against the touch. She felt a tug, and the sting of the cold air was against her bared skin. Her mind spun; it was astonishing, delicious. She had had no idea. And then his mouth was on her there…. Her thoughts splintered in shocked delight. Her knees buckled and she thought she was going to faint. Owen caught her before she slid to the ground.

  “Too fast.” He was breathing so hard she could barely discern the words. He held her tightly, his cheek pressed close against hers. “Teresa. We must slow down.”

  She did not want to. This was all she wanted now, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body. But already the pleasure was slipping away from her, as elusive as water clasped in the hands. Her heartbeat slowed and her breath steadied. She was no longer afraid of Owen but she was uncertain, inexperienced and utterly taken aback by her own responses and emotions.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said, striving for control. “You have no intention of consummating our marriage in a cavern two hundred and eighty feet underground.”

  She heard him laugh, still shaken, still close to the edge. “No indeed.”

  Candlelight flared; the voice of the attendant called, “Where are you, sir?”

  They fell apart, torn from the intimate cocoon that had held them. Tess hauled up her bodice and bent to grab her cloak, wrapping it tightly about her with hands that shook. She felt adrift and disoriented. Her body was still singing from Owen’s touch, craving more. In the growing light she could see that his face was taut, his breathing still hard. He tucked his shirt back into his pantaloons and smoothed his jacket, and Tess realised with a pang of shock that she had been the one who had undone those buttons in her desperate quest to be as close to him as she could.

  It was fortunate, she thought, that in the face of the anxious attendant she was able to ascribe her flushed cheeks and shaking hands to the effects of being trapped in the dark rather than to the fact that she had been so close to begging for ravishment.

  The man was frightfully apologetic, anxious perhaps for his tip. “I don’t know how it happened, my lord. The wind got up and the door slammed….”

  Tess listened absentmindedly to Owen assuring the man it was in no way his fault and hurried up the steps towards the square of light at the top. Although it was snowing heavily by now she drew in deep breaths of the clear fresh air.

  “Are you all right?” Owen said as he handed her up into the carriage and she sat down rather shakily on the velvet seat. His touch was warm and reassuring now. Her hectic pulse settled, and the turbulent emotions inside her simmered down. She felt safe again.

  “What happened?” Tess said. “What happened between us?”

 
Owen looked moody, almost as though he were angry. “Lust,” he said shortly. “And lack of self-control on my part.”

  Tess thought about it. “I’ve never felt lust before,” she said. “How singular.” She thought about it some more. “I rather liked it,” she admitted.

  Owen’s expression had lightened a little. “Any time you would like to experience it again …”

  Tess laughed. “Thank you, but I think I was getting a little out of my depth by the end.”

  “You were not the only one,” Owen muttered.

  Tess sat staring out of the carriage window as the snow thickened, turning the heath to a white haze beneath a pewter-grey sky. She knew she had a decision to make. She could retreat into caution or she could take the risk. The two emotions tugged on her, pulling in opposite directions, the deep, habitual fearfulness versus an utterly unfamiliar frisson of desire, wicked, wanton, thrilling.

  She had not wanted to learn about physical intimacy. Now she did. She wanted to overcome her fears and she wanted to entrust herself to him.

  Poor Owen. What a heavy responsibility to place on a man. A rueful smile curved her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said, as the carriage lurched over the snow-covered track. “This whole matter must be a great strain for you.”

  The spectacular smile that lit his eyes made her heart give one of its giddy leaps. He drew her closer so that her body was just touching his. “I do believe that you are worth it,” he said. He gave her a brief, hard kiss. It left her breathless. “But yes,” he added wryly, “it is rather like trying to sail Sea Witch through the passage of The Needles. One false move and we are wrecked.”

  Tess gave a spontaneous giggle. “You are comparing me to a shipwreck?” She touched her hand to his cheek. “I was thinking more in terms of the strain on your self-control.”

  “That,” Owen said, “is very thoughtful of you.” He turned his head and kissed her fingers. “That too. It is completely wrecked. I have decidedly less self-control than I thought I had.” He kissed her again, more slowly this time, lingering, sensual, until Tess felt as though she was melting with the bliss of it. She drew back. Owen’s eyes were dark with the intensity of his desire. Her heart thudded. To entrust herself to him … She did not know if she had the courage.