by Lily Dalton
Despite the chill of his wet clothing, the heat from the fire and her words—and the triumph he heard in them—warmed him to his bones, and other parts of his body that were not so sentimental. She wanted him here. As much as his broken soul craved this intimacy, he felt suspicious of it as well. He feared she only encouraged this closeness because they were married, because she, like all well-bred young ladies, had been raised to be accommodating.
The last button unfastened, he pushed open the placket. She made a sound—a little moan, whether because of the intimacy of the moment or the cold, he did not know—but she did not flinch or pull away as he worked the wet pelisse from her arms. The sound only made the fire in his chest burn hotter. Once removed, he hung the garment across a chair near the fire.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome, but I think it’s ruined.”
“I’m afraid I am as well. I must look a fright.” She lifted a hand to her hair.
No, more like a brightly wrapped present he couldn’t wait to unwrap.
“Not at all.”
He spoke the truth. Her blue dress clung to her body like wet gauze. A straight-edged bodice left not only her throat and shoulders bare but a tantalizing view of the upper swells of her breasts. Several tendrils of hair clung to the side of her neck, reflecting light from the fire. He could not stop himself. His gaze moved over each swell and valley revealed by firelight and shadows. She was delicate but not at all frail. Slender, but blessed with generous curves. If he were allowed only one word to describe her, the word would most certainly be lush.
And now she belonged to him.
She blushed beneath his scrutiny but lifted her arms to remove several pins. Then she shook her damp hair free and loose over her shoulders, her eyes bright with…
Anticipation. Nervous anticipation, but anticipation, no less.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Now yours as well,” she said in a breathless voice, reaching for his wet coat. He allowed her to try, and she did her best to work the tailored seams from where they fit tightly over his shoulders, until he had to assist by wrenching the coat off and dropping it behind him.
“Your dress,” he murmured, hearing only the solid thud of his heart in his ears, as he caught his thumbs inside the collar, to trace them downward over its dark outline against her pale collarbone, to her bosoms that crowded there, luscious and full, against the pleated bodice.
“Yes,” she answered.
At hearing that word, his cock came to life, stiffening in his trousers.
For a long moment, he savored that barest of touch, the damp coolness of her skin under his fingertips. Luminous, soft, excruciatingly perfect…female skin. She breathed deeply, causing the most intriguing shadow play between the soft swells and her clothing.
Tryphena had been more voluptuous, with generous breasts and hips, and she’d known how to use her body to excite a man. He had not been her first, nor had he been her last, but he had loved her in that obsessive and possessive sort of way that in the end had felt more like insanity.
He didn’t know what to feel for Clarissa. His body, however, did not seem so confused.
“It’s all right, Mr. Blackmer,” she whispered, her tongue darting out to dampen her lower lip. She covered his hands with her own and gently moved them to the fastening at the center of her breasts.
She did not flinch, or look away, and he understood what she offered, his young and dutiful wife.
He untied the cording at the front of her dress, which was more like a long and fitted vest. He lifted it off her shoulders and down her now-bare arms, pale and gleaming in the firelight, dispatching it to the chair as well. This left her standing in only her simple cambric chemise and over that a short corset, with her shoes and stockings underneath.
Yet he had already made his decision, and in keeping with that he took up a blanket folded over a chair and drew it over her shoulders, covering her.
“Take your valise, and go over there to take off the rest.” He indicated the deeper shadows on the far side of the poster bed, which was hung with curtains. “Put on your nightgown, and go to bed.”
They stared at one another in silence, eyes locked, until she spoke again.
“I know you are angry…with me, about everything,” she murmured. “You have every right to be. But if we can find some way to—”
He caught her face in his hand.
“Yes, I know.” Slowly, he dragged the pad of his thumb across her mouth, a pillowy, perfectly pink mouth that reminded him of summer and sweet wine and strawberries.
“Kiss me, then,” she said.
“I…can’t.” He stared at her lips, tortured and needful all at once. “I won’t. Because I am angry, Clarissa. I’m angry about a lot of things, and it wouldn’t be right. Not yet.”
“And yet you kissed me before. Why?”
“I wanted to,” he answered.
And he wanted to again. Yet his hand fell away and he stepped back, because when he stood so close to her that he could smell her perfume and see the diamond-sparkle flecks in her blue eyes, he couldn’t think.
“Why not now?”
He turned away from her. His feelings. He had learned to conceal them so well. It wasn’t easy to speak them. “That was in the dark.”
“The dark.” She paused as if to ponder those words, then nodded slowly, her eyes wide with understanding. “Do you find my appearance so displeasing?”
He chuckled at the ludicrousness of her statement. “On the contrary, I find your appearance utterly pleasing.”
In a quieter voice she asked, “Is it because of the baby? You don’t find me appealing because—”
“No.” He shook his head, though he could not bring himself to say more…he did not allow his mind to think upon the subject further, even now, and he did not wish to shock her by attempting to explain that the knowledge that she carried a child only made her more alluring in his eyes, even while he suffered the deepest regret that the child wasn’t his. “That’s not it.”
“Then why?”
He turned back to her then.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
But there, in those same beautiful eyes…he saw something else.
“Because we’ve been through a lot of unexpected changes these past few days. Because we don’t know each other very well. But mostly because there’s someone else here, in this room, between us. I see him every time I look in your eyes.”
“Quinn?” she said. “You think I still love him.”
He flinched and smiled darkly, looking to the carpet. “Don’t you?”
The haze of sensuality that had come over her, that she’d welcomed because it would make intimacies with her husband so much easier, all but disappeared the moment she uttered the other man’s name.
“No,” she whispered. “I despise him.”
“That may be true, but hearts are complicated. You need more time. I know you do, because I see those tears that have just come into your eyes. So as much as…” He paused, and his jaw tensed. “As much as I want you right now, Clarissa, I think it would be wrong of me to make love to you. For my own sake, as much as yours.”
Clarissa nodded, unable to speak, her throat crowded by emotions she did not want to feel. Loneliness and regret over the choices she’d made and, most of all, a sudden need to be close to Mr. Blackmer. To Dominick.
He was wrong. She did not need more time. She wanted to be closer to him, and if that meant making love, she wanted to make love.
But she wouldn’t plead with him. Not for that. She couldn’t.
She took her valise and did as he told her to do, going behind the bed-curtain. She felt so strange, and confused, wanting nothing more than for him to change his mind and lie beside her in the bed, so she could hear his heart beat and feel safe, and know that everything would be all right.
With shaking hands she untied the ribbons of her short corset. After hanging it on a wall peg, she removed her che
mise and for a moment stood naked except for her stockings and boots in the chill, staring down at her body, wondering how Mr. Blackmer saw her. Her breasts ached, feeling tight and swollen and overly constricted by the corset she’d worn that day. They were larger now, she knew as a result of being pregnant, because Sophia had reported much the same, only then they’d all giggled over her revelation, and Clarissa didn’t feel like giggling now.
Tentatively she touched them, slowly massaging the soreness away. She squeezed them, plumping them in her hands—
Any tears that had been in her eyes dried as she imagined her hands were Mr. Blackmer’s, with his darker skin and long fingers. Her mouth suddenly became parched, and she licked her bottom lip for moisture. Still imagining him there with her in the shadows touching her, she dared graze her palms across her nipples, which tightened responsively into peaks.
A knock came at the door, startling her. She peeked round the curtain to observe as the maid brought in a steaming tray, two mugs, and a sturdy earthenware teapot, and deposited them on the table beside the fire. Once the girl was gone, Mr. Blackmer perused the offerings on the tray and tore off a chunk of bread, which he popped into his mouth, before swinging round toward the fire. He pushed his suspenders from his shoulders and in one fluid movement twisted his shirt over his head.
If her mouth had gone dry a moment before, at imagining his hands on her breasts, it became a veritable desert now. She could only stare in fascination at his long, lean, and muscular back, flexing along his torso and bunching at the shoulders as he shook out the shirt and draped it on a screen beside the fire. Her eyes found a scar on his back that matched the one on his torso. His warrior’s body intrigued her. She wondered if she would ever learn the story of how he had received such a terrible wound when he had already told her he was sworn to secrecy over his past.
She withdrew again to the shadows, her hands returning to her breasts, which tingled and burned, but in the most wonderful way. Again she teased her nipples, this time with her fingertips, enjoying the pleasure of self-touch, something in which she’d never before indulged.
Strangely, her furtive experimentation created a tight and urgently needful pull between her legs. A most wicked and insistent hunger, intriguingly new to her. She skimmed her hands downward over her torso and her belly, as yet unchanged by her pregnancy, and dared to stave her fingertips between her legs, just above the pale tapes of her stockings. There she found herself very damp and wondrously sensitive to touch. Yet after a few unsatisfying strokes of her hand, she knew she would need something more to make the feeling—
What? Go away?
No, to make the feeling become more perfect.
She knew full well what she needed, because she’d seen it in the light of the fire after Mr. Blackmer had emerged from his bath that first night after their wedding, at the inn. The memory of his wet male sex jutting out like a fence post from its dark thicket of hair had provided endless diversion for her mind during long hours of travel when conversation, reading, and needlepoint had not. She’d convinced herself it was wrong for wanting intimacy with him, for craving his touch, when so recently she had loved another. But now that they were alone and she so bewilderingly aroused, she could summon no feelings of restraint.
“Clarissa, the maid brought supper. Come and eat.”
“I’ll be right there.”
She quickly removed her stockings and boots and found her nightgown and pulled it on, wishing it were something finer and more alluring. Made of plain cambric, it boasted no embroidery, trimming, or particular style, other than a pink ribbon at the neck, which she purposefully left untied.
At hearing her approach, he turned from the fire. He’d draped a blanket over his shoulders in place of his shirt. She felt the shadowy heat of his gaze move over her, and her body shivered in response, as she glimpsed the muscles of his chest.
“Don’t you have a robe?” he said, his voice noticeably tight. “Even with the fire, the room is still quite chilly.”
“I’m not cold,” she assured. “Sit down. I’ll pour tea.”
“Nonsense.” He removed the blanket from his shoulders and draped it over hers. “I won’t have you catching a chill, now that we’re inside and by a perfectly good fire. I…apologize for my own state of disrobement. My clothing is in the stables, and so I shall have to wait for my shirt to dry.” He gestured toward his drying shirt.
“Your breeches won’t dry at all as long as you’re wearing them.”
She felt wanton just suggesting that he take them off, but she wasn’t the only one in danger of catching her death of cold.
“Later,” he answered brusquely. “I’ll…take them off later.”
How amusing that he had suddenly become modest. He’d all but let her stare at his naked body before. Yet she remembered his words about seeing Quinn in her eyes and knew he was trying to give her time to grow accustomed to him, which she appreciated.
“Whatever you wish,” she said.
She poured tea, and pushed the chairs together so that they could share the tray. In silence, they ate their fill of a warm and fragrant stew with buttered bread.
“It’s very good,” she said.
“It is indeed,” he answered.
“So we shall arrive tomorrow at your home?” she inquired lightly, hoping to learn more about his family and what she might expect upon their arrival.
In response to her question, his countenance fell solemn and his eyes shuttered.
“If the road is safe for travel,” he answered quietly. “Due to the rains, we may be confined here for another day. Perhaps even two.”
She nodded, keeping her tone inquisitive and genial. “You mentioned your father. Is your mother alive still as well?”
“Yes.” He looked toward the fire. “Last I heard.”
His tone held no malice.
“Were you ever close to her?”
He frowned, and his brows furrowed together. “She wasn’t ever that kind of mother. It’s not that she was ever cruel or neglectful, but some mothers aren’t motherly, if you understand what I’m saying.”
“I do understand.”
He nodded. “She’s not at all like Lady Margaretta. I hope you won’t be disappointed.”
“I won’t be,” she assured him. “I’ll be fine. Rest assured, if we are to make our lives there with your family, I’ll do whatever I must to get along.”
“You won’t have to for long, because we won’t be staying.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I assumed we were to take residence with your family.”
“And why wouldn’t you have?” he said quietly. “We haven’t really talked about it, which is my fault, I suppose, but…Clarissa, this visit is not something I look forward to.”
“All families have their problems,” she answered softly.
His lips turned into a wry smile. “I would vow to say mine has more than most. Long-held disagreements and grudges that I don’t wish to trouble you with.”
“I wish you would.”
“In time,” he answered quietly. “When we know each other better. That doesn’t hurt you, for me to say that, does it? Such things are difficult to think about, let alone to share.”
“I understand.” She wouldn’t press. Not yet.
He was correct in saying they didn’t know one another very well, so how could she demand that he share painful memories? Some men were very private. More than once Sophia had mentioned Claxton’s difficulty in sharing painful details from his past. Just as Sophia had been patient with the duke, she must be patient with Mr. Blackmer, and eventually, when the time was right, he would open his heart to her.
“Thank you,” he said. “We’ll stay just long enough for me to claim my inheritance, a small residence with land for farming. It’s nothing grand, like what you’re accustomed to—”
An inheritance. A small farming estate. His family was gentry then, which explained the proud bearing she’d observed in him since
their marriage.
“I don’t need or expect anything grand,” she said reassuringly. She didn’t need a London palace or a sprawling country home, just a place where they could await the birth of the baby together and become closer and spend the rest of their lives.
“It might require some work to make it livable again, so I don’t know if we’ll be able to live there immediately, but soon, I hope.”
He seemed so concerned for her comfort, for her happiness, and for that her heart opened toward him.
“I can’t wait to see the house,” she answered warmly. “I know it will be wonderful, and if it’s not, we will make it wonderful.” She set down her mug, and in doing so the blanket slipped from her shoulders. His attention shifted to fix there on her bare skin—intriguingly intent, so she did not endeavor to cover herself. “One question—does your family know you were an agent for the Crown?”
“No, and please don’t tell them. Secret means secret, even from one’s family. You only know because my cover was effectively…”
“Destroyed by me.”
“Yes.” He smiled wryly. “My family knows only that I was attached to the diplomatic service, which is true to a degree. Before this most recent assignment to Wolverton, I…traveled abroad mostly, under such auspices.”
“That sounds much more exciting than a London assignment. Why the change?”
“Well…you see—” He shifted in the chair and straightened, leaning forward suddenly. “Clarissa, there’s something else you need to know about me. Perhaps I should have told you earlier, but no time has seemed right.”
He spoke in a quieter tone than before.
“What is it?” she asked, leaning toward him as well.
His dark eyes seemed to take on the shadows in the room. “I have been married once before.”
Married. Dominick had been married before. It took a moment for the words to sink in, and when they did, something hurt deep down inside her, though she knew it shouldn’t, because of course he’d had a life before her and because of the way they’d been thrown together, bits and pieces of their pasts would come tumbling out every now and then. This news of a prior marriage was just a big piece, and one she hadn’t expected.