Lucille arched upwards against the demand of his lips and fingers. She tugged hard at his shirt and felt it come loose, sliding her hands beneath the linen and gasping as she touched his naked skin for the first time. Her quick, indrawn breath was smothered against his lips.
Seagrave drew away a little to pull off his boots and toss them with an impatient hand into a corner of the room. He discarded the rest of his clothes in a couple of quick movements before rejoining her on the bed. Lucille watched the silver moonlight slide over his muscular physique and reached out to pull him down beside her. She ran her hands over his chest, spellbound by the texture of his skin, wanting to feel it against her own. Her fingers drifted lower, over his stomach and across his ribs, and he groaned, pulling her against him.
Lucille had never seen a naked man before and the classical statues she had seen in pictures, whilst beautiful, were in no way as compelling as the real thing. Her exploring hands stilled as coherent thought returned for the first time in a long while. Her reading and observation of real life had given her an understanding of how animals mated, but as to how that would apply to her—
‘Nicholas…’ There was a thread of anxiety now in her whispered words.
Seagrave heard it and was quick to reassure her. ‘Trust me.’ His voice was soft. ‘It will be all right. You will see…’
He was still stroking her skin and the gentle touch was both relaxing and at the same time oddly exciting. Lucille felt her worries slip to the edge of her mind as pleasure began to cloud her thoughts again. Her skirt was tiresomely in the way, she thought crossly, and she was grateful as she felt Seagrave easing it over her hips to fall, an empty shell, on the floor. She felt his hand run the whole length of her near-naked body and opened her eyes. Seagrave was looking at her, her silver hair spread across the pillows, her slender body illuminated in the sharp moonlight. His narrowed, concentrated gaze only served to excite Lucille further.
‘Silk stockings?’ he said musingly, a hint of amusement detectable in his voice. ‘That was the only piece of underwear you stopped long enough to put on?’ His hand was stroking her silken thigh, slowly, tantalisingly, and its touch was deliciously stimulating. Lucille remembered vaguely that the stockings, part of her trousseau, had been nearest to hand as she had dressed and before her haste to find him had overcome her. She tried to form the words to explain to Seagrave, but he was already kissing her again. Anyway, he did not seem to mind, Lucille thought hazily, for he had not taken them off. As his hands lingered on her thighs a feeling of unbearable anticipation was growing in her, warming the pit of her stomach, demanding satisfaction. She felt his fingers part her legs, still stroking persuasively, urgently. Lucille dug her fingernails into his shoulders.
‘Nicholas, please…’
She did not know exactly what she was asking, but he did. He slid into her, hard and deep, and Lucille’s instinctive gasp of pain was lost as he moved inside her, replacing pain with pleasure, such unimaginable pleasure that she cried out as the inexorable tide of sensation tumbled over and through her. She was dimly aware of Seagrave gasping her name as the same hot, sweet tide took hold of him almost immediately.
It was a long time before the ripples of that pleasure died away, and Seagrave rolled over, pulled Lucille into the crook of his arm and wrapped the blankets firmly around them. She felt wonderfully warm and secure there, her head resting against his shoulder, watching the taut lines of his face relax into sleep. Her own eyelids grew heavy. Soon she too was asleep.
When Lucille awoke again the moon had moved round and the room was in near darkness. It was still night outside and she could hear the wind in the trees. She propped herself on one elbow to look down at her husband. He looked boyish in sleep, the thick dark lashes resting against the hard line of his cheek and the tousled dark hair falling across his brow. Lucille was swept by an intensely strong, protective love. She also felt rather pleased with herself and was half-ashamed to be so brazen.
Seagrave might not love her, but she had made him consummate the marriage in an entirely satisfactory manner. Her body ached pleasantly with the aftermath of an unfamiliar pleasure and a little smile curved her lips. It was then that she realised that Seagrave was awake and watching her. In one swift movement he had pulled her beneath him.
‘That was a very self-satisfied smile I saw just now,’ he said huskily. ‘No doubt you are pleased with yourself, madam?’
Lucille’s eyes widened. She was unable to gauge his mood and her heart began to race with a mixture of genuine nerves and anticipation. What if he was angry with her for provoking him and pushing him too far? He might have genuinely intended an annulment. She stared up at him. If he repudiated her now, she did not think she could bear it…
Seagrave’s gaze shifted from her face to her bare shoulders, and Lucille suddenly became acutely aware of her nakedness. Worse, she became aware of his nakedness, of his body poised above hers. That strange but delightful ache was invading her body again, making her want to offer herself shamelessly to him again. She frowned. How very odd to discover such wayward impulses that she had never before suspected…She was just debating with herself whether a study of genetics would be instructive, when Seagrave’s mouth took hers roughly at the same time as his hand came up to her breast. Lucille gasped with shock.
‘This is no time to be thinking scientifically, my demanding little wife.’ Seagrave had read her thoughts. His voice was soft, but with a mocking undertone. ‘I understood you to have found me lacking in my husbandly duty. Allow me to make up for lost time!’
Lucille’s eyes widened still further. ‘Nicholas, again? But…’ Once again she lost her train of thought as his mouth plundered the softness of hers.
‘Yes, again,’ Seagrave confirmed with a grin. ‘You will find that I can also be a demanding husband!’
It was quite different from the first time, less gentle but no less exciting. The relentless rhythm of their bodies was building now, pushing them both over the edge once more and leaving them exhausted with pure pleasure, to doze, wake in the dawn, love again and finally fall into a fulfilled and dreamless sleep.
It was very late when Lucille finally awoke. The room was filled with daylight and she was alone. She lay still for a moment, wondering whether she had dreamed the whole of the previous night, but the tumbled bedclothes and the indentation in the pillow where Seagrave’s head had lain suggested that it had been real. So did the faint marks on her body, the unaccustomed but wholly pleasing differences she felt in herself. The colour rose to her cheeks as she remembered all that had happened.
How innocent she had been, and how he had delighted in instructing her, promising that this was only the start…Lucille frowned. But where was Seagrave now? Surely he could not just have left her…Even as the first doubts began to infiltrate her mind, she heard a sound downstairs and, wrapping the sheet tightly around her, hurried down to see if he was there.
The scene which met Lucille’s startled gaze was a chaotic one. The entrance hall was full of empty packing cases, and from the dining-room came the rustle of paper and the chink of china and glass. Lucille pushed the door wider and walked in.
Susanna was standing at the table, a frown marring her brow as she tried to wrap a pair of outlandish china figures, whose outstretched arms were defying the tissue paper. She looked up crossly as Lucille came in.
‘So there you are!’ she said, peevishly. ‘Where is Mrs Appleton? I need her to help me wrap these pieces. How am I to take it all away with me if I have to do it all myself?’
Her petulant blue gaze took in the hastily wrapped sheet and Lucille’s sleep-filled eyes and tumbled fair hair. ‘Well, upon my word! Country living must have wrought some strange changes in you! It is high noon! Whatever can you have been doing?’
As if in answer to that precise question, there was the sound of the front door closing and the Earl of Seagrave strolled into the room. He was dressed casually in breeches and a linen shirt. In one hand
was a can of milk and in the other a loaf of bread and a pat of butter. His dark brows rose as he saw the two sisters, Lucille in her sheet and Susanna in plunging emerald silk.
Susanna’s face was a picture. ‘Lucille! Seagrave! What—! Surely—!’
Seagrave, a wicked grin on his face, put the food down carefully and crossed to Lucille’s side, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her intimately close.
‘You look entirely delightful, my darling,’ he said softly, his breath stirring her hair. ‘I hoped to be back before you awoke.’ He dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. ‘How I look forward to exploring again what is hidden beneath that sheet…’ He straightened up.
‘Your servant, Lady Bolt,’ he said easily. ‘Congratulations on your recent marriage. Is Sir Edwin with you, or in London?’ His gaze took in the packing boxes and the serried ranks of glass and china. ‘I take it you are removing from Cookes? Do not trouble to pack for yourself—my agent will arrange to have all the items you wish transported to your new home, or pay you for those you wish to leave behind. I have a new tenant for Cookes, but no doubt Josselyn and your man of business can sort matters to your satisfaction.’
Susanna’s avid gaze was travelling from one to the other. There was only one matter that interested her at the moment, and for once it was not money. ‘Seagrave, surely you have not seduced my sister!’
‘On the contrary,’ Seagrave said smoothly, ‘she seduced me! You must have more in common than might immediately be apparent!’
Lucille was scarlet. ‘Nicholas…’ she said, beseechingly.
Seagrave relented. He took her hand. ‘You may wish us happy, Lady Bolt,’ he said softly. ‘Your sister became my wife a month ago.’
‘Your wife! A Countess!’ Susanna’s face was working like milk coming to the boil. ‘Lucille, you sly minx! To think that I leave you here to impersonate me and return to find you married to Seagrave! Of all the conniving starts! Why, it could have been me—’ She broke off at Seagrave’s look of amused disbelief. ‘Well,’ she said grudgingly, getting a grip on herself, ‘I suppose I must wish you happy! And—’ she was recovering herself fast and gave Seagrave a flirtatious look ‘—I must beg your lordship’s indulgence for the masquerade! I hope you will forgive me!’
There was a silence. Seagrave looked thoughtful. ‘I believe I owe you my thanks, Lady Bolt,’ he said coolly, at length. ‘Had it not been for your idea to change places with Lucille, I should never have met her. And now…’ his warm gaze dwelled on his wife and he smiled gently ‘…I discover that I love her with all my heart.’
Lucille caught her breath as their eyes met. There was such a deep tenderness in those brown eyes that she felt quite dizzy. ‘I am so very fortunate,’ he said, softly, ‘to have found out how much I love you, Lucille, and I think you love me too, do you not?’
‘Lud, how affecting,’ Susanna drawled. They had both temporarily forgotten that she was there. She picked up her gloves. ‘There is nothing so tiresomely unfashionable as a husband and wife in love with each other,’ she continued. ‘I will leave the two of you to bill and coo! You may find me at the Hope and Anchor in Woodbridge when your agent wishes to talk terms!’
She swept out and slammed the door behind her. There was a silence, then Seagrave sat down, pulling Lucille onto his lap. ‘When we first married, I had truly not realised the depth of my feelings for you, Lucille,’ he said quietly. ‘On our wedding night, the truth hit me with such a blinding flash that I think I was in shock with it. I did not know what to do or what to think. Suddenly all the feelings and emotions that had deserted me years ago returned with such intensity that I could not believe it. You had the most terrifying power over me, for I knew that to lose you would be my undoing. And whilst I tried to come to terms with that fact, I almost did lose you in the process!’
Lucille snuggled closer, turning her face into his neck. ‘I am so very glad,’ she said, muffled, ‘for I love you so much I do not think I could bear it if you did not care for me!’
There was a contented silence whilst they just held each other, then Lucille said, ‘What did you mean when you told Susanna that you had a new tenant for Cookes?’
Seagrave smiled. ‘Ben Mutch, Walter’s younger brother, has petitioned to take over the house. I think he will make an admirable tenant and I hope it will go some way to healing the breach with Mrs Mutch caused by Walter’s misdeeds.’
Lucille kissed him. ‘And now Susanna will exact a high price for removing herself from Cookes—she will fleece you!’
Seagrave pulled her closer. ‘This time,’ he said, with a smile, ‘it is a price I am willing to pay!’ He had found the end of the sheet now and was starting to unwrap it with single-minded concentration, raining little kisses over her bare shoulders. Lucille pushed him away.
‘Really, Nicholas! When you had gone to all that trouble to fetch some food! Can we not have something to eat first?’
Seagrave paused, appearing to give the matter his consideration. ‘In a little while, perhaps. First…’
Susanna Kellaway, returning a minute later to collect the reticule she had accidentally left behind, and to surreptitiously pick up a rather attractive silver watch chain she had earmarked to pay the landlord of the Hope and Anchor, found them equally entwined in the sheet and in each other’s arms, oblivious to interruption.
‘Disgusting!’ she said, to her waiting coachman, as she closed the door of Cookes and hurried out to her carriage. ‘There is nothing so odious to a Cyprian as a husband who prefers his own wife!’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4010-4
THE VIRTUOUS CYPRIAN
First North American Publication 2001
Copyright © 1998 by Nicola Cornick
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