That was good. She hadn’t realized her family had supported her in her silent determination to get into his presence. “I just wanted to know one way or the other. Oh, yes, I wanted you, but not at all costs. I would not compel you in any way. Did I?”
He sighed and pulled his hand out of the blankets to reach for her fingers and twine them between his. “No, you did not. You merely made it impossible for me to forget you.”
“Good. I could see you were determined to walk away, but if you wanted me, I wanted you too. I did. I do.” Daring to take the initiative, she bent and kissed his lips.
He responded gratifyingly but drew back before their actions could turn incendiary.
“Dominic, you are you. I chose you, not your family or your connections.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. That was the only reason. No, that’s not true.” He grinned wryly, the lines beside his mouth deepening. “I wanted you too badly to see you with anyone else. I needed to make you mine.”
“You have nearly done that.”
When he would have rolled out of bed she trapped him by the simple expedient of rolling over him and lying on top of him. A length of sheet remained between their bodies. They’d made a complete tangle of the bedding. “I said nearly, Dominic, and you know why. Never, ever do that again. Don’t withdraw.”
He cupped her cheek, his palm hot and hard. “I must. I cannot create children when I don’t know what they’ll inherit.”
“I’ll leave them the house in Hart Street,” she said.
His mouth hardened. Clearly he had not found her pathetic attempt at levity funny. “I am not entitled to my parents’ honors and titles. I have put a search in place to find the next in line.”
Exasperated, she wanted to hit him, but clenched her fist. Her other hand remained clasped in his. “That is foolish. You know there is no heir to your father’s title. Your parents set up an exhaustive search before they…went to Rome.”
“And bought me.”
“They did not buy you! Don’t talk such nonsense, Dominic. Perhaps Maria Rubio loved you and her other children so much that she wanted them out of danger. Away from intrigue.”
His mouth flattened. “If she was involved with a Stuart, it is more likely that she was using us as pawns for power. We were sent away because we might become useful to her one day, and we were better alive than dead.”
She shook her head vigorously, her tousled curls bouncing against her shoulders and cheeks. “How do you know that? You don’t, do you? Plenty of people fell in love with the Stuarts. Look at Nell Gwyn! She loved King Charles, all the sources say so! Queen Henrietta Maria loved the first Charles quite desperately.”
Lady Claudia Shaw was in danger of doing exactly the same thing. No, she was Lady St. Just now. She left Claudia Shaw behind that morning. “Dominic, you cannot make assumption like that.”
He stroked her cheek, pushing back her hair, his expression softening. “You are very good for me, Claudia. I am deeply selfish for giving in to my impulses and marrying you, but I cannot be sorry. Not completely. What will make me sorry is if all this comes to light and I am exposed for the impostor I am.”
“You knew nothing of it. In any case, there are better ways of making amends than giving everything up in a massive sacrificial gesture. How will that help your father’s tenants when they find themselves under someone who never expected to inherit and has no inclination to do so?”
“Now you’re making assumptions.”
“Not at all.” She thumped her fist against his chest. “Be serious, Dominic! You were brought up to love the land and the inheritance and to do your best for it and its people. Just as my father is bringing up his sons. Responsibility and respect are vital, he always says, both for the owner and the tenants. Why, do you not believe that?”
He sighed, still stroking her hair. Catching a curl, he wound it between his fingers. “Yes, I do. But another person could be just as effective. Someone who has been cut out by my parents’ actions.”
“There was nobody then. It stands to reason that there is nobody now.” She wouldn’t let him look away, but put her hand on the side of his face and forced him to look at her. “I want your children, Dominic. I don’t care what you call yourself or what society calls you. This morning you willingly joined with me in marriage, and that makes us a unit. A potential family unit, one I intend to fulfil the best way I can. I cannot do that if you will not perform your side of the bargain.” If he would not accept her any other way, she’d make him stick to his side of the bargain. Honor. Let him think about that, if his precious honor was so important to him.
He sighed. “I have not yet decided what to do.”
She knew, but she was wise enough to realize that she could not force everything on him at once. She would speak to him again, though, that was sure. Honor went two ways. He should honor the people who behaved honorably to him. The world was not so easy. Neither were the choices people had to make. “Then forget it. We have this time. Let’s enjoy it, refresh ourselves, and go back to the lists ready to fight again.” Soldier talk. She put on a bright smile. “Besides, I want to do that again. I find I enjoy making love.”
His response was to burst into shocked laughter. “My sweet wife, you’ll be the death of me!”
Dominic took her advice and accepted her determination, consoling himself with the consideration that most couples didn’t conceive after one night, or even two.
She might not be the death of him, but she exhausted him over the next day. Pausing only to eat the food servants brought to the room next door, sometimes reluctantly on her part, Dominic’s wife proved an able— no, an eager—pupil. She would not stay a pupil for long. Dominic had intended to order a bath for her, to take care of her and pamper her until she recovered from the loss of her virginity. But not to make love to her again. His Claudia would have none of that.
Dominic woke to the sensation of delicate, exploring fingers on his already burgeoning cock. “It’s a fine one, is it not?” she murmured from under the covers.
With a shouted laugh, he threw the sheets away and saw her, busily exploring, stroking him until he rapidly grew.
“I never imagined it would be so big.”
“Careful, sweetheart, or my head will swell, too. I am comfortably endowed, I think I might say, although I cannot add that I have compared myself in this state to other men.”
She met his gaze, a curious note in hers. “Do they do that?”
“I believe some do. I have never felt the need. I have what God has given me, and I strive to please the best I can. That is all I can do.”
Her hand was still busy, dancing over his flesh. He had never felt anyone stroke the tip as delicately. The slight scrape of her nail gave him a jolt, bolts of lightning running over him. “You should take care,” he warned her. “I meant to let you rest. Women are supposed to be exhausted after their first time.”
“I want to ensure it will happen again. Is it just the first time it feels this way?”
“What way?”
He shifted, trying to get some measure of ease, but she followed him. Her experimentations would kill him. Circling his shaft with her fingers, as best she could, she discovered the up and down movement that would drive him to his peak if she didn’t stop. As if she heard him, she did so.
As did his heart when she swept her tongue over the tip of his cock. Of course women had performed that act for him before, but they’d been practiced, the exchange purely physical. This was far more. This woman was learning the man she would spend the rest of her life with. Her curiosity was put to a better cause here than spying out houses of ill repute. Already he knew her better than to imagine she would give up any pursuits, or that he could keep her busy in bed for evermore.
Dominic accepted the inevitable. Claudia would take childbearing and motherhood in her stride. She would not be a stranger to his bed. To their bed, he imagined it would become.
Grasping her under her arms,
he hauled her up the bed and settled her over him. Her eyes widened, and her sweet, reddened lips curved in a smile. “Are you still tutoring me?”
“I am. Come down on me. Put my cock in you.”
“Oh!” She shivered. “Oh, yes!”
She’d like that. Being in control suited her, but it suited him, too, so she’d have to take turns. “One thing,” he added, trying to keep his tones steady. “If it hurts, if you’re too sore, we stop. I want you for a very long time. That doesn’t include making our wedding night one that will keep you too sore to fuck me again for a week.” He closed his eyes and groaned. “I should not have used that word. I’m sorry.”
“No. I like it. It’s honest and so down to earth. Please.”
She could make him laugh even now. “Ride me, you witch, and stop drawing me to places I should not take you.”
Summoning up enough control to make her ease her body on to him steadily, rather than plunging down, he watched her take him. His cock disappeared inside her hot, wet passage, enclosing and embracing him.
He’d used the word “ride” deliberately, evoking that morning when her horse had sped past him and he’d admired her seat. Oh, yes, his Claudia could ride.
She used it, too, clamping her knees against his flanks and rising up on him before coming down in the kind of plunge that turned him mindless. His head went back hard against the pillows and he yelped. Before he had time to recover, she did it again, and then she laughed. She showed him no mercy, and went from trot to canter to gallop almost without pause.
In a pathetic effort to regain some control, he gripped her hips, but only in an effort to steady her, not to control her. He adored the way she took to this, and he feared it would draw him closer to her. Every time she came down on him his arousal rose. Holding his orgasm at bay was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He forced every particle of control into his body and held himself rigid for her, gritting his teeth until the first wave passed. Or it transmuted to something else, he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t care.
Her skin gleamed with exertion, but she didn’t stop. The light of exhilaration brightened her eyes, and she was smiling as she rode him, pushing him inexorably toward his inevitable climax. His laughter rang around the room. He wasn’t sure why he laughed, except that pure joy radiated through him. That hadn’t happened to him since childhood, that pure happiness had struck him like that. He’d forgotten.
She reminded him of so much, the things that had escaped him in his relentless pursuit of independence and honor. Now they laughed together, and they were still laughing when the first wave hit him. Bucking, he sat up and held her in his arms, desperate to ensure she came too. Then the first quiver of her peak rippled over his cock, a deliciously intimate squirm from her hips. She gave a small cry, helpless in the throes of her orgasm.
The ripples increased, grew more deliberate, and she gripped him, held on. “Give way. Let it take you,” he murmured. He kissed the shell of her ear, nipping it while his balls tightened. The first unmistakable twinge signaled his peak.
They came together, holding on, his control completely gone now. A still moment when everything peaked and coalesced and then he was over the top, falling through clouds with no means of safety and now way of holding on.
When it was done, there she was, his anchor and his partner. Not once had he felt alone. With others, he’d always come to that point on his own. While courteously helping his partner, this time he wouldn’t have felt complete if he hadn’t taken her with him.
Or had she taken him with her? Yes, that was it. His heart pounded in time with hers and breath sawed out of their throats.
“When can we do it again?” she said.
He chuckled, helplessly lost in her. “It will take me some time to recover. Unlike you, I can’t immediately go again.”
He was still hard within her, so he gave a few shallow thrusts, enjoying the aftermath as much as the process. That was a first time for him, too. Usually when he engaged in sexual congress with a woman, once he’d done he recalled what else he should be doing, and left. That, coupled with a faint sense of shame he’d never been able to rid himself of.
With her, he was supposed to be doing this, although not quite in this way. “You are supposed to be maidenly and reticent. You should complain after the first time and make me pamper you, or leave you alone so that you can do something else. Women are excellent at putting their lives on to a series of shelves.”
“Shelves?” she mumbled. She had her head on his shoulder, and her breath heated his neck when she spoke. She didn’t seem to be in the least concerned about her sweat-slicked body or her tousled, glorious mane of red-gold hair.
“Intimacy goes on the shelf labelled I, work on the shelf labelled W.” He’d tried to keep his life like that for himself. Like a well-organized lawyer’s office, with each case tied up with red ribbon and put in its rightful place.
“Hmm. I don’t think much to that. Life should be a glorious muddle.”
He shuddered.
She laughed. “Perhaps it’s me who is the glorious muddle.”
“Glorious certainly.” He kissed her hair. “Shall I order a bath?”
“In a little while.” She moved away so he could see the sweet curves of her breasts, but her nipples still grazed his chest. “Can we order some more food? I’m absolutely ravenous.”
Chapter 17
Lord and Lady St. Just made their first public appearance at Drury Lane Theater. They sent a footman to bespeak a box early in the day. They set forth after an intimate dinner that nearly meant that they forgot the theater and went straight back to bed. Since they’d spent most of the last two days there, Dominic set Claudia determinedly away from him. “After tonight, we should consider going to the country.”
“Oh? Are we, then, spending our summer alone?”
“If you like.” He smiled down at her.
He’d smiled much more in the last few days, but then, she’d given him cause to.
“I had thought at least the first part. We are owed a honeymoon, are we not?” He paused, and then continued, “I have a house. I bought it with my own earnings, booty from my years in the army. It’s modest, but private. It will be ours alone. Any visitors will be local ones, since I have not told many people of this house. Mail reaches me through trusted servants. I haven’t gone so far as to go by another name, but it’s not a house I speak about.”
“Do your parents know?”
He paused before answering. Enough to tell her that he was still thinking about his parentage. They had discussed that part of his inheritance very little after their first discussion.
“Yes, they do.”
In the country, he and Claudia would have time to discuss their future. That he was seriously considering what to do meant much to her. However, he wouldn’t do anything without her. She had married him, and to her that meant she would remain by his side, whatever he said, wherever he was.
If he staked his claim to the throne, he would do it for good reasons. She trusted him to make that decision in the best interests of everyone. He was the most honorable man she had ever met, and considering her family, that was saying a great deal.
“I like the idea. We may sleep late—”
He kissed her. “Or not at all. Claudia, I swear we will talk.”
“Yes.” She returned his kiss. “Do you think your parents will want you to visit?”
“Undoubtedly. I will have made my decision by then. Whether to reveal the truth or not. This is not a decision to take lightly. I cannot make it instantly, as some might, so I will take my time. Nobody will affect me.”
“Not even me?”
He gazed down at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Claudia. I value your opinion more than any other, but I must come to a decision I can be comfortable with for the rest of my life. On one side, I would have to live a lie and perhaps dispossess someone of something that is rightfully theirs. On the other, I claim my birthright and
risk starting a war. I’ve seen what war can do, and I would not willingly be the cause of one.”
She nodded. “What if I cannot agree?”
“We may live apart. Separate.” A streak of pain passed over his features, but at that moment the footman knocked at the drawing-room door to tell them the carriage was ready.
He took her out and ushered her into the carriage with great ceremony. His punctiliousness made her laugh. “You know my parents will demand a visit in the summer?”
He bowed once more before joining her and allowing the footman to fold up the steps and close the door. Then sat next to her and took her gloved hand. The carriage, pulled by two fine greys, set off smoothly, and Claudia turned to glance out of the window.
Their route took them past Julius’s door. He lived on Brook Street, not the most fashionable street in the West End, but one of the most interesting. She pointed out Mr. Handel’s house to her husband and he gazed at it. “We should go and see one of his operas. I enjoy listening to spectacular music done well.”
“Yes we should.”
They were talking like an old married couple, but under the comfortable current ran a streak of desire, always present at the moment. Would it ever dissipate? She prayed not. She was enjoying it far too much.
“We should certainly visit your parents,” he said.
“They have a house party in August. Most of the month.” She enjoyed Augusts at home. They celebrated the Glorious Twelfth, held dances and invited the local gentry. People spoke of the Strenshall house parties with awe and invitations were rarely refused.
“It sounds interesting.” He squeezed her hand. “I will have to become accustomed to having a large family, at least on my wife’s side.”
As the carriage turned a tight corner, something landed with a clatter on the floor of the vehicle. It must have fallen through the window. A hiss indicated it was alive, or something was working. Clockwork, perhaps?
Reckless in Pink Page 21