Christy English - [Shakespeare in Love 02]

by Love on a Midsummer Night

  She did not know what to do, but she was not embarrassed by her ignorance. Her innocence was a gift she could give him along with her body, an offering in the face of all they had lost, of all that had been taken from them in the last ten years. They had lost time and youth, but they were together now, and that was an unlooked-for blessing.

  Arabella kissed him gently then drew back to unlace her gown. She took off her bodice, kicked away the silk of her skirt.

  Pembroke helped her draw each piece of clothing off, laying them carefully on the chair beside the bed. Arabella undressed until she wore nothing but her thin chemise and her stockings. She untied each garter and slowly rolled the stockings down her legs, tossing them aside.

  She smiled at him, drew out the pins from her hair, and it fell around her face and shoulders like a veil. She pushed the caramel locks back so that she could see him clearly, so that he could see her.

  He seemed to drink in the contours of her face, the curves of her cheeks, which she knew were pink with joy. She felt herself blush beneath his hand, but she did not turn away. She savored the heat as it rose beneath her skin, knowing that when he touched her, her skin would heat still more.

  Pembroke stood to draw his own trousers off, as well as his waistcoat, so that he faced her in just his shirt. The edges came down over the tops of his thighs. The golden trail of hair on his chest disappeared beneath the linen, only to reappear as a golden fleece along his thighs.

  Arabella did not back away from him even then. Her old fear did not rise to overwhelm her, and it was yet another victory. She longed to draw that shirt off him, so that she could see the hair on his chest. When he sat beside her again, she pressed her hand to his heart, moving his linen shirt out of her way so that she might lay her lips on his skin as she had always longed to do.

  Arabella moved her lips across the heated warmth of him. The dark golden hair on his chest pillowed her cheek, and she ran her hands across his body. He stripped away the shirt so that she was left with just him and his beauty before her. He lay back and let her look.

  Pembroke’s blue eyes were filled with desire for her, but he did not move to touch her. He lay back and let her feast on him, first with her lips and then with her hands.

  Arabella’s eyes fell on his manhood nestled in its thatch of golden hair. She had never seen one before. The old duke, when he came to her, had always worn a long gown. In her marriage bed, she had closed her eyes and braced herself, praying for it all to be over quickly. But tonight, with the man she loved, she would keep her eyes open.

  He gasped when she touched him. She flinched back, thinking that she had hurt him, but he laughed low, almost like a purr deep in his chest. She saw the heated light in his eyes darkening to a deeper blue. She kept her eyes on his and touched his manhood again.

  The pleasure on his face looked almost like pain, and he groaned beneath her fingertips. He wrapped one hand around her wrist as if to stop her, and she bent down and pressed her lips to his fingers. The manacle on her wrist relaxed then as he ran his hand over her cheek. She turned her head and pressed her lips into his palm before she leaned down and brushed her lips lightly against his manhood.

  Pembroke leaped then as if she had scalded him. He moved so quickly that she had no time to take her next breath before he had pulled her beneath him. He rose over her, his breath labored as if he had run a fast mile, the laughter in his eyes mixed with desire, and she found herself laughing too.

  “Am I wrong to touch you?” she asked him.

  He laughed low, the sound sending a shiver along her skin. “No,” he answered, “you are not wrong. But if you do it again, I will not be able to control myself.”

  She smiled, running her hand along the line of his jaw. She pressed her lips to his throat. “Why should you control yourself?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  “I do not mind if you hurt me.”

  “No,” he said. “Pain does not belong in bed. Only pleasure.”

  He pressed her down against the soft feather bed. The shadows cast by the single candle lengthened over them as he moved above her, running his hands over her body, smoothing the skin of her arms, his palms coming down to cup her breasts. Arabella had never been touched that way in her life, and she gasped beneath his mouth as his lips ravished her, as his nimble fingers spread over the rosy softness of her breasts.

  She had always thought her breasts too small to be of interest to a man, but Pembroke worshiped them, pushing her chemise aside to run first his hands and then his lips over them. She lost her breath completely when he took one of the taut peaks into his mouth, laving his tongue over it. Arabella thought she might never breathe again, but she did not care. His touch on her skin was more pleasure than she had ever known. If she were to die, let it be like this, with his body over hers and his hands on her skin.

  Pembroke raised her chemise altogether then, and she helped him, gathering up her hair and drawing it aside so that he could bring the last piece of her clothing over her head. He tossed the linen away and feasted his eyes on her naked flesh. Arabella froze, thinking to cover herself, for no one had ever seen her naked before.

  She forced herself to look into Pembroke’s eyes, and when she saw his love for her mixed with the heat of his desire, she relaxed against the bedclothes, letting her limbs fall limp so that he might look his fill. She covered nothing but let him look, her own eyes following the planes of his body, the hard muscles beneath the skin of his chest and thighs, the power he held in check always, the power and desire that now loomed over her.

  She did not feel small or frightened by him as she had always been frightened of her old husband. She felt in some way as if Pembroke’s powerful body was an homage to her, for his strength was humbled by his desire.

  Pembroke raised her up then and ran his hand along her back, drawing her close against his body. With his hand on her shoulder he froze, the desire in his eyes freezing with his next breath.

  “Arabella. What is that?”

  She froze with him, the beauty draining out of the moment, sliding down and away from her like warm water down a drain. She clutched at the warmth, at the joy she had experienced, but she could not hold it. Like all good things, it was not meant to last.

  ***

  Pembroke stared down at the knots and raised flesh along the smooth planes of Arabella’s back. He sat up and drew the candle closer so that he might see them better. A network of scars ran across her shoulders, raised welts that looked to be old and long healed. Pembroke felt his bile rise.

  “Hawthorne?” he asked. He could barely force the word from his lips. He felt as if his tongue had seized up, as if the interior of his mouth had turned to dust. He swallowed hard, trying to find his voice. He failed.

  Arabella turned her scarred back from him, raising her fingertips to touch his face. Her hand was soft and warm on his flesh. He felt a soothing coolness follow wherever she touched him, as if a drop of her clear sanity was being smoothed over his flushed skin.

  “It was not my husband,” she said. “It was my father.”

  Pembroke felt tears rise in his eyes, and he let them come. He could not stop them from flowing anymore than he could have held back the tide at Brighton.

  He set the candle back down on the table beside the bed, careful not to catch the silk hangings with its flame. He drew Arabella close. He kissed her lips clumsily, as if he was a green boy of eighteen and not an experienced man of eight and twenty. Arabella pressed her lips to his in a vain attempt to offer him comfort, but he would not be comforted. Pembroke drew her down onto the soft feather bed and turned her over, that he might look at her back.

  The scars were high between her shoulder blades, as if Swanson had taken a riding crop to her bare skin. Pembroke had seen a man flogged once while on campaign. The scars that were left behind the whip were nothing compared to the
se.

  “He only struck me once in this way,” she said as if to soothe him, as if being tortured only once made the offense forgivable.

  “Tell me,” Pembroke said. He cleared his throat, but his tears kept falling. The salt fell on her old wounds. He smoothed his tears into her scars, as if his sorrow might heal her. “What else?”

  Arabella understood him. She did not want to speak of it, but his hand was on hers. He could not plead with her, so he squeezed her fingertips as if to beg her with his touch. He could not find the words to ask it of her. His tongue would not obey him.

  She looked over one shoulder at him, tears standing in her eyes. Pembroke saw her compassion and her deep love for him reflected there. Her tears were not for herself but for him.

  “He struck me across the face now and then,” she said calmly, as if reporting on the weather the farmers might expect next spring. “But such blows leave marks. So when I was of marriageable age, he would take his cane to the bottoms of my feet. He had read about that punishment somewhere in his library. I believe the Persians use that method of chastisement to keep their women obedient. Or perhaps it was the Chinese. He told me once, but now I have forgotten.”

  Pembroke listened to her words and they burned him worse than the sight of the blows had. He ran his fingertips over her scars, once, twice, again and again, moving his hand across them until he laid both palms across her shoulder blades, as if to block the sight of them out.

  He sat up, forgetting his own nakedness and hers as he raised her with him. He drew her slender, tiny feet into his lap, caressing them, bringing them into the feeble candlelight. He saw no scars there, no bruising, but still his hands ran over the soles of her feet again and again, searching for old pain, as if his fingers spoke a mantra of healing that only he could hear. Arabella pressed her hand to his shoulder, her tears making two long tracks down her cheeks.

  “I am long since healed,” she said. “He died a long time ago.”

  Pembroke drew her into his arms and held her close, her soft body slender in the circle of his embrace. She leaned on his chest, her heart beating steadily against his, as small as a bird, as defenseless as a newborn lamb. Pembroke knew that there was evil in the world—he had seen his fill of it. But only now, as he held the woman he loved in his arms, did he understand the true meaning of evil and the depths that it would go to in order to vanquish good.

  But Arabella was not vanquished. It was she who held him as he caressed her hair. She wept not for herself but for him. She clung to him as if his arms were the one safe haven she had in the wide world. Pembroke cradled her against him, kissing her hair, pressing the wisps down with his hands and his lips. They always slipped from his grasp, and he laughed with the taste of her hair on his lips.

  “I love you, Arabella Swanson.”

  “And I love you, Raymond Olivier. I am glad that you finally know it.”

  All thoughts of lust had fled. Pembroke drew the counterpane up over them both until they were cocooned in the soft silk and feathered down of her bed. He had bought that bed just for her. He had decorated that room with her image in his mind, choosing the colors of wood and silk that he thought would best match her caramel hair, her eyes, her fair skin. She was here now. She was his. Pembroke swore an oath to himself silently as he held her in his arms that, no matter what she said, he would never let her go again.

  As they lay down to sleep, Pembroke said, “If he was not already dead, I would kill him with my own hands.”

  Arabella did not answer but pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. Pembroke caught her hand in his and held it there, drawing her close, wrapping his arms around her so that she could not escape even if she wanted to. He knew now why he had closed her bedroom door earlier that evening. Not to keep the world out, but to keep her in. She would not leave him again. If she tried, this time he would follow her to the ends of the earth.

  Pembroke absorbed this knowledge of himself as Arabella fell asleep on his shoulder, her breathing even, her tears dry on her cheeks.

  Act III

  “I love thee. By my life, I do.”

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Act 3, Scene 2

  Twenty

  Arabella woke to sunlight on her face. The curtains had not been drawn over the windows the night before because the upstairs maid had been locked out of her bedroom.

  She smiled, stretching, reaching out to feel the heat of Pembroke’s skin under her fingertips. He was as warm as an oven, and she burrowed beneath the covers to escape the light and to get closer to him.

  He laughed, his voice low in his throat. “Good morning, Arabella. You are like a mole in the garden, hiding beneath these covers.”

  She laughed, her own voice scratchy with sleep. “Good morning, Raymond.”

  She hid her eyes against his shoulder but drew back to look at him as he pressed his hand to her cheek. He smiled down at her, his fingertips caressing her hair. Arabella realized then that she must look frightful. She had never before woken to find a man beside her. She smiled as Pembroke pressed his lips to hers. She did not care what she looked like, for the man with her was the one she loved. At long last, he was here, and she was with him. She would not concern herself with trifles like vanity.

  His tongue found hers, swirling in the soft contours of her mouth, as if seeking hers in a game. She followed suit, until the game changed and they began to devour each other in earnest. She remembered then that she was completely naked, as he was. She had never been naked with a man before either, not before last night.

  Pembroke must have felt her hesitation, for he drew back. Though his breath came short as hers did, she knew that he would only touch her if she wanted him to. She ran her tongue over her lips, savoring the taste of him that had not yet dissipated. She did want him to touch her, and more. It was fitting that she give herself to him in the light of day.

  He smiled down at her, the errant lock of hair falling into his eyes as he raised himself above her on one elbow. She pressed her body against his beneath the feathered counterpane, and watched the blue of his eyes darken to indigo with desire.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  “I am sure,” she said.

  He kissed her then, slowly this time, meditatively, as if to seal the bargain they had made. Arabella pressed closer to him, pushing away everything save for the way his strong body felt against her slender curves. She had been given a second chance with him. She was going to enjoy it for as long as it lasted.

  Pembroke raised himself over her, and she thought that he meant to press his manhood between her thighs. She remembered little of the marriage bed other than the pain, but she knew that her old husband had raised himself up on his elbows before impaling her with his failing member. The few times he had forced himself inside her, it had never taken him long to finish. She found herself wishing that it might take longer than a few seconds with Pembroke. Though she did not like pain, the thought of having him inside her made her shiver. She would endure more pain to keep him with her a little longer.

  But Pembroke did not impale her with his member. He fell instead to kissing her breasts, his hands cupped beneath them, raising the delicate curves to his lips, first one breast and then the other.

  Arabella lost her breath as he did that, pleasure at his touch rising within her like a wave on an ocean shore. She gasped as he took one of her nipples between his teeth. She opened her eyes wide and watched as his tongue slid over her breast, his hand caressing the other. He worshiped her breasts until she thought she might melt into the bed beneath him, and then his lips began to move lower, trailing down her stomach to her thighs.

  Her body felt warm and lush in their cocoon of silk and linen, as if she had been transported to another world. The life she knew was far away, behind the white and blue silk of her bedroom curtains. Her world reduced itself to the
room she lay in, to the bed where Pembroke lay on top of her, and finally to the place on her body where his lips slid down the inner curve of her thigh.

  His mouth touched her then, and she reared up beneath him as if to escape the questing warmth of his tongue. Pembroke caught her and held her down so that she could not escape. He did not heed her fevered pleas to let her go but dove in deeper, kissing her secret places with his tongue just as he had kissed her mouth.

  Arabella fought him for a moment but soon found that she might as well have fought off a bear. She was too feeble to win, and his tongue delving inside her only made her weaker. But behind that weakness, that languid, liquid heat, she began to feel her own strength building, a secret strength that she had never known existed.

  It seemed there was within her a wealth of knowledge, a treasure of beauty stored up that she had never known. Pembroke knew of it though, just as he always knew things about her without her having to tell him. This time, she did not reveal a secret of hers only to find that he knew it already. This time, he revealed a secret to her.

  She lay dumbfounded by the beauty within her as her pleasure built until she rose up once, crying out, a great wave of pleasure swamping her, taking her mind and her thoughts and tossing them aside as if they were nothing. Arabella lay back against the soft pillows of her feather bed, her breath gone, her voice gone. Tears were on her cheeks, but this time, they were tears of joy. She had never known such pleasure existed, that such strength and beauty lay hidden away inside of her. Pembroke had given her that. If she had the rest of her life to spend with him, she would never be able to pay him back, gift for gift.

  That was what love meant, in the end. A debt you could never repay.

  Pembroke saw her tears and drew her close, kissing them away. “I am sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to hurt you.”