He lifted his hands to the bow that held that scandalously sheer gown together and tugged one end. It fluttered open and the gown parted. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then opened them before he reached out and slid a hand beneath the parted fabric. His fingers touched her skin, resting against her shoulder, and she whimpered shamelessly, for it was like he had shocked her with something electric and now she was alive in a way she’d never pictured before in her rather sheltered life.
She wanted more.
He gave it. He pushed the gown away, it fluttered to the floor, and now they were naked together and everything felt more…present. Urgent.
Did he feel it too? She thought he might by the way his gaze flickered to hers—there was a question in his stare. A moment where he almost looked as confused as she felt by the intensity of the desire between them.
He seemed to recover fast enough. He smiled, that little wicked half-smile that only seemed to be for her, and then he slid his hands down to her waist, his fingers skimming her skin until she dipped her head back with a hiss. Then he lifted her onto the high bed. Their faces were even now, and he took advantage by stepping into the space between her legs and kissing her once more.
She cupped his cheeks, tilting her head for better access and sighing as she relaxed with the rightness of this moment. There was no fear anymore, no concern. He would take care of her. She knew that as well as she knew her own name or her hair color or the flavor of her favorite biscuit.
She also knew something else in that moment as he laid her back against the pillows and took a spot beside her on the bed. She loved him.
Her eyes flew open as that wayward thought jolted through her mind. She loved Jasper. And it was true, as much a fact as the others she had noted a moment ago. She loved him and she had loved him from the first terrible moment her father had introduced the man to her and her sisters and declared he would be for Anne.
She had loved him then, secretly and furtively, filled with guilt and regret. She had loved him when she pretended to be Anne and fitted herself into the place as his bride first as a lie and then in truth. And she loved him now as he drew away and stared at her with concern on his face.
“You look frightened…shocked,” he said softly.
She shook her head. As much as she knew the truth of her heart, this was not the time to share it. Not yet. Not if she wanted what would happen next to contain no awkwardness or pity. And she didn’t. She just wanted the passion, the connection.
“I’m not afraid,” she said. “I’m just ready.”
He chuckled, the vibration of the sound seeming to pluck all her sensitive nerves as much as his touch did. “Not quite,” he said. “But you will be.”
He leaned in and pressed another kiss to her lips, but this time it was brief. He didn’t linger but began to nibble his way lower, down her throat, across her collarbone, down the trail between her breasts. He paused there, drawing his mouth to her right breast and languidly licking her nipple. She shuddered at the sensation, one she had been dreaming of for days since he touched her last.
She lifted into him, dragging her fingers into his hair and holding him there as he licked and sucked until her entire body felt weightless with pleasure. He smiled against her skin and moved to the opposite breast. He repeated every action there, in the same order. She lolled her head against the pillows and whispered his name.
He lifted his eyes as he swirled his tongue over her. “Is that you begging, my lady?”
She found herself smiling at his teasing and the easy way he made her comfortable in this moment of highest tension. “Is that what you want? To make me beg?”
His pupils dilated, erasing the brown almost entirely, and that wickedness he tried to hide in good company flashed to the surface. “Most definitely.”
“Then please, please,” she said, ignoring the shock of her own wantonness that he had discovered. “Don’t stop.”
He lowered his head and sucked her one last time before he drew farther down, caressing the swell of her stomach, the curve of her hip. His lips traced the line where the two met and then he settled between her legs.
She stared down at him, perched between them, and drew in a shaky breath. There was something so infinitely sinful about seeing him there, inches from her most private of places. She didn’t know his intentions, but she wanted to see them through.
He pushed her legs wider, exposing her in a new way. She blushed and fought the urge to shove him away. If he wanted to see her like this, she wouldn’t stop him.
“When I touched you here, you liked it,” he said, an arrogant statement, not a question.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Very much. I think you know that, though.”
“I also know you’ll like…this…”
He leaned in and his mouth was on her sex before she could guess what he would do. She sat up partially in shock, staring at him as he kissed her outer lips. Then he spread those open, exposing her further, and drew his tongue along the wet length of her sex.
She fell against the pillows with a garbled moan. What was this feeling, so unlike even the other pleasures he had given her and she had found on her own since? This was something different. His tongue moving along her body was magic, and she gripped the coverlet in both fists as she lifted her hips to greet each stroke.
He gave fast and hard, teasing at first, then beginning to focus more and more on the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. She twisted the coverlet, arching her back as sensation rolled over her.
And then, without warning, she came. Her sex twitched out of control, sending waves of pleasure outward through every part of her aching body. He dragged her through the release with his tongue, continuing to take and claim and tease until she flopped back.
“Please, please,” she whimpered, this time truly begging.
His lifted his head from her with a smile and then crawled up the length of her body. He kissed her, and she tasted the salty sweetness of her release on his tongue. She wrapped her arms around him and took more as he groaned against her.
He drew back and looked down at her, his dark gaze holding hers. “It’s time,” he said softly.
She nodded without asking for clarification. She knew what he meant. Time to claim her at last. Time to make this marriage one of body. She opened her legs wider and he nudged himself tighter between them. He watched her as he fitted his body to hers. His member…she still didn’t know what it was called…touched where he had licked her, and she dug her fingernails into his bare arms as he inched forward.
She stretched to fit him and there was pain, just as he had said there would be. But not terrible pain. Not something that made her want him to stop. It was a rather beautiful pain, of something new being made out of two separate parts. And when he was finally fully seated inside of her, she flexed around him to test this new sensation.
He grunted. “If you keep doing that, it will become much harder for me not to take you hard and fast.”
She blinked up at him, for those words caused a ricochet of desire. “Why don’t you?”
“Christ, Thomasina,” he said, ducking his head into her neck with a laugh. “Because this is the first time and I’m trying not to hurt you. I promise you, you’ll get hard and fast later. Tonight, slow and gentle.”
She nodded. He knew best in this, of course. She would learn more as they went, it seemed.
He moved and her thoughts emptied at the slick slide of him through her tender body. He ground his hips as he took her, his pelvis meeting hers with every stroke and bringing her pleasure back to life. As he did so, she began to understand, and she lifted to him, matching his pace and rhythm with her own.
His embrace grew tighter, his hips pistoning a bit faster, and she reached to meet him, her vision blurring as new pleasure darted through her body. How could he make her feel so alive? How could every touch be better than the next?
She didn’t know, but she didn’t need to know as once again the p
leasure crested and she keened beneath him. He quickened, moaning as he dragged his hands down to cup her hips and lifted her hard against him as he thrust and thrust, and then his neck tightened, the cords of tendons becoming outlined and she felt the heat of his release flood her.
He collapsed over her, his arms around her, his breath warm against her neck. For a moment they were quiet together, and she smiled against his skin because she was his now.
Nothing could change that fact.
Jasper rolled over and looked at his wife in the dying light of the fire he was too lazy to get up to stoke. She was asleep and she had earned that rest, certainly. After all, he had made love to her for hours, over and over. He hadn’t expected that to happen on their wedding night. But it was like the moment he claimed her, he never wanted to be parted from her again.
Which was a troublesome thought, in truth. A contingency he hadn’t planned for, just as he hadn’t planned for the situation with her sister or with Ellis Maitland. For a man who always focused on the plan, these deviations vexed, indeed.
He moved, sliding his arm from beneath her head. She made a little sound but rolled away from him and continued to sleep. He reached down and pulled the coverlet up over her naked body, then got up. He found a robe draped at the end of his bed and threw it on over his shoulders, then paced from the bedroom into his adjoining dressing room. He sat down at his desk and withdrew the letter he had received from Reynolds just that morning.
Thomasina had helped him forget his troubles for a while, but now he refocused as he should and reread the words on the page. Reynolds didn’t wax poetic but wrote simply that he had discovered the name of the man Maitland had turned Anne over to: Rook Maitland.
“Rook.” Jasper shook his head. “These names.”
He had no idea if this second Maitland character was a brother to Ellis or a cousin or just someone who had adopted the name when he joined Ellis’s gang. But there could be no good in the man if Ellis was his partner.
Reynolds had already declared he would try to find out more about the second Maitland person. Jasper rested the letter on his writing table with a sigh and rubbed his eyes.
“Jasper?”
He turned and found Thomasina standing in the entryway to his dressing chamber, just a sheet wrapped around her, and not very well either, for her skin peeked tantalizingly through the gaps.
“I woke up and you weren’t there,” she said, tugging the sheet higher.
He folded the letter and shoved it back into the desk before he got up and faced her. “Yes, I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep and thought I wouldn’t keep you up.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Something is troubling you? Can I help?”
He flinched at that question. So simple, so complicated. And for a moment, he longed to do exactly that: open up and tell her everything. Everything about Solomon and their complicated relationship, everything about loss and grief and hate all rolled up into one painful package. He longed to tell her about Maitland and his threats. But that would also mean telling Thomasina about what a dangerous person Anne had involved herself with.
What good would that do except to worry her? Make her question? He had no doubt she would question. And pry and wheedle. She would want to help, and she couldn’t help because this was his problem.
So until he had more information there was nothing to say. His troubles were his own and that was exactly where they should stay. Even if that violated their agreement to be honest with each other as their marriage began.
“You can help,” he said, and moved toward her, away from the evidence of his brother’s failures. Away from the evidence of his own. When he reached her, all those things seemed to fade a little. He leaned in toward her and nuzzled the side of her neck. She was soft as silk. “Come back to bed with me,” he whispered.
She seemed unhappy with that answer for a brief moment. It was obvious in the tension that swept across her body. As if she could sense there was more to be said or done, though he didn’t know how she knew when they were barely acquainted in their young marriage.
But then she wiped her concerns away and smiled up at him. The Thomasina bound to please was back, hoping to make him happy without pushing him too far.
“Yes, Jasper,” she said. She reached out to take his hand as she let the sheet fall away. He gaped as she leaned into him and made promises with her body. Promises that he could forget everything that had gone wrong in his life for just a little while longer.
Chapter 12
Thomasina forced a smile up at Ruby as her maid put the finishing touches on her hair. She had to force the smile, for she had too many troubling thoughts on her mind. First of which was that she had awoken alone in the chamber next door that morning. Jasper had left without waking her.
She supposed she could tell herself that he wanted to let her sleep after their extremely passionate and strenuous night. But she felt something else to the abandonment. Something that troubled her. It was the same feeling she’d had when she found him in his dressing room reading over a letter the night before.
It felt like he was hiding something from her. Keeping her at arm’s length. Even lying to her. But he wouldn’t do that, would he? They had promised not to lie and he seemed a man who honored his promises. So perhaps she was being silly?
She left Ruby to tidy up her chamber, not a huge feat considering she hadn’t slept there, and headed out into the house. Although it was very late thanks to her equally late night, the house was quiet. Everyone else had probably already eaten their breakfast and gone on with their day. The fact that she and Jasper hadn’t come down to join them would be whispered about with knowing looks.
Now she understood the meaning of those expressions far more.
She took her time as she moved through the estate, continuing the tour Jasper had begun a few days before and then stopped abruptly. That seemed to be the way between them, really. Starts and stops. Connection and withdrawal. All dictated by the man she had married.
She stepped into a hall and looked around with a smile, for here was the gallery of family portraits that seemed ubiquitous on every fine estate in the land. Still, one could learn a great deal from looking at man’s family history, so she glanced up at the portraits and found little hints of Jasper in many a gentleman and lady who stood staring sternly down at her.
Toward the end of the hall hung three portraits that made her stop. One was a family with a tall man, a woman who was obviously the dowager countess, and two boys. The older looked a bit sullen, his gaze darted away from the rest of the family. And the younger was Jasper. She leaned in, looking at that little boy face with its slight smile.
Her children would share some of those features, she realized with a start. They would stand together for a painter and make a similar portrait in some faraway time and place.
Would they look so disconnected as Lord and Lady Harcourt did? There must have been a foot between them, and Lady Harcourt was turned slightly away from the earl, as if the very act of being near him was a trial.
Thomasina sincerely hoped her future would not be like that. It was far too common in Society.
The next portrait in the line was of Solomon Kinkaid, the last Earl of Harcourt, but this time he was an adult. His hair was too long for current fashion, his gaze a little bleary, as if the painter had caught him in a drunken moment. Based on all she knew about Jasper’s late brother, that was probably true. Everyone knew the previous earl was a wastrel and a libertine. He had caused many a scandal in the short course of his life and ultimately by the mode of his death.
And that was what Jasper was fighting against now. But still, as she stared at the other man, she could see he and Jasper had a similar mouth. Solomon’s hair was darker than his brother’s, his eyes blue. They’d not shared a mother and it seemed they didn’t have many like features.
She wondered what Jasper thought of him. He’d made a few vague mentions of the man. She had caught a glimpse of his deep sadnes
s, but she had no idea if they had ever been close, either as children or as men. If he mourned Solomon still, a year after his untimely demise.
The last portrait in the line was the most important to her. Her husband, painted before he had taken the title, judging by the date on the brass label that was attached to the frame. Jasper looked younger than a mere handful of years before. There were fewer troubles in his countenance.
Who was this man? Was it only taking the title that had darkened him into a person who feared scandal to his very core? A man who only rarely smiled? One who was sometimes seen by others as hard or cold when neither of those things had proven true when she was alone with him?
She didn’t know that any more than she knew anything else about the husband she loved. And she wanted to know. All of it. She wanted to hear his pains and be a balm to them. She wanted to know his triumphs and celebrate those, too.
She wanted it all.
“There you are, lazy bones.”
She smiled as she turned to find Juliana entering the opposite end of the hallway. Her sister rushed through the gauntlet of painted eyes with a shudder. Juliana had always hated a portrait gallery, and she shook her head as she grabbed Thomasina’s hand and dragged her away from it.
“Eh, their eyes are so horrifying,” she said, and they linked arms and entered a pretty parlor just after the hallway.
“You always thought so,” Thomasina laughed. “Anne and I used to giggle so much about it.”
Juliana’s expression darkened at the mention of their sister. “Yes. I hated how you two teased, but now…now I would do anything to hear her quips.”
Thomasina squeezed Juliana tightly. “As would I. But we have each other, don’t we?”
Juliana nodded, and then she seemed to wipe her darker emotions away. She turned to Thomasina and looked her up and down closely. “Well, you don’t look any different.”
A Reluctant Bride Page 11