by Eloisa James
“Mrs. Malabright was right to put her trust in you, darling,” Emily said, closing her arms around Phoebe’s round little body.
She would do anything—anything—to save Phoebe from the scorn of polite society. And if that meant that she had to say farewell to the seductive Lucien, so be it. And good-bye to the informative Hislop as well.
Phoebe looked up at her anxiously. “No one could take me away from you, could they, Mama?”
“Never!” Emily said fiercely. “You are my very own little girl.” She swallowed more tears. “Time to wash before supper! Quick as a bunny, Phoebe.”
GABBY ’ S HEART WAS POUNDING so hard that she could hear it in her ears. She wasn’t ready. It wasn’t nighttime. She didn’t wish to disrobe in an open room, with candles burning. But it was her duty, she told herself. Her father had made it quite clear that her husband’s wishes were to be her law.
“You said we would wait until we returned to London.”
“No,” Quill replied. “Can’t do it.”
There was a pause as he made his way down the long row of pearl buttons.
“The bell is going to ring for dinner. Your mother will think it quite odd if we don’t join her.”
“She’s eating in her room.”
“Well, then, Lady Sylvia will be affronted. You are her host.”
“Nonsense,” Quill said. “She’s more likely to applaud. She expects me to produce an heir, in case you didn’t notice this afternoon.”
Quill eased Gabby’s dress forward and stood her up. A pool of black fabric fell to the floor. He twirled her about and started unlacing her corset.
Gabby stared numbly at the embroidered coverlet. “I believe this is a mistake. How are you going to travel to Southampton?”
“Since Peter will be accompanying Mother and Lady Sylvia to the Continent, there is no particular need for me to travel with them.”
“What about your headache?”
There was no answer. Her corset fell forward and joined her gown on the floor. Under it Gabby wore only a light chemise.
Quill turned her around slowly. The chemise was laced to the waist and then fell in pleats to the floor. He let his hands glide from her shoulders, past her short sleeves, and down her bare arms.
His eyes were a decadent shade of green. Even with Gabby’s inexperience, she could read desire in them. “I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
“I can’t help it. You’re mine now, and you’re beautiful.” His hands moved to her waist.
“I would rather not do this at the moment,” Gabby said clearly. “I don’t feel it is a proper time or place.”
“Mmmm,” Quill replied. He was rubbing his thumbs over her nipples in a manner that made Gabby feel hot and terrified at once.
“Quill, are you listening to me?” Gabby tried to ignore the sensations in her body, especially those below her waist.
Without answering, Quill maneuvered her to the bed and pushed her backward. Then his knee nudged her legs open—and the knee touched her.
“Quill!”
“I’m listening,” he said lazily. He bent and licked her nipple just as he had before, in Bath, right through her chemise.
Gabby took a deep breath, trying to control a rising sense of panic. What was there to be so afraid of? Pain, for one thing. The thought gave her resolution and she pushed at his shoulders, trying to get him away from her breast. He had to stop doing that; he was making it hard to think rationally.
Then, without warning, Quill abandoned one breast and moved to the other, sucking it into his mouth. A large hand started roughly caressing the wet nipple. To Gabby’s shame, a guttural sound burst from her throat.
The shock gave her a burst of strength. “No!” She squirmed sideways so quickly that Quill let go of her in surprise, and she lurched forward off the bed.
“I do not approve of this,” Gabby said, trying hard to ignore the throbbing sense in her lower body. “We haven’t discussed it—”
“Rationally,” Quill chimed in. He was grinning like a devil, lying on the bed looking wicked, and delicious, and male…. Gabby almost sobbed with a combination of bewilderment and longing.
“It is illogical to continue. You won’t be able to travel for days. What about your work in London?”
Quill stood up and unbuttoned his waistcoat. He tossed it to the floor next to her gown.
“I don’t want to!” she said desperately, watching with fascination as Quill drew his linen shirt over his head. His body was lean and muscled, as different from her own as could be imagined. Heat pulsed in her veins.
He was still grinning, an audaciously wicked smirk.
“It’s not dark. We should be under the covers, in the dark. You shouldn’t bare yourself like this—where is your nightshirt?” Her voice rose. “And you’re looking at me again!”
“You’re looking at me too,” Quill said mildly. He was pulling off his boots now.
Gabby’s vision blurred with tears. She winked them away and crossed her arms rigidly over her breasts.
“Why so coy, love?”
A sob escaped from Gabby’s throat. “I don’t want—this,” she cried.
“Why not?” To her relief, the seductive tone was gone from Quill’s voice.
But how could she answer him? She stumbled into speech. “What we’re doing is shameful. It should be done in the dark, under the covers. You can touch me if you wish, because you are my husband and I can’t say nay, but you can’t look at me like that. You can’t make me do naked things—in the light!”
Quill sighed. Then he backed up and sat on the edge of the bed. “Come here, sweetheart.” He held out his arms.
Gabby took one look at his chest and shook her head. “I’m almost certain that your headaches are caused by misconduct. Your behavior is not Christian.” Her voice was strained and earnest.
“Christian?” He bent forward and grabbed one of Gabby’s wrists, pulling her slowly toward him. She perched reluctantly on his knees, back straight so that she didn’t touch his naked chest. It was mortifying, the way her fingers yearned to caress him.
“We’re behaving like heathens,” she whispered miserably, adding the “we” for his benefit. Frankly, he was the heathen. “Back home, in India…my father—” She stopped.
“What would he say?”
“A couple was seen making love by the river.” Gabby’s voice was quite sunk with mortification. “He pointed them out in church and made them stand up and said that God would strike them down.”
“And did God strike them down?” Even Gabby couldn’t miss the potent anger in Quill’s voice.
She shivered. “No. But they had to leave the village.”
“Your father is—” He broke off. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her soft hair. “Do you like your father, Gabby?”
“One doesn’t have to like a father. One only has to obey him.”
“And did you always obey him?” Quill asked, making an educated guess.
There was silence. “No,” Gabby admitted. “I was a thorn in his side.” She was clearly quoting.
“Why didn’t you obey?”
Gabby didn’t seem to notice that she had relaxed her spine and was leaning against Quill’s chest. Quill was aware of every soft breath she took. Carefully, he drew on self-control learned from years of pain. “Why not, Gabby?” he repeated.
“Father is sometimes too strict,” she said, so softly he could hardly hear her voice. “He can be cruel.”
Quill’s calm tone applauded. “It sounds that way to me. How is he cruel?”
“We live in a small village,” she explained. “Father arrived as a missionary. He built a house and a church.”
“And?”
“That couple,” Gabby said. “He said they couldn’t live in the village anymore, or Sarita might contaminate the other women. He made Sarita and her husband do penance all night, and then they had to leave the village with nothing. I
don’t know where they went.” Her voice trailed off miserably. “It wasn’t right. Sarita was a friend of mine, and she wasn’t a…whore. He called her a whore.”
“How did you disobey, then?”
“I sent a servant to gather Sarita’s things—to throw them away, Father thought. But actually I sent all their belongings to her family.”
“Did your father find out?”
“It happened just before I left for Calcutta to travel to England.”
“I’m surprised he allowed you to be friends with village women,” Quill remarked.
“Oh, he didn’t. And I wasn’t really a friend of Sarita’s. I was allowed two servants, and they told me about the village every day. I felt as if I were friends with some women, because I heard about them my whole life. Sarita was my age, and she would smile when she saw me.”
“Didn’t you have any friends at all? What about the woman you told me about, the one who couldn’t eat papaya?” Quill was quite proud of how steady he had kept his voice.
“Her name was Leela. And, no…I didn’t have friends to speak to, not after Johore died.”
Quill searched his mind. “Who?”
“Remember? I told you that I had a friend who died of a fever. Johore was Sudhakar’s son, and since Sudhakar was from the highest Brahman class, my father let me play with him as a child. After Johore died, there was no one appropriate left in the village to play with. But my nurse would tell me what the children were doing, and I felt as if Sarita and Leela were my friends, even though we couldn’t speak to one another. I wasn’t lonely. I had Kasi Rao to take care of.”
Quill’s lust had been replaced by a healthy dose of rage. “Let me understand this correctly,” he said slowly. “Your father allowed you no companions except his feeble-minded nephew. He exiled people from the village on the slightest whim, not allowing them to take their possessions with them.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“I’m sorry, Gabby, but men like your father are the reason I sold my East India stock. There are too many Englishmen over in India living like little kings, answerable to no one. Bastards, all of them.”
He cupped his wife’s chin with his hand. “Gabby?”
Tears were glinting in her beautiful eyes. Quill kissed them shut. “We need to speak—rationally.” There was only a hint of a smile in his voice. “Your father sounds like a small-minded scoundrel.
“Open your eyes, Gabby. I would make love to you on the banks of the Ganges River,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper. “I would make love to you on the banks of the Humber River, out in the back gardens, for that matter. In fact, I probably will before our lives are over. I would do it in broad daylight, with an audience of Codswallop and the rest of the staff, if I had to.”
Gabby opened her mouth and he touched it with a finger. “All right, I would rather not have Codswallop in my near vicinity. He’s a dreary-looking sort and not conducive to lovemaking. But my point, Gabby, is that God would only celebrate us for making love—no matter where we were, in light or darkness, under the sheets, or on a muddy riverbank. Your father’s idea of sin was narrow-minded and loutish.”
Gabby smiled crookedly. “You sound like Sudhakar.”
“The Brahman?”
She nodded. “He played chess with my father every Thursday night. And we used to converse if my father was late, which he often was.”
“He spoke frankly,” Quill said, rather stunned.
“Sudhakar is a Brahman. To him, Father is of a lower caste…a lower race. But he liked me.” She bit her lip.
Quill let his hand run cautiously down his wife’s back. “Gabby, will you make love to me now? We are not on the banks of a river. The viscountess’s bedchamber has witnessed the conception of many Dewlands, and there is no place on earth more appropriate to consummate this marriage.” He kissed her ear in a delicate caress that sent heat to the back of her knees.
Gabby cleared her throat. “I should like to know what you are going to do to me.”
Quill chuckled and bent to kiss her again, but she pushed him away and stood up. “I’m not funning! I want to know about the pain.”
“Have you been worrying?”
“Of course I have,” she said crossly. “And I have to admit, I’m not sure it’s worth the bother, given that I am going to be in pain and you are going to suffer a three-day headache as a result!”
“I’ll ask you tomorrow whether it was worth it, shall I?”
“If you are correct, you’ll be lying in a dark room tomorrow,” she snapped.
“Hmmm,” Quill said. He didn’t want to think about that. “You know, Gabby, you’re absolutely right. Let’s proceed rationally.”
She noticed that his wicked grin was firmly back in place. He stood up as well, and his hands went to his waist. She stilled, and her heart started pounding in her throat again.
Quill took off his pantaloons and started unbuttoning his smalls.
He pushed the white linen down his hips casually, as if he were alone. But in fact his hands were shaking and his negligent attitude was deceptive. Gabby hadn’t looked at him yet. He waited, watching as her eyes slid down his body.
He heard her gasp.
He turned away and walked over to the fireplace. He lit two more candles that were standing on the mantelpiece and carried them over to the bed. Twilight was drawing in and the room was growing shadowy.
Gabby’s eyes raced down the tight line of his buttocks as Quill crouched to light the fire already laid in the hearth.
“Quill,” she said, despising the weakness of her own voice.
“Yes?” He stood up and turned around, and oh, he was just as magnificent as she had thought.
Quill walked over and said, “Time to remove your chemise, darling.”
Gabby gulped and unwrapped her arms, which were tightly crossed on her chest again. Quill undid the ties at her waist, and strong masculine hands pulled up the soft pleats of her chemise. There was a moment of airy blindness and then Gabby found herself standing naked before her husband.
He didn’t touch her. For a second he couldn’t breathe. A dark flame surged through his body at the sight of his wife. She was so beautiful, her skin like milky cream, smooth expanses blooming into full breasts. It was torture not to touch her, not to brush her shining strands of hair behind her shoulders, not to run his hands over her generous curves.
In the fireplace, a log caught in a crackle of sparks. Fireglow leapt across the room, danced over creamy female hips and powerful male legs.
“Here we are,” he said gently. “As God made us, Gabby.” His throat was tight with lust, but he steadied himself. He couldn’t frighten her—he had to get this right or the rest of their married life would be plagued by her idiot father and his nasty ideas.
Her eyelashes were silky against her cheeks, which were stained scarlet. She hadn’t looked up since he removed her chemise. He reached out and delicately touched her face. “Gabby? After stealing glances at me whenever you thought I wasn’t looking, now you won’t look at me at all?”
When she didn’t answer, he tried teasing her again. “After all your demands for a rational explanation?”
“There’s nothing rational about this,” she whispered, stung into lifting dusky eyes to his face. “I never, ever thought to be naked like this, so indecent—” She broke off, unable to express the shameless way they were behaving.
“There’s no indecency here,” Quill replied, walking a step closer so that he was just before her. “The dark is for thieves and vagabonds, Gabby. You are my wife. I would celebrate you in the light.”
Gabby bit her lip. Despite herself, her body was turning to liquid fire, a slow betrayal, a bending to his ideas. To be truthful, in the firelight his body didn’t seem sinful. Not the beauty of his muscled shoulders or lean hips. His body should be celebrated too, she thought, so beautiful it was, and so hard-won.
Quill picked up her hand and placed it just to the side of his manhood. �
��You see, Gabby? We fit together, like a hand and a glove.”
Gabby shuddered. Her fingers trembled, but didn’t fall away from his curls.
And then…silently, without outward sign, she succumbed. The shame that was catching her in the back of the throat fell away. She gave in to the pleading in Quill’s eyes, to the brave leanness of his injured body. To his delight, she tentatively touched him with a finger.
His flesh leapt at her touch and she drew back instantly. “Did that hurt?”
Quill grabbed her hand and put it squarely on him. Surges of heat raced down the backs of his legs. He was at the limits of his self-control.
“Gabby,” he said hoarsely. “This will hurt, but only at first. Come here.” He opened his arms.
And his wife, his brave wife, with one nervous swallow wound her arms around his neck and brought her luscious body against his.
Quill kissed her neck, little trailing kisses that sat innocently on her skin and sent messages through her body. He swept a hand down her back, brushing aside tangled curls, curving around her naked bottom.
Gabby closed her eyes, and it was like being in the dark. She concentrated on his hands, how he had picked her up and was walking, skin to skin. She kept her eyes closed as he gently lay her on the bed. In the velvety darkness behind her eyelids, there was nothing indecent about her husband’s lips as they trailed down her neck, leaving a murmur of pleasure behind. His lips reached her breast, and the murmur turned to a whisper that spoke throughout her body.
Sure, strong hands cupped her breasts. Then Quill’s breath swept her skin and his mouth closed on her nipple. She arched up, inarticulate sounds falling from her lips, hands clutching his shoulders.
She kept her eyes closed. Protected by blindness, she registered a demanding hardness against her thigh, felt his hands between her legs, suffered the little shivers that followed his fingers. She felt the weight of her own breasts and the fiery warmth between her legs—and gasped as strong hands pulled her thighs open. An inarticulate plea burst from her throat. And then there was no room for shame, not with the twisting flames that raced through her veins, not with the potent demand that pooled between her thighs. Without thinking, she pressed up against his fingers.