What had changed?
Him. He had changed, and he answered his internally posed question with ease. Something inside him was shifting, altering, much as it had upon his initial days as a soldier.
Morgan needed to distract her, to distract himself. The picnic had been his idea, a means to enjoy the fresh country air and the beautiful day, to take sustenance, and for Leonie to experience Westmore Manor all at once. But he had never intended to find himself so besieged by troubling feelings for his wife.
He plucked a strawberry from one of the dessert plates arranged upon the spread coverlet—small mountains of sugar biscuits, macaroons, bonbons, and fruits—then held it to her lips. “Berry, my dear?”
She pursed her lips, watching him with close regard, the stare that made him feel as if she could see within him to all the ugliness and deceit and bitterness he hid. Those feelings continued to make him experience a crushing combination of guilt and shame.
And here was another acknowledgment he did not like…
Her. She was the reason why he was feeling so torn, why the notion of gaining his revenge upon the Earl of Rayne no longer seemed the panacea it once had.
Regarding him solemnly, she nodded. “Yes, please.”
He held out the berry like a flag of surrender. She parted her lips to accept his offering, and then her teeth nipped a bite from the end. The berry was warm beneath his bare fingers, kissed by the sun, freshly ripened and picked that morning from one of the teeming plants in the Westmore Manor conservatory for their consumption. The strawberry itself, while vibrantly red and large, was nothing special. Furthermore, he had previously been in the presence of many females who had dined, and he had never once succumbed to lust.
Watching his wife take a bite of the succulent fruit should not have an effect upon him. It ought not to make his cock go rigid in his breeches, so hard he had to shift the manner in which he sat upon the cursed blanket. It most certainly should not make him think far more sinful thoughts, such as guiding the berry between her legs and…
Damnation.
His cock twitched, and he barely suppressed a moan. Leonie ate the rest of the strawberry, nipping the large fruit cleanly at the base where Cook had removed the stem, her lips brushing the pads of his fingers as she did so, sending a fresh surge of need to his groin.
The fruit was the conclusion of their picnic luncheon. Already, they had shared wine and consumed cold meats, cheese, and bread. One appetite had been sated, but another had been roused.
His gaze never straying from hers, Morgan popped the base of the strawberry into his mouth, chewing slowly. Thoughtfully. He swallowed. “Delicious.”
And he was not talking about the bloody berry. He was referring to his wife, specifically. She looked so proper, her bonnet in place, her gloves neatly folded at her side, her skirts fussed into place so that nary a hint of her ankle was visible to him.
And yet, she also looked lush. Delectable. Riper than the sweet fruit he had just consumed. Roses bloomed in her cheeks. A gentle wind blew, freeing a tendril of white-blonde hair from her careful coiffure and sending it curling over her face.
She was perfection. The most beautiful being he had ever seen. She was everything he wanted, nothing he should have. Before him, sat a rare creature, someone who cared for everyone else around her far more than she cared for herself. Leonie was so giving, so sweet. She was his lamb more than his lioness. His sweet, darling lamb.
And one day soon, she would be his willing sacrifice. He would be the lion who took her into his maws and shook her until those sweet and innocent and caring parts of her were dead. He was the predator, and she was the prey. Destruction was the inevitable, unenviable end to their story.
The man who would pay for it all with his life would be her soulless brother.
But Morgan did not like to think of any of those things. His mind balked. So, too, another part of him he preferred not to acknowledge, until he could not bear it any longer. Distraction was what he required. The ability to silence his conscience, which had somehow grown in size from nonexistent to a small seed.
“Tell me something,” he told her, desperate to fill the silence with something other than the feverish workings of his mind.
She was being so quiet, after all, and quite unlike herself. His past at war had taught him he ought to fear silence, for great upheaval tended to follow it. Specifically, violence. But he could not fathom his wife, so diminutive of stature and kind of heart, would wish to abuse him.
If she did, Christ knew he would allow it on principle, for no one deserved her wrath more than he did.
Leonie smiled at him, one of her rarer smiles, the sort that brought out the dimple in her right cheek and hit him in his chest like a blow. “I confess, I was hoping you might tell me something. After all, this is your ancestral home. You must have memories of this place. I wish to know them. Indeed, I wish to know you.”
Here, again, this woman stole his breath. She cared so much. Cared when she ought not to care. Cared because she could, because it was in her nature. Because she was Leonie, part angel, part goddess, and all his.
His burden, his pleasure, his pain, his guilt, his wife.
He wanted her so much, so desperately, not just to take her, but to assure himself of her allegiance to him forever. As he sat here with her, basking in her presence, knowing he would destroy her when he killed Rayne, he wanted nothing more than to find a way to avoid hurting her. And perhaps it was not so inevitable after all, nor so hopeless. He wanted their end to be different than what he had foreseen before he had married her.
That was how much she had come to mean to him. That was how much he needed her.
It struck him like a lightning bolt. Like a blow to the chin.
He did not just desire the woman he had married. Leonie had ceased being a duty from the moment he had first danced with her, and from then on, she had only ever been a pleasure. He felt something for her, far more for her than he should.
Good. Sweet. Christ in heaven.
Morgan could not afford to feel emotions for this woman. If he allowed himself to care for her too much, he would never be capable of using her to torment Rayne. He knew that, just as surely as he knew he could not banish these thoroughly unwanted feelings which had broken free within him.
He turned his mind instead to her request. She wanted to know more about him, about Westmore Manor, about his past. He could grant her that much of himself. Even if it, too, was incredibly difficult, tangled up in the webs of the past and the painful memories of a life he no longer lived.
He searched his mind, and then he began to speak, locking out the demons at war within him. “My mother and father both, along with my brother, George, are buried in the family plot here. I spent summers here with George. Father largely ignored us. Mother was forbidden by Father to come here. In truth, I harbor few fond memories of visiting. The land and its forbidding, sixteenth-century architecture can go rot for all I care. The precious few memories I do harbor, racing my horse, fishing with George, and throwing darts at the game heads mounted in the great hall until the butler caught us. Father was utterly livid. That is all I can recall, nothing of import, I fear. Only a handful of melancholy memories. Is that what you wanted, Leonie?”
His wife, who was everything he needed and nothing he deserved, watched him. That bright gaze of hers saw far more than he would have preferred, and he damn well knew it.
“I am sorry you do not have many happy memories here,” she said quietly, her full lips compressing. “But if it would please you, I should like to make new memories with you here. Right now. What would make you happy, my lord?”
So many things. So many wrong, wicked things.
He would not begin with any of those.
Instead, he chose something infinitely safer. “My name upon your lips. You have said it before, but I cannot help but to feel I am forever relegated to either ‘Searle’ or ‘my lord’ out of an infinite supply of displeasure. I w
ould have you call me Morgan, at least for today, if not beyond. Hearing my Christian name upon your lips would please me greatly.”
In truth, she had not called him by his given name since the night he had bedded her for the first time. He wanted to return to that tender intimacy, even if the longing was deuced stupid of him.
And it was deuced stupid, there was no question of it.
Her smile deepened, her lips so soft and pink and decadent, promising. Tantalizing. “Morgan,” she said.
His name, nothing revolutionary. Nothing special, by God. And yet…
And yet, all the blood in his body diverted to his cock in that instant.
His erection was so fierce, so demanding, he sucked in a breath and hoped his wife did not take note of his sudden, amorous state of discomfort. “Thank you, Leonie.”
A wicked glint entered her eyes. Her hands clenched in the fabric of her prim day gown, dragging the sprigged muslin upward to reveal her trim ankles and shapely calves. “I was hoping we might make a new memory here. A happier one. Together. What do you think, Morgan?”
What did he think? His mouth went dry as she raised her skirts a bit higher to reveal her stockinged knees. Quickly, he calculated the distance of the waiting carriage—quite beyond sight and hearing distance—and servants, who had been given orders not to disturb their picnic luncheon. This dreamy, verdant area of the park was concealed by ancient oaks and the gentle swells of the land, giving the area a sense of intimacy, which had been his reason for choosing it for their picnic.
“Morgan?” she persisted, raising the hems of her gown and petticoats even higher, revealing her garters and the mouthwatering expanse of bare skin where her stockings ended. Pale, milky thighs taunted him.
“I think I may have to finish my dessert in a different fashion,” he told her, a wicked idea taking hold as he thought of the discarded plate of strawberries.
“Oh?” A flirtatious smile tipped up the corners of her lush mouth. Her hem moved farther north. “And what shall your dessert be?”
He closed the distance between them and sealed his lips to hers, kissing her long and hard and deep, unable to resist licking into her mouth, tasting her. She was sweet, so sweet, a heady blend of sugary confections and ripe strawberries and Leonie.
And he was lost. He nipped her lower lip, ravenous for her, wanting to mark her, to eat her whole. “My dessert will be you, darling,” he muttered against her beautiful lips.
*
Leonora swallowed as a frisson of anticipation trilled down her spine and settled deep in her womb where she ached for him most. Her fingers were in his hair, threading through the long dark waves, his hat knocked aside. Need for him roared through her as she kissed him back.
Since they had relocated to the countryside, she had been treated to a gentler version of her husband. He was attentive and charming. He made her laugh with clever sallies. Upon their arrival at Westmore Manor, the full staff of domestics had been assembled. He had introduced her to them himself, and then he had personally shown her each chamber in the astonishingly large home, from its cavernous great hall to the library and the gardens.
They had been in residence for three blissful days, and Searle had been not just attentive but…almost sweet, though the word hardly seemed an appropriate descriptor for the forbidding man she had married. But this moment, this picnic upon the idyllic bank of a stream, where they were surrounded by the abundance of nature at her most munificent, where he fed her strawberries and the tiny faces of Forget-me-nots bobbed around them in the gentle, sweet-smelling breeze and the water cascaded in a relaxing gurgle.
He groaned, then broke the kiss. His gaze burned into hers, seeming to devour her as if he were committing her to memory, or as if he were seeing her for the first time. His intensity poured into her soul, and it remained there. She knew she could not remove it now, not even if she wished to do so. The Marquess of Searle was a part of her, so deep and so true he could never be removed. Not from her heart, not from her memories, and not from her life.
Nor did she want him to be.
“Delicious, my lady,” he said, and then he kissed her again slowly, lingeringly, deliciously. He kissed her as if she was beloved to him, as if she was necessary.
She kissed him back in the same fashion, because he was to her. In such a short amount of time, he had become essential. He had become a part of her she had not known she so desperately needed. His large body settled between her legs, and he angled himself over her, feeding her kisses until pleasure was once more licking through her like fire.
Her fingers traveled happily over his broad shoulders, investigating his hardness, his strength. How difficult it was to believe anyone had been capable of containing this man. One day, she would ask him. One day, perhaps he would trust her enough to share the parts of himself he kept locked away, the parts he refused to speak about.
But today was not that day, and it did not seem to matter, with his warmth burning into her body, his scent surrounding her, the sun shining upon them, and the pretty gurgle of the stream in the background as he kissed her with such voracious possession a fresh ache blossomed between her legs. They were in an enchanted realm, no one but the two of them, and the rest of their lives could be spent learning each other’s secrets.
For now, there was nothing she wanted more than him.
Because she loved him.
How she loved this man.
He tore his mouth from hers, almost as if he had somehow heard her thoughts, then gazed down at her, his lips swollen from kissing her, his eyes glazed over with passion. “Leonie, darling. If we carry on as we are, I will take you right here.”
“Then do it,” she dared him.
“Leonie.” He kissed her, almost as if he could not resist, then broke free once more, his countenance a study in need and repression. “You make me forget where I am and what I am about. Make me forget all the reasons why making love to you wherever I wish is not always a good idea”
She smiled up at him, her heart giving a pang. How tender he seemed, how softened. How very different from the unyielding, cold Searle she had come to expect. “Good.” She caught his handsome face in her hands. “Because if you ask me, making love to me here and now is a most excellent idea.”
“Leonie,” he protested on a groan, but as he said her name, he also dipped his head to feather another kiss over her lips as if he was starved for her.
As if he could not resist.
She did not want him to resist. She wanted him to lose control. To fling his caution to the wind. And so, she held him to her when he would withdraw, deepening their kiss herself for the first time by sliding her tongue past the seam of his lips. His response was molten. On a growl, he kissed her harder, his tongue licking against hers almost as if they fought a battle.
But this was not a battle. Rather, it was a homecoming.
Her heart had found the place where it belonged: him.
“Leonie,” he said again, her name on his lips a prayer. An exhalation. A warning.
“Morgan,” she returned, kissing him again, once, twice. God help her, thrice because she could not resist. “Make love to me.”
She did not have to beg, though she felt certain she would have. He dragged his mouth down her neck, sucking and biting all the tender flesh available to him. Her throat would be evidence of what they had been about, and she did not care. She would cover it with fichus and powder. She would wear the mark of his lovemaking sooner than she would don the Searle rubies.
His hands were on her gown and petticoats, dragging them to her waist. Leonora kissed the top of his head, reveling in the silken thickness of his wavy dark hair. How beautiful he was, how perfectly imperfect, how hers. His fingers dipped with expert precision between her thighs, and then he was kissing her once more, his mouth fused to hers, their tongues tangling. His fingers left her to undo the fall of his breeches.
“I want you more than I want my next breath,” he said.
Dear God, what his words did to her.
“Yes, Morgan. I feel the same way.” She pulled his mouth to hers, and he entered her in one swift thrust.
Their lips met in a furious joining. Their bodies moved together in elemental mimicry. He withdrew from her almost entirely, only to slide home inside her once more. Their mouths clung, tongues tangling, and he made love to her with such sweet ferocity she feared she would weep.
In the aftermath, she held him against her, and it was only then that the words she intended to keep to herself escaped her.
Quite involuntarily.
“I love you, Morgan.”
But once they had left her lips, there was no recalling them, regardless of how much she wished she could.
*
Morgan had found a new use for the library at Westmore Manor. As a lad, he and George had often found their way to the old, cavernous room with its walls of ancient tomes to escape from their father’s wrath. As a man, he was finding solace in the same space all over again, albeit in a different manner and with a different companion.
Each evening following dinner, he and Caesar had lately made a habit of joining Leonora there. The first night Morgan had accompanied her, he had seated himself upon a winged-back chair, listening to her read from The Silent Duke. The second night, she had invited him to join her on the divan. This night, he stretched comfortably across the oversized piece of furniture, his head in Leonora’s lap, Caesar cuddled up to his side.
She was once more reading from her book, and he was luxuriating in her attentions, much like a cat lying in the sun, allowing himself to be pet. Her fingers tenderly stroked his hair as she read, her mellifluous voice filling the room with warmth.
But though he basked in her touch and the opportunity to be so near to her—the soft fabric of her gown and her luscious thighs an ideal, floral scented pillow for his head—he was also distracted once more. More than distracted, even, he was haunted by the words she had spoken several days before. The novel she read was doubtlessly riveting, but one sound echoed above the din in his mind, and though it was hers, the words were different.
Marquess of Mayhem (Sins & Scoundrels Book 3) Page 16