“We should go outside,” Lynette whispered once they were in the foyer, “or else they may follow us. Your mother has been, ah, rather persistent in her wedding planning. I have tried to dissuade her, but...” she trailed off with a helpless shrug.
Nodding his head in silent agreement, Nathaniel kept Lynette’s tucked firmly in the crook of his arm as they hurriedly exited the manor and walked briskly down the drive. There was a cool breeze in the air and it swept Lynette’s hair off her forehead as she kept pace with him. They’d left before she’d had time to put on a bonnet and her shining sable tresses glimmered in the mid-morning sun. Without thinking of what he was doing, he reached across his body and captured a loose tendril between his thumb and pointer finger. It coiled around his hand, as though instinctively yearning to be close to him.
“Is your hair always so soft?” he said huskily, marveling at the silky texture. His hands burned to sink into the thick, heavy mass of her curls. To send the pins that held it into a neat, sensible bun at the nape of her elegant neck scattering across the earth as he pulled her head back and covered his mouth with her own. He wanted to hear her gasp. And then he wanted to feel her moan...
“I - I do not really notice, to be honest.” Glancing at him oddly, Lynette nodded towards a small opening in the tree line. “There is a walking trail through those trees. I do not believe anyone else knows about it, so if you wish to have some privacy I suggest that is where we should go.”
“Indeed.” Annoyed with himself, Nathaniel cleared his throat. How was it that he could not keep a clear head where Lynette was concerned? In all his years he’d never felt such a strong, physical pull. And it wasn’t as if she were going out of her way to seduce him. Quite the opposite, really. So why the hell couldn’t he get his body - and his traitorous mind - under control?
It is not Lynette who is in danger of becoming overly involved in this relationship, he thought with a dark, ominous scowl that started between his eyebrows and quickly spread to the rest of his countenance, it is me.
“You look very...perturbed,” Lynette noted as they entered the woods. Dappled sunlight played across her features as she peered up at him beneath a fringe of dark lashes, her eyes narrowed with concern and another emotion he couldn’t quite place. Was it annoyance? Frustration? Fear? It was impossible to tell. It seemed in the days they’d spent apart she’d gotten better at concealing her emotions...while he’d gotten miserably worse.
She had him so wrapped up he didn’t know up from down or left from right. All he knew was that when he wasn’t around her she was the only thing he could think about...and when he was around her the only thing he could think about was taking her. If this was how marriage made a man feel, was it any wonder he’d avoided it for so long?
Raking a hand through his thick, windswept hair, he pulled the ends taut before letting them fall to the collar of his jacket. “I have been thinking about what I said the last time we were together,” he admitted.
Lynette’s fingers tightened on his arm. “Do you mean when you so charmingly told me what our marriage would be and what it would not?” she said coolly. “I believe your exact words were - and do please correct me if I am wrong - ‘I am not marrying you out of some sort of sentiment or affection or because I believe we may one day come to love one another. I am doing it because I want a wife who understands, as you do, that those things are a waste of time and energy. I will not be told what I may do and when I may do it.’ Yes.” She nodded decisively. “I believe that was it.”
Hearing his own words repeated back to him verbatim, Nathaniel was forced to realize just how much of an ass he’d sounded like. He frowned. “Lynette, I am not a monster. It is not that I do not wish to feel anything towards you as my wife, it is simply that-”
“It will be easier if we do not fall in love,” she finished.
“Well, yes.” Relieved that she understood, he absently patted her hand as one might a small puppy. “I have seen how miserable my married friends are, and I do not wish that misery upon either one of us.”
“Your mother seems quite happy to be married to your father,” she pointed out.
“I believe they are the exception, not the rule.”
“And you do not think we could be the exception as well?”
Maybe?
“No,” he said firmly. “I do not.”
Lynette’s smaller shadow slipped inside his considerably larger one as they stepped out of the woods and into a sunlit field. “What about children?”
“Children?” he repeated, caught completely unawares.
“Yes.” Though her cheeks blushed prettily and the topic was obviously one that caused her some discomfort, she pressed on. “You are a viscount and will one day inherit an earldom. Surely you have given some thought to producing an heir.”
A wolfish grin tugged at one side of his mouth. “I’ve certainly given a great of thought about the act it takes to produce an heir.”
“Oh!” Her face went from pale pink to bright red as her blush intensified. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Absently he cupped the nape of her neck, fingers toying with a few trailing locks of hair that had slipped free of her bun as they continued to walk side by side through the field, wildflowers brushing against their calves. “I should like to have a son, and, God willing, for that son to have a sibling.”
“But not a wife who loves you and who you love in return.” Stopping without warning, Lynette slipped her hand free and crossed her arms. “I simply do not understand it. I know why you would have no feelings for me now as we are still little more than strangers, but to vow never to have any feelings...why? Why do such a thing?”
He turned to face her. “To avoid the heartache that inevitably comes with falling in love.”
Her brow creased. “Have you been in love before?”
“No,” he said shortly. But I have felt the sting of betrayal and the pain of a broken heart. He’d yet to fall in love with a woman despite the mistresses he had kept, but he had loved his brother. He loved him still, if he were being honest, for despite all of the wrongs Adam had committed and all of the people he’d hurt with his careless, self-serving actions - Lynette, Annabel, their mother and father - they were still twins and the blood bond that tied them together was unbreakable. But having endured the pain of having his love twisted and manipulated and used against him, why would he ever willingly give himself up to the possibility of suffering all over again?
There was no denying his physical attraction to Lynette. He desired her, more than he ever had any other. He also found her witty, intelligent, and charming in a rather straitlaced, hesitant sort of way. He admired her determination and her commitment to her family. Her strength and soft, old-fashioned beauty. But he would not allow himself to fall in love with her. He would not give someone else that much power over him.
It was as simple - and bloody difficult - as that.
“Then why-” Lynette began, only to cut herself short at his quelling stare.
“I do not wish to speak of this again,” he growled as an irrational surge of anger crashed over him like a wave. Why did Lynette had to question him at every damn turn? Why couldn’t she be satisfied with what he was giving her and forget what he wasn’t?
“Fine.” She threw up her hands as she spun away from him and began walking back the way they had come. “Have it your way.”
“Where the hell are you going?” he called out.
“HOME!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“Well you can damn well wait up.”
“Do not touch me,” she spat, wrenching her arm free when he attempted to grasp her wrist.
Nathaniel gritted his teeth. “I did not meant to upset you.”
“Did not mean to upset me? Did not mean to upset me?” Her voice turning shriller with every word spoken, she whirled around to face him and planted both hands on her slender hips. “I think that has been your intent all along! To upset me. To torture
me. To-”
“To torture you?” he repeated incredulously. “What the devil are you talking about now?”
“Yes, torture!” Her hair came unraveled and whipped across her shoulders in a cape of black silk as she vehemently nodded her head. “You are constantly saying one thing and doing another! Just when I think I have begun to understand you, you change your mind all over again! First you act as though you care for me, and then you brush me aside as if I am some annoying fly buzzing around your head only to kiss me senseless when the opportunity suits you before you tell me, yet again, how you shall never have any feelings for me! Either treat me with derision or pretend as though you love me, but you cannot continue doing both or I will end this farce here and now, do you hear me?”
“Oh you will, will you?” Nathaniel said in a very soft, very dangerous tone.
Eyes flashing fire, Lynette cried, “Yes!”
“And what about what you feel for me?” Ignoring her snapping teeth and shrewish tongue, he wrapped his arms around her waist and yanked her against him. “What about that, hmm?”
Striking at his chest half-heartedly, she tilted her chin up. “I hate you.”
Their thighs brushed and his cock jolted to attention. Hearing the faint hitch in Lynette’s breathing as his hands began to slide lower...and lower...Nathaniel’s mouth curved in an arrogant grin. He may not have understood love, but he knew everything there was to know about lust. “No you don’t,” he whispered into her ear as he lowered his head and flicked his tongue against her earlobe.
“Well I - I do not like you very much,” she said in a faltering voice that ended on a gasp when he cupped her shapely derriere and pressed her crotch against the hardest, hottest part of his body.
“My little lying fiancée,” he breathed before he buried his hands in her thick, tangled mane and claimed her soft lips as his own.
Nathaniel is a conceited, arrogant bully who cannot make up his mind from one moment to the next, Lynette thought dazedly as she pressed her fingers to her swollen lips and rolled onto her side to stare out her bedroom window at the star struck sky above, but he certainly does know how to kiss.
When they’d finally stumbled out of the woods, she’d nearly been delirious with arousal. Her entire body had been pulsing with unsated need; need that had taken nearly an entire day and a cold bath to subside.
She despised the physical hold he had over her! One kiss and she forgot everything except for the taste of his mouth and the tantalizing weight of his hands as he explored her body, touching her in places no other man ever had.
One kiss, and she was willing to forgive him anything.
One kiss, and she was pushed out of her mind with desire.
One kiss, and she abandoned all reason, all doubts, all common sense.
It was ridiculously frustrating, not to mention embarrassing.
Recalling the satisfied smirk curving his lips as he’d finally lifted his head and let her go, Lynette groaned and dragged a pillow over her face.
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself. “You are such an idiot, Lynette Swan.”
And in two days’ time she would be an idiot with a wedding ring on her finger, for despite her threat she couldn’t imagine a scenario where she and Nathaniel were not married. For one thing, she needed him. Her sister’s needed him. Even Mr. Humphrey needed him. For another, he wasn’t a bad man. An incredibly frustrating one whom she wanted to pop over the head, but not a bad one. As far as husbands went, she could have done worse.
Far, far worse.
Or so she reasoned with her head.
Her heart, however, remained unconvinced.
But if there was anything she’d learned from past experiences, it was that her heart could not be trusted. It had already betrayed her once, and she had no intention of letting it betray her again. She would marry Nathaniel Blackbourne. Not because it was the romantic decision, but because it was the sensible one. The logical one.
Her head understood that and in time, so would her heart.
She was sure of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nathaniel and Lynette were married on Friday in a tiny village church with stained glass windows and wooden pews. Rebecca Townsend cried through the entire ceremony, and even Temperance got a bit misty-eyed during the vows. The bride wore a lovely dress of soft blue and the groom was sharply presented in a suit of dark gray. They made a dashing couple, everyone said so, and no one – not even Annabel, who prided herself on such things – could see the turmoil simmering just beneath their painted on smiles.
By the end of the day Lynette’s jaw ached from being clenched too tightly, and she was looking forward to the moment when she could lock herself in her room, change out of her dress, and hide beneath the covers until dawn.
Unfortunately, she was forgetting one rather important detail.
Tonight was her wedding night…and she would not be going to bed alone.
After the revelry had died down – against her son’s wishes, Rebecca had secretly invited two dozen or so ‘close family and friends’, many of whom Nathaniel claimed not to know – and everyone had more or less returned home (a handful of guests had been put up in the east wing of the house where they would remain until they returned to London on Monday), Lynette found herself standing out on the balcony of the master bedroom suite, idly twisting the gold band she now wore on her left ring finger round and round in an endless circle.
“Does it not fit?” Coming up beside her, Nathaniel braced his arms on the railing and looked down at the front lawn spread out before them in a canopy of rolling green.
“It does.” Letting go of her ring, Lynette cast her husband – how odd it felt to think of him as such! – an agitated glance from beneath her lashes. “It fits quite well, actually.”
“Good. It once belonged to my father’s mother. She was a bit larger than you, so I had it resized in town before I came to Dunhill. I am glad it is not too big.”
Staring down at the ring which now bound her eternally to a man who had repeatedly expressed his disinterest in falling in love with her yet had cared enough to make sure her wedding band was the correct size, Lynette slowly nodded. “So am I,” she said quietly.
“Did you enjoy the wedding?” A cool breeze swept his dark blond hair away from his forehead. Without thinking, Lynette leaned up on her toes and captured an errant curl. They both froze, her eyes going wide while his narrowed, and she hastily tucked the tendril behind his ear before settling back on her heels and edging a few inches to the left.
“I – I am sorry,” she said breathlessly as a blush turned her cheeks from pale pink to rosy red.
“You have nothing to apologize for. We are married now.” Turning his body until he faced her, Nathaniel slowly raised his hand and skimmed it along the length of her arm, leaving a trail of goose pimples in his wake. “We can touch one another as much as we like. In fact…” Closing his fingers around her delicate wrist, he gave a gentle tug, pulling her towards him. “We can start right now,” he said huskily, tipping her chin up to receive his kiss.
Lynette had been afraid that Nathaniel would rush her. That he wouldn’t take his time now that they were married and her body was his to do with it what he wished. That their sensual embraces would be a thing of the past, and he would take what he pleased without giving anything in return.
She should have known better.
Her new husband may have been many things, but he knew how to pleasure a woman.
Oh, did he know how to pleasure a woman…
On a soft, breathy sigh her head fell back as he skimmed his lips across her throat. She leaned against him, pressing her sensitive breasts against his broad chest and sinking her fingers into his thick hair. He did the same, sending pins flying over the edge of the balcony as her elaborate chignon was pulled loose and tumbled down over her shoulders in a wave of black silk.
Gathering her gleaming curls into his hands, Nathaniel tugged every-so-slightly, eliciti
ng a moan from somewhere deep inside her slender throat. Parting her lips with one thrust of his tongue, he tasted the nectar of her mouth, flooding her with heat.
Even if everything else with their courtship had gone wrong, Lynette thought in a mindless haze of pleasure as Nathaniel plucked her up in his strong arms and carried her into his bedroom, this was something that had always been right.
There had been chemistry between them from the very first, and it burned brighter than ever as he gently lowered her down onto his mattress. Divesting himself of his clothes before he joined her atop the feather stuffed comforter, he gave her a full, unadulterated view of his magnificent frame as he slowly settled himself beside her, brushing her hair away from her face with one hand while the other traced idle circles across the long, sloping curve of her hip.
“Are you ready?” he asked,
Lynette bit her lip. “I – I believe so.”
“It may hurt at first.” Watching her carefully to gauge her reaction, he motioned for her to roll over onto her opposite side so he could unbutton the back of her gown. She felt his warm breath on the nape of her neck as he leaned in close, his fingers making quick work of undoing her wedding gown. “If at any time you wish to stop, you need only say it.”
She closed her eyes and sucked in a startled breath when she felt his lips press against her naked flesh. “I want to do this, Nathaniel. I want to be with you as a wife is with her husband.”
“And so you shall,” he murmured, tracing the tiny bumps of her spine with his mouth as he peeled away her chemise.
When Lynette was completely naked she felt a moment of overwhelming shyness, followed almost immediately by a rush of desire when Nathaniel gently nudged her onto her back and began to kiss her with distracting intensity, making it impossible to focus on her nervousness and apprehension for the act in which they were about to partake.
For the Love of Lynette Page 16