A Christmas Promise (6 page)

And suddenly that seemed the most cruel part of the whole situation. She wanted to wrap her arms about him and hug him and hug him. She wanted the memory of his aliveness within her arms to carry with her into the days ahead.

“Don’t delay any longer, Papa,” she said, stepping back. “I shall see you tomorrow.”

And she held her chin high and clasped her hands loosely before her, and watched him leave. She felt frozen to the very core. She no longer belonged with him even for the short time that remained to him. She belonged in this strange, large, cold house with the cold stranger who stood at her side. And they had a guest to entertain. Or he had a guest. She did not know if she was expected to play hostess or to withdraw.

“What is your wish?” she asked, turning to look at him and noticing again without any leaping of the heart how very handsome he looked.

“My wish?” He raised his eyebrows. “We will go up to the drawing room, my lady, and you may ring for tea.” He extended his arm to her and she took it after a moment’s hesitation.

H
E HAD DELAYED LONG
enough, the Earl of Falloden decided, turning determinedly from the window of his bedchamber, through which he had been staring into darkness. He glanced longingly at his bed, neatly turned down for the night, and he thought even more longingly of Alice’s wide and soft bed and of Alice’s pretty, plump, comfortable body.

There was no point in delaying longer, he thought. He might as well get the deed done, since he had no choice in the matter. He could be back and in his own bed for the night in no time at all if he would just make up his mind to go through his dressing room into his wife’s and through to her bedchamber.

His wife! The thought appalled him. If he had thought her cold during their first meeting, there was no word frigid enough to describe her as she had been today. Proud and cold and silent, reveling in her new status, only sorry that he was a necessary adjunct to it. And as unfeeling as marble with her father, who was so obviously desperately ill.

He set his hand on the knob of the door connecting their dressing rooms, tapped firmly with his free hand, and turned the knob.

She was not in bed, as he had expected her to be. She was rising from a chair by the fire when he came through from her dressing room. And she stood there straight and proud, looking rather regal, he thought, despite the fact that she was wearing a nightgown and had her hair loose down her back.

The thought that she was beautiful struck him again, quite dispassionately. Her nightgown, all silk and lace—it must have cost Transome a fortune—accentuated the slender curves of her body. And her hair was thick and shiny and wavy, and lay like fire along her back. He thought again of the incongruity of her hair and her character.

“So, my lady,” he said, walking toward her across the carpet, “you have become the Countess of Falloden today and gained membership in the
beau monde.
A lifetime’s ambition fulfilled?”

There was a half smile on her lips, an expression he had not seen there before. “So, my lord,” she said, “you have become debt-free today and rich beyond your wildest dreams. A lifetime’s ambition fulfilled?”

He stared at her for a moment, taken aback.
“Touché,”
he said softly at last. “It is a happy day for both of us, it seems.”

“Yes.” The word was clipped, almost triumphant.

“Except that it is not quite complete yet,” he said. “It is not quite a marriage yet.”

“No.” Her chin moved up a fraction.

“We will proceed to put the final seal on our happiness, then,” he said.

“Yes.”

Her eyes mocked him.
I have what I want
, they told him.
The rest does not matter.
And righteous indignation was denied him. He had got what he wanted too. Except that he had expected a meek, submissive wife. He felt a surge of anger, and with it the desire to wipe that look from her eyes. The desire to hurt her, to humiliate her. And he was too angry—with himself, perhaps—to be appalled by his desire.

It might all have been over within a very few minutes. He might have laid her down on the bed, raised her nightgown and his nightshirt, and effected a quick consummation. He might have been back in his room within five minutes, a married man in every sense of the word, free to carry on with his life as it had always been except for the inconvenience of having to share his home with his wife for a year.

But he was angry.

He spread one hand behind her neck, pushing his fingers up into her hair, and tilted her head back and sideways. He brought his open mouth down on hers and worked at her lips with his own and with his tongue. He exulted at the immediate stiffening of her body and tightening of her lips, at the way she jerked her head back against his hand, which did not yield one inch. He lifted his head and smiled at her.

“One might almost think that you were made of marble, my lady,” he said. And he ignored the voice of decency, very far back in his brain, which reminded him that however objectionable her character, she was in all probability a virgin who had never even been kissed before.

Perhaps he would have relented if she had not chosen to stare steadily back into his eyes and to smile slowly. Except that it was not quite a smile. There was something almost feline about it.

He watched her eyes as he reached out very deliberately to undo the delicate pearl buttons down the front of her nightgown. She lifted her chin even higher when he slid his hands inside to mold her shoulders with his palms and to move them down slowly to cup her breasts. They were warm and silky, firm, not over-large.

“After all, my lady,” he said, nudging at the silk and lace with his wrists so that the gown fell off her shoulders and down her arms, exposing her to the waist, “you are my wife.”

It was perhaps at that moment, or a moment later, that anger and the desire to humiliate were changed into desire of a different kind. She took him completely by surprise by reaching up with both hands to undo the large buttons on his nightshirt and very deliberately grasp it by the neck and draw it down over his shoulders.

“After all, my lord,” she said, and he noticed her teeth for the first time—white and perfect teeth bared for the moment almost as if she wished to bite into him, “you are my husband.”

After that he rather lost his head, he thought later with shame and amazement. He took her hands none too gently by the wrists and forced them downward to her sides so that her nightgown whispered down all the way to the floor and he shrugged out of his own nightshirt, though her hands, when he freed them, pushed at it too. And when he brought his mouth to hers again, her own opened beneath it without persuasion, and when he plunged his tongue inside, she fenced it with her own tongue and followed it out and into his own mouth. And when his hands touched her and explored her without either gentleness or subtlety, her own hands followed suit.

One thing at least must have been as clear to her as it was to him before he finally stooped down to pick her up and half throw her onto the bed. He was going to have no trouble at all feeling enough desire for her to enable him to consummate their marriage.

She wrestled with him on the bed, so that by the time he had her pinned beneath him they were both panting. He worked his knees between her thighs, pushed them wide, slid his hands beneath her, and lifted his head. She was staring boldly up at him, her cheeks flushed, her hair wild about her shoulders and over the pillow. He found the entrance to her and came inside her with one deep, swift thrust.

Her expression did not change. Only her body tensed and tried to pull back away from his penetration. For a few moments. But as he watched, she half smiled again and slid her feet up on the bed on either side of his legs to brace herself and very deliberately pushed down against him.

“Almost my wife, my lady,” he whispered to her. “The deed is almost done.”

“I thought it was to hurt,” she said. “I thought it was to be something earth-shattering.”

He might even then, his triumph complete, her body spread and mounted beneath him, have had some small mercy on her and finished quickly. But she had restored his anger by her foolish attack on his manhood. She would be made to know, then, what it was to be duty bound to cater to his pleasure, what it meant to be obliged to grant him his conjugal rights. He would make all her future days ones of anxiety, wondering if she must face this again when the night came.

He began to move in her, watching her face. She looked back, but something far back in her eyes assured him that she had not known of this, that she had thought the one penetration of her body all that was to be endured. He set up a slow rhythm before finally lowering his weight off his elbows and onto her warm feminine curves and continuing, making sure that he withdrew almost completely from her with each downward movement and reached deeply into her with each upward one. And he listened to the wetness of their coupling and the rhythmic creaking of the bedsprings and her ragged breathing and his own, imposing the last ounce of control over himself so that he would not climax before he was quite ready to do so.

But it was not easy. He gradually became aware over the thudding of his heart and the surging of his blood that her legs had hooked themselves around his and her pelvis tilted to allow an even deeper penetration. And inner muscles were drawing on him, resisting his withdrawals and relaxing around his entries. And her hips were swaying against his.

He grasped her shoulders, slid his hands down her back to grasp her buttocks and still her movements, and pushed urgently and mindlessly up into her depths until a blessed shattering brought his release. He heard a shout and rather thought that it must have been his voice.

She was shuddering violently beneath him. He held his weight firmly on her until she gradually relaxed. And perhaps for longer than that. He had the distinct impression when he finally thought of moving off her that he was just waking up from sleep. But the candles were still bright, and the fire still burned in the grate.

He lay beside her, looking at her. Neither of them had pulled up the blankets. Her dark red hair lay in wild disarray all about her, making her pale breasts look as if they might be made of alabaster. At least now, he thought, the red hair did not seem quite so out of place. She had an earthy, passionate nature that he had not dreamt it possible for a woman to possess. Least of all this woman. Perhaps it came from her less than noble background, though in his experience even mistresses and whores exercised more decorum in the bedchamber than she. Passionate nature and cold, cold heart.

“Well,” he said, “the deed is thoroughly done. At least I will never now be able to be accused of depriving you of all your rights as my countess.”

“And at least,” she said, “I will never be able to be accused of denying you all except the fortune that came with me.”

“
Touché
once more,” he said. “Well, the happiest day of our lives is over, my lady, much to our mutual regret, I am sure. I shall leave you to dream of the triumph of your new status while I return to my own bed to dream of counting piles of gold. Good night.”

He looked down at her as he got to his feet. The sheet and her inner thighs were a mess of blood. But she did not even try to cover herself. She looked up at him with that half smile he found so unpleasant.

“Good night,” she said. “I doubt the night will be long enough to count every pile, my lord. My father is very, very wealthy.”

“I know,” he said, bending to retrieve his nightshirt but not stopping to pull it on before leaving her room.

He glanced at a clock in his dressing room. More than an hour had passed since he had entered his wife’s room. A wave of revulsion set him to shivering as he poured water that was almost cold into the basin on the washstand and proceeded to wash himself. Revulsion against the strange cold, passionate woman he had married. And revulsion against himself for indulging hatred and animal instincts he had not known himself capable of.

At least, he thought, it was all over now. Both this house and Grenfell Park were large enough that they could avoid each other for most of their days. And after a year had passed he could make sure that she was always in a house where he was not. And if he should ever feel the need for an heir of his own body—well, he would think of that when the time came. He was only twenty-eight years old.

She had bled a great deal more than he would have expected a virgin to bleed, he thought, looking at the distinctly pink hue of the water. And he felt shame for his roughness, and hatred against her for having provoked it.

He could scarcely wait for the following night, he thought, closing his eyes and reaching for his nightshirt. Tomorrow night and the comfortable sanity of Alice’s bed and body.

S
HE WOKE UP FEELING THE STRANGENESS OF HER
surroundings—the large square, high-ceilinged room, the bed, wider and softer than her own, its elaborate hangings green instead of rose pink. She realized what had woken her when she spotted a maid, on her knees, quietly building up the fire. Someone else was in her dressing room. There was a clinking of china. It was probably a pitcher of hot water being set down.

And then came the feeling of surprise that she had slept at all. She had not expected to. And yet she could remember standing in her dressing room, washing herself off with hands that shook from fear and shock. She remembered leaning on her forearms on the washstand and closing her eyes and contemplating the full horror of what had just happened—of what he had done to her and of the way she had reacted. She had done what she always did when she was afraid or angry or both. She had given as good as she had got. She had fought her fear—literally fought. She had never been so terrified as she had been when her husband came to her. She had never fought such a desperate fight.

And yet she could remember yawning despite everything. Yawning and yawning and wondering how she was to get herself back from the dressing room to the bed. She had had three almost sleepless nights and she had lived through an hour of terror and an hour of frightening abandon, at some time during which she lost herself completely, so that she had somehow woken as if from sleep to find herself pinned beneath his full weight. She could not now remember returning to her bed from the dressing room. But she must have done so because that was where she was now lying. And she was wearing her nightgown, she noticed, feeling it with one hand. She could not remember pulling it back on.