At Last Comes Love (30 page)

He had not been expecting it. He had always found her rather inhibited, even prudish, sexually. The typical and perfect lady, in fact.

But she had kissed him downstairs, and it had been a definite invitation.

Dash it all, he hoped she would not live to regret this marriage.

He was going to have to see to it that she did not, was he not? He owed her that much. And even apart from that, he could not really contemplate a marriage that he made no effort at all to make into a decent one. He had not wanted to marry, it was true, but he had done it and now he must live accordingly.

He was still feeling that curious mingling of irritability and lust as he tapped on her door and let himself in—it would be mildly absurd, he thought, to wait for her to answer his knock.

She was standing at the foot of the bed, hugging the bedpost. She was wearing a white nightgown, which shimmered in the light from two candles and looked somehow more gorgeous than the most elaborate of ball gowns. And—oh, Lord!—her hair was loose down her back, and it reached almost to her bottom. It was dark and thick and shining. And that gorgeous nightgown, though perfectly decent, did absolutely nothing to hide her even more gorgeous curves.

He fought the advent of an early arousal.

“The canopy will not stay up without your assistance?” he asked.

She gazed blankly at him for a moment, looked at the bedpost to which she clung, glanced up at the canopy over the bed, and smiled as she dropped her arms to her sides. Then she laughed and looked more vibrantly beautiful than ever.

“I daresay it will,” she said. “Perhaps it was I who could not stay upright without the bedpost's assistance. I
did
drink that glass of wine.”

“I thought,” he said, “that perhaps you would be fast asleep from its effects.”

“Oh.” She laughed again. “No.”

“I am delighted,” he said.

“Are you?”

He was delighted that she was awake so that he could bed her, though he had not really expected she would be asleep. Was he also delighted to be here with his wife? With the woman who would be his companion for the rest of their lives? Was he delighted that tomorrow morning, his lust sated, he would not simply walk away from her and forget her but would take her with him to Woodbine and into the future?

Would he ever be able to forget her even if he were free to do so?

Now
that
was an interesting question.

“What is it?” she asked, and he realized that he had been standing there staring at her for several silent moments.

“You are almost too beautiful to touch,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “But not quite, I hope.”

“Do you hope so?” he said, and he walked closer to her and set his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arms’ length while his eyes roamed over her. “But you
are
beautiful, Maggie. I am a fortunate man.”

He lowered his head and kissed her at the base of her throat.

She tipped back her head and sighed softly.

“I am not embarrassed any longer,” she said. “It is so foolish to be, is it not? This is the most natural thing imaginable. I want it, Duncan. I want it more than anything else in the world, in fact.”

He wondered what the words had cost her in courage. Though he could tell from the heat radiating off her body that she did mean them.

He slipped his thumbs beneath the shoulders of her nightgown and moved them partway down her arms. He kissed one bare shoulder and moved his mouth over the swell of her breast, lowering the nightgown further as he reached the nipple and took it lightly into his mouth. He touched it with the tip of his tongue and felt her shiver.

With heat.

He stood back a little and released his hold on the nightgown. She was pressing it against her stomach with both hands and could have kept it there if she had chosen. Instead, she let her arms fall to her sides and let the flimsy garment slither and slide downward to pool at her feet.

Her cheeks flamed and her eyes held his—until he looked away to see all of her.

Full breasts with rosy tips, small waist, curvaceous hips, long, slim, shapely legs—if there was any imperfection in her, he could not see it. She was every man's sexual dream come true.

Then one of her arms lifted from her side and pulled on the sash of his dressing gown until it came loose. The garment fell open and she pushed it off his shoulders so that it too fell to the floor.

He was surprised—at her nakedness, at his own. He had been prepared to be far more … what? Decorous? Considerate? Gentle?

She was not a virgin, it was true, but if his guess was correct—and he would wager on it—she was as close to being a virgin as it was possible to be without actually being one.

“More beautiful than ever,” he murmured.

“Duncan.” She set her hands on his shoulders and moved them down his arms, looking him over frankly as she did so. “You are beautiful too. Is that an inappropriate word? I am sorry if it is. But it fits. You
are
beautiful.”

He took her hands in his and wrapped them about his waist, bringing her full against him as he did so.

God in heaven!

He touched his lips to hers, opening her mouth with them as he did so and thrusting his tongue deep inside. She moaned and arched in harder against him. His erection pressed against her belly.

So much for gentle discretion.

“May we lie down?” she asked against his lips when he withdrew his tongue. “I don't think my legs will hold me up much longer.”

He bent and picked her up and carried her the short distance to the bed. He lay her down on the bottom sheet and kissed her openmouthed again. She still tasted of wine. She smelled of lavender soap. Siren and lady all rolled into one.

“Do you wish me to blow out the candles?” he asked her. “I would prefer to leave them burning—I want to watch what we do. But it will be as you wish.”

Watching them have sex by candlelight had not been part of his original plan either, by Jove.

Her eyes opened and widened.

“Oh,” she said. “Leave them burning by all means, then.”

He lay down beside her, slid one arm beneath her back, and moved the other hand over her body in a light caress, tracing her curves, feeling the soft heat of her skin, breathing in lavender and wine. He really must
slow down
. His hand roamed over her breasts and lifted one in his palm, feeling the soft, firm, magnificent weight of it as he rubbed the nipple with the pad of his thumb and lowered his head to take it into his mouth again. This time he sucked firmly.

She inhaled slowly and audibly, and her fingers twined tightly in his hair.

“Oh, please,” she said, but did not elaborate.

He moved on top of her and pressed his knees between her thighs, pushing them wide until he could kneel between them. He gazed down at her with half-closed eyes. She was gazing back at him, her hair a riot of dark glory over her shoulders and breasts.

Candlelight flickered over her face.

She lifted her arms and spread her hands over his chest before moving them in slow circles there, her fingers bent back, smoothing the light hairs with her palms in one direction and ruffling them again in the other. She looked back into his face and smiled.

He could feel the soft smoothness of her inner thighs against the outsides of his legs. He could see the heavy fullness of her breasts. He could smell lavender and wine and woman.

And his erection was so taut that if he did not bury it inside her soon, something very embarrassing was going to happen.

“Forgive me,” he said, lowering his head and kissing her lips, “I cannot wait any longer.”

“Good,” she said, still smiling. “Neither can I.”

He could have stretched out on top of her then and taken her with swift, urgent strokes. He would feel that whole lovely, curvaceous body beneath his, and the feeling would further ignite the fire in his loins.

She had said she was ready.

But to her their wedding day had been wonderful. This, the consummation, was the culmination of the wedding day. He would not let it be a disappointment to her.

It was the least he could do.

He spread his knees, lifting her legs over them until she twined them about his. And he slid his hands beneath her buttocks, lifted her and held her firm, positioned himself at her entrance, and pressed firmly inside.

He both watched and listened to her inhale slowly, her eyes fluttering closed until he was deeply embedded in her. He held still.

Lord God, she was all wet heat and soft sheath and clenching muscles. And he—

He clamped his teeth together for a few moments. He would
not
, by Jove, give in to pure instinct.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He slid his hands from beneath her, moved them up her sides, pressed them beneath her breasts, and brushed his thumbs over her nipples.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no, it is too much, Duncan. It is too much.”

“Is it?” He settled his hands on her hips and withdrew from her and pressed in again and withdrew and thrust, beginning a deep and steady rhythm, gritting his teeth against too early an ejaculation.

He looked down to watch what he did. And he glanced up to see that she watched too, with heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips—until her eyes drifted closed and her hands, spread on the bed on either side of her, pressed into the mattress and her head tipped back against the pillow and her inner muscles clenched hard about him and she breathed in labored gasps.

He took her hands in his and raised them above her head, straightening his legs and bringing his whole weight down on top of her as he did so. He quickened and deepened the rhythm, pumping hard into her until she cried out, shuddered convulsively against him, and fell limp and relaxed beneath him.

Her hands were hot and slick with sweat. So was the rest of her body.

The blood pulsed through him, hammering in his ears, thundering in his chest, making his erection an agony. He worked her swiftly until the climax came, and then he sighed against the side of her face and relaxed.

He listened to his heartbeat return to normal, perhaps drifted off into a sort of sleep while it did so, and marveled at the feel of her beneath him—and at the realization that she was a woman of great passion.

“Duncan,” she whispered, “are you awake?”

“Mmm? No,” he said. “Am I heavy?”

“Yes,” she said, “but you need not move yet. It was lovely. Thank you.”

The prim lady again—lying naked and sweaty beneath him and all twined about him.

He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her.

“It was,” he said, “and thank
you
, Maggie. But it might grow a little tedious if we feel we must thank each other every time.”

She cupped the free side of his face with one hand.

“I am not sorry,” she said. “That I married you, I mean. I am really not.”

As if she had thought she might be.

Because of Dew? It had been a little disconcerting to see the man at their wedding breakfast—to see her talking with him, to see him take her hand.

He opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind.

“I am not sorry either,” he said. “However, if there is to be any more to this wedding night, Maggie, I am going to have to get some sleep, I'm afraid.”

“Oh,” she said—and smiled.

He disengaged from her body, rolled to one side of her, and lifted the bedcovers up over them. He looked across at her and realized that, just like that, she was asleep.

He lay beside her, looking at her for a while until sleep overtook him too.

Tomorrow they would be on their way to Woodbine and the rest of their lives. Within a few days Toby would join them. He was to live with them, just as if he were a normal, regular child—as he was, of course.

He would, Duncan thought, forever be grateful to her for that.

His heart ached with longing.

Daylight was making a bright square of the window behind the curtains when Margaret woke up. She stretched tentatively, remembering instantly—how could she forget?—and was aware of her unfamiliar nakedness between the sheets.

She felt wicked and wonderful—and amused by the former.

She turned her head, smiling. The bed was empty beside her, the covers thrown back.

She had slept through his getting up and leaving the room? She could scarcely believe it. She had always been a light sleeper and an early riser. Of course, it
had
been a busy night.

They intended making an earlyish start this morning, though they had promised to wait until her family and his mother came to wave them on their way. And they were to call at Claverbrook House.

It was his grandfather's eightieth birthday.

Oh, goodness, what if everyone was already downstairs waiting for her to wake up and dress and make herself look respectable?

Whatever would they
think
of her? What sort of a wedding night would they imagine she had just spent?

Would they guess the truth? But
of course
they would.

Oh, dear, she would die of mortification.

She was about to throw back the covers when the door opened.

“If I were a proper lady's maid,” Duncan said, stepping inside the room, carrying a tray, “I suppose I would have anticipated the exact moment of your waking and would have had your chocolate steaming beside your bed and your curtains drawn back so that you could see it when you opened your eyes. I am not a proper lady's maid.”

He set down the tray on the table beside her bed. It held two cups of chocolate and four sweet biscuits on a plate.

“I would hire you anyway,” she said, drawing the covers up to her chin, “but Ellen would be out of employment and I would miss her. I daresay you cannot dress hair as well as she does, anyway.”

He sat down on the side of the bed. He was dressed, but only partially—in pantaloons and a shirt that was open far enough to reveal the light dusting of hair on his chest. His hair was damp. He was freshly shaved. He was looking solemn and black-eyed—but he had joked with her. And she had joked back. And he had brought her chocolate and biscuits.