Awaiting the Moon (30 page)

“Never! I realized in that instant how we had been looking at our relationship differently. I had thought it was a force of nature, with real love and devotion on both sides equally. It would end in marriage, surely, I thought, for how could such a grand passion not? He saw it as a passing fancy, although it did not stop him from telling me, early on, that he loved me dearly and would marry me when he could convince his family to give him his independence.”

Nikolas could see it in that instant and knew the root of her cynicism concerning men and marriage. It must have changed how she saw everything. It was only surprising how open and caring she still was, given the pain she must have suffered. “You were in love with him?”

“I thought I was. I don’t know now… perhaps it was just the first time anyone had made me feel… good.”

“You… came to enjoy… uh, intercourse?”

She reddened even deeper, the blush spreading to her neck and breast. “I suppose. It felt… it felt like he needed me. It pleased me that he wanted me so badly.”

It wasn’t what he was asking, and he frowned, remembering her passionate response to his touch the night before. “But the lovemaking, how did that make you feel? Not for his sake, but for your own?”

“You are asking the most impertinent questions. But I suppose,” Elizabeth said with a faint smile, “having done what I have done, I should not indulge in false modesty. I did enjoy it, yes.”

Watching her face he felt deeply that she did not even understand what he meant, that she didn’t know what it was for a woman to fully enjoy sexual intercourse, or even sexual play.

And yet she had a passionate nature. However, he knew from friends’ talk that they did not expect nor even wish for their women to enjoy lovemaking too much, feeling it indicated an unfeminine character. He felt differently, having been initiated into the delights of female sexual adventurousness by an older woman while he was at university and then, as he traveled Europe, by a gorgeous Italian courtesan who took pity on him and taught him much.

“Your lover…”

“He is married now, and he is some other woman’s prize.”

Her tone was venomous, and he was not reassured. “Do you still care for him?”

“I… I don’t know that I ever did,” she said slowly. “I think I was lonely, and his attention flattered me; I was happy to believe myself in love.”

Nikolas nodded. “If he could give up a woman of your worth so easily and for mere money, then he is a puerile fool not worth being named a man.”

She glowed, her smile radiant, and his heart hammered uncomfortably. “Do you remember, Liebchen,” he murmured. “How you felt last night?” He swallowed hard and tried to master his feverish longing for her. “How your body felt?”

She looked down, abashed, but nodded. “I do.”

“Did you feel thusly with your lover?”

“No. No, never.” Her response was quick and firm.

“I could show you what he never did, Liebchen, let you explore how a woman truly feels.”

She moved to stand, but he reached out and held her arm firmly. “Do not run from me. I am not asking to become your lover. I… I cannot take that risk for reasons not worth canvassing.

But there are things I could teach you… you need to know how to be pleasured so in future, with… with another lover, you will know what to ask for. Men are indubitably dull-witted where women are concerned and do not know what to do to make them experience sexual fulfillment.”

“You know that’s not possible,” she whispered, searching his expression. “For you… and I…”

She did not finish.

“It is possible. I swear, I will make no demands from you. But I could teach you the rewards of passion.”

Regretfully, she shook her head. “No. No. Impossible.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet, wrapping her in his arms. He was aroused and knew she could feel he was so, but he held her without demands. “Elizabeth, if you change your mind, come to my room. No woman so lovely as you,” he said, kissing her ear, “should live without knowing what it is to be worshipped and adored. I will not ask you to submit to any sexual demands. I will never ask anything of you. I want only to show you what it feels like to be a woman of sensuality.”

He guided her to the door and she fled, trembling, to her room.
Worshipped and adored
.

Stripping her clothes off in the dark, she huddled under her sheets, Nikolas’s words sending shivers down her susceptible body. She had never felt this fever of anticipation, and she was tantalized by his suggestion. What would he do? What would he show her? What did he mean?

With John, while he was entering her she had felt the beginning flush of excitement, and then he would take his joy and be done, and she would think it was likely that what she had felt was all there was. And yet… with a trembling hand she touched herself, remembering the feel of Nikolas’s erection pressed to her, and she was damp with desire. She knew the damp softening of her flesh was a natural preparation to make it easier for the man to enter her, but now she began to feel, as she touched, that there was something more.

Her skin heating with desire, she remembered Nikolas at her breast, suckling, as she had straddled him, feeling him pressed to her, knowing instinctively he would have given much to enter her then and there, and yet he had restrained himself and conquered his urges. Her fingers moving more quickly, she arched and felt deep within herself a shivering sweet release as she imagined being with Nikolas, touching him and feeling him enter her.

Falling into the first deep sleep she had known for weeks, she drowsily wondered, if she visited him, what would he do?

DAYS PASSED. Charlotte was quiet and obedient; Elizabeth worried that she had been brought to heel with threats, and that the girl was falling into depression. Her eyes were often glazed and though she appeared to listen attentively, she learned little. When asked a direct question she often shrugged listlessly. Perhaps, Elizabeth thought, her illness had not been exaggerated after all, and she was still suffering the aftereffects. When approached about the problem, Countess Adele merely shook her head with a worried look in her chilly eyes.

And so Elizabeth went about her routine, teaching, visiting Uta and Frau Liebner, reading aloud to them both, then dining and spending time in the drawing room. Tensions in the household had eased again, inexplicably, and some seemed almost happy. Certainly Countess Gerta did. Would some announcement come soon of a wedding? Only time would tell.

But throughout every day and into the night she thought about what Nikolas had said. He glanced at her often, a world of meaning in his gaze, but he did not seek her out, nor did he try to sway her. They had no more private meetings, and she kept to her own room at night.

But finally, one sleepless night many days after their chat, she slipped from bed, drew on a robe, and padded down the stairs and down the hall past the sword room to his suite. Perhaps she would just ask him what he meant. But what if he had changed his mind? Her heart pounding with fear, she turned away, but footsteps on the staircase beyond the count’s chamber decided her action, and she slipped through the door.

It was a large and opulent room, with a door leading to his sitting rooms and dressing rooms beyond, no doubt.

Nikolas, lying in his enormous full-testered bed, looked up from a book. His expression gladdened. “Elizabeth,” he said, tossing aside the book.

“Nikolas,” she whispered, leaning back against the door. “I… I did not come for that, I just came… I just came to ask you…”

He smiled, slipped from the bed, and padded over to her. She glanced down, shocked at his bare legs and feet under a nightshirt.

“Come,” he said, taking her hand. “You are freezing. No matter what you want, come under a blanket while you ask.”

She obeyed, stumbling after him on numb limbs. He scooped her up and dropped her into his bed, pulling up the luxurious midnight blue covers over them both as he reclined next to her.

He gazed down at her as she lay back, her head resting on his pillow as his scent bathed her nostrils. The warmth of his bed and his body filled her with an agitated excitement, but it calmed as a languor overtook her.

Why was she so nervous? She was not some green girl, and she had had sexual intercourse before. If she was so attracted, what was there to stop her from taking advantage of his proposal? There was no risk involved, nothing expected from her; he had made her a promise, and if anything, she had learned that he was to be trusted implicitly. Curiosity was burning like a pit of coal inside of her. And yet… Count Nikolas von Wolfram was a much more impressive man than John had ever been, and so much more dangerous in many ways. And so much more enticing.

“What do you want to ask?”

“What did you mean, Nikolas, the last time we spoke? What would you do?”

“First this,” he said, leaning over and kissing her gently on the mouth. “And then this,” he said, taking her in his arms and pulling her to him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and submitted to the kiss again, letting herself go and feeling his tongue enter her, taking it in and thrusting her own back. It was what she had come there for, after all, though she had lied even to herself. She lost track of time and space, just closing her eyes and feeling the delicious sensations winding through her, down to her belly and between her legs. A sweet, hazy intoxication stole through her, but when she first felt his fingers, delicately touching her, exploring her, tickling her thighs and the soft flesh of her stomach, she gasped, torn out of the haze by a stab of alarm.

But then, seduced by the tenderness of his touch, she found herself spreading her legs a little as he probed further. His thick forefinger gently separated the folds of flesh, and as he kissed her, laying her back, he delved in, thrusting gently, leaving her weak and moaning aloud. She muttered his name, and as her wetness coated him, and he plunged deeper, she arched and felt a spiral of ecstasy shiver through her body, so much more intense than when she touched herself that there was no comparison.

She clung to him, and as the waves subsided she opened her eyes to find him staring at her, a look of such gentleness on his handsome face that she wanted to cry. But still, he didn’t stop.

He teased her more, and she was so sensitive she bucked and writhed, but as he kissed her, still delving into her wetness, she felt the madness come again; it erupted deep within her this time, like a bolt to the core of her being.

In the sweet moments after, trembling as he held her close to him, she felt him, thick and heavy against her thigh. With one shaking hand she reached down and sheathed him with her fingers, gasping at his size and thickness, but he groaned and rolled away.

“No, Liebchen, for if you do that, I will no longer be the responsible one.” He got out of bed, pulled on his black satin robe, and scooped her up. “I am taking you back to your bed before you fall sleep.”

She came to him the next night, unable to stay away, and the night after. It was a madness that had gripped her, and every night she thought she would be strong enough to resist, but every night she tossed and turned and finally submitted, going to him, slipping in, and letting him pleasure her. And always he would carry her back to her bed, stealthily slipping down the hallways along the shadowed perimeter. As tender as he was, and as gentle, he still never indicated by word or deed that he considered their liaisons as more than a passing sweet interlude. She should be ashamed, she sometimes thought, but she wasn’t.

And yet inevitably their nighttime meetings had a cost. During the day she could hardly think.

She found herself daydreaming about him when she should have been teaching Charlotte; a more astute pupil would have noticed, but her student was still preoccupied. It could not continue, though. She resolved that she must stop once and for all. Nothing that encouraged her to neglect her proper tasks could be normal or healthy. She was stronger than this madness and would call a halt to it. He had proved his point; she now knew what a woman’s passion felt like, and had experienced fulfillment, but she must get over what was becoming an obsession with the master of this castle, for it could have no good ending, she feared.

And so that night, she stayed in her own bed. She might not sleep, but she would not leave.

An hour passed, and then an hour more, as she stared at the ceiling.

A faint shuffle alerted her to someone outside her door, and she sat up, alarmed. “Who is there?” she called out softly. Her door opened and Nikolas slipped in, crossed to her bed, leaned over, and took her mouth in a deep wet kiss.

“I could not stand it. I knew by the look in your eyes today that you had resolved not to come to me. I could not stand it, and so I came to you.” He rubbed her shoulders and climbed onto her bed, pushing her back against the pillows.

“Nikolas, no!” she cried, pushing him away. “We must stop! I can’t think during the day, can’t attend to my work, and… and your niece will suffer.”

“Not so much as I will if I cannot touch you. Let us experience this madness while we may,”

he said, caressing her face, and then her neck and bosom. He pushed her back until she was reclining once more on her pillows. “Life is hard and serious, tedious often. Why should we not enjoy this until it fades?”

His reasoning was enticing; they were doing nothing truly wrong; why should she not enjoy this delicious madness for a time? She trusted him fully now and knew he would never take advantage of that trust. She gazed up at him, although he was nothing more than a dark shadow looming above her. “But… you will not allow me to… to touch you. Why?”

“This is about you, Liebchen.” He crawled under her covers, cradling her in his arms. “I have my release later, just thinking about you and what we have done. It is too dangerous for me if you touch me, for I truly fear I will lose my will to restrain my urges.”

A quiver of alarm, enticing in its dangerous thrill, trickled through her. “You wouldn’t…”

“No… no,” he whispered, touching her cheek gently. “Hush. I did not mean to frighten you. I would never force myself upon you; no man of honor would. But powerful urges denied can have, for a man, painful consequences.”