Charity (23 page)

Sudden panic hit her, unexpected and inexplicable, and she began struggling to get down.

“Wait,” she said, pushing against his chest. He let her slide down and set her gently on her feet. She shook out her skirts self-consciously, took a couple steps away from him and looked around the enormous chamber.

The last rays of light from the setting sun filtered through the tall windows that dominated an entire wall. Rich velvet draperies in a deep navy blue framed them, caught and pulled aside by twisted silk ropes of the same shade, waiting to be drawn for the evening. On the wall opposite the windows, logs lay neatly in the fireplace, ready to roar to life should the need to warm the room arise, and two chairs upholstered in a buttery-soft burgundy leather flanked the hearth.

Charity took a step toward this cozy seating arrangement. “Would you like to sit and talk, my lord, until it is
time to go down to supper?” She fixed him with a bright smile, trying to hide the fact that she felt an odd fluttering in her stomach she did not understand. After all, it was not as though she had never been alone in a bedroom with her husband, she reasoned to herself.

Lachlan watched her closely, utterly enchanted by the little gestures and expressions that revealed the nervousness Charity was feeling. He reveled in it, knowing it was the first and last time he would have the opportunity to enjoy her thus. After tonight, her eyes would be open and knowing, the mysteries of intimacy between a man and a woman removed. After tonight, they could spend the rest of their lives learning to enjoy one another in new and beautiful ways. But tonight, just tonight, he could tenderly guide her through the unknown and awaken the natural sensuality she’d already shown every time they had kissed.

He smiled warmly, his gray eyes a molten, simmering silver. “Are you hungry, kitten?”

Charity stopped in her tracks. “Hungry?” she asked uncertainly, completely forgetting that she’d been the one to broach the topic of the evening meal. “Is Cook ready for dinner?” His deep voice had sent chills skittering down her spine. She looked uncertainly toward the club chairs, and then back at her husband, who hadn’t answered. The bed loomed large in the background and she felt her heartbeat quicken. “No, my lord,” she murmured. “I’m not hungry.”

Lachlan followed her eyes and turned in a circle, his arms spread to take in the whole room around them. “What do you think, love? Can you be comfortable in here, or would you rather spend your evenings in your own chamber and occasionally visit me in mine?”

Charity’s thoughts returned to the time she’d fallen
asleep in his arms, to the comfort and warmth and sense of belonging she’d felt. Her face softened and she took an inadvertent step toward him. “Here, please,” she said in an aching voice, her face glowing with unconscious longing.

Lachlan closed the distance between them in a single step. He lifted a hand, tucked a wayward curl behind her ear, and then crooked a finger beneath her chin to tilt her face up to his. “Remember that I promised you I would tell you everything that will happen between us, so that you have nothing about which to worry, nothing to fear?”

Wordless, her eyes huge, she nodded.

“Well, I want a promise from you as well, kitten. Promise me that you will always ask any question that comes into your mind, that if there is something about which you are uncomfortable, you will stop me and tell me.” He cupped her cheek in his palm, his smoldering pewter gaze holding hers. “I don’t ever want there to be anything misunderstood between us. I do not intend to hold back with you. I hope you won’t hold back from me.”

Charity’s heart lurched a bit. Her lips curved in a winsome little smile. “I
do
have a question, my lord.”

Lachlan’s heart sank a little at her continued use of the formal address instead of using his name. “Ask,” he said evenly.

She bit her lip. “Well, I was just wondering . . .” She stopped and looked down, then squared her shoulders as if gathering courage, and raised eyes glowing with promise to his. “I was wondering,” she repeated, “if you were going to kiss me now, or if you intended to wait until after—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence. Warm, possessive pride flooding through his veins, Lachlan kissed her, drawing her plump lower lip between his, tasting her sweet surrender as she melted into his arms with a contented
little sigh. He lifted his mouth from hers and chuckled low in his throat when her eyes flew open in protest.

“Shhh,” he crooned, and pressed a soft kiss to each eyelid so that she closed them again. “There’s no rush.” He kissed the tip of her upturned nose.

Charity slipped her arms around his waist and held on, lifting her lips to his for another kiss. Instead, he brushed his lips on her cheek and trailed over across her cheek until he reached her ear. She gasped and then moaned when he took her earlobe between his lips, wondering at the curious glow that was building within her and slowly spreading outward in warm, tingling swirls. When he began nibbling on her ear, the glow exploded.

Her knees went weak. She cried out his name and clutched handfuls of his jacket in her fists. “Hold me,” she breathed, and he did, taking her face between his hands and kissing her with all the passion he’d fought to control over the past three days.

“You should have had a lady’s maid to prepare you for this night, kitten,” he said against her mouth, when he finally stopped kissing her to catch his breath.

“Why?” she asked, her mouth seeking his to perhaps coax another kiss.

“Because,” he said wryly. “We are both entirely too dressed for this sort of thing.”

He watched her delicate brows draw together and pulled her head to his chest. “We’ve been married for over twenty-four hours, love, but tonight is our wedding night.” He tugged at a trailing end of the ribbon she’d used to tie back her curls that morning. “Your maid should be removing all the silly pins and clips and such you used to hold up your beautiful hair.” The ribbon pulled loose and fluttered to the floor. Lachlan buried his hands in those curls and kissed
her again, a long, slow, drugging kiss that stoked again the warmth inside her.

“Do I
have
a maid?” she asked when he raised his head, her voice sensual and low-pitched.

“Not yet.” Lachlan smiled. “She’d have helped you out of your complicated gown.” They looked down at the mostly unadorned blue frock and both laughed.

“I suppose I don’t follow the fashions very well,” Charity said, and then looked up into his eyes. “
You
be my maid, darling.”

Twenty-five

Lachlan’s
heart almost stopped. Charity was asking him, innocence glowing in those amazing eyes, to undress her. “I’m not sure I know how to do it right,” he said. “Perhaps you could coach me.”

She smiled. “What would you normally be doing while my maid was helping me?”

“Waiting impatiently.”

Charity laughed. “Surely you would have some preparations of your own. Do you have a valet?”

Lachlan nodded. “He’s on his way from London after wrapping up a few of my affairs. But I tend to prefer doing my own dressing and undressing. He’s not a very conventional valet, I suppose, though he does keep track of my garments and see that they are cleaned and pressed.”

Charity was intrigued. “Not conventional? In what way?”

The last thing Lachlan wanted to do at the moment was get into a discussion of his staff. “You’ll understand when you meet him,” he said. “Why don’t we just forget about maids and valets and . . .” He stopped when Charity tilted her head to the side and stared at his chest. “What are you doing?”

She reached out and fingered one of his shirt studs. “So you have a valet but you dress yourself, and I am to have a maid although I’ve always managed quite well alone. And now we are to forget about them both? Seems a shame to put perfectly good people out of work.” She laughed softly.

Lachlan stared at the tip of her finger, suddenly jealous of the shirt stud. His heartbeat increasing, he ached for her to reach out to him like that, to touch him with no prompting, and he wanted her to ache with the need to touch him utterly of her own accord. He stared down at her, his gray eyes smoldering.

“Darling?” he said.

In that instant, although she was in uncharted waters, Charity unconsciously sensed her feminine power for the first time. Following an instinct she didn’t know she possessed, she let her finger slip from the shirt stud to draw circles upon the fabric around it.

Lachlan swallowed hard and caught her maddening finger in his hand. He brought it to his lips. “Your maid would undoubtedly have laid out some ridiculously beautiful nightgown with a matching frilly dressing gown, garments which, though pretty, would serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Not tonight.”

She inched closer and inhaled deeply, utterly enjoying his distinctive scent. Closing her eyes she asked, “Why would they serve no purpose?”

“Because you wouldn’t be wearing them for very long.”

Her eyes flew open. Despite the momentary rush of bravery she’d just enjoyed, a blush stole across Charity’s face and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean?” she said, her initial trepidation returning.

“Although we are married, I haven’t really made you my wife, kitten. I intend to rectify that tonight.” He watched her chew on her lower lip a moment, her even white teeth sinking deliciously into the plump bit of flesh. “Look at me, Charity.” His voice was firm but gentle, and she raised her eyes to his. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed
her softly. “Beginning tonight, there will be no need for secrets between us. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.”

“I already have nothing to hide from you,” she said quietly.

“Then come to bed. Let me make love to you, and teach you how to make love to me.”

He shrugged out of his jacket, let it fall to the floor and then took her hand and led her toward the dais. Charity’s heart was pounding, but she allowed herself to be pulled along. They climbed the three shallow steps together and stood next to the enormous bed.

Twilight had come without either of them noticing, and the room had grown darker. Light from the rising moon streamed in through the tall windows and fell diagonally across the mattress. It was into one of these moonbeams that Charity had stepped, and the sight of his wife made Lachlan catch his breath. She looked tiny and impossibly fragile in the near darkness, her skin pale in a face dominated by her large, wary eyes. He unclasped and removed the studs from the wrists of his shirt, seeking a way to make her feel as if she had a modicum of control in a situation she didn’t understand.

He cupped the studs in his hand, and then took a step back to place them on the nightstand. “Would you like to help me get ready for bed?”

Wordless with uncertainty, Charity nodded. Lachlan smiled encouragement, took her hands in his and then brought them to the studs that held his shirt together in the front. Feeling shy, her fingers fumbled with the first until it fell open. Charity handed both pieces to Lachlan, and then began working on the second. It came apart, exposing an expanse of his skin to her view, and she blushed but continued working. By the time she had finished, his shirt had fallen
completely open, revealing his firm, muscular chest with its light covering of crisp, dark hair. Tentatively she reached out a hand but stopped and looked up at him, an unspoken question in her eyes.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice hoarse. “You can touch me.
Please
touch me.”

Her courage buoyed by the need in his voice, Charity’s fingertips found the skin just over his heart. His pectoral muscle twitched in response when she touched it, and she drew back for a bare instant then flattened both hands on his chest. Without thinking, she stepped closer and pressed a kiss into the hollow spot over his sternum.

Lachlan groaned, buried his hands in her hair, and held his wife there, cradling her head against his chest, her natural sensuality once again surprising him. Her inexperience was evident and intoxicating, as was the eagerness with which she embraced new experiences despite her fear.

His hands drifted down her back to the short row of buttons that held her simple, high-waisted dress closed, and Charity tensed when she felt his fingers working at the closure and then forced herself to relax.

“This undressing,” she asked, her voice a little breathless. She felt the bodice of her dress loosen. “It is part of lovemaking?” She slipped her arms around his waist and rubbed her cheek on his chest.

“It is.” Lachlan’s voice was warm. “Some people have difficulty with that, or suffer from insecurity.” When Charity pulled back to look up at him, her eyes wide, he assured her, “There is no reason for any of that. Not between us.”

He slipped the dress off her shoulders. Charity felt the cornflower silk slither down her body and pool around her feet but kept her eyes on her husband’s face. Now clad only in her chemise, she smiled briefly and reached for his shoulders,
pushing his shirt back and off, unconsciously mimicking his movements with her.

Lachlan let the garment fall past his fingertips to join his wife’s dress on the floor, remembering the last time she had seen him shirtless, in the inn on their way to Scotland. That time she had told him he was beautiful. This time she said nothing, but her eyes glowed with newly awakening feelings, and he found he loved her eloquent silence as much as he’d loved her words.

He pointed to a spot on the bed, indicating she should sit on the edge. Trustingly she complied, and when she did, he knelt and began removing her stockings and shoes. Charity looked down at the top of his head and found she was unable to resist sinking her fingers into the dark, thick waves. At her touch, he turned his head and pressed a kiss through the thin material of her chemise into the soft flesh of her thigh. Charity gasped, her skin tingling where his lips lingered. She felt as though all strength had left her limbs, though her fingers unconsciously tightened in his hair. When she felt his hands close around her ankles and begin sliding up her legs, she moaned.