DeButy & the Beast (20 page)

"Anya," he croaked when he was able to breathe again, "you can't say that."

"But my family does love me," she protested. "Do they not? And you are most definitely a kind husband who has a great—"

"Anya," he interrupted forcefully.

Of course. Again with the body parts. "You did not mind when I told you so last night."

"You said no such thing," he protested lowly.

One glance around the table told her that everyone present was listening intently. "I forget that you cannot speak French."

Julian shook off his disapproval and the discomfort from choking on his dinner, and Anya smiled at her family. "Of course I am happy," she said again. "Last night Julian and I made love right here on this very table."

Her grandmother brought a hand to her forehead and swooned. Seymour removed his hands from where they had been resting on the table, as if he'd just discovered that his fingers rested in boar dung.

"Anya," Julian whispered in warning.

"Twice," Anya finished with a smile. "Like wild animals."

Julian took her hand beneath the table and squeezed. "Anya. That's enough."

Anya turned loving eyes to her husband. "But this is my family. You said I could say things to family that I could not say to others. That they would rejoice with me in good times and cry with me in bad times. Did you not say that?"

"Yes, but—"

"So why should they not rejoice in our love as we do?"

Julian turned his head and lowered his mouth to her ear. "Some things are private. Just for the two of us and no one else. I'll explain later. For now just... eat your chicken."

She gave him a come-hither smile. "I would rather nibble on—"

"Anya!"

With a sigh, she returned her attention to the family. Grandmother was quite pale, and she fanned herself furiously with the silk fan she wore at her waist on warm days. Seymour had backed his chair up slightly, folded his arms over his chest, and scowled at the table. "I can never eat here again," he muttered.

Valerie sat across from Anya, wide-eyed and not at all disturbed. "What's a penis?"

"It is—" Anya began.

Grandmother stood. "That's enough." She turned narrowed, accusing eyes to Anya.

"That is not the proper name? I found it in one of Julian's books." She cast a smile at her pale husband. "The one you hid behind the poetry because you thought I would not look there."

"I know the book," he mumbled.

Anya returned her attention to Valerie. "It is another name for—"

"I said
enough
!" Grandmother commanded. Then, with a hand to her forehead as if she were faint, she retook her seat. "Valerie will learn of such things when the time is right."

"When will that time be?" Anya asked.

"After she is married," Grandmother said with a curt nod of her head. "It is a husband's place to teach her."

"To teach me what?" Valerie asked, still innocently unaware.

Anya was truly horrified. "You would send her to a husband unprepared?"

"It is the way things are done, Anya," Grandmother said testily.

"It is
wrong
," Anya insisted. "Every woman deserves a proper teaching before marriage."

"We are not savages," Seymour chimed in, his nose in the air.

Anya laid her eyes on her least favorite cousin. "I would disagree." She looked at Valerie and smiled. "I will teach you."

"You will not!" Grandmother insisted.

"Teach me what?" Valerie almost shrieked, finally displaying her exasperation.

"The ways of a man and a woman," Anya answered, over the protests of her grandmother and her husband.

Valerie smiled. "Oh, you mean kissing. But I still don't know what a pe—"

"Valerie!" Grandmother shouted. With her strong voice she took command of the room. "There will be no more discussion of any kind at this table. Everyone will eat
silently
."

Julian breathed what seemed to be a sigh of relief.

Anya picked at her chicken for a few moments, after the room fell silent, and then she leaned into her husband. "You really do have a great—"

"Not now," he interrupted.

"Later, then," Anya agreed with a smile. "After I have a nice long talk with Valerie."

* * *

Julian leaned his head back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and sighed. Anya was determined to have that talk with Valerie, even though Elizabeth Sedley was just as determined that her elder granddaughter remain innocent until she was properly wed.

There had been a time, not so long ago, when he would have agreed with Mrs. Sedley. Right now he found himself sympathizing with Anya's position. How many women had been terrified on their wedding night, and all because they were unprepared? There had to be a happy medium between love goddess and untouched, untaught innocent.

"There you are."

Anya's exasperated voice brought a smile to Julian's face. "Just dozing," he admitted as he opened his eyes and lifted his head. "I didn't get much sleep last night, you know."

"I know." Anya didn't sit beside him, but perched on his knee and draped her arms around his neck. His arms went around her waist. "Neither did I, but what sleep I did get was marvelous."

"Did you have your talk with Valerie?"

"No." Anya rested her head on his shoulder. "Grandmother is guarding her as if I wish to do her harm."

"Perhaps in your grandmother's eyes what you want to do will cause harm."

"I would never harm Valerie."

"I know."

"But I will have that talk with her soon. I cannot allow her to marry her William Mathias without the proper teaching."

He did not like to hear Anya speak of teaching, not knowing what form her own teaching had taken, but he understood her need to protect her cousin from the unknown.

She relaxed in his arms, and sighed deeply. "Grandmother has Betsy scrubbing down the dining room table as if we did something wrong there. How can something so beautiful be a sin? How can love be something you want to scrub away?"

"It isn't that simple," he said.

"Why not?"

"Intimate relations between a man and a woman are very complicated."

"They should not be. Sex is astounding and natural. There should be poems and songs written about intimate relations."

"I'm sure there are," Julian began.

"Not in your poetry books," Anya complained.

He smiled and pulled her close. "I wish I possessed your ability for absolute frankness. You say what you feel and take what you want."

"Why can you not do the same?"

She made it sound so simple. "It isn't the way things are done here. We have rules. Too many damn rules."

Anya lifted her head and smiled at him. "You cursed."

"Yes, I did."

Anya reached down and laid her hand over the bulge in his trousers. Her smile widened when she found it, naturally, affected by her presence. "Do you want me?"

"You know I do."

"Now?" Her hand stroked. "Here?"

"Anya, we no longer have the house to ourselves."

She did not desist. "Grandmother is guarding Valerie. They will come nowhere near me." She laid her soft lips on his neck and suckled. "Seymour has ridden off to play cards with other scoundrels, and will likely not be home before dawn," she whispered when she took her mouth from his flesh. "Betsy is scrubbing the dining room table, Hilary is upstairs pressing the gown Valerie will wear tomorrow, and Peter is sitting in the pantry sipping at a bottle of Grandmother's best brandy. No one will catch us."

"But..."

His last protest died when she reached down and began to unfasten the tiny buttons at her already low bodice. He watched, fascinated, as her fingers unbuttoned three pearl buttons and then spread the fabric so that the swell of her breasts was revealed. Another half inch, and the coral darkness of her aureole would peek above the pale green fabric of her gown.

"I did not know I could ache for a man," she whispered. "I ache for you."

Julian lowered his head and kissed the soft swell of skin above her bodice. He understood ache, in a way he never had before. His fingers pushed the fabric down so that the nipple of one breast was free, and took it in his mouth. Anya shifted so that she straddled him, and swayed into him like a gentle wave.

"We could go to bed early," he suggested.

"No. Here," she insisted.

"Someone might hear us," he protested weakly.

"Then we must be very quiet," she whispered. "Very, very quiet."

His body was screaming. How could he be quiet?

Anya was impossible to resist. He should know that by now. She unbuttoned his trousers, and he did not protest. When he snaked his hand beneath her skirt and found her leg bare, he was not surprised. She had come here with the intent of seducing him. And he was so easily seduced, now.

Thoughts of impropriety and fears of being caught left his mind and he laid Anya on her back. Hovering above her, his hand skimmed up her inner thigh. Such softness. Such wonder. He touched her intimately and she closed her eyes, parting her lips in a silent cry. She tilted her head back and into the brocade that had become her pillow, their bed, and gave into a soft half-cry, half-moan as he found the sensitive nub hidden in red curls.

She rocked against him and did some teasing of her own, her hands gentle but not too gentle, her fingers moving firmly but tenderly over his length. Finally, as she shuddered deep, she guided him to her.

When he entered her, she opened her eyes and placed her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. He made love to her, quickly, deeply, and she responded as she always did when he touched her. Immediately and intensely. There was a ferocity in the way they made love, something primal and fierce.

"Kiss me," she whispered hoarsely. "Kiss me or I will scream."

He latched his mouth to hers and caught her cry as she found fulfillment. Her body swayed up and into his, and he joined her. Their bodies throbbed and jerked and shimmered together. In time, in tune. Poetry and songs. Perhaps she was right about that.

Julian took his mouth from hers and reached down to straighten her bodice. "I can't believe we just made love on your grandmother's favorite sofa. Which is," he added as he helped Anya into a sitting position, "much too short for such an activity."

Anya allowed him to straighten her gown. There was nothing to be done for her mussed hair, though, or the flush on her cheeks, or those magnificent swollen lips. She looked well-loved, satisfied, and decadent.

"The couch might be too short, but we have a perfectly good bed upstairs."

He raised his eyebrows slightly and Anya leaned into him. "I know, you suggested that a while ago. But first I wanted to make love to you here, where I met you."

"If sexual excess is truly harmful, we are both doomed," he said half-heartedly.

"As long as we are doomed together," she whispered. "I love you."

He threaded his fingers through her hair. "I do love you, too," he confessed. "So much. I didn't know... I never expected."

"Is your love for me real?" she asked, her voice so low he could barely hear the words. "Sometimes I think it is. Other times I wonder, and that wondering makes my heart ache."

"You never have to wonder about my love for you, Anya. It's real. As real as anything I've ever known."

She kissed him quickly, and he sensed a relief there. He didn't want her to ever doubt him, but he didn't know what else to say to make her understand. Love was new to him, so new he was learning as he went.

They straightened their clothes as best they could, then crept to the door. As Anya had promised, no one was about. Hand in hand they slipped through the foyer and to the stairway, just in time to meet Peter. He seemed to be heading for the library.

The butler took one look at Anya and Julian, raking his eyes over them. There was no explanation, Julian knew, for their disheveled state, their desperately locked hands. Anya looked too well loved, and Julian suspected he did, too. Peter groaned before turning wordlessly about.

"Peter, where are you going?" Anya asked curiously.

"Back to the pantry."

Chapter 12

It was more than three weeks before Anya had the opportunity to speak to Valerie alone. For those weeks Grandmother had been a vigilant watchdog, keeping a wary eye on her elder granddaughter. Anya waited patiently, and never again mentioned Valerie's lack of preparation for marriage. Grandmother apparently thought she had forgotten all about it. Ha.

She did not mind waiting. It had been such a wonderful time. Julian was her lover, in every way possible. They found pleasure in their bodies, of course, but there was more. Much more. Every day Julian seeped a little deeper into her soul, became more a part of her. His essence and hers mingled, until she knew she was not the same, and neither was he. She had been alone all her life, but now she knew that she would never be alone again.

Julian was sleeping soundly in his rocking chair when Anya slipped from their sitting room. He had not slept well the night before, she remembered with a smile as she walked quietly down the hall toward Valerie's room. He needed his rest this afternoon if he were to have strength for the night to come.