Enchanting Pleasures (27 page)

“When you had intercourse with these women, did the migraine always follow?”

“Yes.” His thumb was moving in idle circles again.

“I find it doubtful that marriage will change the situation,” Gabby noted with a rather surprising use of logic. “I’m afraid that we shall have to expect the migraine, Quill. It sounds to me like a physical reaction. One of my friends in India, Leela, always vomits after eating papaya.”

“Yes,” Quill admitted, giving up the dream that married sex was different. “I wish it was only a question of papaya.”

“Have you spoken to doctors about it?”

“I have,” Quill said rather bitterly. “I have consulted with Sir Thomas Willis himself.”

At Gabby’s raised eyebrow, he continued. “Willis is the leading specialist on migraine headaches. He had the temerity to inform me that I must be wrong in my description, as his theory precluded migraines resulting from head injury.”

“How very annoying! Did you convince him of your symptoms?”

“Yes,” Quill said dryly. “The next time I suffered an attack, I had him brought to the house. Willis had to admit that it looked as if I was suffering a migraine. But since he’s convinced that migraines are caused by swollen vessels in the brain, he declared my case an exception. In the end, it turned out he had no medicine other than laudanum anyway.”

Gabby put her hand over his, stopping his fingers’ lazy movement. But Quill refused to move his hand when she tugged, and just dropped a kiss on her hair.

“Quill, I think we should speak about this rationally. I need you to tell me about the…the marital act.” She said the last bit quickly and then launched into her idea. “We’ll have to figure out exactly what stimulates your headache and then avoid it. That is how Sudhakar discovered why Leela was vomiting and losing weight. She loved papaya and was eating more and more, trying to soothe her stomach.”

“I love your breast,” Quill said silkily. And then, “Who’s Sudhakar?”

Gabby turned her face up to his and scowled. “I shall go sit over there, Quill, if you can’t be reasonable.” She pointed to a chair by the fire.

“I’ll be reasonable.” The arm Quill had wound around her shoulder and hips held her to him like a vise. Somehow Gabby’s warmth and sensual presence made his despair seem overblown. Perhaps he could just bring her to pleasure and ignore his own—

Gabby shifted in his lap, and he gave up that idea.

“All right,” Gabby said, having made herself comfortable. “Sudhakar is the
vaidya
of the village I grew up in. A
vaidya
is a kind of doctor who specializes in poisons. Sudhakar explained that Leela was being poisoned, but only because papaya didn’t agree with her stomach. In fact, why don’t I write to Sudhakar?”

“Absolutely not,” Quill said firmly. “I’m not having my problems discussed in your village. Besides,” he added ruefully, “if the best doctors in London cannot do anything, I’m afraid that it is unlikely that a poison doctor from an Indian village will do much better.”

She opened her mouth and Quill put a finger on it. “I want your promise, Gabby. I do not wish my migraines to be discussed with anyone. They are a private matter.”

Gabby nodded unwillingly. “But, Quill—”

“No.”

“Well, all right,” Gabby said with a sigh. “We’ll have to work it out ourselves. Could you explain about conjugal felicity, or whatever it was you called it? I know you do it at night, and in bed. What are we going to do?”

Quill looked down at his wife in amusement. Her eyes were clear and full of curiosity. She looked like someone inquiring about the road to Bath. Or the proper way to string a bow. He didn’t answer.

Instead, he swooped fiercely onto that curious little mouth, silencing her logic, her thought, her questions—making her into
his
Gabby. The Gabby who struggled for a moment and then gave in with a little pant. A second later her eyelids drifted shut and her tongue met his, chasing fire down to his groin.

With a deft twist Quill lifted Gabby to the side and placed her on the bed. From there a liquid collapse backward was inevitable. His body followed hers as naturally as wheat stalks bend together in a high wind.

He caressed her lavishly, feverishly, knowing he had to stop. Gabby twisted beneath him, uttering delightful little noises. He backed off and kissed her forehead and her eyelids and her ears.

But the moment he left her mouth, he heard a voice, breathless but insistent, inquiring whether he had a headache coming on. And so he stopped nibbling on the delicate tips of her ears, slid down the smooth planes of her flushed cheeks, allowed himself that agonizing, delirious moment of surrender when her mouth opened to his and he swallowed her words.

He was throbbing all over. Unfortunately, his head was as clear as a bell. It told him that he couldn’t stay in bed all afternoon. It instructed him loudly that he should be arranging a funeral, comforting his mother (although Peter would do that better than he), posting letters hither and yon. He thrust the inner voice away with a groan and bent to Gabby’s breast. He kissed her through the frail cloth of her chemise, watched her nipple rise in a small circle of damp muslin. He listened to her make a small squeak every time he pulled the nipple back into his mouth, felt a delirious tremor in his body that matched the tremor in hers.

But Gabby kept trying to pull away. “Quill! You
must stop!
”

With one swift and obstinate movement, Quill ran his hand under Gabby’s chemise.

Gabby gasped in surprise as the damp spot over her breast was replaced by the strength of a large male hand. Cool air drifted over her legs and she instinctively tried to jerk her chemise back below her waist. But Quill had rolled so that his hip pinned her down, and her head became confused by his hand on her breast and the roughness of his trousers on her bare thigh. And then his hand—

“Take your hand away!” Gabby was shocked to the core of her being. She twisted her legs together as sharply as possible and rolled away.

Quill, dazed by his fingers’ bold exploration into melting warmth, lost balance and let her go. Long legs flashed as she scrambled sideways.

Gabby ended up kneeling on the bed, still panting slightly, cheeks rosy. She glared at her husband. “You mustn’t do that ever again. I don’t like it. It’s…it’s an imposition.
Worse
than an imposition.” She couldn’t even think of a word strong enough.

“I wanted to,” Quill said with a wicked grin. “And I want to touch you again.” His hand crept toward her bare knees.

Gabby jerked her chemise down and started wiggling backward. “We will have to discuss this rationally,” she said. “There are certain liberties that I will not allow. That—that are not allowed by the Church!”

To her shock, Quill burst into a snort of laughter. “You sound like a nun,” he laughed. “Or a bishop!”

Gabby scooted off the opposite side of the bed, her brow lowering. “I don’t think it’s funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her bosom. “Whatever making love is, I know it doesn’t include anything as indecent as what you just did, touching me there.”

Quill couldn’t help it. He broke into a huge burst of laughter, letting the gathered tension and grief of the day roll out of him. “Oh, Lord, Gabby, you’ll be the death of me!”

Gabby stalked furiously over to the door and pulled the bell cord. Hopefully Margaret hadn’t gone out for a stroll, because she wished to be dressed immediately. Doing her best to ignore Quill, she walked over to the clothespress and opened the doors. She had nothing black. The darkest color she had was a puce walking costume. Fine. She would go for a walk.

Quill was still sprawled on her bed in an unseemly fashion. Gabby turned around, hands on her hips. “I should like you to leave my chamber now,” she said sharply. She walked to the door. “Margaret will be coming to dress me.” Lord, but he was a good-looking man, she thought unwillingly. He was all muscle and grace lying on her bed, propped up on one elbow.

“What if I told you that such touches were common practice?” he said winningly.

Gabby snorted in her turn. “No decent woman would allow that sort of thing,” she said without a trace of hesitation in her voice. “If my father knew—” She broke off. That was an inconceivable thought. “You’re a reprobate,” she said. “And what is more, you, you
looked
at me!”

“You’re beautiful,” Quill said, his eyes dark green and narrowed. “I want to look at you again and again, Gabby. Morning and night.”

She gasped. “Never! And it’s no wonder you’re giving yourself headaches, if this is the sort of thing you’ve been up to!”

Quill struggled with himself and managed to choke back his laughter. But Gabby saw the humor in his face and glowered.

Margaret scratched on the door and Gabby snatched it open. “Where have you been?” she demanded unfairly. “I can’t sit around in my chemise all day long!”

Quill lazily got himself to his feet and strolled over to his wife, who still had her arms folded across her chest, presumably hiding the damp cloth from Margaret’s eyes. He bent over and murmured in her ear. “You’re going to love it, you know. You will
beg
me to continue.”

“I would never do such a thing!” Gabby whispered back furiously.

“Care to make a wager?” said her husband.

“Gambling is the devil’s pastime,” she retorted. “I begin to think that you were raised with no morals!”

“I begin to think that you were raised with too many morals.” Her husband sighed and dropped a kiss onto the tip of her ear.

Margaret was on the other side of the room, pulling undergarments from the press. With one swift glance over his shoulder, Quill gave his inclinations free rein. He held Gabby tightly against the front of his body. Then he ran a hand down her back and cupped her delicious bottom, pulling her even tighter, up and against him.

“Gabby,” he said hoarsely, into her hair. “I am not only going to touch you all over, I’m going to kiss you in the same places.”

Gabby was silenced.

After he left the room and Margaret was lacing her into a corset, the only positive inference Gabby could draw from the whole conversation was that her father would have nothing to say to Quill’s sinfulness. She was absolutely certain such a wicked thought had never crossed his mind, nor that of any other man of God.

She walked numbly along the street, Margaret following behind. He wasn’t going to heed her refusals. She knew that. Quill was silent, but she would never make the mistake of thinking he was pliable. No, Quill was planning to touch her all over and look at her…and kiss her. She felt an unwilling lick of fire.

Oh, God, she
was
the devil’s child. Her father had been right all along. A chill breeze accounted for the high red in her cheeks. But nothing could justify the spreading warmth she felt in her belly, or the unsteadiness of her knees.

Still, she walked with her head high. After they returned to London, she would become one of the devil’s children in truth. Because whatever her father had said, she always thought privately that the devil didn’t care very much about talkativeness. But even she couldn’t fool herself that behavior of this sort wasn’t wicked.

And yet…And yet…somehow the prospect didn’t alarm her as much as it should have. Gabby sighed. She was well-aware, and had been since age fifteen, that she had far less regard for God’s commandments than she ought to. She had been brought up by Indian servants, who paid lip service to her father’s beliefs, but were Hindu by inclination. And her father himself often forgot that he was chosen by God to be a missionary, particularly after starting a new exporting venture.

After a brisk forty-five-minute walk, Margaret was whimpering and Gabby had regained some calm. One thing her father had preached far more intently than he did religion was the fact that wives and daughters should be subservient to their masters.

And that meant, Gabby thought, ignoring the treacherous pulse of fire in her loins, that it was her duty to submit to whatever sinful practices Quill wished to impose on her.

She entered the inn feeling far too cheerful for such a somber occasion. After supper with the family in a private parlor, Quill escorted her to her chamber and then left. She could tell that Margaret was perplexed to find that she was sleeping alone. But Gabby didn’t feel piqued by Quill’s absence. He had bowed punctiliously at the door.

But then when he straightened up, he had leaned over and said just five words. They burned into Gabby’s heart. His voice was hoarse and utterly belied his gentlemanly demeanor.

“I am burning, Gabby.
Perishing.”

C
ONTRARY TO HER OWN PREDICTION
, Gabby did not lie awake that night wishing that her wedding night was less lonely. Instead, she puzzled over Quill’s headaches. Clearly, something had to be done about them. She was not satisfied with the idea that doctors could do nothing. Surely there was some medicine they could try. It was most unfortunate that Quill had expressly told her not to consult Sudhakar.

Gabby chewed her lip. There are times when a person
should be
deceived, for his own good. Perhaps Sudhakar had no remedy for Quill’s headaches. In that case, what Quill didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Finally she got out of bed and sat down at the delicate little writing table in the corner of her room. She was going to break a promise, but she was doing it for Quill’s own good.

She penned a letter to Sudhakar, the
vaidya
of her father’s village. She described Quill’s problems as clearly as she could. It was up to Sudhakar to decide whether he would be able to help her husband. But the
vaidya
was of the highest Brahman caste. He was unlikely to deny a plea for help if he knew of a medicine that might cure Quill’s headaches.

After a moment’s thought, she also wrote a letter to her father. She informed him that she was married and that due to the unexpected death of his old friend, Thurlow Dewland, she was now Viscountess Dewland. Then, without detailing any of the circumstances, she pleaded with him to encourage the
vaidya
to help with her husband’s ailments.

Finally she curled back into a small circle and went to sleep. She dreamt that she and Quill were dancing and he wasn’t favoring his leg at all. But when she pointed it out, he smiled and said that was because they were in a field. And when Gabby looked around her, he was right. They were dancing in a grassy field next to a pond full of frogs. She woke up groggily to find it was sunrise and her maid was pulling back the curtains.

“Time to rise, my lady,” Margaret said. “The coaches are waiting to take us to the estate in Kent.” She paused, self-importantly. “They’ve dressed up the one coach all in black, even the roof.”

At Gabby’s inquiring look, she said, “That’s the coach for the old viscount. Calling it a hearse, they are. Got to get to Kent, doesn’t he?”

Gabby shivered, but Margaret chattered on about the black plumes that adorned the horses’ heads and the fact that even the servants’ coach had swags of black crepe covering the windows.

The gloomy procession reached Dewland’s country seat around four the following afternoon. Very little had been said in the main coach. Gabby sat next to Quill, who held her hand, but didn’t say one word during the entire journey. After around two hours, Gabby started wondering just how long Quill could remain silent at a stretch. He did answer questions when they stopped for the night at the Queen’s Cross Inn, and there was a dizzying moment when he drew her into an alcove and kissed her insensible. But he kissed her without speaking, and once back in the coach the next morning, he fell silent again.

Gabby chewed on her lip for the last hour of their journey, wondering how on earth a woman who talked too much and a man who didn’t see the use of words were going to rub along together.

Kitty Dewland sat opposite her, looking utterly composed and making pleasant conversation. In Gabby’s opinion, Kitty had not yet realized that her husband was dead. And Peter slept in the corner most of the afternoon. To Gabby’s amazement, he reclined so stiffly that his velvet coat was not rumpled in the least when they climbed from the coach in the late afternoon.

By the time they reached the Dewland estate, the manor had already been put into mourning. The largest parlor was hung with black silk, and the servants wore black hatbands, armbands, and gloves.

During the weeks before the funeral, Gabby hardly saw Quill at all. He was out of the house most of the time, walking the estate with his father’s manager. “He can’t ride, you know,” Kitty explained. “And walking takes a good deal more time. But one can’t see the fields properly from a carriage.” That was the first Gabby knew that Quill wasn’t able to ride a horse.

Her husband sat next to her at meals, but their conversations were trivial and often fell away into silence. Quill’s mother, Kitty, had developed a bewildering habit of switching back and forth from light fashionable conversation to hopeless sobbing. Gabby spent her time worrying about Kasi Rao’s future and writing more and more letters to London and India.

On the day before the funeral itself, Gabby was sitting alone in the breakfast room eating a scone and guiltily wishing that the ceremony were over. Sometimes it was hard not to compare the relentless swags of black cloth draping the walls of Dewland Manor to the vases of bright orchids adorning her home in India.

Just then someone walked into the breakfast room. Instantly Gabby’s heart started to race. Every instinct told her that Quill had just sat down and that it was his black sleeve that lay close to hers. Finally she raised her eyes.

“Gabby.”

She bowed her head in a polite greeting. “Good morning, my lord.”

“Wife,” he said quietly, bending closer.

Gabby swallowed. Should she reply in kind? No. “Husband” would sound idiotic on her lips. But Quill’s “wife” sounded gloriously possessive.

His lips touched hers softly. “Are you sleeping well?” A trace of a wicked grin played around his mouth. Quill had decided that a light flirtation might dispel his driving lust for Gabby. It was dehumanizing, this lust. It reduced him to a tortured care-for-nobody who wanted to ravish his wife before breakfast and the devil with the consequences.

“No,” Gabby replied, clear brown eyes fixed on his. “I can’t sleep well at all. I miss you.” Her voice trailed off. Then she whispered, “Husband.”

Quill froze and barely stopped himself from lunging at Gabby and carrying her straight out of the room.

With a deep breath, he shakily reassembled his self-control and made another stab—not quite so successful—at a flirtatious tone. “Damn it, Gabby, you’re supposed to make pleasant conversation, not drive me into a frenzy of lust. Just look at the condition I’m in now.” He cast a disgusted look into his lap.

Gabby looked at his pantaloons, but she didn’t see anything unusual.

Her husband broke into laughter and she scowled at him. “I don’t see anything funny about it,” she said with dignity.

With a sudden movement Quill bent his head and took his viscountess’s mouth, kissing her with a languorous thoroughness that sent scorching spikes of heat through his body.

When he pulled back, Gabby’s eyes were dazed and had gone a dusky brandy color. Quill caught up her hand and kissed her palm. She shivered instinctively. He took that hand and deliberately placed it on his groin.

Gabby jumped and tried to pull her hand away.

“Remember what I said I would do to you?” Quill said, his voice a hoarse promise.

Gabby nodded.

“Will you do the same to me?”

Gabby’s eyes grew round with surprise. At least Quill hoped it was surprise, rather than horror. He lifted his hand, and to his eternal delight, Gabby didn’t pull away from him. In fact, she didn’t move at all. It was a new kind of torture.

Finally he had to remove her warm hand himself and sweep her into another kiss, or who knew where they would end up. Probably making love on a bed of crumbled scones.

That kiss, not to mention Gabby’s touch, did nothing for Quill’s condition, as he’d described it to her. In fact, when Lady Sylvia walked into the room accompanied by two whining Graces (Beauty was temporarily living in the servants’ quarters, as the move had proved too disturbing for her fragile bladder), Quill had to sit in his place and eat approximately five scones more than he cared for, because he was unable to walk from the room.

The viscount was laid to rest the following morning in the chancel of St. Margaret’s. Gabby had met many members of the London
ton
at Lady Fester’s ball; she met members of the county nobility over funeral baked meats. What was most surprising was how exhausting it all was.

Gabby curtsied, and curtsied, and curtsied again. She accepted congratulations on her marriage. She encountered delicately raised eyebrows when it was revealed that she was not, in fact, married to her fiancé but to his brother, the new viscount.

And she overheard a conversation that made it clear that a certain Lady Skiffing, for one, believed that Gabby had discarded Peter when she realized that Quill would shortly be a viscount. It was hardly a comfort that Gabby detected a note of admiration in Lady Skiffing’s voice.

It wasn’t until late morning that the last callers were ushered from the black-hung parlor, whispering their final condolences as they left. Only the family lawyer, Mr. Jennings of Jennings and Condell, remained.

The dowager viscountess was drooping on a settee, her face strained and white. Lady Sylvia sat across from her, the very picture of elegant mourning attire. Gabby clutched her hands together tightly, trying not to steal glances at Quill.

The butler bowed himself out of the room after informing them that a light luncheon would be served in twenty minutes.

Kitty shuddered. “I shall be in my chambers,” she said faintly.

“Mama, it would be best if you ate something,” Peter said.

“I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.”

“Kitty,” Lady Sylvia broke in, “it is time to discuss the future.”

“I shall read Viscount Dewland’s will after luncheon,” Mr. Jennings stated, looking alarmed.

“Yes, yes,” Lady Sylvia said, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t mean you, Jennings. I’m sure there’s nothing interesting in Thurlow’s will. What I mean is, Kitty, what would you like to do now?”

“Do?” The question seemed hardly to register on Kitty Dewland. “I shall…I shall retire to my chambers,” she replied. “And then we will return to London.”

“When Lionel died, I sat in the house and cried until I thought I was turning into a fountain,” Lady Sylvia stated, her tone brisk. “It was a wretched time. Mind, some crying is good for you. Has to be done. But sitting around in the house where you lived with your husband is not the place to do it.”

Tears welled in Kitty’s eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Yes, you could,” Lady Sylvia snapped. “You’re prone to melancholy at the best of times, Kitty. And I’m not going to sit around while you turn yourself into a watering pot. We’re leaving the country. You can cry yourself blue in the face just as easily in Switzerland as in London.”

Kitty sobbed. “How can you even suggest that I leave the house where dear Thurlow was so happy? You’ve never been so unfeeling, Sylvia!”

“I’ve got feelings, all right,” Lady Sylvia retorted. “I don’t want you to malinger. You’re going to cast a pall on the house, Kitty. Think of that. We’re widows. We don’t belong with a newly married couple. You think that Gabrielle and Erskine are going to feel cheerful with his mama bursting into tears at every meal?”

Gabby shot Lady Sylvia an indignant look. “Quill and I would never wish you to leave your home because of us, Lady Dewland. We aren’t intending to be cheerful anyway,” she added, rather confusedly.

Lady Sylvia snorted. “Whether you’re planning on cheer or not, gel, you’re not going to have it if Kitty is sitting around weeping all the time.”

Kitty wiped her eyes with the handkerchief Quill silently handed her. “You’re right, Sylvia,” she said finally. “The last thing I wish to be is a burden to dearest Gabrielle and Quill.”

“You wouldn’t be a burden!” Gabby cried. “I would feel terrible to think that you left the house because of us. We should be the ones to move.”

Kitty gave a watery little laugh. “What a comfort you would have been to your mother, Gabrielle. You shan’t move, because this house belongs to Quill now. I suspect I own the dowager house?” She looked inquiringly at Mr. Jennings, who pursed his lips to indicate that the information was privileged, and then nodded. “I shall retire to the dowager house so I won’t be in anyone’s way.”

“For goodness sake, Kitty, you’re giving me palpitations from pure irritation, and it takes quite a provocation,” Lady Sylvia snapped. “Thurlow wouldn’t want you to retire to the country like some kind of bird-wit! If you still wish to turn into a hermit once we return from the Continent, you may. But meanwhile, I’ve a hankering to see Paris again before I die, and you’re coming with me. And if we can’t go to France because of the antics of that blown-up little puppet, Napoleon, we’ll travel about the Continent for a few months until the French toss him out the door.” Any rebellious Frenchman could have gained backbone from Lady Sylvia.