Her Christmas Earl (12 page)

He met the barrier of her innocence and paused, gasping for control. She sighed and hooked her hands over his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she whispered, so low he barely heard her.

This act’s power was unearthly. He’d thought himself a man who knew women. Yet this first night with his wife flung him into radiant, unknown space.

He could wait no longer. He wanted her so much. He tightened his hips and thrust.

She stiffened and whimpered. Her nails dug into his damp, bare skin.

Then on a cry, she arched to meet him, bringing him deeper. In unmistakable welcome, she contracted around him. This time her sigh was long and saturated with enjoyment. She tipped back her head until her breasts brushed his chest. A proud smile teased her lush red lips.

“Oh, my darling,” Erskine choked out and kissed her with the powerful passion that he’d leashed all night.

“That’s wonderful,” she gasped, sliding beneath him in a way that threatened his tattered control.

For as long as he could bear, he kept still, letting her become accustomed to his body. Despite her unabashed welcome, he remained overwhelmingly conscious that she’d never done this before. Then slowly and tenderly, he moved. The glorious sensation threatened to incinerate him.

Again he thrust, more purposefully. This time she shifted, changing the angle, and his hunger sharpened to the verge of agony.

Still she stroked him, urged him on, told him with fluttering sighs and touches that she wanted more. He abandoned himself to the fierce, vital rhythm. Fiery thunder shook his world as he claimed his wife. He’d think he acted the complete barbarian if not for her whispered words of encouragement and delight. Those sweet little murmurs of praise smashed restraint to oblivion.

She shuddered on her climax and cried out, the sound sharp and triumphant in the firelit room. Then on a mighty rush, Erskine lost himself in a release unlike anything he’d felt before. He flooded her with his seed and forever united his life to hers.

WHEN PHILIPPA STIRRED from deep, dreamless sleep, her husband clasped her tight to his powerful chest. Dull gray light edged the curtains and the candles had burned down to puddles of wax. A shy glance up at Blair’s face from where she lay tucked into the curve of his shoulder showed her that he was still asleep.

With those cynical green eyes closed, Blair looked younger. She realized with a start that this notorious libertine must be only a few years older than she was. At Hartley Manor, he’d seemed so impossibly beyond her in experience and sophistication that she’d felt a complete child in comparison.

After last night, she didn’t feel like a child anymore. She felt like a woman.

A woman suffering the pangs of an excruciatingly guilty conscience. With morning, so much became painfully clear and she cringed at how she’d wronged her husband.

Queasy with self-disgust, she eased away from Blair and gingerly sat up. As she pulled her nightdress over her head, her body twinged in unfamiliar places. A reminder that despite his care with her, she was unused to a man’s possession. The faint discomfort only made her recall his gentleness, and how that gentleness had flared into a passion beyond imagination.

Blair had repaid her sins against him with breathtaking pleasure. But this morning she faced the stark truth that fate had dealt him an awful hand when Philippa Sanders broke into his room.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The drowsy baritone question from behind her made every muscle tense. Muscles already aching after the night’s exertions.

It seemed her husband was a light sleeper. Curse him for stirring. She’d hoped to escape unnoticed.

Long fingers curled around her wrist above where her hand spread against the rumpled bed. As if she needed reminding of how uninhibited they’d been. Twice. Blair had woken her after midnight and used her slowly and sweetly with whispers of praise that her lonely soul had soaked up like a desert soaked up water.

The first time had been astonishing enough. That second time had threatened to break her heart.

“I thought I’d go and sleep in the next room,” she mumbled, without looking at him.

He’d made such a gallant effort to pretend that this forced marriage hadn’t blighted his life. But of course it must. Devilishly handsome rakes didn’t willingly tie themselves to women undistinguished by either fortune or beauty.

How wrong her first impressions of him had been. Blair was the kindest man she knew. She didn’t deserve him. And he certainly didn’t deserve a disaster of a wife like her.

“Did you indeed?” Even with her back to him, she knew he studied her. Worse, he probably guessed that she’d woken unhappy. She was developing a healthy respect for his powers of perception. “Why?”

“I thought you might like some privacy.”

She definitely wanted some time alone. Lying in his arms, she couldn’t think, and she badly needed to think. There must be some way to release him from the prison of this marriage.

The bed dipped as he sat up and shifted closer. “I can think of something I’d like much more than privacy.”

After last night, she thought she’d never blush again. She was wrong about that. “Do you want to do…that again?”

“Don’t you?” He didn’t sound sleepy anymore.

“As you wish.” She blinked back tears and finally made herself turn in his direction. She struggled to appear calm.

Apparently she failed.

“What is it, Philippa?” He frowned, more in puzzlement than irritation. “And don’t tell me I’m imagining that there’s something wrong.”

She stopped on the verge of saying just that and glanced toward the glowing embers in the hearth. She couldn’t bear to look at him. He was so beautiful and seeing him only reminded her of how marvelous he’d made her feel last night. “Please let me go,” she said tonelessly.

His hold tightened, making her pulse leap under his fingers. “No.”

Surprised she stared squarely at him for the first time since she’d woken. He didn’t look annoyed, although even she admitted that she acted like a ninnyhammer. Instead he looked determined. Which was much more daunting than anger. “I thought you were joking about the obedience.”

A faint smile teased his lips, but his eyes remained watchful. He raised the hand he held and kissed it. “That depends on what you intend to do next.”

Even as reaction shivered through her, she closed her eyes against tears. If only he wasn’t so considerate. If only he was the heartless rake she’d believed him to be. That man deserved to be saddled with a wife he didn’t want and a life he hadn’t planned. “Please—”

“Talk to me, Philippa.”

He released her, but his kiss still tingled on her skin, reminder of the hundreds of kisses he’d given her last night. He’d been so good to her, so generous. And she wasn’t worth his care. “This marriage isn’t what you wanted,” she said in a choked voice.

To her surprise, he greeted that with a soft laugh. “I thought the issue might be something like that.”

She waited for him to say that it didn’t matter, to lie. Ever since they’d been caught together, he’d done his best to shield her from the consequences of her actions, but that didn’t make him a willing participant in events. When the silence extended, she opened her eyes, pique stirring beneath self-castigation. “You were trapped into marrying me.”

He settled with a sigh against the headboard, his stare unwavering. An embroidered lady wearing a steepled head-dress peeped over his shoulder with faded eyes. “And now you’re torturing yourself with guilt.”

“I broke into your room. The blame is mine.”

“Yes.”

Another silence while she waited for him to say something conciliatory. When he didn’t, she glared at him. “Now we’re tied together for life.”

The green eyes were unreadable as they rested on her face. “Do you mind?”

Blair was a wonderful man, and every day she discovered new and intriguing facets of his character. Not to mention that when he touched her, he made her feel like a goddess. The promise of a lifetime in his bed made her want to skip and sing and turn cartwheels. How on earth could she mind?

“Not for myself,” she said, too shy to share the wanton thoughts running through her head.

“So you think I should mind?” he asked neutrally.

“If you’d been free to make your own decision, you’d never have chosen me for your wife.”

A smile teased his lips. “That’s true.”

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. She’d been right. He did regret marrying her.

Philippa clenched her free hand in the tangled blankets as a jagged hole gaped in her heart. “So you’ve been forced into a situation not of your choosing. And it’s my fault.”

“Definitely.”

Despite the justice of Blair’s response, her lips flattened with displeasure. She didn’t expect a declaration of eternal love, but this swift agreement with her bleak assessment irked her. “You should wish me to the devil.”

The green eyes seemed to convey a message she couldn’t read. Something unconnected to his hurtful words. “You know, when you put it like that, I suspect I should.”

“But it’s too late,” she said in despair.

“Once the vows were spoken, it certainly was.”

She bit her lip and told herself she’d cry when she was alone. Despite that exhortation, tears pricked at her eyes. She spoke the only words she could, knowing even as she did that they were utterly inadequate to the wrong she’d done him. “I’m so sorry.”

“You know,” Blair said musingly after a long while, “given all these grim facts you’re so determined to enumerate, any sensible man should be as angry as a dog with fleas this morning.”

Miserably she stared at him. Why did he have to be so handsome? Right now, his physical appeal felt like yet another attack on her wilting confidence. “Yes, he…you should.”

Another delay before he responded in the same thoughtful tone. “But you know—”

She braced for condemnation. Instead he relaxed back against the elaborate headboard with a casual air that left her bewildered.

The silence continued to the point where she wanted to scream.

“I know what?” she forced out.

“You know—” His lips stretched into a smile that set her foolish heart dancing, despite the morass of wretchedness. “Now I think about it, I’m not nearly as discontented about our wedding as I imagined I’d be. When your uncle threatened to shoot me if I didn’t do the right thing, I was sure that we’d got ourselves into a deuce of a coil.”

Her wayward heart stumbled to a standstill. Open-mouthed with shock, she stared at her husband. She didn’t trust what she thought she’d heard. “What does that mean?”

Amusement lit his eyes to emerald. “It means, wife, that I’d like to try and make this a true marriage.”

She frowned. This seemed too good to be true. Handsome, profligate men didn’t give up their sensual pleasures for the sake of plain little mice like Philippa Sanders. “You think I believe that?”

He leaned forward and cradled her face between his hands, sending her heart into another ridiculous jig. “I think you’re creating monsters in your mind.”

Desperately she searched his remarkable face for signs of deceit. “I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“Believe me, after last night, no man could be unhappy. It’s just not possible.”

She blushed again. “There’s more to marriage than bed sport.”

He laughed with the hint of affectionate mockery familiar from the night they were locked in the dressing room. “It’s a start.” When she didn’t smile back, he continued. “And we’ve got more than that, Philippa. You know we have. I like you. I admire you. You’re always interesting. In fact, I couldn’t have chosen a better wife if I’d tried.”

Relief flooded through her and under the unabashed warmth in his eyes, her fit of futile guilt melted like ice in the sun. “Do…do you mean it?”

“Of course I do.” He paused and his expression became serious. “Now the question is whether you’re happy to go forward with me.”

This time she didn’t try to hold back her smile. “My lord, you demonstrated some essential husbandly skills last night. I look forward to sampling your other talents.”

He laughed at her light response, which was just what she wanted. In a marriage so new, she couldn’t burden him with the unprecedented emotions that had welled in her heart when he’d joined his body to hers. Perhaps her feelings now were merely a virgin’s romantic fancies, but staring into her husband’s brilliant eyes, she wondered if she was halfway to falling in love with the scandalous Earl of Erskine. More than halfway, she suspected, wondering why the idea didn’t make her sick with fear.

Perhaps Philippa wasn’t terrified because her husband’s expression warned her of an impending demonstration of husbandly skills.

With sudden confidence that everything would turn out all right, despite their topsy-turvy beginnings, she leaned forward and eagerly pressed her lips to his. As he kissed her back with gratifying enthusiasm, she silently promised Blair that whatever happened, he’d never regret their marriage.

Hartley Manor, Wiltshire, Christmas Eve 1824

PHILIPPA’S LAUGH RANG with joy and excitement as Blair dashed up the long corridor and dragged her into their bedroom. It was the same room he’d slept in as a bachelor when he’d so reluctantly attended Sir Theodore Liddell’s last house party.