Marrying Winterborne (6 page)

Helen turned a fearful shade of red. All that kept her from complete nakedness was a pair of stockings, a cambric chemise, and drawers with an open crotch seam.

Holding her stocking-clad ankle, Rhys ran one hand slowly over her shin. A frown notched between his brows as he saw that the knit cotton had been darned in several places. “A rough, poor stocking it is,” he mur
mured, “for such a pretty leg.” His hand traveled up to the garter cinched around her thigh. Since the stockinet bands had lost their elasticity, it was necessary to buckle the garter so tightly around her leg that it usually left a red ridge by the end of the day.

After unfastening the buckle, Rhys found a ring of chafed skin around her thigh. His frown deepened, and he let out a disapproving breath.
“Wfft.”

Helen had heard him make the Welsh sound on previous occasions, when something had displeased him. After unrolling the stocking and casting it aside with distaste, he began on the other leg.

“I'll need those stockings later,” Helen said, disconcerted to see her belongings handled so cavalierly.

“I'll replace them with new ones. And decent garters to go with them.”

“My own stockings and garters are perfectly serviceable.”

“They've left marks on your legs.” After deftly knotting the second stocking into a ball, he turned and cast it toward the open grate. It landed perfectly into the fire and flared into a bright yellow blaze.

“Why did you burn it?” Helen asked in dawning outrage.

“It wasn't good enough for you.”

“It was mine!”

To her vexation, Rhys seemed not all repentant. “Before you leave, I'll give you a dozen pair. Will that satisfy you?”

“No.” She looked away with a frown.

“It was a worthless cotton stocking,” he said derisively, “mended in a dozen places. I'll wager the scullery maid in my kitchen wears better.”

Having learned forbearance over the years, from her
role as the peacemaker in the Ravenel family, Helen held her tongue and counted to ten—twice—before she trusted herself to reply. “I have very few stockings,” she told him. “Instead of buying new ones, I chose to mend them and use my pin money for books. Perhaps that scrap of cloth had no value to you, but it did to me.”

Rhys was silent, his brows drawing together. Helen assumed that he was preparing for further argument. She was more than a little surprised when he said quietly, “I'm sorry, Helen. I didn't stop to think. I had no right to destroy something that belonged to you.”

Knowing that he was not a man often given to apologizing, or humbling himself, Helen felt her annoyance fade. “You're forgiven.”

“From now on I'll treat your possessions with respect.”

She smiled wryly. “I won't come to you with many possessions, other than two hundred potted orchids.”

His hands came to her shoulders, toying with the straps of her chemise. “Will you want all of them brought from Hampshire?”

“I don't think there's room for all of them.”

“I'll find a way for you to keep them here.”

Her eyes widened. “Would you?”

“Of course.” His fingertips traced the curves of her shoulders with beguiling lightness. “I intend for you to have everything you need to be happy. Orchids . . . books . . . a silk mill dedicated to looming stockings only for you.”

A laugh caught in her throat, her pulse quickening at his leisurely caresses. “Please don't buy a silk mill for me.”

“I already own one, actually. In Whitchurch.” He bent to kiss the pale curve of her shoulder, the brush of his mouth as warm and weightless as sunlight. “I'll
take you there someday, if you like. A grand sight, it is: a row of huge machines throwing raw silk into threads even finer than strands of your hair.”

“I would like to see that,” she exclaimed, and he smiled at her interest.

“Then you shall.” His fingers sifted through the loose blonde locks. “I'll keep you well supplied in ribbons and stockings,
cariad
.” Easing her down to the bed, he began to reach beneath the chemise for the waist of her drawers.

Helen tensed, her hands catching at his. “I'm very shy,” she whispered.

His lips wandered gently up to her ear. “How do shy women prefer their drawers to be removed? Fast, or slow?”

“Fast . . . I think.”

Between one breath and the next, her drawers were tugged down and efficiently whisked away. Gooseflesh rose on her naked thighs.

Rhys stood and began to unknot his tie. Comprehending that he intended to undress right in front of her, she slid beneath the sheets and the eiderdown quilt, and yanked them up to her collarbone. The bed was soft and clean, scented with the dry tang of washing soda, a comforting smell because it reminded her of Eversby Priory. She stared fixedly at the fireplace, aware of Rhys's movements at the periphery of her vision. He worked on his collar and cuffs, and soon discarded his waistcoat and shirt.

“Have a look if you like,” she heard him say casually. “Unlike you, I'm not shy.”

Clutching the sheets higher against her neck, Helen risked a timid glance at him . . . and then she couldn't look away.

Rhys was a magnificent sight, dressed only in trousers with braces hanging loosely along his lean hips. The flesh of his torso looked remarkably solid, as if it had been stitched to his bones with steel thread. Seeming comfortable in his half-naked state, he sat on the edge of the bed and began to remove his shoes. His back was layered with muscle upon muscle, the contours so defined that his sun-colored skin gleamed as if polished. As he stood and turned to face her, Helen blinked with surprise at the discovery that there was no hair at all on the broad expanse of his chest.

Often when her brother Theo had nonchalantly walked about Eversby Priory in his dressing-robe, a scruff of coarse curls had been visible on the upper portion of his chest. And when Devon's younger brother West had been put to bed after suffering an extreme chill, Helen had noticed that he was hairy as well. She had assumed all men were made that way.

“You're . . . smooth,” she said, her face heating.

He smiled slightly. “A Winterborne trait. My father and uncles were the same.” He began to unfasten his trousers, and Helen looked away hastily. “It was a curse in my teen years,” he continued ruefully, “having a chest as bare as a young lad's, while the others my age were all growing a fair carpet. My friends baited and teased me near to death, of course. For a while they took to calling me ‘badger.'”

“Badger?” Helen echoed, puzzled.

“Ever hear the expression ‘bald as a badger's arse'? No? The long bristles on a shaving brush come from the area around the badger's tail. There's a joke that most of the badgers in England have had their backsides plucked bare.”

“That was very unkind of them,” Helen said indignantly.

Rhys chuckled. “It's the way of boys. Believe me, I behaved no better. After I grew big enough to thrash the lot of them, they didn't dare say a word.”

The mattress sank beneath his weight as he climbed into bed with her. Oh, God. It was happening now. Helen wrapped her arms tightly around her midriff. Her toes curled like lambs' wool. She had never been so at the mercy of another human being.

“Easy,” came his soothing voice. “Don't be afraid. Here, let me hold you.” The tense bundle of her body was turned and gathered close against a wealth of muscle and hot skin. Her icy feet brushed against the wiry hair on his legs. His hand came to her back, nestling her closer, while firelight danced over them both. Steeping in the warmth of his body, she began to relax by degrees.

She felt his hand settle over the chemise, cupping her breast until the tip rose into the heat of his palm. His breathing changed, roughening, and he took her mouth in a gently biting kiss, playing with her, rubbing and nudging with his lips. She responded uncertainly, trying to catch the half-open kisses with her own mouth, the tender strokes and tugs exciting her. He reached for the drawstring that tied the gathered neck of her chemise, pulling decisively, and the garment fell loose and open.

“Oh,” Helen said in dismay. She reached for the drooping fabric, and he trapped her hand in his firm, warm grip. “Oh please . . .”

But he wouldn't let go, only nuzzled across the freshly revealed skin, the white curve, the shell-pink
aureole. A ragged sigh escaped him. He let the tip of his tongue trail across the roseate peak, painting it with heat before taking it into his mouth and flicking until it ached and tensed even more, and then he moved to her other breast. Dazed by the wicked pleasure, lost in him and what he was doing, Helen inched closer, needing more closeness, more . . .
something . . .
but then through the thin layer of her chemise, she felt an unexpected protrusion, a kind of swollen ridge. Startled, she wrenched backward.

Rhys lifted his head. Embered light from the hearth played across the damp surface of his lower lip. “No, don't pull away,” he said huskily. His hand slid over her bottom and gently eased her back to him. “This is”—he took an uneven breath as her hips settled tentatively against his—“what happens to me when I want you. There, where it's hard . . . that's the part that goes inside you.” As if to demonstrate, he nudged against the cradle of her pelvis. “Understand?”

Helen froze.

Dear Lord.

No wonder the sexual act was such a secret. If women knew, they would never consent to it.

Although she tried not to look as aghast as she felt, some of it must have shown in her expression, because he gave her a glance of mingled chagrin and amusement.

“It's better than it sounds,” he offered apologetically.

Although Helen dreaded the answer, she worked up the courage to ask timidly, “Inside where?”

For answer, he moved over her, spreading her beneath him. His hand coasted over her shrinking body, caressing the insides of her thighs and stroking them apart. She could scarcely breathe as he reached beneath the hem of
the chemise. There was a light touch between her legs, his fingertips delving into the patch of intimate curls.

She went rigid at the peculiar feeling, the circling pressure that found a hollow place and began to push inward. And then, unbelievably, her body gave way to the silky-wet wriggle and glide of his finger as he . . . No, it was impossible.

“Inside here,” he said quietly, watching her from beneath a sweep of ink-black lashes.

Moaning in confusion, she twisted to escape the invasion, but he held her firmly.

“When I enter you”—his finger sank to the last joint, retreated an inch, slipped in again—“you'll feel pain at first.” He was stroking places she had never known existed, his touch clever and gentle. “But it won't hurt after the first time, ever again.”

Helen closed her eyes, distracted by the curious sensation that had awakened inside her. Ephemeral, elusive, like a hint of perfume lingering in a quiet room.

“I'll move like this”—the subtle caresses acquired a rhythm, his finger nudging in, and in, her inner flesh becoming silkier and more slippery with each sinuous penetration—“until I spend inside you.”

“Spend?” she asked through dry lips.

“A release . . . a moment when your heart begins to pound, and you struggle in every limb for something you can't quite reach. It's torture, but you'd rather die than stop.” His mouth lowered to her scarlet ear, while he continued to tease her relentlessly. “You follow the rhythm and hold on tight,” he whispered, “because you know the world is about to end. And then it does.”

“That doesn't sound very comfortable,” she managed to say, brimming with a strange, squirmy, guilty heat.

A dark tendril of laughter curled inside her ear. “Comfortable, no. But an unholy pleasure, it is.”

His finger withdrew, and she felt him stroke along the delicately closed seam of her sex. Parting the soft crevice, he began to toy with the pink folds and frills, grazing a place so exquisitely tender that her entire body jerked.

“Does this hurt,
cariad
?”

“No, but . . .” There seemed no way to make him understand an upbringing in which certain areas of the body were too shameful to be acknowledged, let alone touched, except for purposes of washing. One of many rules instilled by a stout nanny who had been fond of smacking naughty children's palms with a ruler until they were red and sore. Such lessons could never be entirely unlearned. “That's . . . a shameful place,” she finally said breathlessly.

His reply was immediate. “No, it isn't.”

“It is.” When he shook his head, she insisted, “I was taught that it most definitely
is
.”

Rhys looked sardonic. “By the same person who told you that babies are found under gooseberry bushes?”

Forced to concede the point, Helen fell into a dignified silence. Or at least as dignified as she could manage in the circumstances.

“Many people are ashamed of their own desires,” he said. “I'm not one of them. Nor do I want you to be.” Lightly resting his palm on the center of her chest, he drew it slowly down her body. “You were made for pleasure,
cariad
. No part of you is shameful.” He seemed not to notice the way she stiffened as his hand drifted down between her thighs. “Especially not this sweet place . . . ah, you're so pretty here. Like one of your orchids.”

“
What?
” she asked faintly, wondering if he were mocking her. “No.”

“You're shaped like petals.” One of his fingertips traced her outer folds. Resisting her desperate tugs at his wrist, he spread her open. Gently he took a rosy inner flange between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed with the softest possible pressure. “And these. Sepals . . . aye?”

It was then that Helen understood what he meant, the accuracy of the comparison. She went crimson all over. If it were possible to faint from embarrassment, she would have.