Ravishing in Red (19 page)

The touch from the garden, so welcome and necessary. She had been waiting for it, wanting it. Still it stole her breath. She closed her eyes so she would not see him watch her madness. He did wicked things. So wicked that she cried out, and bit her lip so she would not again. Except she did. He kept making it worse and soon cries filled her head so all thought was gone. Then nothing existed except that pleasure making her desperate for something she could not name.

He moved again, up her body until his chest hovered above her and his hips spread her thighs. He pressed into her and awareness sliced through her daze.

She looked up at his face, serious and hard. The dark of his eyes went on forever in his passion, and his tight jaw showed how he fought for restraint.

He tried not to hurt her, she was sure. He did anyway. She closed her eyes so he might not see how much. Then it was over and they were joined and the pain eased, but the reality of this, of him and her and what was happening, overwhelmed her.

Remnants of the pleasure stirred while he moved in her. His physicality again impressed her palms and fingers. The moments turned long, and too real.

His careful thrusts beckoned the pleasure forward again, so it was not horrible. No daze or distance developed again, however. Pleasure did not obscure the truth now. Instead an unbidden intimacy overwhelmed and awed her during her vulnerable submission.

 

 

 

 

H
e did not leave once it was over. She thought he would, to spare them both the uncompromising reality that kept assaulting her in the aftermath.

No anticipation now. No excitement obscuring how it was. She lay beside a naked man whom she barely knew.

She was unable to set aside how defenseless he made her feel. Powerless really. His possession of her had disadvantaged her, and at the start of a long game that she had not fully realized that she had agreed to play.

She closed her eyes so she might find some privacy. She had been stripped of it completely in this bed, as surely as he had removed that nightdress. That dismayed her more than anything else. Much more than any pain. Her separate-ness had been breached without her ever agreeing to it.

“You appear very thoughtful.” His voice, so close, forced the intimacy to reassert itself.

“I am doing some ciphers in my head. Addition. Subtraction.”

She felt his low laugh on her cheek even though it made no sound. “What do you cipher?”

She opened her eyes, to his naked shoulders and chest. That had not mattered while immersed in the pleasure, but it shocked her now. “I am calculating how often this can be done in ten hours, and whether you will want to do it again soon.”

His eyes were kind, as if he knew how awkward she felt. How confused and exposed. “Not too soon. Not for a few days.”

He sat up. She knew he would leave. He did not do so at once. He gave her time to close her eyes. Someday perhaps she would not.

She heard him move in the chamber.

“Call for your maid. She will prepare a bath for you. We will dine with my brother tonight in his chambers. I promised him we would, since he could not attend the wedding breakfast.”

She felt him standing right beside her, then a light kiss on her cheek. “I am sorry that I hurt you. I tried not to. I will not again.”

It touched her that he had tried. She imagined this could have been hellish if he had not.

She opened her eyes to see that dark robe near the door to his chambers. He needed no absolution from her. He had not asked for it, but only spoken to reassure her. Yet a new sense about him had entered her while she was stripped of all protection, and it whispered to her instincts now.

“You did not hurt me very much.”

He paused and looked at her through the shadows.

“I am more shocked than hurt, and more confused than shocked. It was as you promised. More than tolerable enough.”

H
e did not come to her for two nights. Then he came every night. Audrianna calculated that those hours, in addition to the time spent in each other’s company but not in bed, indeed came to about ten hours the first week.

By the end of that week she grew accustomed to having a naked man in her bed afterward. He did not linger long, but he did not leave immediately. She had assumed this was something done in the dark and in silence, a duty performed on the sly. Perhaps Lord Sebastian took a more liberal view because of all those experiences as a rake.

Allusions to his past showed up at every social event she attended. No one actually spoke of it, but she perceived a merry astonishment that he had married at all, and only to make such a bad marriage at that. A few ladies’ clever barbs insinuated that she had all but trapped him. It became clear that Lady Wittonbury was of that view.

She mostly managed to avoid Lady Wittonbury. As Sebastian had said, it was a very big house. The library and music room became her havens when she left her own chambers. And the garden, of course. It was so large that one could disappear in it, and if she felt the need for different environs, she took Nellie and walked in the park or down Oxford Street.

She usually had to suffer Lady Wittonbury’s presence at breakfast, however. They would open their mail and Lady Wittonbury would advise which invitations to accept. Some of the events would not happen for weeks, even months, when the season was in full bloom. Lady Wittonbury explained several times that this season would be fairly quiet compared to others, owing to the court mourning of Princess Charlotte that still stretched in front of them.

After the mail, Audrianna would read the newspapers that had been set out by the servants, starting with the
Times
advertisements and notices. She had taken up Lizzie’s habit, but for a purpose. The Domino had twice now used such communication, and she hoped that he would again.

Sebastian was never at those early meals. On the eighth day of her marriage, Lady Wittonbury explained that the two brothers broke their fast together in the marquess’s chambers.

“Wittonbury needs to instruct him, of course. He only wields my elder son’s power in government, not his own.”

Audrianna had difficulty imagining Lord Sebastian taking instruction from anyone, or wielding secondhand power. She was about to defend her husband, when the marchioness changed the subject.

“We must do something about your wardrobe, dear. I have held my tongue about this as long as I can bear it. I will take you to my dressmaker this afternoon.”

“My wardrobe is new. It would be wasteful to replace it so soon.”

“You can give it away. It will not be wasted.”

“Forgive me, Madam. My attempt to dissemble was clumsy. The truth is that I do not want to replace it. There is no need to, and I like it as it is. However, I thank you for your concern for me.” She especially loved the primrose India muslin dress and aurora sarcenet spencer that she wore today, and resented that the criticism appeared to have been provoked by these specific garments.

A lesser woman would stand down. Lady Wittonbury felt no need to. “My concern is for me, and my son, as much as for you. Some of your dresses are not the best choices in color or style.”

Her tone remained cajoling even as her words became more pointed. Her face wore the smile one might use when indulging a recalcitrant child who would be forced to obey if reasoning did not work.

“Every dress was obtained from a top dressmaker, Madam. The styles are from the latest plates, and visible on other ladies of the
ton
. I did not just ride in from the country on a wagon, and there is nothing inappropriate about my wardrobe. Some dresses might not be to your taste, but that is another matter.”

“My taste has been celebrated since I was younger than you. Ask anyone. I sought to help you by offering my advice, but I can see that was an error.”

“You have been a marchioness since you were younger than I am. No one would criticize your taste no matter what they thought.”

The implication that the praise had been mere flattery astonished Lady Wittonbury. “You are a bold, ungrateful girl, I see.”

“I must disagree again, Madam. I am not ungrateful, and I am not a girl at all. I am old enough to choose my own wardrobe, for example.”

Lady Wittonbury’s indignant stare could have frozen an ocean. She rose to her feet with purpose and sailed out of the room.

Audrianna scolded herself, but her own heart rebelled against accepting blame. She had not insulted Lady Wittonbury. Quite the reverse. She suspected that a story was being told upstairs that would sound as if she had, though. She braced herself for a request from Sebastian for her attendance once his breakfast was done.

It came soon enough. Her stomach turned at what might be coming. She found him in his bedchamber, gathering some papers. He had dressed for riding and appeared distracted. He barely looked at her as he shuffled through some pages, checking their content.

“I am told that you had a row with my mother.”

“We had a disagreement, not a row. I was not disrespectful.”

“But you refused her wishes, she said. You refused her instruction.”

“Yes.”

He shuffled some more, than laid the stack down and gave her his attention. He reached for her and held her at arm’s length. “Is this one of the dresses?”

So he had received a full description of the episode. She suffered his inspection. If he told her to give this favorite ensemble away, to submit to his mother’s fashion whims, there really might be a row in this house this morning.

“I am no expert, but this dress and your others appear fine to me,” he said. “She will try to tell you what to do. It is her way. She can be a help in some things, if you want her help. Use your own judgment. Show her the respect she deserves, but I am the only person in this house who can command your obedience.”

He surprised her so much that she impulsively embraced him. She stretched up and pressed a kiss to his lips.

His arms enclosed her. He looked down, half-amused and half-serious as sin. Then he released her, and picked up his papers. “I may have to tell my mother to argue with you more often.”

“I hope not! Why would you do that?”

“If I want the denouement, it may require the first act.”

She laughed. “It was only a kiss. You have those whenever you want.”

He gave an odd little smile and turned his attention back to the papers. “Yes, I suppose I do. Whenever I want.”

 

 

 

 

N
o sooner had Sebastian left the house than the marquess sent for her. She found him in his library, in the same deep chair where she always saw him. He set aside a book upon her arrival.

“I have been told that there has been a row,” he said.

Lady Wittonbury must have given a very dramatic report if both brothers felt obliged to speak to her. “It was merely a disagreement, I promise you.”

“My brother should move you to your own house. He will not do it on my suggestion. However, if
you
tell him that you are unhappy here, he will reconsider.”

“If you say that he will not do it, then he will not change his mind, least of all at my request.”

“I will speak plainly to him on your behalf.”

“Please do not. I do not want my presence to cause strife, least of all between the two of you.”

He sighed deeply, and gazed down at the cover on his lap. His head then jolted up, as if he did not like where his thoughts had wandered.

“He is only here at all because of me. But he has other responsibilities now. Tell him that you prefer your own household if you do.”

She sat down in the chair right beside him. The one the marchioness normally used. “And what of your preferences? They matter too.”

His face fell into an impassive mask. “I have learned to accept many things. Foremost among them is that almost everything that I would prefer is no longer possible.”

His quiet, frank admission touched her. “Must you be accepting? Have you no choice?”

A spark of anger showed in his eyes. “Should I rave against cruel fate? Be forever angry at my infirmity and uselessness? In that direction lies madness, my dear sister.”

“You are not useless. That is melancholy speaking. Your brother depends on you for advice in his duties, and guidance in politics and finance.”

“Did she tell you that?” He leveled his gaze on her. He looked more like his brother than he ever had, and his eyes showed more intelligence and depths than she had ever seen.

“Yes. Your brother did as well.”

“Well, here is the truth of it. He needs no advice from me. He is smarter than I am by a measurable sum, and shrewder again by half. He charms while I plod, and he can walk the finest edge of the highest cliff in society without blinking or falling. I do not believe my mother’s long lie about his reliance on me, or his own pretense of the same. I would be grateful if you do not strive to believe it either. It would be nice not to have to pretend, with
someone
.”

His stark honesty surprised and flattered her. His lack of pretention disarmed all formalities. She felt much like she did when talking to a friend who offered a secret confidence.

“He is certainly an admirable man,” she said. “However, he is not infallible as he walks those cliffs. After all, he had to marry me.”

He smiled to acknowledge her little joke. “Perhaps the invisible hand of justice was at work there. However it happened, I do not think he will regret it.”

His approval went far to soothing the scorching his mother had given her pride. At least one person in the family did not think Sebastian had been trapped by someone unsuitable. She warmed even more to this unpretentious man at his reference to justice. It sounded as if he believed her family had been wronged.