Regency Innocents (53 page)

Having a vicar for a father, she was bound to have had a rigidly moralistic upbringing. Did she believe that enjoying sex was sinful? Was that what it had all been about? Not money, but morals? It certainly fit with his initial assessment of his wife's character.

‘Deborah,' he said gently, ‘there is nothing wrong with enjoying marital relations. Don't you remember the words of the marriage service? Yes, celibacy is an honourable estate, but there are some people who just have passionate natures. You are one of them.'

She dropped the sticky ball of dough on to her plate, wishing she had the courage to tell him how wrong he was. She did not have a passionate nature. Until she had met him, she had never hankered after male attention. She could have lived her whole life without ever marrying, and been content. It was meeting Robert that had changed everything. Because she had fallen in love with him!

When he was not with her, she had only to think of
him to turn shivery with longing. When she saw him, she always yearned for his touch. And when he did touch her, she stopped thinking of herself as a practical, plain spinster, whom no man would look at twice. She became Captain Fawley's woman, her heart beating with such passion it swept everything away but her body's insistent clamour to merge completely with him.

But he did not want to hear her speak about anything to do with the emotions. No romantic nonsense for him! She turned to stare bleakly out of the bedroom window.

‘You don't need to be ashamed of the way you are,' he persisted. ‘I, for one, am very glad of it.'

She was shocked when a little dart of pleasure shot through her.

He reached across the table, capturing her chin in his hand, and turned her face towards his. Looking deep into her eyes, he said, ‘Do you have any idea what it did for me, to have you clawing at my back, urging me on, while I pushed up your skirts?'

‘Robert, please, don't …' How could he like the idea she could behave like that, without knowing it was because she loved him? She tried to avert her head, but his grip on her chin was too strong.

‘No, Deborah, it is too late to pretend you don't enjoy my attentions. Why should you even wish to?' He relaxed his hold, so that his fingers only framed her face. ‘We are man and wife, now. I never thought,' he said, his hand stroking her face gently, now that she had ceased trying to avert her gaze, ‘that I could …' He halted, on the brink of confessing he had once feared he would never fully recover his manhood. He had
accepted the fact that even if he ever did regain his natural urges, any encounters would be brutish, brief, and confined to the kind of dark dens where money exchanged hands. To have this lovely woman kissing his face as though there were nothing wrong with it, exploding into rapture while he took his pleasure in her, was more than he could ever have dreamed of. That, he suddenly saw, was why he had been so disappointed to think she had been motivated by avarice, had perhaps even faked her response.

He shook his head. He had met this woman only a few weeks ago, had been intimate with her for a matter of days. He was not about to bare his soul when he had not the least idea what motivated her.

So he leaned across the table and kissed her instead.

For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she ought to put up some resistance. But it was only the last dying gasp of her rapidly withering pride. He wanted her, and even if it was only in a physical sense, even if this was the only way he would ever want her, she would not deny him. Besides, she wanted him too. She would be a hypocrite to pretend otherwise when just the merest brush of his lips on hers reduced her to a quivering mass of longing.

She sighed into his mouth, winding her arms round his neck. It was all the encouragement he needed. Getting to his feet, he dragged her upright, and pulled her hard against him. He wondered, after what had happened this morning, if her conscience would make her fight her own inclinations. But far from struggling away, she pressed herself up against him, her breath coming in needy little gasps.

‘Bed,' he said firmly, in between kisses. He did not break contact with her for more than the second necessary to grate that one word as he backed her away from the table.

She felt her knees hit the edge of the mattress, and then they fell together in an ungainly tangle of limbs. Clinging to her resolve to concentrate on his needs, she asked, ‘Don't you need Linney?'

‘Not until later,' he growled, raising himself to tug at the laces to her gown. He pulled her bodice down, growled, ‘Much later,' and lowered his head to suckle at her breasts through the material of her chemise.

‘These buttons would not dig into you so if you were to undo them,' he said, a little later.

She felt a sense of jubilation at this invitation to remove his jacket. She knelt up on the bed beside him when he sat up to facilitate the procedure. It would not have been at all hard to push the sleeves down his arms, since he was not in the habit of wearing his false hand when they were at home, if he had not been kissing her neck all the while.

‘Now your shirt?' she asked, still hesitant to proceed without his full agreement. Once she had bared his upper body, he would not be able to hide the scarring she had glimpsed down the left side of his chest. When he nodded, she felt honoured that he was permitting her to do something so intimate for him. It was a simple matter to unlace his shirt, and pull it over his head. But, terrified of shattering his trust at such a crucial moment, she kept her eyes averted from the stump of his left arm, bending swiftly to kiss his mouth, as soon as she had flung the shirt to the floor.

Freed of this barrier of clothing, Robert rolled her beneath him, taking back control. Gripping the neckline of her chemise between his teeth, he bunched the delicate fabric in his fingers, and ripped it away from her breasts. It may have been his inability to deal with tricky fastenings that had him tearing her clothing, but oh, it felt wickedly exciting! She writhed ecstatically beneath him as he licked, and nipped with his teeth, and suckled at her, her hands sweeping the breadth of his back.

Her legs felt trapped by her skirts. She wanted to be able to spread her thighs, so that he could settle between them. As though he had read her mind, he solved their mutual difficulty by reaching down and ripping the flimsy muslin from ankle to her waist. For a split second, she regretted the ruination of the one gown she had brought with her, but then she recalled his stated intention to keep her naked, in bed, for an unspecified amount of time, and a sensuous thrill swept all her practical concerns away.

He could not fully remove his breeches. He had been lying on the covers fully clothed when she had come in. His boots, she thought fleetingly, as between them they frantically tore away the last barriers of fabric, were going to ruin the quilt. But then they were one, and her capacity for rational thought ceased. She loved him, oh, how she loved him. And to feel him filling her, embracing her, needing her in this way, stoked her own need to fever pitch.

But afterwards, as they lay side by side, amidst the tangle of ruined clothing, the doubts and fears crept slowly back. He had only to kiss her, and she lost her head.

How was she going to explain to Mrs Farrell just how they had managed to get boot blacking all over the beautiful white quilt? And it was all very well saying she did not need clothes, but that was nonsense. She supposed she could borrow one of her husband's shirts, she reflected, chewing at her lower lip. Or send a maid to fetch one of Miss Lampton's shapeless gowns for the moments when she simply would have to leave the bedroom ….

‘Stop it,' Robert growled.

‘What? Stop what?'

‘Thinking. You are growing as tense as a board.'

He tugged her up against his side, dropping a kiss on to the crown of her head.

Bother the quilt, she thought, snuggling into his side and draping her arm about his waist. And bother the servants too. They can think what they like.
So long as Robert wants me here in bed, he shall have me
.

And with a smile playing about her lips, she slipped into a deliciously restful sleep.

Robert shifted slightly, so that he could look down at her. Her head rested upon his scarred shoulder, her hair flowing over his mangled arm like a sheet of softest silk. Something stirred in his chest at the sight of her gleaming perfection curled up trustingly against his battered body.

It was not tenderness.

It was not!

It was the warm glow that sometimes came over a man after such a satisfying sexual encounter. And—naturally he felt particularly pleased at the way things were working out. He had feared he might never have
a willing woman in his bed again. Not only was Deborah willing, but she could rouse him to a state where he could perform twice in one day!

Naturally he got a warm feeling when he looked down at her lying in his arms. She had given him much to be thankful for.

And over the next two weeks, he decided that asking Deborah to be his wife had been an inspired choice. She seemed to have taken on board his assurance that it was not a sin for married people to enjoy sex. Though she never instigated it, she always responded enthusiastically to his overtures. Once, she had even made him laugh, tilting her head to one side, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her chin, saying, ‘It is as well I am of such a practical nature. And that I care little what becomes of my clothing.' For despite him saying they had best restrict any amorous interludes to the bedroom, he soon discovered there was nowhere they could not make love, in spite of his disability, if she put her mind to it.

She was a marvel.

He looked at her across the width of the dining table, admiring the way the candle-light brought out the rich chestnut tones in her hair, and wondered how he had ever existed before she came into his life.

The thought was like being doused with a bucket of cold water. He had only planned to spend a week at The Dovecote, at the most, just long enough to take possession and look over the place. His one driving ambition had been to return to London, and flaunt his wealth in Percy Lampton's face. But she had put all his plans out
of his head. They had been here over a fortnight, and all he had done was establish that there was nowhere a disabled man could not have sex, if his partner was determined enough.

Laying down his wineglass with a snap, he glared at her.

‘We have dallied here long enough. Tomorrow, we must return to London.'

His grim face and curt tone cut Deborah to the quick. She had, she suddenly saw, allowed herself to hope that his attentions over the past two weeks had meant he was growing fond of her. But that one word, dallied, was like a sharp frost, blighting tender shoots that had been fooled into premature growth by a few unseasonably warm days. Dallying was what a man did with a kitchen maid. Not their own May, of course, since any man foolish enough to try dallying with her would likely receive a frying pan to the skull for his temerity.

She bowed her head over her plate, forcing herself to continue cutting up her pigeon as though his remark had not just shrivelled her burgeoning happiness to a stalk.

Carefully wiping the meat through the sauce, she placed it in her mouth, chewing slowly while she tried to muster some response that would not sound as though she were a petulant child. Robert had never offered her affection. It would be foolish of her to distance him by complaining that he hurt her when he dismissed their physical intimacy as exactly that. Merely physical. She would always treasure the memory of the two weeks they had spent here. They had acted just like real lovers, unable to keep their hands off each other. Even if it had meant so little to her husband, to her it had been a real
honeymoon. She would allow no cross words, no petty accusations to taint this magical time.

‘I shall be glad to see my mother again,' she eventually managed. ‘I have been a little concerned that she has not written to me. Nor has Susannah. They must have the address,' she continued, ‘because they sent my trunk here.' Her brief fears that she would have to wander about the house clad in only her husband's shirt had proved groundless. The very day after they had ruined Miss Lampton's pristine white quilt, a carrier had turned up at the door with her possessions.

Captain Fawley's frown deepened. He suspected that if Lampton was running true to form, he would have ditched Miss Hullworthy the minute he heard about Deborah's wedding, leaving her prey to malicious gossip. Mrs Gillies would not wish to blight her daughter's honeymoon with that kind of news. He was only surprised Miss Hullworthy had not written to tell her supposed best friend of that misfortune herself.

‘I expect they had their reasons.'

‘Well, I shall be able to see them both, soon, and speak to them, which will be better than getting a letter, will it not?'

It comforted her to speak of her mother and her friend, she reflected. She really would be glad to see them both again. Perhaps her mother would be able to offer her some words of wisdom, even if all she did was listen while Deborah poured out her heart. It would help her to cope with this unequal marriage.

‘I should like to make an early start,' said Robert, his eyes snapping a challenge.

He expected her to make a fuss, she could see. Complain that he had not given her enough notice, and that she needed time to pack. Laying her napkin down beside her plate, she rose to her feet with a sad smile.

‘Then we should have an early night.'

Their last night in the house where she had been so blindly happy. Tomorrow, they would return to London, and she had the horrible feeling that it would be a return to real life. In London, she would discover what marriage to her really meant to her husband.

If it meant anything at all.

Their coach drew up outside the front steps of Walton House late the following afternoon.

‘We will live in the rooms my brother set aside for my use to begin with,' Robert had explained on the journey up from Berkshire. ‘Though I should like to begin searching for our own house at once. Do you have any preferences?'