Second Son of a Duke (4 page)

Five

The silence in the carriage grew uncomfortably thick as the minutes stretched to nearly a half an hour. Juliette stared at her own knees while she wistfully thought of something…
anything
…to say. She’d been such a fool to think that just because she willed it so, their relationship would change.

Certainly last night they’d created a bridge. And this morning, good heavens this morning, had amazed her and confused her all at once. The fact that Teddy desired her helped her plans for this afternoon perfectly. What she hadn’t counted on so much was her own reaction to his kisses.

Juliette had fallen in love with Teddy. She accepted that. She was grateful that the idea of intimacy with him wasn’t abhorrent for it would make keeping him tied to her much easier. She never for one moment believed that she would want him in return.

Everything her mother had ever told her about the difference between men and women was called into question.
A lady submits to the baser instincts of her husband with grace and a charitable heart
. She hadn’t been graceful or charitable on their wedding night, but she’d intended to rectify that today.
Men are carnal creatures, they cannot help themselves. A wife will need to lock part of herself away, far in her mind, while he takes his pleasure from her body
. That had certainly come to pass that night, and she was prepared to do it again. If he needed her body, he could have it, so long as she got him in return.
Feigning interest in his passion is encouraged, though a woman will have to hide her instinctual disgust
. Well, now there was the thing, wasn’t it?

She let her gaze wander shyly off her own body and onto his. Teddy stared out his window intently, and her pulse bounced erratically at his handsome profile.

She seemed to have misplaced her instinctual disgust.

Juliette felt a strange heaviness between her thighs when she thought of the way it felt to be trapped between his heavy body and the breakfast sideboard. His mouth on hers, his lips seeking for something from her—heat flooded her face even now as she remembered how she’d ached to give it to him, whatever it was.

“Are you all right, Juliette?”

The timber of his voice shook her back to awareness. Embarrassed, she turned away, though the damage had been done. She’d been staring at him. And he caught her. “I’m fine,” she managed, though a bit croaky.

They finally arrived at her brother’s hunting box. She’d sent ahead supplies and a servant to lay a fire and air the cabin with explicit instructions to be gone when they arrived.

The silence had bloomed from uncomfortable to awkward. While Teddy stoked the fire, Juliette set out the luncheon. While her stomach rebelled at the thought of food, the wine held her apt attention. With his back to her, she swilled down half a glass, refilling it before he was any wiser.

He joined her at the little table. They broke the crushing silence with inane bursts of chatter followed by more oppressing quiet. When she could stand it no more, she pushed away from the table briskly. “Excuse me,” she muttered and was half across the room when he managed to grab her.

“Juliette, what is wrong?”

“Nothing.” She pushed a frustrated tear from her eye. “Everything.” He wouldn’t let her pass, so she folded her arms and stared at the floor. “I’m sorry I made you come here, Teddy. I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

“You thought we should spend some time together alone and here we are. You were right. We need to get to know each other.” He brushed his finger across the trail where another traitorous tear had fallen. “Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

Teddy chuckled. “You already said that.”

“Things have been easier between us, Teddy. I had hoped that the camaraderie would carry over, but it doesn’t seem to have.”

He led her to the settee in front of the fire. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have kissed you this morning.”

Her eyes shot to his face and her lungs clutched for air. “Do you mean that?”

“Most marriages begin with a courting stage. You deserve to be wooed. Instead, I stole your virginity and then ravished you in a dining room. I’ve been unthinkably callous.” His warm hand covered hers. “And instead of apologizing or trying to make you feel more comfortable, I brooded the entire journey here. You’ve obviously gone to a lot of trouble, and instead of thanking you, I—”

“I brought you here to seduce you,” she interrupted.

His eyebrows raised in surprise. “Seduce me?” Teddy realized he’d done it again. “Sorry.”

“Yes, seduce you,” she answered. “Except I have no understanding of how, and it seems a little premature now that you’ve said you wished you hadn’t kissed me.”

“I never said I didn’t wish to. I implied that I wrestled with the timing of it. I rather enjoyed kissing you.”

Finally her lungs let go a little and she was able to exhale. “Really?”

“I’ve certainly bungled this whole operation if you couldn’t tell how much I enjoyed kissing you this morning.”

Juliette let a soft laugh escape. “Then seducing you wouldn’t be unwelcomed?”

“Not unwelcomed. Merely unexpected.”

“Would you be averse to telling me how to go about it then?”

* * *

Teddy inhaled sharply and choked on an answer. His wife was ever a surprise. She thwacked him sharply between the shoulder blades until he stopped coughing. “Juliette, you needn’t do a thing to seduce me,” he finally ground out.

“I don’t?”

“Being in the room is really all the seduction you need bring with you.”

She inched away from him a little. “I know that isn’t true. You haven’t reached for me since the first night. I know it was awful, but I don’t know what to do to make it less so.”

“Darling,” he began, leaning back into the space she’d put between them. This was going to be tricky business. “The thing that was missing from our wedding night was not something you did or did not do. As you may have noticed, the act still ran its course.” He brought her hand to his chest, flattening her palm against his heart. “But the act is not all there is to lovemaking.”

She didn’t move her hand, but turned her head away from him to stare into the fire. “I don’t know how to make myself more desirable.”

“You misunderstand. It is not I who needs greater enjoyment, Juliette, it is you.”

Her entire body stiffened. “Teddy,
you
don’t understand.” He felt the pull of her hand away from his heart, so he held on tighter. “Women don’t, that is to say, you probably don’t realize, but…”

“Juliette, please, just say it.”

She scrunched her eyelids closed. “Women don’t feel the same about the
act
as men do. We don’t, as a sex, enjoy procreation. I’m quite willing to give myself to you, as is my duty and your right, but it’s not something I’ll enjoy.”

He really had bungled the works, hadn’t he? His poor wife, he’d make it up to her. “Darling, a woman’s first time comes with some pain, but it won’t hurt every time, I swear it.”

She flushed a charming shade of pink. “It’s not just that, Teddy. Women don’t like lovemaking. I should hate to be dishonest with you, but I probably should have not said anything…I should have feigned interest.”

“You will do no such thing!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but the effect made her snap her eyes open. “Where did you get such a notion that women don’t enjoy lovemaking?”

“It’s the truth. I’m sorry. But we can still do it together. I understand its importance.”

For the love of all that was holy, he would not have her submit to him as if it were a chore to bear his weight. “Women can and do enjoy lovemaking as much as men. Sometimes more, I can assure you.”

His disagreement brought her back to her own self, he noticed. A little of the humiliated girl disappeared behind the face of a woman who was used to controlling the world around her. She began speaking to him as if he were a child testing her nerves. “Teddy, it’s completely disagreeable business for a woman. It’s something we do to care for men. And, of course, bring children into the world. I should think that, being a sensible man, you would rather know the truth.”

“The truth, Juliette, is that you have been rather misinformed.”

“I think not. You will recall I have experienced lovemaking first hand.”

Teddy recognized that his pride was wounded by her words, but another reaction began to take shape, and not an unwelcome one. It was as if she dared him to prove her wrong, and by God, he would do just that.

“I see. Perhaps you are right. But you’re willing to come to the marriage bed despite your aversion?”

“Of course,” she stated. As if it were a matter of fact. “Our brothers are imbeciles, both of them, but I’m pleased more than I can say that you’re my husband.” She smiled sweetly, almost serenely. “I want to be a good wife to you, Teddy.”

She laid him bare with that.

That this woman felt he deserved her devotion humbled him. He could see that she didn’t know the worth of the prize she offered. It wasn’t her willingness to share his bed that amazed him. He didn’t want her sacrifice.

But my how he cherished her allegiance.

He held her hand in front of him and inspected her fingers. So fragile, yet so strong a woman was. He caressed her hand, webbing the elegant digits and unfolding it palm to palm with his own. A thrum of current passed through their hands, jolting him with the realization that this would be the hand he held for all his days. A very small, dignified hand compared to his oversized paw. She’d probably never understand that the influence she possessed when crooking a finger at him would be ten times more powerful than the brute strength of ten sturdy men.

She’d already made her mark on him, hadn’t she? Juliette had coaxed him away from the always present shade of his brother’s responsibilities today. She’d reminded him that he was still his own man, that he had his own life. And that the world wouldn’t fall apart, he hoped, if he took respite now and then. But what had it done for her today? She still organized the outing. All of the planning, all the details sewn neatly up. She’d merely traded one task for another.

There was something he could give her that no man had and no other man ever would. But to do it, he’d have to convince her to shut down the little General life had forced her to become. It was her mind he worried about. Would she be able to turn off the perpetual list maker? Could she succumb to the demands of her body without ceasing to prioritize and categorize and strategize what came next? He understood her dilemma; he’d lived in her world after all. But an urgency draped over him like a cloak—he needed her to think of him, and only him. He wanted to give her everything—he wanted her to experience the birth of the stars, not look at them to demarcate the constellations from one another.

He believed her when she told him she was obstinate. In order to bring her out of her head, Teddy would have to resort to being very, very wicked.

As dark thoughts traversed Teddy’s mind, his wife watched him warily. She had good reason. He intended to turn her world inside out before the sun set on this day. His need for her became suddenly very acute.

Filled with a purpose of his own choosing, he felt a free man. Freer even than he had been as a bachelor, for the tether of marriage apparently offered more than it restricted. He brought her hand to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to the center of her palm, watching the play of emotion cross her features as a shiver moved down her spine.

“I am pleased by your compliance and consent to resume relations, Juliette.” He touched his tongue to her wrist next, and then followed with a kiss as her pulse leaped wildly beneath his mouth. “I’m wondering if I may be so bold as to ask for further concessions.”

She swallowed around the lump of hesitation in her throat, but was unable to erase it from her eyes where he read it clearly. “What would those be, sir?”

He regarded her carefully. She trembled and he wished he knew if it were fear or excitement. Maybe it was both. “Complete surrender, Juliette, nothing less. I want you to go along with everything I say.” He skimmed his finger in a figure eight across the soft flesh of her inner arm. “No questions, just an utter yielding to me. “

She sent him a soft smile even as he felt the gooseflesh raising on her arm. “You must know that goes against my very nature.”

“Yes, I know.” The inside of her elbow was especially sensitive to his ministrations.

“Then why do you ask it?”

“Do you trust me?”

The words hung in the air between them as he brought her hand back to his mouth and suckled a fingertip. He half-hoped she’d say no, for he wasn’t sure he was trustworthy. At that very moment, hot bursts of lust seemed to be setting his blood on fire, threatening to consume him. And he had no compunction about bringing her down with him. None.

“It’s not about trust.”

“Isn’t it?” He let go of her hand, she didn’t seem to know what to do with it when it was back in her possession. “I want you to give yourself completely to me. Can you do that?”