Tangled (31 page)

"You saw the doctor this morning," he said.

"Yes."

"All is well?" he said. "With Charles? With you?"

"He howled with outrage," she said. "He was not at all amused at having his sleep interrupted. Yes, we are both well, David." She drew a slow breath and pulled off a leaf from the hedge that had escaped the clippers.

There was a silence during which she wondered if only she felt a tension. She was afraid to look up at him.

"Rebecca," he said, "it was always meant to be a real marriage between us, wasn't it? It was agreed that an incomplete relationship between us just would not work."

He was the one who had decided that. Though he was right. She had felt it after their marriage, when he was sleeping in another room, before she had become aware of her pregnancy.

"Yes," she said.

"I want it to be a marriage again," he said. "If you can bear it."

She looked up at him at last. "I am your wife," she said. "I have no right to refuse. I never did refuse you, David. It was you who ..."

"I don't like to be served merely out of duty," he said. "Not by my wife, Rebecca."

It was not just duty. It was more than that. Perhaps at the start . . .

But it was more than that now. She remembered how she had wanted him, and felt somewhat ashamed of the fact, when he first stopped coming to her bed. How she had grown dependent upon his presence there during her pregnancy and since. How she wanted now to be touched, to . . .

She had always hated it with Julian. And yet she had loved him totally. She could not understand why now it seemed important to her—to be totally married, to be one with him in body if not in everything.

"Not if it is something you have to steel yourself for," he said.

"I want to be your wife, David," she said. She could see from his eyes that her words were ambiguous to him, that he still did not know if she was speaking from duty or desire. But she could not speak more plainly to him. Not about such matters. She could feel herself blushing.

"Very well, then," he said, his voice abrupt.

She had fed Charles. Sometimes he slept almost through the night.

Almost as if he knew that it was his father's turn now to disturb her nights. David waited, standing at the window of their room as he had done on their wedding night. Feeling a flutter of anticipation and apprehension as he had done then. One just never knew with Rebecca. But it had to be a real marriage. He knew that nothing less than that would do.

As she had done on their wedding night, she came quietly into the room, closing the door into her dressing room as if there were a sleeper she did not wish to disturb, hesitating there as if she did not know how to proceed. As on that occasion he went to her.

"I am going to have to teach my son table manners," he said. "He sucks loudly and greedily."

"Only at first," she said. "Once he realizes that his meal is not going to be snatched away from him, he settles down to enjoy it more delicately.''

"He is going to get fat," he said.

"He was fat when he was born." She smiled.

He liked to see her smile. She did so far more often these days than she had done at first. He liked to see her smile now. It meant that she had relaxed somewhat. It really was almost like a wedding night all over again, he thought. It had been almost a year, and even then there had been only three nights. He lifted a hand and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. Her smile faded.

Her lips were soft and warm, closed and unmoving against his. He cupped her face with both hands and kissed it softly, letting his lips linger on her eyelids, her cheeks, her chin, letting her feel his mouth open over hers, his tongue trace the outline of her lips.

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There was neither response nor lack of response. She was warm and relaxed and yielding.

Don't expect too much,
he told himself.
Don't think of Julian.

"Come to bed," he said, releasing her face and setting an arm about her shoulders. She leaned into him. She did not flinch away.

He wanted to see her. But he dimmed the lamp before getting into bed beside her. He did not want to embarrass her. There was no fire to give light.

She lay relaxed while he kissed her. She opened her mouth eventually to the probing of his tongue and allowed it to come inside.

He tasted heat and moistness and sweetness. He felt himself harden with desire, with the urge to press onward to the act his tongue was simulating in her mouth. He imposed control on his mind and his body.

She lay relaxed while he raised her nightgown and moved his palm lightly up her body, beneath the gown to her breasts. He circled them lightly, caressing them with his fingertips as he kissed her again. So much the lady outside her clothes, so much the woman beneath the stays and the decent, concealing fabrics. He wanted her now. But he forced himself to prepare her with methodical patience.

He would not touch her nipples. For the present they were for his son. He moved his hand downward again, feathering it into the shapely hollow of her waist, over the womanly flare of her hip, down her smooth, warm thigh, around to the heated inner thigh and up.

She lay relaxed while his fingers parted her, smoothed between the folds, circled the entry to her. But her body responded as he worked and when he touched the one spot with the pad of his thumb and pulsed lightly against it. Her body prepared itself for penetration.

She lay relaxed as he lifted himself over her and lowered his weight, spread her legs wide with his own, and positioned himself to unite them. He could feel her drawing deep steadying breaths as he pushed firmly inward. He could feel her body tense even so. He lay still, deeply sheathed in her, as she brought herself under control and relaxed again. She was not touching him with her hands.
Her arms were spread wide on the bed. He set his own on top of them and spread his hands over hers.

He had caught her before she could school herself to total duty and obedience. Her hands were rigid. Her fingers were digging, clawlike, into the mattress.

He kept his hands where they were while her own flattened and relaxed. He rested his forehead against the pillow, above her shoulder, and felt sick. Quite physically sick. He was making love to a woman who found his touch repulsive. A woman who would allow him the use of her body because he was her husband.

Nothing had changed. Not a single bloody thing. Only him and his expectations. He drew himself out of her body, lifted himself off her and off the bed, and went to stand at the window. Desire died in him and hope and all faith in the future. He had tied himself to this for life. And he had tied her.

There was silence behind him for a long while. And then a rustling.

He wished he had left the room immediately. He would go back to the one he used for a while after their marriage. He would have his things taken there from his dressing room tomorrow. Somehow he would have to learn to live with a marriage that was not a marriage.

With a business partner. The mother of his son.

"David?" He had not realized that she had left the bed and was standing just behind his shoulder. Her voice was trembling.

He swallowed.

"What did I do?" she asked. Her voice was higher-pitched than usual. She sounded on the verge of tears. "I tried. I tried so hard to please you. I don't know what else to do. I don't know what you want."

He braced his arms on the windowsill, closed his eyes, and lowered his head. He wished to God he had left the room as soon as he had got out of bed.

"What do I want?" he said. "I know what I don't want, Rebecca. I don't want to rape you. It is not a pleasant feeling."

There was a short silence. "I'm your wife," she whispered at last.

He could hear the shock in her voice. "You can't—"

"Possessing a body that cringes from mine feels like

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rape," he said. "I'll not touch you again, Rebecca. And you need not feel you have failed in your duty. I choose not to touch you again."

"I did not cringe from you." Her voice was aghast.

He laughed. "No, not quite," he agreed. "You did try hard, Rebecca. Very hard. You have very good control over yourself. That is your greatest strength, I believe, isn't it? But the forced relaxation, the deep breaths, the stillness do not fool me, you know. And your hands gripping the mattress. Do you think I can take any sort of pleasure from raping a woman who has to so school herself to overcome revulsion in order to receive me?''

"I was not repelled," she said. "Oh, David, it was not that."

He turned away from the window at last to look at her. He tried to get a grip on his temper. "Then suppose you tell me what the hell
was
going on," he said. "It is late. I want to get some sleep and you are going to have to get up early to feed Charles."

"I was not repelled," she said. "You are not to think that. It is just that I felt ashamed. It is not right. Women are not supposed to . . . It is vulgar. And sinful. I didn't want you to know. I didn't want to disgust you. It won't happen again, David, I promise. It is just that it has been so long and I . . ." She drew a deep breath. "I wanted it to be good for you. I wanted to be totally submissive, but I failed. Give me another chance. Please? Don't go away. Please don't go away again. It won't happen again."

He gazed at her fixedly. He had rarely seen her so close to being distraught. "Women are not supposed to what?" he asked.

"It won't happen again," she said.

"What won't?" he asked.

He could see from the dim light of the window that she was biting her lower lip.

"What won't?" he repeated.

"It felt so good," she whispered. "It has been so long. Forgive me, David."

"For wanting me?" he said softly.

"It won't happen again," she said.

228Mary Balogh

"It had better," he said, "if this marriage is to continue."

She stared at him mutely.

"It is a dreadful age we are living in," he said. "I don't believe it has been so through the rest of history. Are women—ladies—really taught that pleasure to their bodies is sinful, Rebecca? That sex is wrong?"

"Not wrong," she said, swallowing. "It is for a husband's pleasure.

And for children."

He caught himself just in time from uttering an obscenity that she probably would not have understood anyway.

"There is to be no pleasure for the wife?" he said.

"Pleasure in giving pleasure," she said. "And in bearing children.

And in suckling them. David—"

He pressed a finger firmly against her lips. "You want to give me pleasure?" he asked. "You see it as your duty to do so?"

"Yes," she said. "It won't—"

But he pressed his finger back in place.

"You will give me pleasure by taking it," he said. "It is your duty to allow me to pleasure you, Rebecca, and to show that pleasure quite openly."

"It would be unseemly—" His finger pressed more firmly.

"God made us with bodies as well as souls," he said. "And he created male and female to live together, to love together, to procreate together. He did not decree that the man enjoy and the woman endure. Preachers in our own century have done that. He created man and woman to be equal."

He felt her lips move against his finger. He did not remove it.

"I cannot use you as my wife if you merely submit, Rebecca," he said. "I don't expect your love. It was never a part of our bargain. But I do want us to draw equally from this marriage. Equal comfort, an equal sense of purpose, equal companionship and affection. Equal pleasure. I will use you only if you will use me." He dropped his hand back to his side.

"I want what you want," she said carefully.

"No," he said harshly. He would not fill the silence

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that followed. It was up to her. Their future was up to her.

"I need you," she whispered at last. "Please, David. I need you.

Don't' go away from me. I can't stand the emptiness, the loneliness."

"Neither can I," he said. "We will be together from mutual need, then, shall we? Neither one of us giving or taking more than the other?''

She nodded.

His heart turned over. As he lifted his arms to touch her, he was not sure that he was not getting in far deeper than he had ever thought to go. Far deeper than he could bear to go. For he was committing everything to her and she to him when neither could possibly give everything.

He put all thought firmly from his mind.

She needed him. Oh, God, she needed him.

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She was not at all sure what she was agreeing to. She felt deeply uneasy. And entirely on unfamiliar ground. She had admitted to a need. She had all but begged him to stay with her, to make love to her. The idea that a woman's needs were of no account was deeply ingrained in her.

She was to be his equal, he had just said. They were to be equal in everything. He could not be her husband if she was a submissive wife.

But she did not know how to be a different sort of wife. And it was wrong. Except that he had said it was not. He had told her what her duty was. And she was to obey him. She had promised that in all earnestness at their wedding. A wife's first duty was to be obedient.

Her nightgown buttoned down the front, the buttons extending from the high neck all the way down to her navel. At first when his hands kneaded her shoulders and then moved to undo the buttons she assumed that he intended to undo only the top ones. So that he could kiss her throat, perhaps? But he did not stop.

She realized what was going to happen when he lifted the fabric away from her shoulders and took her arms to straighten them at her sides. She was deeply mortified as the nightgown slid down her arms and over her breasts, past her waist and her hips and all the way to the floor.
Their eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and light from a bright moon and stars was streaming through the window.