Temptation Has Green Eyes (10 page)

But her anxiety didn’t rise again to swamp her, because she trusted him to take care. This was his right, and he could do what he liked in the marital chamber. Instead of hurting her or taking her quickly, he’d taken every care to give her the least discomfort.

He moved, working his shaft partly out, and then in again.

“I never imagined a woman could be this tight,” he said, and then, “Are you all right?”

She’d never imagined she could talk while he was doing this, but she found it quite easy. Except she doubted she could concentrate on anything but him and what he was doing to her. “This is…fine.”

His smile turned wry. “I’m glad to hear it,” was all he said.

His movements turned into a steady rhythm. She counted, opened her legs to allow him as much access as he needed. It wasn’t unpleasant once she’d recovered from her initial shock. He slid easier as time passed, around the sixth stroke. By the tenth, warmth heated her body, and his face had flushed. Not all over, but just his cheekbones. His eyes darkened, but intelligence remained there, and he watched her for signs that she was uncomfortable. They were making a sound now, the steady slap of flesh meeting flesh, and a wet sound she should have been ashamed to make, but was not.

She couldn’t claim she was uncomfortable, and wouldn’t have told him in any case. A residue of fear remained, but not unreasoning. More acceptable, something that was a natural reaction to a situation that was completely new to her. An intimacy she’d never known before, and one she wasn’t entirely sure she liked. But she didn’t find the experience so terrifying.

By the tenth stroke, his breath was coming shorter and she watched him, waited.

Then, on the sixteenth, he grunted low in his throat, such a masculine sound that she almost smiled. He gritted his teeth as heat gushed into her below, wet heat that dampened the tops of her thighs.

He hung over her, his head dropped forward, breaking eye contact, and his chest heaved with deep breaths. She hadn’t thought he’d exerted himself too much. But perhaps she’d concentrated so hard on keeping herself still for him, receiving his attentions and not alarming him in any way, that she’d missed it.

After a few minutes, his breathing steadied, and he lifted his gaze to meet hers once more. Without warning, he dipped his head and planted a swift kiss on her lips, not pausing to explore as he’d tried to do before. Then he pushed off her.

Wetness flooded out of her, but before she could turn away, embarrassed, he turned over and swung out of bed.

“Stay there,” he said.

Bemused, Sophia watched him cross the room to her washstand. After wringing out a fresh cloth in the water in the basin he returned to her. “Let me make you more comfortable.” He applied the cloth to her nether regions.

The water was cool, but it she welcomed the way it soothed her heated flesh. She’d never have considered doing such a thing, but he was right. It did help.

Reaching down, she took the cloth from him and did it herself, careful to keep her night-rail as a modest cover. While not afraid of what he’d do any more, she still didn’t want him staring at her, especially in such an undignified situation. “Thank you,” she said. “That is better.”

His lips quirked. “I wondered what you were thanking me for. How do you feel?”

Relieved. “Fine,” she said, wondering how she could tell him that he’d eased her concerns. But she couldn’t discuss her previous experience while she was in bed with him. It didn’t seem right. “Will I fall pregnant now?”

“You might,” he said, “But it usually takes more than once.”

Apprehension tightened her chest once more. “Tonight?”

“No.” His tones were firm. “Perhaps not for a few days. I’m told that virgins need time to recover.”

“Where did you find these things out?” Perhaps she could find out more too. At present, she found it difficult to understand why people would choose to do this for pleasure, or why so many problems stemmed from this act. It wasn’t something she couldn’t live without. Surely there had to be more to it.

“There are places. Not ones where you may go, my lady. We won’t repeat this for a while, until you’ve recovered.”

Yes, that was a good word for it. She would need time to recover. Like an invalid resting after an illness. Not that she wanted to think of it that way, but when she shifted experimentally, she winced.

He grimaced. He was sitting on the side of the bed, not fully in it. “You’re sore. Don’t deny it. I expected you would be. I tried to lessen it for you. Are you feeling better now?”

She nodded. Yes, she’d be fine. She could do this. Relief swept through her. The idea of being treated as John had treated her for the rest of her life, perhaps every night, had worried her beyond reason. But her new husband had shown her that it didn’t have to be that way. It would work. They might even become friends.

In her youth, she had read accounts of undying love, but she’d never aspired to it. Romeo and Juliet got nothing but death from it, and other couples had seen love as the symbol of their destruction. Anthony and Cleopatra, Francesca and Paolo. No, she could easily survive without that. But a friend with whom she made children and shared her life—yes, she could do that. They had a mutual interest in figures and in business, and that would help, too.

Her mind clicked back into action, beginning to run along its usual course. Business, household, and now she could add children. If and when they came.

Max refreshed the cloth once more and, when she was done, took it away and helped her put her nightwear into a modest arrangement. Then he covered her up and bade her lie down.

“Get some sleep,” he said kindly. “It’s been a very long day. Stay in bed tomorrow if you wish to. Nobody will consider it unusual.”

He didn’t kiss her again but patted her shoulder in an awkward gesture before he turned and left the room. Not by the main door, but by the one on the side wall that connected her room with the boudoir and then with his suite.

* * * *

What the hell had gone wrong? Max hadn’t meant his wedding night to take the course it had. He’d done the best he could, but he still felt like the greatest beast in nature.

Returning to his room, he’d stripped off his robe and nightshirt and dropped them on the floor. He never wanted to see them again.

How could he have treated her that way? Striding naked across the floor, he reached for the brandy decanter and poured a healthy libation. The decanter rattled against the glass, demonstrating his agitation in a light clatter.

Sophia had borne it bravely, but she’d been terrified. He swallowed the brandy without tasting it, savoring the heat as the liquor trickled down to his stomach. He poured another.

He’d taken her like a rutting bull. Once he’d entered her and made her his, he couldn’t stop. She’d felt like heaven.

True, he hadn’t had a woman for some time. Six months or thereabouts, but he’d been too busy working, preparing the ground for the deal he’d finally inked with Russell.

But Sophia, his wife, had welcomed him with a sweetness he didn’t deserve and a fortitude that made him want to weep.

What had that bastard done to her?
Even given her virginal state, Sophia was unreasonably terrified. He’d had to use all his concentration to work his way inside without causing her too much hurt, because she’d clamped around him like a mantrap.

He winced at the notion. Ugly, painful things. He didn’t allow them on his estates.

But she’d made him into one. Her reaction had rocked him. He’d planned to stay with her, to gentle her into accepting him lying next to her, holding her, but he couldn’t do it. He’d wanted her badly, taken with a primitive need to claim her.

He’d never forget her expression. When he’d entered her, her eyes were wide and her mouth drawn back. He never, ever wanted to see that expression again.

Better to let his wife get used to her new station and then return, see if she could accept him more willingly. But he’d give her time.

He took his third drink to bed with him and sat up, sipping slowly. Time. Perhaps they both needed it.

Ranelagh Gardens wasn’t a new place to Sophia, although her hosts appeared to think so. Julius and Helena had brought her here to celebrate her recovery from the ordeal of being presented at court. Sophia felt far more comfortable in these raffish gardens, not because she was raffishly inclined, but because of her familiarity with them.

Julius and his sister had been more than kind to her. Now she called them by their given names, and she wondered how she could ever have considered Julius intimidating. She’d seen him with his little girl, and with his sister, Helena, teasing him, and because he’d allowed her to share his more human side, Sophia liked him. Even better, she had none of the feelings that made her tongue-tied and stupid, as with Max.

Julius had acquired a booth by the Octagon, where they could watch the world go by, eat an elegant supper, and listen to the orchestra, who tonight were defiantly playing Italian music. Defiantly, because Ranelagh’s main rival, Vauxhall, was a strong supporter of Handel’s music.

Due to the huge chandelier above, one of the marvels of London, and the lights in the booths, the light was almost as bright as day in this part of the Gardens. People promenaded, watching each other with avid or curious eyes, and Sophia drank in the vista from her new perspective of one of the highest in the land. Or rather, the wife of one of them.

Most people acknowledged her, and the few who didn’t obviously didn’t realize that repercussions from the Emperors could be societal death.

If the Pretender ever set foot on England’s shores, as rumor had it he did, he’d come here rather than Vauxhall. Probably feel quite at home. Not that Sophia expected to meet him tonight. Or any other, come to that.

Julius had gathered a convivial but select group of his friends who welcomed Sophia warmly into their midst. That came as a welcome change. In the three weeks since her marriage, Sophia had attended balls, routs, and Venetian breakfasts, and had her stultifying, agonizing presentation at court that day.

She was now officially a member of society, with the most expensive hideous gown she’d ever owned taking up space in her clothes press.

Tonight she wore apple green, the triple ruffles of pure white lace at her elbows a testament to the skill of the Frenchman who’d had made it. She’d chosen her pearls as jewelry, but she had more gems at her command these days, thanks to Max’s careless generosity. Almost as if he were trying to make up for his constant absences from her side and total absence from her bed.

At court, the Duke of Cumberland had been kind but distant. The duchess kind and vague. Sophia had managed to walk backward without falling over her train, so she’d counted that day a success. And for a change, Max had been there. To her chagrin, she craved his touch, longed for him to join her in bed once more. But he never had, and she hadn’t yet built the courage to visit him in his bed. If he rejected her, she feared she’d never recover the ground lost.

“More wine?”

Shaking her head, she covered her glass. “I still have some.”

Julius raised a brow. “You’re slowing down.”

She laughed. “I don’t drink a great deal.”

Max’s cousin had shown her a great deal of kindness and attention. At first, she’d thought he was interested in more than her friendship, and she’d shied off, but he’d put her at ease. In fact, for a man with such a fearsome reputation, he’d behaved perfectly honorably. Sophia had to admit she’d been disappointed at first, as well as relieved that he didn’t see her as one of his conquests. But she feared she wasn’t bait for the roués and rakes of this world. Not even for her own husband.

Julius had a reputation as a heartbreaker, a man who moved from woman to woman as the fancy took him, keeping his own heart intact. He had no heart to lose since the death of his wife, or so gossip had it. Where Max had left her to her own devices, Julius had been as attentive as he could without raising gossip.

“Do you expect Max tonight?” he asked, his tone indifferent.

She shook her head. “He has a great deal of work to do, so I gave him the evening off. My father has a new scheme in mind and they are discussing it tonight.”

“You know your father’s business well.” Julius toasted her, the red wine in his glass gleaming in the candlelight. “A clever woman.”

“Oh no, I’m no bluestocking.” She could never hold her own with the intellectuals in the literary salons. Not that anyone had asked. Leaning back, she watched the spectacle of a man who seemed to be laced tighter than she was struggling to dance.

Julius followed her gaze. “Indeed,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, but he does appear to have overdone the stays.”

The man in question bulged top and bottom. Although nobody would consider him overweight, a slender waist and hips were aspirations of men of fashion, and this one seemed determined to enhance his assets.

“I didn’t realize men laced,” she said.

“Some do it for reasons other than vanity,” Julius drawled.

She turned her head and stared at him in astonishment. His sapphire eyes twinkled in the low light of the candles set in the sconces at the back of the booth. She caught a whiff of his cologne, something citrus. Oranges. He was exquisitely dressed, but nonetheless as masculine as a man could be, yet he didn’t arouse anything but amusement in her. “What can you mean?”

He raised a brow and leaned forward, lowering his voice to a confidential undertone. “I’m only telling you this because you’re a married woman. I couldn’t possibly tell my sister, so you must promise not to let her know.”

Sophia would guess that the worldly Helena knew whatever Julius was about to tell her already. But she went along with the game and willingly gave her word. “She won’t hear it from me.”

He lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “I hear tight lacing enhances pleasure under certain circumstances.” He leaned back, smiling. “Of course, you’d know that better than I. I don’t lace.”

Stricken, she stared at him. Her one experience of intimate relations had told her nothing of pleasure. Only discomfort and respect. Someone drew her attention, a man dancing at the opposite side of the Rotunda from their booth. A familiar movement, a turn of his body, and he’d gone again.