The Temporary Wife (13 page)

It would not be wise. It was not love or even affection. It was not even marriage. It was need, the need of a twenty-three-year-old woman to mate, to celebrate her womanhood. It was a need that had lain dormant and almost unfelt in her until two nights ago. Now it was a need aroused with almost frightening ease. It was a need, she suspected, that might well grow into a constant craving if she gave in to it and became more familiar with the earth-shattering delights she had discovered two nights ago.

"You may feel free to say no," he said. "I will not force you or even try to persuade you."

And yet if she was honest with herself she would admit that it was already too late to prevent the craving. It had been there last night, it had been one reason for her staying up tonight, and it would be a demon to be fought for years to come. Tonight she had a chance to experience that delight again, to savor it, to commit it to memory for the barren years ahead.

"Allow me to open the door for you, my lady." His voice came from just behind her. "It was no part of our agreement. You must not feel coerced. I will not trouble you by asking again."

"I would like to lie with you," she said.

One of his hands touched her shoulder. The other reached past her to open the door. "I will take you to my bed, then, if you have no objection," he said.

"No," she said. "No, I have none."

His bedchamber was identical in size and shape to her own, but his was a masculine room, decorated in shades of wine and cream and gold. It smelled masculine—of leather and cologne and wine and unidentifiable maleness.

Did it matter that it was not for love? Or even for conjugal duty? Did it matter that it was just for need—for craving? Did the absence of either love or duty make it immoral? He was her husband. She turned to him and looked up into his eyes. Her very temporary husband. She would think about morality when he was no longer her husband, when she was alone again. Alone with her family.

Alone.

It had been the day of his final triumph, the day when he had at last won his undisputed independence and had moreover forced his father publicly to accept it. He had come home and faced his demons and even made some peace with them. It would no longer be a place to be avoided and his family would no longer be people to be avoided. He could be civil to Will again.

He should be rejoicing. He should be planning his return to his own life. He should be turning over to his man of business the matter of his wife's settlement.

He was not rejoicing. He was restless. He tried lying down. He tried willing sleep. It would not come. He was going to have to stay at Enfield, he admitted to himself at last. His father was gravely ill—dying, in fact. The admission brought him momentary panic. They were going to have to talk—really talk. His father was going to have to be persuaded to let go the reins of power so that he could relax and perhaps prolong his days. That meant that he, Staunton, was going to have to take over. He was going to have to stay. Indefinitely. He could not—would not—let his father die alone.

He could not keep his wife here indefinitely. He stood at the window of his room looking out into the darkness. Clouds must have moved over—there was no moonlight. There was no need to keep her here longer than a few days more, in fact. Once Tillden and his family returned home, she might be allowed to leave too. After all, he had not deceived his father about the true nature of his marriage, and he had no real wish or need to deceive him. The point was that the marriage was real and indissoluble. His father, being a realist, had accepted that. She had served her purpose. Now, soon, she might be allowed to go.

The marquess set his hands on the window sill and leaned on them. He drew in a slow and audible breath and admitted something to himself. He wanted her. Now—in bed. But it was not she specifically he wanted, he told himself. He wanted a woman. Probably because he knew he would not have a woman for a long time. His grace had always been particularly strict about any dalliances his sons showed signs of initiating with local wenches. And his eldest son quite agreed with him. There were places enough where one might slake unruly appetites. The place where one exercised mastery and carried out the responsibilities that came with it was not one of them. He wanted his wife because she was close by—in the next bedchamber—and because she would not be there for long and he was going to be very womanless. He laughed softly in self-derision.

He wondered how she would react if he were to walk into her bedchamber now, demanding his conjugal rights. Perhaps she would give them to him without argument. His nostrils flared. He would go into his study, he decided. He would find something to do there. Some of his favorite books were there. If he thought hard enough, he would surely think of someone to whom he owed a letter. If that failed him, then he would dress again and go tramping about outside in the darkness.

But as he approached his study, he saw the light beneath the sitting-room door. And so he went there instead and invited himself to sit with his wife as she wrote her letter—and what had kept
her
up so late? he wondered. She was wearing a very plain, very serviceable white cotton dressing gown. Her hair was loose and lay in shining waves down her back.

He still wanted her. And he would admit to himself now that it was not just a woman he wanted. He wanted
her
—her innocence, her wholesomeness. He had found them enticing qualities two nights before. She had played her part well, he thought, watching her as she wrote, her posture correct yet graceful. More than well. She had shown a warmth and a charm and a graciousness that had affected them all with the possible exception of Marianne. Even Charles had watched her this evening as she sat on the low stool by their father, a puzzled frown on his face.

She had done well. He had caught himself feeling proud of her, pretty and dignified in the appallingly dull gray silk, before realizing that pride was not an appropriate feeling under the circumstances. Not a
warm
pride, anyway.

He wondered to whom she wrote with such difficulty. Was it someone to whom she merely felt duty-bound to write? Or was it someone of whom she was so fond that she was inhibited by his presence? But he had no right to his curiosity. And no wish to be curious. When she left him, he wanted to be able to forget about her.

But tonight he wanted her. He wanted her beneath him. He wanted his face in her hair. The sooner she was out of his life the better it would be for him.

He gave in to weakness—and thought that she was going to refuse him. It would be as well if she did, though he did not know what he would do for sleep. But she did not refuse.

"I would like to lie with you," she said after he had got to his feet to open the door for her.

His wife did not mince words. And so he gave in to another weakness. He wanted her in his own bed. He wanted the memory of her there—though the thought, which took him completely by surprise, had him frowning in incomprehension.

There was no timidity in his wife—it seemed laughable to him now that he had mistaken her for a quiet mouse only a few days ago. She turned to him when they were in his bedchamber and looked full into his eyes—her own as wide and defenseless as they had ever been. He hoped they did not denote vulnerability. He hoped no one would ever hurt her deeply.

He undid the sash of her dressing gown and pushed the garment off her shoulders. He undid the buttons of her nightgown, opened back the edges, drew it down her arms, let it fall to the floor. She stood still and unresisting—and looked into his eyes.

She was beautifully proportioned without being in any way voluptuous. He had always thought that he preferred voluptuous women—until tonight.

He removed his dressing gown and pulled his nightshirt off over his head. Her eyes roamed over his body.

"We will lie down," he told her.

"Yes," she said.

He liked a great deal of foreplay and he had many skills. He liked to mount the bodies of his women just for the final vigorous ascent to release. He never kissed his women—not on the face at least. A kiss was too intimate a thing—too emotionally intimate, that was. A bedding was a purely physical thing with no emotional overtones whatsoever.

He did not kiss his wife. His hands went to work on her in the long-familiar ritual. But although he was aroused, he could not seem to get his mind involved in what he did. The pattern had become wearying. It would no longer satisfy. Not with her. He wanted to be lying atop her body. He wanted to be warmed by her heat, soothed by her softness. He wanted to be inside her, enclosed by her femininity. He wanted his face in her hair.

And so he let go of the pattern, the ritual, the familiar skills. He lifted himself over her and lowered his weight onto her. He nudged her legs apart. He had no idea if she was ready. It took women a long time to be ready for mounting. He slid his hands beneath her and pushed carefully inside. She was smooth with wetness.

It was strange, he thought, breathing in the erotic smell of soap, how one could be taut and pulsing with arousal without feeling any of the usual animal urges to squeeze the last ounce of pleasure out of the experience. He wanted merely to be in her, to ride her, to be close to her, to be this close, to be a part of her, of her grace and her warmth and her charm, to breathe in the essence of her. He stopped thinking.

He followed instinct. He had nothing else to guide him. He had abandoned skills and expertise and familiar moves. He followed instinct, mating with her with slow and steady rhythm, prolonging with unthinking instinct the exquisite and regrettable moment when they would become even more nearly one for the merest heartbeat before becoming two and separate once more. He did not know when she twined her legs about his but was only aware of the more comfortable unison of the rhythm they shared.

He sighed into her hair. She made low little sounds of contentment. It amazed him during one lucid moment that there was no great excitement in either of them. Only something far, for more dangerous—but he shut down the thought before it could be articulated.

She lost rhythm first. Her inner muscles began to contract convulsively. Her breathing became more labored. She untwined her legs from his and braced her feet against the mattress. She pushed upward, straining against him. He thrust hard into her and pressed his hands down on her hips.

There were several moments of rigid tautness in her before she surged about him in utter, reckless abandon. She came to him in silence. She came to him with everything she had. He felt gifted, which was a strange feeling when all that had happened was that she was having a good sexual experience. A purely physical experience.

He let her relax beneath him. He savored the warmth and softness and silence of her. He waited for her breathing to become normal. Then he drove himself to the place where he longed to be, the place where he had always longed to be. Always. All his life. Though it was not a place exactly. It was… He heard himself shout out. He felt her arms come about him. He felt her legs twine about his again. He heard her murmur something against his ear—something exquisitely sweet and totally incomprehensible.

He felt as if he were falling and was powerless to stop himself.

Chapter 12

She did not sleep a great deal. At first she was uncomfortable—his weight was heavy on her and made breathing a conscious effort, and her legs stiffened from being pressed wide. Strangely she did nothing to lessen the discomfort. She did not try to wake him or to somehow alter her position. Quite the contrary. She lay very still and relaxed so that he would
not
move. She was very conscious of the fact that they were naked together, that part of his body was still inside part of hers, that they had been man and wife together. Discomfort seemed unimportant.

Even after he had stirred and rolled off her, grumbling incoherently and keeping his arms about her so that she stayed cuddled warmly and now comfortably against him, she did not sleep much. She dozed fitfully.

Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. It had not been love. She would be very, very foolish to imagine that it might have been. She must not even for a moment romanticize what had not contained even one element of romance. They were a man and a woman with physical needs. Conveniently they were married to each other and occupying the same apartments. And so they had fed those needs and been satisfied. She was very glad that she had learned such an invaluable lesson. New knowledge was always worth acquiring. She had learned that love and romance on the one hand and what happened between a man and a woman in bed on the other were so vastly different that one might as easily compare oranges and hackney cabs.

Nothing had changed. Except that foolishly and typically—oh, so
very
typically—she had become involved. With all of them—the whole unpleasant, morose, mixed-up lot of them. Why could she not merely have continued to see them that way and held herself aloof?

She had always been the same. She might have been married when she was one-and-twenty, to a gentleman who was personable and eligible and of whom she was fond. But her mother had been dead for only four years and everyone still needed her, she had insisted—even though Mama's widowed sister had been quite prepared to take over the care of the family. After Papa's death, when the whole world came crashing about their ears, she had insisted on becoming involved in supporting the family and paying off the debts even though everyone had tried to persuade her that she was needed more at home. And at her last employment, of course, she had caused her own dismissal by becoming involved in the distress of a pretty chambermaid who was too weak-willed to stand up for herself.

And now she had done it again. She cared. She cared for the Duke of Withingsby, who loved no one and whom no one loved—or so they all thought, foolish people. She cared about Augusta, who had a childhood to retrieve, and about Charles, who still felt betrayed by the brother who had abandoned him when he was still only a lad—oh yes, she had worked that one out for herself. She cared about Claudia, who had caused a bitter rift between two brothers, and who must know it and be distressed by it despite all her smiling charm. She cared for William, who must be torn by guilt and by some indignation too if it was true—it probably was—that Claudia had always loved him. The only ones she did not particularly care about were Marianne and Richard, though she loved their children.

Oh yes, she cared all right. Stupid woman. And she cared for this man, this poor, troubled man who thought he was in such firm command of his own life. How very foolish men could be. How very like children they were—blustering and bullying and glowering and utterly vulnerable. She had been almost frightened by his vulnerability earlier when he had shouted out just at the moment when she had been realizing that the extra heat she felt inside was his seed being released. He had sounded so lost. She had wrapped herself about him, feeling an overwhelming tenderness, and murmured comfort to him just as if he were one of the children who had fallen down and scraped a knee.

"It will be all right," she had assured him. "Everything will be all right, dear."

Dear
! She hoped fervently he had not heard. The Marquess of Staunton was not exactly the sort of person one called
dear
. Or about whom one felt maternal. She felt anything but maternal at this particular moment. He was awake. His hand was moving in light circles over her back and her buttocks and then moved over her hip to slide up between them to one of her breasts. He stroked it and brushed his thumb over her nipple.

"Mm," she said.

It was all either of them said. He lifted one of her legs to fit snugly over his hip, drew her closer, and came into her. She was so very naive. She had not known where his caresses were leading. She had not realized it could be done again so soon—or while they were lying on their sides. But when she tightened those newly discovered inner muscles, she could feel him all enticingly hard and long again. And deep. He withdrew and entered again. She did not believe there was a lovelier feeling in the world. She wished it could last forever.

She slept deeply after it was over. He had moved her leg to rest more comfortably on the other one and had drawn the blankets snugly about her ears. But he kept her close—closer. He kept their bodies joined. She must leave, she decided before she slid into sleep. There could be no real reason for her to stay longer. He had made his point and his marriage was indissoluble. He was beyond the power he had imagined they wielded over him. She must leave, put her life back together again, proceed to live happily ever after with her family and her six thousand a year.

But she would think about it tomorrow.

There had been some rain during the night. Drops of moisture glistened now on the grass and there was still some early-morning fog obscuring the hills and the distant trees. But it was a fine morning for a ride. The Marquess of Staunton stood on the marble steps outside the front doors, breathing in lungfuls of the damp, cool air and tapping his riding crop against his boots.

This morning there was no little brown mouse standing on the terrace below him. He had left her in bed. At his suggestion she had settled for sleep again after he had woken her for a swift, vigorous bout of lovemaking. She had turned her face into his pillow and slid her arm beneath it. She had been sleeping before he had tucked the bedclothes warmly about her.

He strode off toward the stables. Was he insane? Totally out of his mind? Three times last night, once three nights ago. What the devil would he do if he had got her with child?
If
? Four times and he was thinking in terms of
ifs
?

But he had come outside in order to refresh his mind and in order to renew his energies after a night of expending them. He scowled. Why the devil had she been sitting up at such a late hour writing letters? If she had not been, none of that would have happened. He had already resisted the temptation to pay a conjugal visit to her room.

But he was saved after all from such troublesome thoughts. Charles was already mounted up in the stableyard when he arrived there, and was firmly establishing with his frisky mount which of them was in charge.

"You have not forgotten your first lessons in horsemanship, then," he called from the gateway.

His brother clearly had not seen him until that moment. He touched his whip to the brim of his hat and nodded curtly. "Staunton," he said.

"But you have learned considerably more in the years since," the marquess said. "You are a cavalry officer, of course. I suppose riding comes as naturally to you as walking."

"As it does to all gentlemen I believe," Charles said. "Excuse me, Staunton. I will be on my way."

The marquess did not move from the gateway. "For a morning ride?" he said. "It is my purpose too. Shall we do it together?"

His brother shrugged. "As you wish," he said.

It was all the fault of that pest of a wife of his, the marquess thought as he prepared his own horse, having waved away the groom who would have done it for him. That little prude with her character analyses and her moralizing, and her insistence that they were a family merely because his grace had fathered them all. When was the last time he had forced his company on someone who wished him to the devil? On that of a young puppy who had been all but insolent to him? It was all her fault that he felt this need to talk.

"You have seen active service?" he asked as they rode out of the stableyard and headed out to the open fields and hills behind the house.

"Not beyond these shores," Charles said. "I have been in a reserve regiment."

"Have been?" The marquess looked across at him. Dressed in scarlet regimentals his brother must be irresistible to the ladies, he thought, his lips quirking. It was still hard to believe that his younger brother was no longer a twelve-year-old boy.

"We sail for Spain within the month," Charles said. "I intend to be there."

"Does his grace dispute that?" the marquess asked.

His brother did not answer.

"I suppose," the marquess said, "that he did not even approve of your choice of career. He intended you for the church, did he not?" He remembered occasionally broaching the topic with their father. He remembered promising a rebellious Charles that he would take his part and see to it that he was not forced into a way of life that held no attraction whatsoever for him. But he had left before he could keep his promise.

Charles had clearly decided that this was a conversation in which he did not choose to participate. He had taken his mount to a brisk canter.

"But I do not remember your ever saying," the marquess said, catching up to him, "that you wished to buy a commission. Your interest in a military career is of fairly recent date?"

His brother looked at him with hard, hostile eyes, "You make conversation for the sake of being sociable, Staunton," he said. "Since when have you been interested in my career or my reasons for entering it? And do not say it is because you are my brother. You are no brother of mine except by the accident of birth."

Ah. Charles had been far more deeply hurt by his desertion than he had ever expected. He had thought that the boy would recover quickly and with the resilience of youth attach his affections to someone else—perhaps Will. It had been a naive assumption. But then he had been only twenty himself at that time—Charles's age now.

"You wanted a gentleman's life," he said. "You wanted land and farms and responsibilities—even if you did not own the land, you said. You hoped that Will would enter the church or the army and that his grace would allow you to help run these estates or one of the more distant ones. I thought I might be given one of the other estates. We used to joke about it. I would allow you to live there and run it for me while I went raking off to London."

"Which is exactly what you did," Charles said. For the first time an open bitterness crept into his voice. "With vast success from all accounts."