When the Marquess Met His Match (24 page)

“Then he was a fool. Anywhere I have you to myself I want you.” He grasped her hips and turned her around, then slid his arms around her to grasp the drawstring of her drawers. “Hang on to the bed,” he told her.

Belinda did so, curling her fingers around the brass on either side of her hips, but as he undid the bow that secured her drawers, she had no idea what he was going to do. Take her right here?

The air was warm and sultry in the room, but as he slid her drawers off her hips, and they fell to her ankles, she shivered, feeling terribly vulnerable because she was naked and it was daylight and he could see her from this position, but she couldn’t see him.

What was he doing?

He knelt behind her. “Lift your feet,” he said, tugging at the drawers tangled around her ankles. They joined the rest of her clothes in the corner, along with her stockings and garters, then his palms glided up the outsides of her thighs, scorching hot. Oh, God, she realized, he was staring straight at her bare backside. He kissed her there, his lips warm against her buttock, and she was seized by another paroxysm of her girlhood shyness. She made a sound of protest, moving to turn around, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Ssh,” he admonished, trailing kisses across the base of her spine. “Let me do this. I want to look at you and touch you. Every . . . single . . . part of you.”

The heels of his hands cupped her buttocks, shaped them. “You have the most gorgeous bum,” he said. “God, I’m making myself insane.”

Abruptly, he stood up and leaned into her, dipping his knees so that his hips pressed hers, and she groaned at the hard ridge of his arousal against her bare bottom. Combined with the rough-textured wool of his trousers, it was unbelievably erotic.

“There now,” he said, his breathing ragged as he flexed his hips, sliding his hardness against her buttocks. “I hope we’ve now settled the question of your desirability? If not, I could keep going.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want that. She wanted what she’d come here for. She wanted his body on hers and his mouth on hers and his manhood inside her. She ached for it. “No,” she gasped. “I believe you.”

“Good.” He kissed her shoulder, and she was sure he would undo his trousers and come into her now, but he didn’t. Instead, keeping his arousal pressed to her bottom, he reached around her, over the footboard and back between the bars to touch her. When the tip of his finger slid between the folds of her sex, she moaned, pleasure fissuring through her, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

She tried to wriggle her hips, but his superior weight had her pinned to the footboard, and all she could do was stand there as he caressed her through the bars, a tender, almost delicate caress as he pressed hard against her from the back. It was like nothing else she’d ever felt. His fingertip was a tease, a whisper, a promise of what might be if only she could get closer. And behind her, his manhood was another tease, a harder, deeper promise of something still just out of reach. Caught, she was desperate for a deeper caress, but unless he gave her more, this was all she could have.

It was agony, to have desire held out of reach. It was unbearable. She tried to tell him that, but she couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and the only sound she could make was a sob of frustration.

He kissed her ear, flicking his tongue against her lobe and sending shivers through her body, but he didn’t bring his hand any closer. He didn’t let her go. “Is there something you want?” he whispered. “Tell me.”

Tell him? How could she tell him? She couldn’t talk. She could barely breathe.

He waited. He didn’t deepen the caress. He didn’t unbutton his trousers. Instead, his fingers slid away, and she gave a gasp. “Nicholas,” she whispered, feeling all the awful shyness of her girlhood coming back. “I can’t. I can’t.”

He turned her around, and sank to his knees in front of her, catching her hands as she frantically tried to cover herself. He entwined their fingers, spread her arms wide, and pressed a kiss to her stomach, making her quiver inside. And then, to her utter shock, he pressed his lips to the hair at the apex of her thigh.

She squealed. She couldn’t help it. She felt panicky, embarrassed, overcome by another wave of shyness. “Oh, don’t,” she moaned, her hips jerking as if to push him away. “Don’t.”

“Belinda, you were a married woman,” he murmured, his lips caressing her as he spoke. “I can’t believe your husband never did this.”

“Of course he didn’t do this. Nobody does this!”

That made him laugh, warm breath against her curls. “Ah, but they do. They do it quite often, and for good reason.” He paused and looked up at her. “I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?”

She bit her lip. “Yes,” she said after a moment.

“Then let me kiss you here.” He let her hands go, then his fingers touched her, tangling lightly in the curls. “Open your legs for me and let me do this.”

“All right,” she said in a miserable whisper, and when she allowed him to part her legs, her embarrassment became so great, she felt as if it were burning her from the inside out.

She had to look away. She braced her weight on the footboard behind her, her bottom perched on the edge, her fingers curled tight around the brass and tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling, as his lips brushed her again and she fought the impulse to tear away.

“Look at me, Belinda.”

She shook her head, still looking at the ceiling.

He kissed her again. “Look at me.”

She forced her gaze down to meet his. “I want this for you,” he said, and his eyes locked with hers as he eased his hand between her thighs. “I want you to have this. There’s no shame in it.”

“I’m not ashamed. I’m just . . . shy. I was, you know, as a girl. I still am, sometimes.”

“I didn’t know that. You have no reason to be shy, not with me. You’re beautiful.” He lowered his head to look at her most intimate place. “Everywhere,” he added. “I knew you would be.”

She stared down at him, at his hair—burnished in the shady dimness of afternoon, at his thick brown lashes—gilded at the tips, at his face—filled with desire as he looked at her, and when he kissed her again, all her shyness seemed to dissolve and float away, no longer of any consequence, like so much flotsam vanishing on a summer breeze.

And then . . . oh, God . . . and then his tongue touched the crease of her sex. She gasped, a gasp of astonished pleasure as his tongue began to lash her with the softest, most incredible caresses she’d ever felt.

She couldn’t think, she was lost in sensations beyond anything she’d thought possible. She’d known—at least, she thought she’d known—all about intimate relations. But this? She hadn’t ever imagined such a glorious thing as this.

Because of him, all the desires she’d suppressed for years, desires that had diminished and died because of another man’s indifference and neglect, came to life again, and she unfolded to him like the petals of a flower opened to sunlight. He was like air and food and light for her parched soul.

She needed to move, and this time, he let her, his arm wrapping around her thighs to hold her as his tongue gave her these carnal kisses. This wasn’t at all like that afternoon in Chelsea. That had been a quick, powerful jolt of orgasm, a primitive instinctual response to need. This was something else. It was languid and lovely, but as it deepened and spread, it grew stronger and more powerful, until her body was moving in frantic little jerks, and she was sobbing with the exquisite pleasure of it. She climaxed at last, a powerful wave that flooded every part of her body with sensation. And then, to her amazement, the wave came again, and again, then again. She thrust against his mouth with each wave, savoring each climax, until at last, she collapsed, so overwhelmed by it all that she would have fallen had Nicholas not been holding her.

She blinked, staring down at him in wonder, and when he looked back up at her, he was smiling, just a slight, knowing curve of the lips. “Now you know why people do this.”

Belinda shook her head. Never had she experienced orgasm like this. During her marriage, climax had been a quick, frantic coupling in the dark, usually followed by a crushing sense of frustration and disappointment and months of indifference. And even the rare times it had been tender, it had never been like this. Pleasure that came in waves over and over, until one slid off the edge of the earth into utter bliss? Never.

Until now.

“I never knew,” she whispered, giving a little laugh. “I . . . I’m stunned.”

Nicholas thought that was most gratifying thing anyone had ever said to him. “I’m glad. Very . . .” He paused to press a kiss to her stomach. “Very glad.”

When Nicholas lifted his head to look up at her again, his pleasure at her compliment gave way to something deeper. In a shaft of late-afternoon sun that peeked between the draperies, she looked tousled and luscious and thoroughly pleasured. Her smile was radiant. Her long hair fell in waves all around her, and the nipples of her breasts peeked out between ink black locks. Her lips were puffy from his kisses, and her skin was still flushed a delicate pink from the orgasms that had overcome her. He could only stare, knowing that as long as he lived, he would never see anything more beautiful than Belinda was at this moment. “I love you.”

He hadn’t meant to say it; hell, he hadn’t even thought it, not consciously, anyway. It had just come spilling out. It was only the second time in his life he’d said that particular phrase to a woman, but now that the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were the simple truth, and even though her smile vanished at once, and he feared he might have made a serious mistake, he wouldn’t ever regret saying those words to her.

Nonetheless, he felt impelled to throw himself back onto solid ground, and he did it the only way he knew how. “Stunned you again, have I?” he said, pasting on a grin. “I wonder how many times I can do that in one afternoon. I say we find out.”

He stood up, and as he did, he became aware—painfully aware—of his own banked desires. He was rock-hard, aching for her, and he knew he didn’t have much time before his self-discipline was utterly exhausted.

He undressed, yanking off his shoes and stripping off trousers and linen as quickly as he could. Taking her hand, he led her around to the side of the bed, falling back into the mattress and pulling her down beside him.

But still, he didn’t move to enter her. Instead, he rolled onto his side, and his fingers eased between her legs again, spreading the moisture of her arousal, over velvety folds and silken curls, across her clitoris and just inside her opening, over and over. Beneath his hand, he could feel her arousal rising again, her pleasure thickening, and the depths of her hunger made him realize just how starved for tender lovemaking she was. Good thing Featherstone was dead, or Nicholas just might have had to go off and shoot the son of a bitch.

He stroked her, his finger sliding up and down in the way that seemed to please her most until each pant was a sob.

“Want me?” he asked, but she couldn’t reply. All she could do was give a frantic nod, and, thankfully, that seemed enough.

He withdrew his hand, and as he moved on top of her, her legs opened beneath him. He wanted to go slowly still, but as the head of his penis touched her warm, silken folds, he just couldn’t do it, and he thrust hard into her.

She came almost at once, crying out as she clenched tight around him, and the pulsing sensations of her climax were just too much to bear. With a force he could no longer contain, he thrust deeply into her, again and again, losing himself in her softness and her scent and her passionate cries, and when at last he climaxed, the pleasure was explosive, so acute and intense it was like pain, shattering him to bits.

He collapsed atop her in complete release, his arms sliding beneath her to hold her tight, his panting breaths mingling with hers in the hush of afternoon. He kissed her lips, her hair, her throat—anywhere he could reach without pulling out of her. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t answer, and he pulled back to look at her, resting his weight on his forearms, his hands beneath her back, his penis still inside her. “Belinda, are you all right?”

“Oh, God,” she whispered and her eyes looked into his, wide with wonder. “Oh, my God. I never knew making love was like this.”

He laughed, and a wave of satisfaction better than any orgasm rose up inside him, filling his chest, squeezing his heart, pouring joy through his veins, and he knew he believed in love again. For the first time in years, by heaven, he believed in love. What a ripping miracle.

Chapter 20

T
hey came down for dinner, took a walk in the gardens, and made love again that night, but she didn’t sleep with him. He wanted her to, but she hated the idea of servants coming in to find her in his bed. He pointed out, quite reasonably, that they already knew what was afoot. Servants always knew that sort of thing. Nonetheless, Belinda had her own sense of propriety about things, and she slept in her own bedroom. But she also hugged her pillow all night and pretended it was he.

The next day, he wasn’t in the morning room when she came down for breakfast, and when she inquired as to his whereabouts, Forbisher informed her that His Lordship had already gone out. He was in the hops fields with his land agent, Mr. Burroughs.

“Do you wish to attend Sunday services, my lady?” the butler asked her. “If so, Robson can take you to Maidstone in the gig.”

She did not want to go into Maidstone. And considering what had happened yesterday, church was a bit hypocritical. “No, I don’t think so, Forbisher.”

“Very good, my lady. His Lordship proposes that you join him for luncheon, and as the day is quite fine, he recommends a picnic. If you agree, I am to have Mrs. Fraser prepare one.”

“Yes, thank you. That would be lovely.”

“His Lordship also suggested that you pack before you join him since the two of you are taking the five o’clock train for London.”

She felt a stab of disappointment at that reminder how short their time was here, but she nodded. “Have my maid pack my things, if you would,” she told the butler. “I’m going for a walk after breakfast.”

“Very good, my lady.”

Belinda ate her breakfast, then occupied her time with a tour of the house and grounds. It was a charming house, at least on the outside. The inside, as Nicholas had told her, was rather awful. But the rooms were well proportioned, and with a bit of ingenuity and some work, they could be made quite attractive. Outside, there were lovely cottage gardens and herbaceous borders, and a forest of birch trees to the north. To the east was the home farm, and past it, the tenant cottages and farms. To the south and west, the hops and barley fields rolled out to the horizon in lush, green waves.

Honeywood was a warm and pretty place, not like Featherstone Castle. That house had always seemed like a mausoleum, a cold lump of granite and marble in the middle of Yorkshire. She had hated it there.

Belinda found a garden bench with a view of the hops. Even from here, she could smell them, a fresh, herbal scent that reminded her a bit of evergreen needles. She breathed in the scented air, so much nicer than London, and gazed out at the fields, but in her mind, she was thinking of Nicholas, and yesterday. It had been amazing and erotic and the most wonderful experience of her life. She wanted to do it all again—be undressed by him, held and kissed by him, made love to by him. And not just that—she wanted to simply be with him. It made her happy, happier than she could ever remember being, and she wanted to kick herself for taking so long to make up her mind to come to him. As May Buchanan had said, love was really pretty simple.

Love. There it was. That word, the one she hadn’t let herself think about. It had been years since she’d thought of love in conjunction with her own life. Until now, she’d been content, but she hadn’t been aware of the loneliness beneath that contentment. But leaving him last night, lying alone, hugging her pillow, she’d been painfully aware of the void that had been inside her for years—perhaps for her entire life. Could Nicholas fill that void? Was she willing to trust him, to let him? Was she falling in love with him?

If so, it wasn’t like her love for Charles. It was far more erotic, for one thing. She thought of Nicholas’s eyes, of the way he’d looked at her when she’d been naked in front of him, a way Charles had never looked at her. But was that love? Her feeling for Charles had been a crush, an infatuation that she knew now could never have grown into a deeper love because Charles had been incapable of that. He had not been, she realized now, a man who could truly love anyone.

Nicholas, as he’d pointed out to her back in May, was not Charles. She knew that now, and she believed his declaration of love last night was genuine. She was less certain about her own feelings.

Time was probably the only way she could be sure of what she felt. She was always cautioning her clients to take their time, and yet, she knew she did not have that luxury. The longer this affair went on, the more risk to her reputation. And it wasn’t even as if Nicholas’s declaration had included a proposal of marriage. Without marriage, a woman in love had nothing but shame and social ruin waiting for her down the road. On the other hand, if Nicholas asked her to marry him, would she agree? What if all he wanted was an affair? Could that be enough for her?

Her mind couldn’t help going over these questions again and again throughout the morning, and when a footman led her down to meet Nicholas that afternoon with a picnic basket, she still had no answers, but when she saw him, standing by the hops fields, she knew it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was now.

He was talking with another, older gentleman when she arrived, seeming wholly at ease as the two men discussed the crop, and she realized in some surprise that country life suited him. He wore no hat, and his hair gleamed like amber honey in the sun. The simple clothing he wore—linen shirt, tweed trousers, and riding boots—fitted his body even more perfectly than the tailored morning coats and dinner jackets of town. As if to confirm that fact, he lifted his arm in a sweeping gesture across the hops fields before him, and the bright sunlight showed the silhouette of his torso through the linen. Yes, she thought, appreciating the sight, country life suited him very well indeed.

She’d never had thoughts like this about a man before, but now, as she lowered her gaze to his narrow hips and remembered what he looked like without his trousers, she realized how much she liked this sort of thinking, and it was a realization that made her smile. Heavens, what would society think if they knew that Lady Featherstone was capable of such lascivious thoughts, especially about the Marquess of Trubridge? What a sensation that would make.

As if he sensed her watching, he turned, and when he caught sight of her standing with the footman, he smiled back at her and brought his conversation with the older gentleman to an immediate end. “Thank you, Mr. Burroughs. My apologies for making you miss church services.”

“No apologies necessary, my lord. I know you’re leaving for London today. And don’t tell my wife, but I’ll not regret giving services a miss. Our vicar is a bit long-winded.”

Nicholas laughed. “Well then, go on to the pub and enjoy the rest of your Sunday. I’ve kept you long enough.” As the other man was walking away, Nicholas turned to the footman and took the picnic basket. “Thank you, Noah. You may go.”

“Very good, Your Lordship.” He bowed to her. “My lady.”

As Noah departed back up the path to the house, Nicholas turned to her. “What are you thinking about that’s making you smile like a cat in the cream jug?” he asked, and leaned closer. “I hope it’s the same thing I’m thinking about.”

Her smile widened. “I was thinking how much country dress suits you.”

“I was rather hoping you were remembering what I look like undressed.”

“Maybe I was,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

His smile vanished, and she thought she heard him catch his breath, but when he spoke, his voice was carelessly light. “My, my, how naughty you’ve become,” he murmured, and pressed a kiss to her mouth, then he turned away before she could reply and gestured to a nearby meadow. “I thought we might dine over there.”

She agreed, and soon they had trampled down a space of knee-high grass and daisies, spread out their blanket, and sat down with the picnic basket.

“Let’s see what’s in here, shall we?” Nicholas opened the basket and began pulling out various foodstuffs as he laid them on the blanket between them. “We have bread, ham, two cheeses, pickles, a pot of mustard, and blackberries. Hmm, no wine?” He took another look in the basket. “Ah, she gave us beer.”

He pulled out two bottles, but when he held one out to her, she shook her head. “I don’t drink.”

“What?” He looked at her askance. “Belinda, I make beer. Are you never going to drink any?”

She shook her head again, laughing at his chagrin. “I don’t like the taste.”

“Worse and worse!” He flipped the top of the bottle, letting the stopper fall back against the glass with a clink, and took a swallow. “It’s not your morals that stop you, but your palate?”

She made a face at him. “Oh, very well, when you make all these hops into beer, I’ll taste it. I won’t promise to like it, mind you, but I’ll taste it.”

“That’s my girl.” He leaned across the foodstuffs between them and kissed her again, a kiss that tasted of beer, but somehow, she didn’t quite mind the taste on his lips.

He sat back, took another look in the picnic basket, and heaved a sigh. “No poetry? Dash it, I told Mrs. Fraser to toss a book or two in with the sandwiches.”

She frowned in bewilderment. “But you don’t like poetry.”

“Stuff.” He plucked a blackberry from its woven basket and popped one into his mouth. “Where did you ever get such a notion? I’m English, my darling. I adore poetry. And I wanted to read you some Shelley today. Every man should read Shelley to his lover over a picnic. Or Byron—women always like him better. You’d fall straight into my arms and make mad, passionate love to me right here in the grass if I read you Byron.”

She felt her cheeks heating at those words. In fact, her whole body was growing hot, but she felt impelled to correct him. “I never fall straight into your arms.”

“More’s the pity. I’d adore it if you would.”

“I still don’t understand about the poetry,” she said, deciding it was safest to stick to that subject. “You said you like the sciences.”

“So I do. I also like poetry. I am a multifaceted man, my darling. What?” he added, laughing at her confounded expression. “I can’t like both?”

“But that day when we discussed what sort of woman you wanted, you said you didn’t like poetry.”

“No,” he corrected. “To the best of my recollection, what I said was that I hate worrying about tercets and quatrains. And that’s true. It’s because of Eton, you see.”

“Eton?” She shook her head, laughing. He really was the most unaccountable man. “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”

“When I was a boy at Eton, they were constantly at us to compose poetry, and forever chastising us if our compositions didn’t use the proper form for the assignment.”

He frowned at her. “No, no, no, Trubridge,” he said in the severe, lecturing voice a professor at Eton might have employed, “that isn’t a
haiku
. A
haiku
has seventeen morae. You’ve used eighteen.” He ate another blackberry. “I like poetry, and I like science, but they aren’t the same, and they can’t be approached the same way. In science, one must use precise measurements, all one should worry about in regard to a poem is if it sounds right.”

“So, it wasn’t Blake you disliked that day at the National Gallery, but Geraldine Hunt’s recitation of it?”

He groaned. “She was almost as bad at reciting Blake as my schoolmates. Can you imagine listening to thirteen-year-old boys standing up in front of you reading
Songs of Innocence and Experience
? It was torture.”

“You were thirteen, too,” she pointed out.

He grinned and took another swallow of beer. “Yes, well, I was better at reciting poetry than other boys.”

She laughed. “Or perhaps you just like to think so.”

“Why don’t you be the judge?” He pulled a few more blackberries from the basket and leaned back, resting his weight on his forearm and hip. He studied her for a few moments, eating berries, then he said, “As breath to life, she is to me; as springtime sun to winter’s icy dart. A stab by knife, her frown to see; her smile one of summer to a January heart.”

Belinda’s breath caught, not only at what he said, but the tender way he looked at her as he said it. “I . . .” She paused, her voice failing. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ve never heard that poem before.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” he said, and popped another berry into his mouth. “Since I just made it up.”

“What? Just now?” When he nodded, she shook her head, amazed. “It was beautiful.”

“Thank you, but an Etonian professor wouldn’t agree. I’m sure I missed a syllable or two in there somewhere.”

“I didn’t notice,” she assured him. “I thought it was lovely.”

“Thank you, but I don’t compose much now that I don’t have to.”

“You should.”

“Yes, well, perhaps with you as my muse, I shall take it up again. But enough about me.” He rolled over, settled onto his stomach, resting his weight on his forearms as he looked up at her. “Let’s talk about you.”

She shrugged in a deprecating way, hoping not to have to talk about herself. “There isn’t much to tell that you don’t already know, I imagine.”

“I disagree. I know almost nothing about you.”