A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (23 page)

“
So early?” Jonas called
out behind him. “It’s hardly past luncheon. Lady Quinton will not
know what to do with you at such an hour.”

Good thing for her, Quin knew exactly
what to do with her at such an hour. Sparring hadn’t been enough
that day. He needed something—something more. Something
else.

He needed Aurora.

When he pushed through the front door
a few minutes later, she was nowhere to be seen. “Is Lady Quinton
above stairs?” he asked the butler, who stood by to take his hat
and gloves.

“
Indeed, my
lord.”

Quin removed his greatcoat as well,
leaving it with the servant. He took the stairs two at a time,
practically bounding with anticipation, loosening his cravat as he
went. Good God, he seemed like a randy schoolboy, off to visit his
first whore.

But Aurora was not a whore—she was his
wife. He ought not to even think along those lines. Hell, she was
virtually still an innocent, despite the fact that they’d been
married for over a fortnight and she had become rather adventurous
in the marriage bed. But he couldn’t very well bed his wife in the
same manner he would bed a whore. Could he? It just didn’t seem the
thing to do.

If he didn’t get the thought out of
his head right that moment, he didn’t know what he would
do.

She sat at the writing table in their
sitting room, asleep with her head lying on something. Likely her
journal. The blasted minx probably couldn’t help herself. The quill
still rested in her right hand, hanging at her side. A few black
ink marks stained her otherwise perfect and demure gown. For some
reason, those few imperfections nearly drove him to distraction,
they were so enticing.

He ought to leave her alone. Clearly
she needed the rest, if she’d fallen asleep in such an
uncomfortable position. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kept her up so
late the night before with their lovemaking, but he couldn’t seem
to help himself.

Or maybe he should carry
her to her bed. Tuck her in. Be a gentleman. But God knew he
struggled with that on a good day. Today was most
emphatically
not
a
good day.

He desperately wanted to
know what she might be writing about now, since her previous
writings had focused on her suitors. What could possibly be calling
to her now, as a married lady of the
ton
?

Quin walked over to stand behind her,
making as little sound as he could. He peered over her shoulder and
scanned the page.

Damnation!
Even without reading every word, he knew exactly
what she’d been dreaming up.
Quin looked
ravenous
—
animal in
disguise
—
cravat
over my eyes
—
blind.
In an instant, he was harder
than he’d ever imagined possible. And he did happen to have a
cravat handy. Lucky him. He could give his devious little wife
exactly what she wanted.

He pulled it free from his neck and
placed it carefully over Aurora’s eyes, tying it tight behind her
head. She stirred slightly when he removed the quill from her
hands, but didn’t wake—not even when he lifted her from the chair
and carried her to his bed.

Ever so quietly, he slipped into his
dressing room and retrieved two more cravats, before returning to
Aurora and gently slipping the gown free from her luscious
body.

Chapter
Fourteen

15 April, 1811

I honestly do not know
where these ideas have come from. They’ve sprung up like the Sirens
from the water, unbidden and unexpected, and I am entirely
uncertain I should ever share them with another living soul. I
shall have to be sure my journal never escapes me again. However, I
now believe wholeheartedly that I am
not
the proper person to educate the
young, unmarried misses of the
ton
about the joys of the marriage bed. After all,
one never knows what will come to my mind. I would likely shock
them all to the core, and have them all go screaming off to the
Americas to live in a more civilized society with the Indians than
the one which could produce such thoughts in an otherwise proper,
married lady. Even I am scandalized, and the words were my
own.

~From the journal of Lady
Quinton

Oh, dear good Lord. Aurora was
experiencing the most delightful dream, one she never wanted to
wake from. Strong, hot hands slid over her naked body, stroking her
to a fever. Then a tongue, wet and insistent, laved at her tender
nipples. The scratchy stubble abraded her skin all over.

Quin. It had to be Quin. She’d know
his hands anywhere, at least when they were driving her to the
brink of madness like that.

She wanted to touch him, too, to see
him. But when she tried to lower her arms, they wouldn’t budge from
their position stretched high over her head. And her eyes couldn’t
see, even though they were open. Aurora whimpered in
frustration.

“
Hush now, love,” Quin
whispered into her ear. His breath tickled like butterfly wings
against her cheek. Which was all very lovely, but she desperately
wanted to touch him, to do for him what he was doing for
her.

“
I want to”

A finger pushed against her lips,
forcing her to stop speaking. “I know what you want. Trust me to
give it to you.” Quin’s voice seemed magnified, rougher and huskier
than usual. His voice alone was enough to have her squirming for
release under normal circumstances, but this was a highly irregular
situation to say the least.

Perhaps it was all so very different
because it was a dream. A dream rather like the story she had been
writing just before she dozed off. But still a dream.

His mouth came down upon one of her
breasts and she jumped up from the bed in shock. Then something
snaked across her mid-section, and she felt everything come alive.
Could she possibly feel like this if she were dreaming—like a
thousand tiny dancers were waltzing across her stomach, the trails
of their feet sending her insides to quivering like an un-poked egg
yolk on a passing plate?

But he couldn’t possibly be doing
these things to her. Not really. Could he?

Her scream when his thumb found the
nub of her sex shattered any illusions she held about being asleep.
She was very much awake, and Quin was very much performing
delightful and wonderful things to her person—all while keeping her
blindfolded and tied to the bedposts.

Then he ceased touching her anywhere.
She felt empty and cold without his caress. Aurora desperately
wanted to see, to know where his attentions would fall
next.

But the not knowing only intensified
her response when he did touch her again—this time with a tongue to
the inside of her thigh, tracing a slow, arabesque path upward,
closer, infinitely closer to her center.

Oh, dear good Lord! “You can’t. You
can’t do that.” She tried to close her legs together, to stop him
from doing what surely must be depraved and sinful, even if it
occurred between a husband and wife. Blast, why had he tied her
arms? She had to stop him. She couldn’t allow him to do
that.

But his strong hands pushed her thighs
apart and his tongue continued its torturous path to what must
surely be hell. When his tongue flicked against that part of her
where his thumb had rubbed only moments before, it proved to be her
undoing. Her hips rose up in that way they always did when he was
sheathed inside her, driving ever closer to him, forcing even more
of the lewd act.

She was wanton. Wild. Desperate for
more.

So more he gave, until she collapsed
in a heap of limbs upon the bed.

Sated.

~ * ~

Quin liked to watch Aurora sleep after
their lovemaking. She looked so glorious, so peaceful. So
unencumbered by the guilt he always carried around with him. After
they had acted out her fantasy, she had rolled to her side and
tucked her derrière up against him without even waiting for him to
remove the ties from her wrists or eyes, practically mewling like a
well-fed kitten before she was unconscious again. Even now, with
the afternoon sun setting the room ablaze like a fire, her skin
shimmered with the remnants of their combined efforts.

For once in his life, Quin wished he
had some skill with a brush. He’d love to capture her like this, so
he could forever look on her just in this moment. He couldn’t break
the spell. So he lay there, watching her, dreading the moment she
would move and life would go on.

Which, of course, she did and it did.
Perfection could never last. His life had ever been a testament to
that fact.

Aurora stretched her limbs and rolled
to face him with slumberous deliberation. She smiled, a
cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that only comes after sex.

And she gasped. “Gracious. Quin, what
happened to you?” Her voice rose to a shrill pitch, rather similar
to the one his mother would use when he and Jonas trekked muck and
mire into her house of an afternoon. Before he could issue any
denials of wrongdoing or otherwise explain himself, Aurora bolted
upright in bed, pulling him along with her, and proceeded to poke
and prod at his exceedingly sore eye and lip.

Bloody impertinent chit. “Stop that,”
he warned, pulling away.

His wife failed to listen. She pressed
a finger against the precise point of impact over his eye
repeatedly, ignoring the fact that he visibly winced in pain each
time she did so. “This is not good. You need to put a beefsteak
over this. I’ll ring for it at once.”

Quin grabbed her arm to stop her. “You
will not.” He took a breath to calm himself. He did not need to
lash out against his wife. Not now. When she tugged against him
though, he nearly lost control.

Count to ten.
Breathe.

“
Might I remind you,
Aurora, you are in my bedchamber?” Quin asked. She looked up at him
with incomprehension in her eyes. “And you are unclothed?” he
continued, with greater emphasis. Finally, her eyes widened as
realization dawned.

Good. He wasn’t quite breathless in
anticipation over searching for a new valet after he was forced to
kill his present one for the act of walking in upon his wife in the
nude. Particularly not when such a thing would be her
fault.

Aurora tugged the counterpane to cover
herself from his gaze, as she always did when they weren’t in the
midst of their lovemaking. He hated that she was still so shy, so
reserved with him. She’d been anything but reserved when she called
out his name—Niles, again—when he’d brought her to climax not so
terribly long before. She only used his given name when she
climaxed.

“
Will you please put a
beefsteak over it, Quin?” she asked after several moments passed in
silence, each of them staring at the bedding between them. “It
looks awfully painful.”

Pain—physical pain—would never hurt
him. Not really. Not after his Father had beaten him to the point
of not caring anymore. But if it would make Aurora feel
better…“Yes,” Quin said. “After you’ve dressed.”

She reached a tentative hand across to
caress it, soft as gossamer against his rough exterior. What a
perfect contradiction they were together. He almost flinched from
the tenderness in her touch.

“
Will you tell me?” she
asked, her voice almost verging on timidity, for once. “What
happened?”

There was more to her question than
the surface implied. It hung heavy in the air between them,
dangling for something to latch onto. But he couldn’t tell her. He
couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Jonas knew the full truth of Quin’s
growing years, only bits and pieces.

“
Boxing,” Quin said. “I was
boxing at Gentleman Jackson’s. Nothing to worry about. Just a
friendly sparring match.”

Aurora’s eyes welled with tears. She
knew there was more. But blessedly, she pushed them back and
changed the subject. “Why did you…you know?” she asked, shrugging
and pointing to the limp cravat hanging from the bedpost that had
held her wrists captive. The blush that washed over her cheeks had
his cock hardening again.

He smiled then, a practiced smile he
usually reserved for paramours of the night. Then again, she was
now his permanent paramour of the night. “Did you like
it?”

Her blush intensified and she looked
away.

Quin caught her chin in his hand and
forced her to look at him. “You did like it. Very much, from all
indications,” he said with a satisfied laugh. “What did you like
the most?”

Aurora slapped at his hand, frowning
when that earned no response. “I asked a question
first.”

“
I’ll answer when you
answer.”

He could answer her now. But he loved
the look on her face when he frustrated her. It aimed for
matronly-disdain, but fell much closer to
displeased-but-brazen-governess.

She huffed in response, her breath
sending a stray tendril of her dark waves flying over her shoulder.
“Fine. I liked” Aurora stopped and gave him an ardent frown. “If
you breathe one word of this to another human soul in the whole of
your lifetime, Quin, so help me God I’ll rip every hair from your
chest one at a time in painstaking fashion until you cry out for
mercy. Is that clear?”