He lay atop her, drained and gasping for breath. Her sweetness and her intense passion would certainly be the death of him. The elusive fragrance that was Aurora assailed him, and he sighed with pleasure. Mistress, indeed! She had, in a day's time, spoiled him for all other women forever. She shifted beneath him, and immediately he rolled off her. “I think I may kill you,” he said low, “for all the time you cost us with your stubborn nature, my precious.” He took her hand and squeezed it hard. “I think I fell in love with you the day I saw you coming from the sea, but I put it from me. Then, when you arrived in England, I was tortured by the thought you would wed another and I could not have you. And when you chose St. John, I wanted to kill him!”
“Hush, Valerian.” She leaned over him, stopping his mouth with her own for a moment. Then she continued. “I can never forget that my selfishness caused Cally great unhappiness, and cost her her life. I must live with that the rest of my life even as I experience the joy of loving you. It seems so unfair that I should be happy and poor Cally will never know happiness.”
“Then you love me as I love you?” he said, his voice breaking.
“Of course I love you, you fool,” she replied. “When I would daydream, it was your face I saw, and never St. John's. I did not understand it until now, but I realize that I was in love with you although I could not admit it for fear of being disloyal to my sister. After all, it was not right that I love Cally's husband, Valerian, but I may certainly love my own husband, may I not?”
There was a discreet knock upon the bedchamber door, and Browne's voice said softly but distinctly, “Supper is served, your grace.” Then they heard him retreating down the hallway.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her.
She loved him!
“Ravenous, my lord,” she assured him, her look smoldering, and then she amended, “for food also, my darling!”
Laughing, he arose and crossed the room to open the door and bring in an enormous tray which he placed upon a large rectangular table set against one of the paneled walls. He tossed two more logs upon the fire, coaxing the flames higher. Then he took the bedside taperstick and used it to light several other candles upon the table and about the bedroom. “What shall I bring you?” he asked her.
“What is there?” she responded.
Removing the silver domes covering the dishes, he said, “Raw oysters, capon, cold asparagus from the greenhouse, bread, cheese, butter, and fruit. And champagne.”
“Everything!” she told him eagerly.
He filled her plate and brought it to her. She had plumped up the pillows and drawn the coverlet up modestly over her breasts. Taking the plate from him, she began to eat with great gusto, swallowing down six raw oysters and then attacking a piece of capon breast. Joining her with his own full plate, he found himself being aroused as she ate her asparagus, sucking the vinaigrette from her fingers, licking her mouth with her facile tongue. He averted his eyes and concentrated upon the consumption of a dozen oysters. He was obviously going to need their restorative powers.
“We have no champagne!” she cried, and putting her plate aside on the coverlet climbed from the bed and padded across the room to pour them two crystal gobletsful. She brought him his, bending first to dip a nipple into the sparkling wine, and then offering it to him mischievously. “Is it to your grace's taste?” she inquired innocently.
“It will do,” he replied, licking her nipple with a grin and taking the goblet from her.
She climbed back into their bed with her own narrow crystal, sipping it decorously. “Delicious,” she pronounced. “Do do you think we could dip your . . .”
“No!” he said, and he began to laugh again.
“Why not?” she demanded. “Have you done it before?”
He shook his head. “It is not advisable, Aurora. You know what will happen if we begin such love play, and then there will be champagne and oyster shells all over the bedclothes.”
“Oh, very well, Valerian, but one day when we are not so encumbered we must try it. Perhaps I shall bathe in a tub full of champagne, and you may lick me dry,” she tempted him.
“How can a girl who was a virgin until a day ago have such lascivious and libertine thoughts?” he demanded of her.
“Are women not supposed to think of
it?”
she asked him. “Even after they are wed? That is not fair! Certainly men think on
it,
and for that matter, men get to do
it
without any criticism before they are married, and ofttimes after with other women.”
“But we will not do
it,”
he said, “with anyone other than each other, Aurora.” Rising from the bed, he took their plates and then brought her a wet cloth with which he wiped her face and hands before doing his own. “Would you like some dessert? Cook has sent up some lovely grapes, and little meringues.”
“Bring the champagne, and we shall make our own dessert,” Aurora told him. “I have a great many more licentious and salacious thoughts to share with you, my husband. Perhaps I shall even convince you to act upon them,
or perhaps I shall act upon them,”
she teased him.
“You have it in your head to kill me,” he said. “Don't you?”
Aurora chuckled. “Only with love, Valerian, and only if you promise to slay me with your love too.”
Shaking his head, he refilled her crystal goblet and his own. Then he joined her in their bed, the burning look in his dark blue eyes matching the passion in her aquamarine-blue ones.