He knew she wasn’t readying for sleep; sunset was barely upon them. No, she was readying for
him
.
Six minutes. Was six minutes enough? It would have to be.
James set his drink down with a purposeful clink and headed for the stairs.
When he reached his dressing room, he paused to listen. Not a sound from their bedchamber. Was she lying in bed, waiting for him? Thinking about
more
? James tugged off his tie, slipped out of his jacket, and turned the door handle.
“Oh!” a female voice gasped. His wife or her maid. He couldn’t be sure. They’d both turned to gape at him. The maid’s hands had frozen over the ties of Sarah’s corset. Her dress was gone, her bustle and petticoats as well.
“I . . .” James tried to think what to say, but his mind was occupied with sending up a prayer of thanks that he hadn’t strolled through the door in the buff. “I apologize,” he finally managed. “I see I did not give you enough time.”
Sarah shook her head. “No, it is just that Mary wasn’t expecting me so early and—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Mary murmured, bobbing a curtsy. “Ma’am.” She hovered for a moment, clearly uncertain if she should continue with her task.
James cleared his throat. “Shall I . . . ?”
His wife looked from him to the maid and back again. “I’m sure we can . . . Um, Mary, if you could only unknot the strings?”
Mary’s fingers sprang to action and worked at the laces as if her life depended upon it. A few moments later, the knot gave way to her determination. Before the ties fluttered to rest against Sarah’s back, the maid had dropped her curtsy and spun toward the opposite dressing room door. The door closed, and they were alone.
The skin of her shoulders gleamed in the lamplight. Her cheeks were soft pink when she started to turn toward him, but then she paused and turned her back again, and James watched the blush creep toward the nape of her neck. The combination of her modesty and her bare skin twined together and dug deep into his body. She was so innocent, and still she wanted him.
Trying to tamp down the need that already throbbed through him, James slowly crossed the room. He paused a foot from her, taking in the sight of her cinched waist and gauzy chemise. He’d never seen her thus: fully covered, but completely indecent. When he reached for her stays, his hands trembled.
Her gasp echoed through the room when he moved his fingers beneath the crossed strings and tugged. A few more pulls, and her ribs expanded as she inhaled a deep breath. Something about the breath rushing past her lips made him even harder.
She pressed both hands to her waist to unlatch the front hooks, and the corset fell to the floor to land at her feet. They stared at it together, but when James noticed the way she rolled her shoulders, he put a hand to her back to rub the tension away.
Reveling in the surprising heat of the slightly damp linen, James pressed his thumb along the edge of her spine.
“Ah,” she sighed.
“It must be a relief to take that thing off.”
“Yes.”
He put his other hand to work on the left side of her spine.
“Oh, James. That feels so good.” Her head bowed, stretching her neck out for his view, only inches away. Tempted, he lifted the heavy fall of her hair and pushed it over one shoulder. Now her spine was exposed from the middle of her back to her hairline. His thumbs crept up to bare skin and elicited a soft whimper with each circle he pressed to her muscles. The sounds vibrated through the pads of his fingers and chased along his nerves until his cock throbbed.
As soon as he reached her shoulders, he stepped closer and put his mouth to the side of her neck, finally tasting her. This new, wanton Sarah let her head fall to the side so that he could nibble to his heart’s content. Even more surprising, she pressed her backside to his erection.
“Will you . . . ?” She took a breath and tried again. “Will you douse the lamps?”
James didn’t bother answering; he simply let go of her shoulders and moved toward the closest lamp. But it made no difference. The faint light of the lowering sun still exposed her to his view. He did not volunteer to close the thicker drapes. Instead, he began unbuttoning his shirt.
Eyes wide, she watched, gaze lowering as each button slid free. When he shrugged the shirt off entirely, her eyes closed.
“Does my body disturb you?” He tried to ignore the sharp hurt that caused.
“Of course not.” Her eyelids rose, her gaze darted frantically over his chest, then to the floor, back to his body and then his eyes. “I should not like to stare.”
Honest relief made him smile. “You wouldn’t
like
to or you are trying to be all that is proper?”
Her attempt to answer his smile did not quite succeed, so he only took her hand and led her across the room to their bed. “Close your eyes, Sarah,” he murmured.
Facing him, she stood still and closed her eyes, not offering a protest when he reached for the hem of her chemise and slowly dragged it up. First her drawers were revealed, stark white against her ivory skin. Then her belly, soft and smooth.
James averted his eyes when he pulled the chemise over her head. He wanted to see all of her, needed that, so before taking her in, he reached for the tie of her drawers and freed her from every stitch of fabric.
Then . . . By God. The moonlight views he’d stolen of his wife were nothing to this. Her rose-tipped breasts a bit too small to fill his hand. Her waist where it nipped in just before flaring out to succulent hips. Her sex, the dark curls of her mound. James held back a hum of approval.
Though her hands fisted at her sides, Sarah did not cover herself. She only stood, eyes closed, and let him look.
James went to his knees. His fingers felt too thick as he fumbled at the clasps of her stockings. All his coordination had been stolen by the shock of the view. He could see past her curls from this vantage to the beckoning pink beneath. He could smell her heat, the musky scent of feminine arousal. His mouth watering, he thought of kissing her there. Would she cringe in horror? Would she sob in pleasure?
The idea of shocking her proved impossibly tempting. He wanted her shocked. Scandalized. By him.
He pushed the stockings down, one at a time, then smoothed his palms back up her bare legs, slowly, slowly. When he reached her outer thighs, he pushed farther around, so that his hands slipped up to the perfect roundness of her buttocks. Sarah gasped, and her hips jumped forward just a bit, offering a more generous peek of glistening pink.
His mouth watered for a taste. Just a taste. How could she know if he didn’t show her?
James spread his fingers out, taking a firmer grip on her round bottom. Then he pressed one chaste kiss to the triangle of dark curls that tempted him.
“Oh!” she gasped. But she did not pull away.
He kissed again, lower, and let the tip of his tongue delve in to graze her plump flesh.
“James, don’t!”
Cursing himself for a beast, he ignored her and slid his tongue lower, feeling her lips part just the tiniest bit at his thrust. He’d finally found the taste of her, pleasure on his tongue.
“You can’t . . .” she protested, finally touching him. Her hand curled into his hair and pulled. “Please don’t.”
James looked up her body, past the curve of her belly and the jut of her breasts. “Open your eyes,” he urged. Sarah shook her head. “Open your eyes,” he said more firmly, telling himself he’d stop now if she didn’t. He’d stop and apologize and tuck her beneath the sheets. But Sarah opened her eyes.
Willing her to yield, James darted his tongue against her slit. When he looked back to her, her whole face had tightened. He held her with his eyes and shifted his hands lower to tug her legs apart. She slid her feet only a few inches, but it was enough. This time his tongue parted her lips and he was sliding over that pearl of hard tissue.
Her hand clenched in his hair and she gasped. He knew it felt good to her, because he could taste her pleasure. He licked again, flicked his tongue over her bud, and when her thighs began to shake, he eased her to the bed. Yes, now she was spread before him, deep and pink and wet, and James could hardly think.
He’d done this before, only a few times. But this was his
wife,
letting him suck at her, letting him push his tongue into her center, and he almost could not bear it.
“James?” she gasped. “James, is this all right? Can we . . . ?”
“Yes,” he groaned. When she thought of
more,
he wanted her picturing
this.
He would never stop thinking of it, surely. Never.
James dragged his tongue down as far as he could, then back up to circle her clitoris.
“Oh, it feels so . . . I don’t think I should . . .”
Some wretched animal inside him swelled with dominance. No, she shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. But he would, because he wanted this with her. His sweet, innocent wife. He wanted to create a world where she was something else in private. His secret lover.
So James closed his lips around her tight bud and sucked gently.
“James! Oh, God, oh, no! Please. Please.”
Yes, please,
he thought, as her soft thighs tightened, squeezing him, shaking. Her hips jerked, she screamed, and his mouth was full of the taste of Sarah.
Listening to her ragged panting, James sat back on his heels and wiped his lips. He could spend his seed right now with only the barest touch of his own hand, he was sure of it. Best to take a few deep breaths himself.
Sarah’s knees closed with a slap as she sat straight up. “What did you do?” she demanded. Her nipples were even pinker now, tipped with deep, hard rose.
“I kissed you.”
“Yes, but . . . Do men . . . ? Is that something that people
do
?”
“Yes.”
She stared him down for a long moment. “Are you quite sure?”
“I’m certain. But if you ask me not to, I’ll never do it again.”
“Oh.” Her eyelids fluttered, and he thought she was looking down to the place he’d just tongued. “I can’t imagine that it brought you any pleasure. Surely—”
“On the contrary. I’m sure I’ve never enjoyed anything more. Did you like it, Sarah?”
She swallowed hard.
“It’s all right to say yes.” He added, “Or no,” though his throat tried to cut off the words.
“Yes,” she finally whispered, and the animal raged back to life in his chest, greedy with lust.
“You liked it?”
“Yes.”
“And . . . tomorrow, Sarah? Tomorrow, would you like it again?”
“Oh. I . . . y-yes.” Her eyes filled with tears, shaming him.
An ache in his chest briefly overcame the one in his groin. “Ah, love. I’m sorry. Men are beasts when they’re overcome with lust, and I seem to be no exception.” Chastened, he rose to his feet and lifted her from the bed to turn back the sheets. “Here.”
Though he grieved the loss, he covered her naked body in crisp white, then sat on the edge of the bed and let his head fall to his hands.
By God, he might have ruined everything. All her awakening desire and tentative curiosity. What kind of man couldn’t control himself with his own wife? What kind of husband would hope to make her feel dirty?
When Sarah’s hand brushed his back with a butterfly touch, he cringed.
“James,” she breathed. “Are you overcome with lust?”
“I was, but I can control it. You needn’t worry.” Perhaps he should excuse himself to the dressing room and take care of the problem in private.
Her voice interrupted his brooding. “For me?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“You were overcome with lust for me?”
He froze. Her warm hand settled flat against his spine. “Of course for you, Sarah.”
“I . . .” Her fingers curled into his back. “I like that, too.” His heart stopped as her hand stroked down to tease along the waistband of his trousers. “I’m sorry I’m so nervous. I do not mean to be.”
He turned to face her, clasping her hand in his. “No, I’m to blame. There’s no need to rush. We have a lifetime together. Thousands of nights.”
She looked startled for a moment, then her mouth bloomed into a wide smile. “Thousands? My word.”
“Too melodramatic?”
“No, but you remind me that perhaps . . .” Blushing, she hesitated until James arched an eyebrow. “Um, perhaps I should see exactly what it is I’ve committed myself to.”
He frowned in confusion. “But we have already done that. Many times.”
She turned from pink to red in a fascinating suffusion of color. “Yes, but . . .” Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she leaned close. “I have never seen your instrument.”
James suffered a brief, disorienting thought of the violin he kept on the top shelf of his wardrobe, but then her meaning burst over his mind with startling clarity. He should not have laughed, but he did. Thank God, Sarah did not seem to mind, though she put her hands over her eyes and peeked through her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “Of course you would wish to view the beast that hunts you every night.”
“James!” she scolded, voice full of laughter, then she squeaked when he stood and reached for the buttons of his remaining clothing. But when he slipped off his trousers and unfastened his drawers, Sarah’s hands fell away, and she watched with not a glimmer of humor in her eyes.
C
HAPTER
4
The next morning Sarah woke very differently than she had the day before. She remembered everything she’d done immediately. Before the room had even come into focus, the night was acting itself out in her mind in vivid colors. Finally, she’d seen his body . . . nude.
James had blushed a bit. Or perhaps it had only been blood rushing to his skin, because he’d met her gaze unflinchingly as he’d divested himself of every stitch of clothing.
His boldness had sent shivers through her body. Not just over her skin, but everywhere, into her stomach and her sex, even her soul. That shivering had been nothing to do with modesty, so Sarah had let her hands fall from her face and offered the same honesty he was offering her.
His body was so different from hers. The same structure, perhaps, but a different architecture altogether. Straight planes where her body curved, texture where she was smooth. And, of course, his sex . . . proudly exposed while hers hid itself in shyness.
Though, as she’d looked him over from head to toe, her sex had felt decidedly less shy than it had in days past. She’d even dared to run a quizzical finger down his shaft . . . and back up. He had held still, like granite despite the shocking heat that emanated from his flesh. Her courage had seen her through one more touch, a slower slide of her fingers down his length, a quick caress of the tight testicles beneath. Then she’d dropped her hand, nodded, and tossed back the bedsheets to invite him in.
Smiling at the bright morning sunlight that stole over those very sheets, Sarah sighed with joy. A little of the strangeness of her life had washed away during the night. Her husband’s body now seemed a mystery to be explored with enthusiasm. And her own body, too. James had shown her just this morning that she had many things to learn about her own flesh as well.
He’d awakened her with strokes and kisses, then entered her body from
behind,
like a stallion covering a mare. At the very thought of it, Sarah blushed and hid her smile. The shock of it, along with the attention of James’s gentle fingers, had pushed her to her climax with scandalous speed.
Sarah Rose Hood was
definitely
in love with her husband.
She laughed aloud at the happy thought, then shut her mouth with a snap when footsteps hurried toward her from the dressing room.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Mary said, heading straight for the curtains to throw them wide. “Shall I call for tea?”
“Please. And I should like a bath this morning.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
After she tugged the bellpull to signal for tea, Mary bent down to retrieve something from the floor. Sarah’s thoughts flashed immediately to the packet of books she’d hidden beneath the bed, but Mary rose with evidence even more mortifying than the books. James’s trousers. The maid bent once more and retrieved one of Sarah’s stockings.
The trail of clothing continued to the pile heaped in the middle of the room. Sarah’s corset and shift. Her drawers. James’s shirt.
Oh, God.
Sarah took the easy way out and drew the sheets up to her nose as she closed her eyes and pretended to curl back into sleep for a few more moments. But instead of sleeping, she murmured a silent prayer that Mary was not the type to gossip with the maids next door.
Why, they must have gone at it like beasts. And her so proper and missish!
Not that it mattered. Sarah wouldn’t take it back for the world.
Her tea arrived, and then the tub. She heard the metal thud of it being set in place in the dressing room and the first loud swish of water. James had promised they would build a bathing room next year, but Sarah felt thankful for the slow preparation this morning.
“Mary, will you knock when the bath is ready?”
Mary nodded and closed the door to the dressing room.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Sarah set the tea tray aside and jumped—naked!—from the bed to reach beneath it for the books. She wanted to know more, wanted to know
everything.
She scrambled back beneath the bedcovers and tore open the packaging to pull the second book from the pile. Cup of hot tea in hand, she began to read.
A quarter hour later a knock on the door relieved her from her boredom. This book was nothing like the first. In fact, the author seemed dedicated to writing a whole book on only the most boring topics of marriage. Frugal meal planning. Economic use of servants. The proper way to address one’s spouse in public and private. When he finally got to the bedroom, the writer’s language became so circumspect that Sarah could not begin to puzzle out his meaning.
Happy to be interrupted, she haphazardly retied the books and stowed them under the bed after pulling on the wrap Mary had left.
She sank into the hot bathwater with a deep sigh, noticing every caress of the little waves she created. Her sex stung a bit at the touch of the heat. Perhaps James had used her too roughly. The delightful idea made her chuckle, and the steam jumped and stirred at her breath.
Not until later did she realize that, for the first time in her life, she’d stepped into the tub with not one moment of shame at her nudity.
* * *
She’d dressed carefully again, choosing her clothing with an eye toward the view she’d provide her husband. Then she’d tinkered with next week’s menu a bit, avoiding any of the foods mentioned in that horridly practical book. She hadn’t gone out on any of her usual excursions; instead, she’d waited to see if her husband would join her for luncheon.
In the end, he hadn’t come. She might have sulked, but he’d sent an extravagant bouquet of flowers with an errand boy, as well as a slightly risqué note of apology, so Sarah only pouted for a few minutes before deciding to make the most of it.
“Send a tray to my room!” she called to the maid sweeping the parlor and rushed up the stairs to pull a new book from the pile.
She hadn’t known that James could—or would—take her from behind. She hadn’t known he would put his mouth
there
and make her shudder and cry. What else must there be? What more could they do together? Her sex felt warm and tight as she pondered the thought.
Waiting for her meal—and squirming a bit on her chair—Sarah flipped idly through the book, hoping to find some interesting pictures. Unfortunately, this author showed more interest in charts than drawings. She crinkled her nose in disappointment as she hid the book in her skirts at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Despite her brief hope that it might be James, it was only Betsy, the kitchen maid, lugging the heavy tray. Sarah had nibbled half a piece of buttered bread by the time the girl stopped pouring tea and puttering around. As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, Sarah slipped the book onto the table.
Women in Marriage: A Treatise on the Peculiar Health of Wives and Mothers
.
Peculiar.
Well, that might be the word to describe her. Sarah’s lips were just rising into a smile when she saw the author’s name.
Dr. C. Malcolm Whitcomb.
Her lungs froze, body reacting before her brain could generate a thought.
Whitcomb.
Brow furrowed, she stared at the name imprinted into the cover in gold ink. The name was familiar, but why did it make her muscles tighten to the point of pain?
“Doctor Whitcomb,” she said aloud, and the words left a bright trail of recognition in their wake. The bread fell from her hand, landing on the carpet with a
plop.
Her mother’s doctor. The very man who had treated her mother in the years before her death. He’d been an elegant man, polite and handsome, and very somberly concerned about his patient’s deterioration.
The anticipation with which Sarah had approached her reading vanished like paper tossed into a fire. In the space of one short day, she’d forgotten her original purpose in acquiring the books. It hadn’t been titillation or curiosity, but true fear that had driven her to that bookshop. That fear was back.
Tray of food forgotten, Sarah rose with the book in her hand and rushed to the door to lock it. This would be far more than idle reading. She curled into the large chair nearest the fireplace and opened the book.
She tried to read slowly, but the words rushed at her. Whitcomb seemed to believe that women’s natural modesty often protected them from their own inherent weaknesses. Their sheltered lives provided protection and insulation from the realities of life. He theorized that the very delicacy that so attracted a man to clasp his wife to his bosom also left her susceptible to being traumatized by that attention.
A woman is not a sexual creature. The scabbard is designed only to embrace the sword, not to take action. The wife receives the husband’s attentions because she was made to do so, not because she is compelled by desire. But her delicate psyche, previously innocent of all idea of lust and copulation, can be damaged by this male assault. She cannot make sense of it. It holds no meaning for her. And so, if already predisposed to pitiful weakness, her brain may suffer peculiar maladies that lead to mental destruction.
Pitiful weakness? She hoped that wasn’t true, but the rest of it . . . The rest of it made her hands tremble. Marital relations
had
been strange and startling to her, even frightening in the beginning. She certainly hadn’t been compelled by desire.
Sarah glanced at the bellpull, tempted to call for a glass of sherry to steel her nerves against the rest of it. But she was already putting on an odd show for the servants. They might be inclined to report to her husband if she began drinking wine in the middle of the afternoon.
After taking one long, deep breath, Sarah bent her head back to the book. She read quickly, emotionlessly. Pages and pages of information.
According to Doctor Whitcomb, there were several different manifestations of this mental damage. Paranoia. Hypochondria. Exhaustion. Painful spasms and rictus of the birth canal.
Despite the terrible nature of the afflictions, Sarah began to relax. She was fine. These diseases had nothing to do with her.
But she breathed a sigh of relief too soon.
Nymphomania,
the chapter heading screamed in dark script.
An ungovernable desire for sexual contact and congress
.
Well. It was possible there was a hint of familiarity in that. Though she smiled at the thought, her amusement faded as her eyes crept over the page.
Nymphomania, sometimes known as erotomania, is the most insidious of all the feminine disorders. It begins with restlessness and creeping warmth. Insomnia. Confusion. Then the building desire for physical stimulation which becomes a preoccupation with thoughts of marital relations.
“Oh, no,” Sarah breathed. “Oh, my Lord.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips, hard. Nymphomania? Was that the strangeness that had been crawling under her skin for days?
Though marital relations may occasionally occur more often than once a week in a healthy relationship, a nymphomaniac may encourage sexual congress every night, perhaps even multiple times in the same twenty-four-hour period. Morning or midnight, it makes no difference to this pitiful creature. Her obsession has nothing to do with duty or even procreation, and her affliction endangers the husband’s health as well. Without the natural damper of expected wifely modesty, a man will succumb to his basest lusts. Her insatiable demands force him to engage in unnatural acts involving alternative stimulation of the genitals as he cannot otherwise satisfy her urges.
She dropped the book, threw it, almost, so that it bounced off the wall before landing back at her feet. Despite that she could see it lying on the rug, the feel of it lingered on her fingers. Sarah rubbed her hand against her skirts, desperate to remove the phantom stain.
Unnatural acts. Yes, she had done that, had tempted her husband into it. Not only that, but she had reached her climax three times in the space of a few short hours. She
was
insatiable. What had seemed so pleasurable now seemed fraught with danger.
What did it mean? If this was her illness, could it be cured? Would it worsen?
Heart pounding, she stared at the blue cover as if the cloth had suddenly begun to ripple with dark life. Her symptoms were laid out so clearly, so vividly. Whatever else she would read seemed certain to be just as true. The very reason she needed to read more, and yet her hand would not obey the order to reach down and grasp the book.
“Do not be so cowardly,” Sarah whispered to herself. But it seemed as if her marriage—indeed her whole life—might hang in the balance, teetering on the delicate edge of one page in a book. “Coward,” she said again but still could not lean down. Instead, she leapt to her feet and began to pace.
There was no reason to think this particular physician was right where others were wrong. Hadn’t she just read a book asserting that women should feel pleasure and desire? Indeed, that author claimed that female climax was
necessary
for conception and marital harmony. She’d stopped feeling ill about her desires after that. In fact, just moments ago she’d been happy.
Sarah scrubbed her hands over her face, hoping the pressure would rub away her confusion, but nothing changed. Nothing but the shifting view of the rug as she paced back and forth.
Yes, this doctor had treated her mother, and perhaps that lent his words a certain weight, but her mother hadn’t improved. She’d declined. Dr. Whitcomb was no demigod.
Sarah stopped and turned slowly toward the book. She stared it down.
She’d deceived James into this marriage. She owed him at least the courage to discover if her deception had been harmless . . . or horrendous.