Marry Christmas (Zebra Historical Romance) (17 page)

“Oh, God, that should do for now,” he said, laughing a bit. “I’m afraid I can’t manage more than that at the moment.” He sounded so English, so proper, that Elizabeth had to smile.

“You are far, far more than I hoped for when I left England,” he said, bending down and kissing one nipple. “Far more.” He looked up at her and grinned, and for a moment he looked so boyishly endearing her heart gave a little wrench. “And now it’s down to business.”

She wrinkled her brow. “Business?”

“I want to give you pleasure. Make you come. Do you understand?”

“I don’t think I do.”

“Close your eyes.” She gave him a suspicious look. “Keep them open then,” he said good-naturedly. He kissed her, one of those drugging kisses that made her want to melt into the covers. And then his hand, his wonderful hand, touched her between her legs, and he let out a sound of pure male satisfaction.

“You are so wet,” he said, sounding inordinately happy. Elizabeth was faintly embarrassed by that revelation, but she barely had time to process what he’d said when he touched her in a place that made her entire body sing. There, that was it. That feeling that had vaguely plagued her, that made her wish for something, some thing, and he was touching it, making her…oh, good Lord above, she hadn’t imagined such a feeling in all her life. It was pressure and heat and the most beautiful feeling she’d ever experienced. Just from touching her in the right place. There and there and there. “There,” she whispered, and he kissed her. She moved her hips slightly without thinking, without being aware of anything but his hand between her legs, moving, touching, making her want to scream. And she did. A pulsing heat spread through her suddenly, emanating from between her legs and shooting through her toes and the tips of her breasts. Slowly, luxuriously slowly, she came back to herself.

“Oh, goodness.”

Rand looked down at her flushed face, her swollen lush lips, her tangled hair, and knew without a doubt that he loved her. He kissed her again, so happy he’d given her pleasure before he did what he’d been dreading and looking forward to for weeks.

“That was nice,” she said.

“There is more, you know.”

“I know.” She said it bravely, like a soldier being sent into battle.

“After tonight, it will all be nice. Better than nice, I should think.” She looked impossibly beautiful in the gaslight, her skin flushed from making love. He kissed her neck, moving a delicate chain there to gain access to her clavicle. He loved that spot on her, that feminine beautiful place. He traced his finger there and looked up to see her smiling at him. He kissed her, simply because he found he couldn’t help himself. And then he moved over her, kissing her, pulling back to see her face when he entered her. She was wet and languid and completely trusting.

“Go on, then,” she said, smiling up at him. Oh, God, he loved her. Loved her like he hadn’t realized he could love. He closed his eyes against the rush of desire and love, hoping she wouldn’t see what was so clearly writ ten in his heart. He pushed inside her, stopping when he heard her gasp.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said.

He was shaking above her, his body bathed in a cold sweat as he pressed deeper. She was tight and wet and warm and so damned perfect. She lifted her hips and he lost what little control he had, thrusting deep, making her his. She let out a small cry as he broke through her hymen, and he let out a small cry of pure joy. And then he kissed her, loving her with his body, as well as his heart. He moved slowly, as slowly as a man who was dying of desire could move, but passion overcame him and he thrust again and again until he found his release.

He didn’t know what came over him at the moment.

It wasn’t as if she was his first woman, but she was his wife and just then he truly had never been happier. His heart was nearly exploding with it. “I’m in love with you,” he said, not thinking, not really even caring in that split second that she didn’t love him.

She looked appropriately stunned, and then inappropriately horrified, though she tried desperately to mask it.

The worst was, he couldn’t take it back, even though he’d meant every syllable. What was he thinking to have confessed such a thing to a woman he knew did not love him.

“I know you don’t love me,” he said, though he desperately wished she would argue that point.

“Perhaps some day I shall. I feel I don’t truly know you. You said yourself it’s impossible to fall in love with someone so quickly.”

“I know what I said.” He was cursing himself for being so impulsive and just slightly angered that she would remind him, in their marriage bed, that she was—or at least had been—in love with another man.

She lay there silently for a time, fiddling with her rings, staring up at the ceiling, probably feeling as wretched as he did. “I need to clean up I think. And then I’ll go to bed.”

He had hoped she would stay with him, but perhaps that was too much to ask for. “Good night, then,” he said, feeling like the greatest of fools. He should demand she stay with him, but he knew to do so would only make things worse. Few married couples he knew did share a room, but he’d hoped…oh to hell with what he hoped. He watched her pull on her nightgown, her back turned to him. She was probably thinking she was being modest, but her backside was so lovely, it was all he could do not to drag her back to bed beside him. He let her go, let her walk to her room. When she reached the door, she turned.

“Thank you.” When he didn’t respond, she explained. “For being kind. Good night.”

Kind. He did not want to be kind at the moment, but he was, even so. “Good night.”

Elizabeth sat at her writing desk pouring out her heart to Maggie in a letter she was uncertain she’d ever send.
“He told me he loved me and I couldn’t say it back. If I had, would he not have known I was lying?”
She stared at those words, feeling awful and mean. But she did not love him. She knew what love felt like, knew it made your heart sing. Love made you a bit crazy, it made you dream of the other person, long for them, and when you saw them, it was like all was right in the world. That was how Henry had made her feel. She put her hand to her throat and guiltily touched the chain, wondering if she would ever love the duke.

Wear this heart against you, keep it with you forever, as I will keep your heart with me.

“Oh, God, help me,” she whispered. It was Christmas day and she was sinning already against her husband by longing for another man. She was a horrid, horrid person. It wasn’t as if the duke were cruel or ugly or offensive in any way. He, quite simply, had been far kinder, far more considerate than she could have hoped for.

But she didn’t love him.

Elizabeth stared at the letter knowing how hurt the duke would be if he saw those words she’d written.
“I am so unhappy because I am hurting someone who does not deserve to be hurt.”
She stared at her words, knowing they were true. She did not want to hurt the duke. Squeezing her eyes shut, she realized she still thought of him as “the duke” not as Rand, not even as her husband. He had called her Elizabeth last night and she had been silent.

A knock sounded at the door and she quickly tucked the letter away. “Come in,” she called.

“Merry Christmas.” He stood there wearing only breeches and a white shirt. He really must find a valet, she thought fondly. He was quite disheveled, his pants a bit wrinkled and his shirt askew.

“Merry Christmas,” she answered.

“I’ve got a fire going in the dining room and sitting room, but I don’t know how to turn on the furnace.” He shrugged. “I’ve never lived in a house with heat.”

“Bellewood isn’t heated?” she asked.

“It is in desperate need of modernizing. I’m afraid we’ve no plumbing or electricity, or even gaslight, either.”

Elizabeth smiled slightly. “A bit like living in a medieval castle.”

“A bit better than that, I should hope. It is cold in here. Would you happen to know how to turn the heat on?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I’m beginning to think I was a bit rash suggesting everyone take the day off. I do know there’s a massive furnace in the basement. And a coal bin. But I think there’s more to it than shoveling the coal in. We’d better not chance it. Fires should get us through one day, don’t you think?”

He looked extremely uncertain standing in her doorway, as if he meant to talk about more than the cold but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “I’ve a present for you,” he said, finally. He backed out of the room and brought out a large box, very prettily wrapped.

“I’ve a present for you, as well,” Elizabeth said, running to her wardrobe and pulling out the pen her mother had picked out. She knew she would think of Henry each time she saw her husband using it, so had been rather reluctant to give it to him. But as he was standing there presenting her with a gift, she felt she had to give it to him now.

He laid the box on the bed expectantly, and she hurried over to open it. “I do love presents,” she said, smiling up at him and handing him her gift. She tore open the paper and opened the expensive-looking box to find clothing, made from rich brown velvet.

“It’s a riding habit,” he said. “You said you didn’t ride, but I plan to teach you and you will need a habit.”

Elizabeth pulled it from the box. “It’s lovely,” she said, meaning it.

“Your mother helped me with the sizing.”

“I will look like the finest horsewoman in England even though I don’t know a lick about riding. Thank you.” She kissed his cheek. “Now, open yours.”

He smiled and did as she requested, looking inordinately pleased with the pen. She felt another stab of guilt knowing she had absolutely nothing to do with selecting it. As he studied it, his smile faded slightly.

“You had it inscribed,” he said, his voice sounding odd.

She had?
“Oh, yes. I forgot to check it when I picked it up at Tiffany’s. I hope everything is spelled properly.”

“Quite,” he said, handing it over to her for inspection.

The pen was beautiful, rosewood with gold inlay at the top and solid gold in the second half. It was there she saw the inscription, “To my husband, from your loving wife.”

He must have seen the surprise in her eyes, though she did try to mask it.

“Everything’s fine,” she said with false cheer, handing the pen back to him. Oh,
what
had her mother been thinking? The woman didn’t have a romantic bone in her body and
that
was the inscription she chose?

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, as if he knew she’d had nothing to do with the inscription but was too polite to come out and ask. She certainly wasn’t going to set him straight.

“How many horses do you have?” she asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

“None,” he said shortly, “but I hope to amend that some day.”

It was an awkward reminder that he had been poor until their marriage.

“I should think one of your first expenditures would be a fine valet,” she said, hoping to make him laugh. Instead, he actually turned slightly ruddy and looked down at his rather wrinkled clothes.

“I was teasing,” she said, feeling simply awful.

A loud clanking noise startled them both. “The heat!”

Elizabeth said, rushing over to one of the steam radiators in her room. It was ice cold, but she knew that sound was the pipes expanding with hot steam. She went out the door and down the stairs to find a young man standing in the foyer, his cheeks and nose red from the cold.

“Dad sent me over, miss. In the excitement of last night, he forgot to fill the furnace. You should be right as rain until tonight. Then the duke here can fill it for the night. There’s plenty of coal.”

The duke came up behind her looking bemused. She would have bet her fortune that no one at Bellewood would ever have suggested the duke shovel coal.

“Why don’t you show me where everything is, then?”

Elizabeth watched as the duke disappeared into the cellar with the young man. She’d met enough members of the peerage in her travels with her mother to know most dukes would not have lowered themselves to shovel even one bit of coal, never mind fill a furnace.

When he returned and the boy had left, they went to the only sitting room with a fire. Even though the heat was now on, it was still chilly in the house. They stood close to the fire, close to each other as they silently gazed into the fire.

“I don’t understand you,” she said.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand myself, either.”

Elizabeth let out a small laugh. “You are being so kind and—”

“Please don’t tell me how kind I’m being,” he interrupted.

“It is not a flaw,” she said, wondering why a compliment would upset him.

“It is that I don’t feel kind,” he said harshly. “Do you know what I want to do at this moment? Right now? Let me tell you, kindness has nothing to do with it.”

“What do you want to do?” she asked, even though she was slightly afraid of the answer.

He let out a harsh breath. “I want to wring your neck,” he said. “You did not buy that pen and you did not put that inscription on, either, did you?”

She gave him a guilty smile. “No. But I was so busy and Mother would not let me out of the house.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why wouldn’t your mother let you out of the house?” he asked, his words succinct and far from kind. He asked even though Elizabeth was quite certain he knew the answer. Was he trying to torture her or himself?

Still, Elizabeth refused to tell him the truth, that her mother feared she would run away. “To protect me. Everyone was so excited about the wedding…”

“Everyone but you.”

She glared at him. “…and she wanted to keep people away from me.”

“People or person?”

“I am not discussing this. You sound like—” she stopped, searching for the right word. He supplied them.

“A jealous husband?”

“Yes, that exactly. And you should stop. Now. All this over a silly pen. I’ll buy you another gift if that’s what you want.”

“And perhaps put a more honest inscription,” he muttered.

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. She did not want to hurt him and that’s exactly what had happened. Again.

“I apologize,” he said, giving her a curt bow.

“You’re being kind again,” she said, praying he would truly smile. “You don’t really want to wring my neck, do you?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want to make love to you,” he said, his voice rough. “I should want to wring your neck, but all I can imagine is something else entirely. You are driving me mad.”

She walked up to him, already feeling some of what she felt the night before, and put a hand on his chest, two fingers touching bare skin. “Then why don’t you?”

With a groan, he pulled her to him and she lost herself in his kiss. This was good. If all she ever had with him was this feeling, it was good enough. It was more than good enough.

She wore a gown that buttoned up the front and no corset at all, only a thin chemise. When he saw that, he gave a sound of satisfaction, putting his hands around her waist and pulling her even closer.

“You should never wear anything beneath your dresses,” he said against her mouth. “You are beautiful just as you are.”

They fell together onto the thick carpet, warmed by the fire and by each other. Within seconds, her dress and chemise were pulled down to her waist, her skirts were shoved up above her hips, and he looked down at her with such naked desire she could hardly bear it.

“I could look at you, touch you, all day,” he said, moving his mouth to her breast and his hand between her legs. She let out a sigh, knowing that the amazing things he’d done to her the night before were going to happen again. He kneeled and pulled his shirt over his head in one quick movement, and she reached up to pull him down to her again. He hadn’t shaved that morning, so his beard was rough against her skin. She liked it, the sense that he was so different from her, making her feel impossibly feminine.

He paused only long enough to remove the rest of his clothing and when his hand moved between her legs, she widened them, welcoming the sensation. And then she felt something entirely different, his mouth where his hand had been, his tongue there. Oh, his tongue moving and making her feeling something far beyond what she’d ever felt.

“Oh. Rand,” she said. “Yes. There.” Her body was racked with such an intense pleasure she cried out as if in pain, her heart pounding hard inside her as she arched against him. She was still pulsing when he entered her, moving in the rhythm he created, pushing her to another precipice as he kissed her and thrust inside her, as he suckled one nipple, as he told her he loved her. She came again, holding him against her, holding him until the sensation slowly ebbed away.

That afternoon they went for a walk holding hands. Rand couldn’t stay morose for long. After all, he was in love with a beautiful woman who pleased him far more than any woman he’d ever known, and she was his for all time. She would come to love him, he knew she would. Certainly she was not pretending to enjoy their lovemaking or giving him false smiles. He was not so blinded by love not to see that. And she had held out her hand for him to take. That meant something, did it not?

They talked about their childhoods, argued about how many children they should have. She happily reminded him that she was only required to produce the heir and perhaps a spare, while he insisted they have ten children.

“A dozen,” he said, pulling her to him for a quick kiss.

“I shouldn’t know what to do with all those children,” she argued.

“We could have a cricket team. The Bellewood Blackmores. That sounds rather nice, doesn’t it.”

“If we had two they could be tennis partners,” she pointed out. “Girls don’t play cricket.”

“My girls would,” he said.

“Why not baseball? Baseball is a far grander sport.”

“Baseball is for heathens,” he said, teasing her.

That was what they did all day. They discovered favorite colors and foods, they teased and kissed and held hands. When they came in from their walk, their cheeks rosy from the cold, they ran up the stairs to his room and made love again, falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Elizabeth woke up and stretched, feeling slightly sore in places that had never been slightly sore before. She was completely naked and completely happy. It was amazing, really. Just that morning, she’d been miserable thinking she’d never fall in love with her husband, and here she was, smiling, drowsy, and completely satisfied. And thinking that perhaps she might be falling in love.