Authors: Michelle Woodward
And instantly felt her stiffen.
At the look of pure panic that crossed her expression, Nicholas felt regret fill him instantly. Of course, no matter how excited his new wife was by his attentions, she was a gently bred lady who undoubtedly expected him to turn into some raging animal. Her face took on a steadfast expression, and Nicholas’s immense surprise, Ania rose from her chair and crossed over to the large bed he had ordered specifically for her chambers.
And so it was to begin, thought Ania, her heart doing some spectacular somersaults within her chest. She had enjoyed the feel of Nicholas’s rapturous head rub, but there was also the sidelong knowledge that it was not as innocent as it might have been. Terrified at the feelings rising up inside of her own self, Ania had decided that the sooner they got over the part of the evening where Nicholas would wrench the clothes off her body and ravage her, the better. She was actually very tired, and so she took matters into her own hands.
At the determined, yet slightly terrified look on Ania’s face, Nicholas bit his lower lip. Never before had a woman he had in bed been so plainly scared of him, and somehow, the idea that this might all be moving just too fast for her, that she would be coming to him now unwillingly gnawed at Nicholas directly underneath his skin. She was innocent; she had no idea that the way she had just responded to his ministrations to her locks was the way it all could be, and quite suddenly and solidly, Nicholas decided that he would prove to her that very fact.
Crossing over to where she sat on the bed, Nicholas sat down, simultaneously amused and guilty at the look on her face; good God, it was as if she expected him to toss her down on the bed and ravage her immediately! And although the idea appealed to him enormously as he took in the lush curves of her body underneath the lilac nightgown she wore, he had a different kind of evening in mind for them.
Ania’s eyes widened as he leaned his solid, warm body over hers, but confusion instantly warred with trepidation as she heard the bell ring. What was he doing?
Johnson the maidservant appeared a few minutes later. “Sir?” she queried, avoiding looking at the intimate scene of husband and wife planted at the edge of the bed in their nightclothes. Ania tried to hide her body best she could against such impropriety, but Nicholas seemed to not share her embarrassment. Why would he, when he cut such a fine figure against the fawn-colored breeches he wore, and in his own home no less?
“Fetch a newspaper, would you, Johnson?” he said, leaning back against his outstretched arm on the bed.
Ania instantly wrinkled her brow. Not only did he know the servants by name, which was highly unusual and something she doubted her parents would have approved of, but she could not imagine what he was going to do with a newspaper now, on their wedding night. Perhaps she was not masking her nerves as much as she imagined she was, and now he was going to punish her by striking her with the paper? The image of him smacking her bottom with a rolled-up newspaper held a naughty appeal for her, and she blessed everything she could think of that Nicholas did not catch the grin that spread over her face in that moment as she leaned forward so that her hair masked her.
With an impeccably controlled expression on her face, Johnson fetched the newspaper and, carefully sidestepping the pair, set in on the table where Ania had just sat. Rising from the bed, Nicholas went to collect the newspaper and settled himself deeply in the cushy armchair nearby. Realizing that the evening was not going to go at all as she thought it might, Ania scooted over on the bed until she was comfortable against the oversized pillows and waited.
“I, ahem, have never admitted this to anyone except Brent,” said Nicholas, peeling open the periodical, “But I enjoy reading the serials, particularly the one by someone who goes by the moniker the Illustrated Lady. I was wondering if I could read some of it tonight, with you.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that room. Ania had to force herself to hinge her jaw back together upon hearing the bomb that Nicholas Connols, her new husband, had just dropped on her. She feared that he might misconstrue this as shock at the fact that he read dramatic stories about pirates.
And in fact, she was shocked. Not so much at the fact that he liked to read dramatic stories about tender-hearted pirates, but at meeting her first devoted fan and having him be so closely tied to her. Ania felt a flush creep up her neck and prayed it did not stain her face and betray her secret, or worse, confuse Nicholas, who she was seeing in a whole new light at that very moment.
“P-please,” she said, gesturing towards the newspaper. “I would like nothing better.” And in fact, she realized, as his warm baritone brought the stormy seas and rising passions to life, she was telling the truth. Although she put her work out to the public, she had never read it aloud before to anyone, not to Margaret and certainly not to herself. To her growing amazement, Nicholas became even more animated as the conflict in the story began to build, and his whole face grew soft and warm, so that for the first time, Ania could see the man behind the scandal, the man behind the rumors of dozens of women.
When he was done, Ania felt pinned to the bed by the force of her own incredulity. As Nicholas set down the newspaper and crossed over until he was sitting by the foot of the bed, Ania felt an almost overpowering urge to touch him in some way, to communicate her wonder in some tangible form of expression; so great was her feeling that she almost did not hear the question Nicholas posed her.
“What?’ she asked, shaking her head clear of all the emotions.
“I asked,” Nicholas repeated quietly, “If you had cared very much for Brent.”
A wrinkle creased her brow as the full import of his words assailed her. “You mean, did I wish to be married to him instead?” she asked, wrapping her arms around the knees that she had folded in on herself. At the look of pain that crossed his face fleetingly, Ania wanted to hit herself on the forehead. What an impolite thing to say to one’s husband!
“I was wondering if perhaps you two had had some kind of agreement and you were very disappointed to be married to a philanderer such as myself,” said Nicholas, with just a wink of joviality in his voice.
Ania considered her answer carefully. “It was true that I held Brent in high regard and hoped we might have quite the civil marriage, perhaps even be friends. But I think that you do yourself a disservice by calling yourself a philanderer.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Nicholas, finding himself drawn irresistibly closer to his delicious young wife, who had laughed and gasped in all the right places as he had read.
Ania turned her serious green eyes on him. “May I be frank?”
Nicholas smiled. “I wish for you always to be frank with me, Ania.”
She flushed slightly at the usage of her name, then nodded. “Well, Your Grace, just look at what is happening to your family. Everybody is talking about it, but you, you have taken it completely in stride. More than that,” she pressed on, “you have taken on the duties of your brother with nary a protest, including an unwanted bride you no doubt married purely out of pity.”
That he could not deny. But after hearing Ania’s honest reply, Nicholas felt something inside of himself that he had never felt towards a woman before.
Good Lord, he thought he could respect his wife.
Timid and green as she was, she seemed to possess an innate kind of maturity beyond her years, and he could not deny the little leap his heart took when she mentioned that not only was she not in love with his brother, but that she too, was looking for a true companion in life. In a matter of seconds, Lady Ania Cromwell had turned his world completely upside down.
“Ania,” he said in a low voice, meeting his dark brown eyes with her green ones, “Call me Nick.”
“Nick,” she said, and then, to both of their utter surprise, she threw her arms around him.
She did not care what this appeared like; she knew only that the urge to demonstrate her happiness had finally overwhelmed her. Although she knew that this was a most unorthodox wedding night, Ania would not have changed any bit of it for the world. As Nicholas Connols’ arms closed around her in a responsive hug, Ania closed her eyes to keep tears of an unknown emotion from rising beyond the surface of her lids. By speaking such truth with him, she felt connected to him, and by his admiration of her work, she felt like they were destined for a most interesting marriage. If only she could read his thoughts.
Nicholas’s thoughts in that moment mirrored her own almost exactly, except for the mild distraction of the feel of his wife in his arms. A fine honeysuckle scent rose from her hair, and the weight of her body pressed against his was warm and exciting. But despite this, despite the fact that certain parts of his anatomy hoped that she would continue her demonstration of eagerness and climb into his lap, Nicholas felt something inside of himself shift, and knew that he would wait however long she needed to explore that aspect of their relationship. As her fingers reflexively stroked his back, however, he suppressed a groan and hoped that it would not take her too long, or he did not know how long he could hold himself back.
She released him, and his body felt cold. Ania leaned back against the pillows and patted the space on the bed beside her. He moved quickly, scarcely daring to believe the invitation, and when she leaned her head against his arm, he found himself holding it completely for fear of shifting their position.
“Tell me something from your childhood,” she said to him, and Nicholas felt himself relax. They swapped sibling tales for many hours and by the time they were done, Ania had fallen into a gentle sleep. Careful not to wake her, Nicholas replaced his own body with a pillow and crept out of the room, stealing a last look at his wife in restful repose, her long lashes fluttering against her cheekbones.
The night was warm.
* * *
“You are most certainly joking.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“His favorite serial... is the one you write? What are the odds of that?” asked Margaret, pushing an escaped lock of blond hair back into her carefully managed coif.
“I was just as shocked as you were,” Ania answered her, delighting in her sister’s reaction to this wonderful piece of news.
“That is a marvelous turn of events. Do you think you will let him in on your little secret?”
Ania considered that for a moment. “Do you know, I almost told him during that first night. But I think it’s still so new; I do not know, after all, exactly how he will react. It is one thing to enjoy reading a serial full of passionate pirates, but quite another to have your wife be the author of them.”
Margaret nodded her head sympathetically, but at the mention of the wedding night, a wicked grin lit up her features. “So tell me, sister,” she said, smoothing out her plum skirts, “how exactly did that first night go?” With this, she looked up at Ania with all the pounce and eagerness of a kitten.
Ania felt the words of truth choke her throat. The fact of the matter was that a week had passed since her wedding night, and she and her husband had yet to consummate the marriage. She did not know what Nicholas was waiting for; she felt quite sure that he was attracted to her, given the fact that he had kissed her on the neck first thing in her bedroom; perhaps it was her inexperience that was putting him off? Well, she would make up for that, given the chance. But all he ever seemed to want to do when he was in her room was trade stories, read serials, and chastely lay side by side. Maybe she had given him the wrong impression when she said she was looking for a friend in her spouse; was it possible he thought that that was all she desired out of such a relationship? Passion was not common, but if he knew, if he only knew the multitudes she contained within herself—if he knew what she wrote!—perhaps he would understand that it was something that she longed for, as well.
Still, the week that had passed had been wonderful. They were building something, she and Nicholas, that felt far stronger than anything she had seen for herself in their circles. He had told her the whole sordid tale of what had happened between his parents, and turned old fairy tales into the most delightful stories. Unwilling to make their growing relationship into something tawdry, Ania wondered what she would tell her sister.
“When you marry, you will be able to see for yourself,” she finally said, adding a light teasing to her voice to ensure that Margaret would not be offended.
From the look on her sister’s face, it appeared that she had not succeeded. “I say!” she cried, standing up suddenly and turning away from Ania, “You have never kept anything from me before. Is it because I am an innocent?”