The Arrangement (24 page)

And so began the rest of his life—as a married man.

For better or worse.

He tried not to wonder which it would be.

W
hen Sophia awoke, she was warm and cozy and slightly uncomfortable. She tried to ignore the discomfort. His arms were about her, she could hear from the evenness of his breathing that he was asleep, and she was snuggled against him. Against all that masculine, hard-muscled beauty and virile strength.

And he was hers. He was her husband.

She did the counting-back thing again—twice, lest she had forgotten a few days somewhere along the way. But no. It was almost morning—she was aware of the slight graying of dawn beyond the window curtains. Almost exactly one week ago, then, she had been standing among the trees above Covington House, watching the arrival of the carriage everyone had been expecting, and watching first Mr. Fisk and then Viscount Darleigh alight outside the front door.

A stranger, then. Her husband now.

It was
only a week ago
.

Sometimes—most times, in fact—a week could go by and she would look back and not be able to remember a single thing of any significance that had happened. This had not been one of those weeks.

She did not want to move. She wanted to hug the moment to herself lest it somehow steal away and be lost forever. He had touched her all over. He had come inside her and had spent long minutes there. He had not been repelled by her. He had enjoyed her. And he had held her in his arms all night. They were still both naked.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to go back to sleep, or at least to lie in drowsy warmth, enjoying the feeling of being held, of having been enjoyed. But comfort grew more and more elusive, and finally she could ignore her bodily needs no longer.

She slipped out of his arms and out of bed without waking him and picked up her new silk nightgown, which was probably horribly creased after a night of lying on the floor. She let herself into her dressing room and relieved herself. She was a little sore but not in a really painful way. It felt actually rather pleasant when she considered what had caused it. Fortunately, there was some water left in the jug on the washstand, though it was not warm, of course. And there were clean cloths and towels. She washed herself off and patted herself dry. No, there was no sharp pain, only the dull throb of having been a bride the night before.

She pulled her nightgown on over her head and enjoyed the feel of it slithering into place down her body. It was by far the loveliest night garment she had ever possessed.

She hoped she had not disturbed him. She hoped she could crawl back into bed and snuggle against him and warm up and remember. Last night had been their wedding night. The consummation had been the culmination of the ritual of the day. Perhaps it would never be the same again. Perhaps…

No, she would not think like that. She would get back into bed and just remember. Remember what he had looked like in his silk dressing gown. How could a man look so suffocatingly male when dressed from neck to feet in a silk
gown
?

She got carefully back into bed and wormed her way across it and against him. His one arm was flung out beneath her pillow. She rested her head on it, and he murmured something incoherent and closed it about her. His hair, she could see in the half-light, was endearingly rumpled. His chest and shoulder and upper arm muscles were well defined, indicating that he found some way to keep himself fit and more than just fit.

She closed her eyes and remembered how she had felt when he removed her nightgown and she was naked before him—even though he could not see her. She remembered the touch of his mouth and his hands. Everywhere. Warm and searching and … approving? How had she known that? She had detected no disappointment in him as he kissed her and touched her; she had seen none in his face. And afterward, when she had asked him, he had confirmed it in words.

She remembered what he had looked like when he removed his dressing gown. Magnificent and well proportioned and beautiful. And…

Strangely, she had not been frightened even though that part of him had looked huge to her. And though it had been rock-solid to the touch. No, rock was a poor comparison, for it had also been warm and silky beneath her fingers and damp-tipped. And every hard, thick inch of it had stretched and hurt her as it came into her—and thrilled her beyond words to describe.

He had hurt and hurt her during the minutes that followed. It was strange that pain should feel so like pleasure. Intense pain, intense pleasure. She had been terribly sore when it was over and terribly sad too, for she had not wanted it to end and was left with a feeling almost of incompletion.

She was greedy in her needs.

She could never expect such a night again, she supposed. But she did expect her marriage to continue, at least for a while—this part of it as well as the mere fact of it. He needed a wife and companion, and she was both. He needed this. Men did, and she was the woman available to him. He wanted children, specifically an heir. It was on her he would get them or on no one. For no other woman was his wife or would be while she lived.

She was going to do everything in her power to make him happy, or at least contented, while she was with him.

Was it possible?

Everything
was possible.

“Is the bed tipping?” a voice asked softly against her ear.

“Hmm?”

“You are clinging tightly,” he said. “I thought perhaps the bed was capsizing.”

“Oh.” She loosened her hold on him. “No. I am sorry.”

Now she had woken him and her wedding night was at an end. Foolish her.

“Is it morning?” he asked.

He had asked her a few times last evening if it was dark. Just one of the myriad disturbing aspects of blindness must be the disorientation it would bring regarding time.

“Not quite,” she said. “It is just starting to get light. It gets light early at this time of year.”

“Mmm.” He sighed sleepily. “You are wearing your nightgown again.”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel naked without it?” He rubbed his nose in her hair.

She laughed.

“It is one of the loveliest things I have ever owned,” she said. “I might as well wear it. And you paid for it.”

“Did I?” he said. “I must be enamored of my bride.”

It was just nonsense talk. It still warmed her to her toes.

“I hope so,” she said. “You have spent a fortune on me.”

“Have I really?” He settled his cheek against the top of her head. “Do I detect the influence of Lady Trentham? I must remember to thank her.”

“I was shocked,” she told him. “I would have been happy with two or three new dresses. I would have been over-the-moon happy, in fact. But she reminded me that I would no longer be just Sophia Fry, but Viscountess Darleigh, and that it would reflect badly upon you if I did not dress well. I owe it to you to look my best, she told me. Though even at my best—”

One of his fingers had come to rest firmly across her lips.

“You promised yesterday to obey me,” he said.

“Yes.” She swallowed awkwardly.

“Here is one command, then,” he said. “And I will demand absolute obedience, Sophie. I will be genuinely angry if you disobey. You will stop, as of this moment, belittling yourself. I cannot see you, but I take your word for it that you are not beautiful as feminine beauty is judged. Perhaps you are not even startlingly pretty to the casual observer, though by your own admission you are not ugly either. You are small in stature, and you have the slight figure to go with your height. You have small breasts and slender arms and legs and a small waist, which is nevertheless not much smaller than your hips. You hacked your hair off in order, I suppose, to look more like a boy since you thought you looked like one anyway. I note it has been tamed even though it is even shorter than it was. To my hands and my body, Sophie, you are a woman, with pleasing proportions and warm, smooth skin and a mouth any woman might envy. You smell of woman and soap-cleanliness. And inside you are hot, wet, soft, welcoming womanhood. You are mine, and you are all the beauty I could crave. I will not have you belittle what is mine. I will not have you threaten the well-being and happiness of what is mine. Do you understand?”

She had never heard him speak sternly. She held her eyes tightly closed and pressed her forehead against his chest.

I will not have you threaten the well-being and happiness of what is mine.

She was his.

“Yes.” Her voice sounded small and high pitched. She felt so ridiculously happy she could have wept.

“I will not be forever demanding obedience,” he said after a minute or two of silence. “It is not how I see marriage. I see it as a partnership, a sharing, a companionship.”

Yes, companionship. There were worse outcomes of marriage.

“Lady Trentham’s hairdresser thinks I ought to grow my hair,” she told him. “He thinks a longer, smoother style will show my cheekbones to greater advantage. He called them classic. And he said that a smooth, swept-up hairstyle would emphasize the length of my neck and the largeness of my eyes. Ought I to grow it, do you think?”

He ran his fingers slowly through her curls.

“It feels lovely like this,” he said. “It would feel lovely long too. What do
you
want to do with it?”

“I think I will grow it,” she said.

“Good.” He kissed the top of her head again. “Has it always been short?”

“No.”

“When did you cut it?”

“Four years ago.”

She waited for the next question, and wondered how she would answer it. But it did not come.

“I think I will grow it,” she said again.

It was still very early. There was a clock on the mantelpiece, she remembered. She turned her head and looked at it, just visible now in the growing daylight. It was a little before six o’clock.

Perhaps when tonight has become almost tomorrow, then, we will try again, will we?

“Tonight is almost tomorrow,” she said. “It is almost six o’clock.”

She tipped her head back to look into his face. He knew what she was saying, she could see.

“I was rougher than I intended to be last night, Sophie,” he said, “and I hurt you.”

“It was lovely.” She could hardly believe her own boldness.

He smiled. “But it might not be lovely this morning. Perhaps we had better—”

“I think it would,” she said before he could finish.

She could feel him stirring to life against her abdomen.

“It feels greedy,” he said.

“Yes.”

He grinned.

“I am glad you want it too,” he said. “I could not bear it if it was merely a duty.”

“It is not,” she assured him.

His hand came beneath her chin, cupping it between his thumb and forefinger.

“You must stop me if I hurt you,” he said. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

And he kissed her and she kissed him back in that lovely way men and women kissed, in that way she had not even known about until last night—all open-mouthed and wet and tongue-in-mouth and a hard, deep thrust and withdrawal that had her clenching inner muscles against a sudden ache of anticipation that was almost pain and a rush of wetness between the thighs.

She might have gone all her life without this. She had expected to, though she had had no idea what
this
was. It had always been no more than a vague, unhappy longing.

He turned her onto her back and she opened to him and lifted to him, and when he came into her, she felt both the sharp soreness and the wonder of such intimacy. She clenched her muscles about him.

“Sophie,” he said. “Am I hurting you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t stop. Oh, please don’t stop.”

It was slower, gentler than last night. And because there was not the shock of something so strange and unfamiliar, she was able to feel him, the hardness and length of him, the firm rhythm of his movements, the ache of longing that built inside her and seemed to spread upward, to her breasts, into her throat, even up behind her nose. And when he was finished and she felt that gush of heat deep inside that she remembered from last night, she held him and let the feelings subside and wondered if they would ever lead anywhere else other than to a slight and vague … disappointment.

But how could she be disappointed? She felt—wonderful.

He disengaged from her and moved to her side, taking her with him.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Mmm.”

“Can I take that as a yes?”

“Mmm.”

The next time she knew anything, it was half past eight.

He was stroking the fingers of one hand gently through her hair.

T
he Duke of Stanbrook arrived home, by prearrangement, at ten o’clock, Lady Barclay with him, though she might as easily have come with Lord and Lady Trentham, for they had been invited for breakfast. The Earl of Berwick and Viscount Ponsonby had been invited too.

“Never let it be said,” Viscount Ponsonby said when they were all seated at the table, “that any of us were ever allowed to s-slip off with quiet dignity on a journey when there were other Survivors ready at hand to give him a grand send-off. Or her, I will add, Imogen, before you can correct me.”