The Lost Love of a Soldier (9 page)

“You did not eat much. Are you anxious?”

Her stomach was empty, and yet she was not hungry, because she was so nervous and she could not smile.

He did. “I’ll have them clear the table. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Anxiety hit her even harder when he’d gone.

She rose and turned to the window, then walked across the room. She could not see anything; clouds had hidden the moon. Instead she saw her image reflected in the light of the candelabrum.

She did not look like herself anymore; the Duke’s daughter who must always be perfect. The woman who faced her had hair falling from its pins and wore a creased habit, stained from days of travel. This woman would follow the drum and live on the edge of battlefields. She was the woman who would give solace to a soldier. Mrs Paul Harding, not Eleanor Pembroke.

The door opened behind her and she turned as Paul entered, followed by two of the inn’s attendants. He directed them to clear the table. One carried their plates and leftovers away, the other folded the table and took that too.

The door closed behind them and Paul looked at her. Ellen’s stomach somersaulted. She gripped her fingers together to stop them trembling.

He smiled, the same one he’d given her before he’d gone – the one that said, don’t worry, trust me; you’ll be safe.

She knew it, but it did not prevent a rush of anxiety through her nerves.

He walked towards her, intent shining in his eyes.

He leaned past her and pulled the curtains closed, then looked at her. The awe she saw in his eyes reflected the love she felt for him. He leaned down and kissed her, his palm embracing the back of her neck.

It was just a brief kiss, before he said over her lips, “I am utterly in love with you.”

She smiled. “I also – I mean, I am in love with you.”

His smile tilted sideways, then he looked down and his fingers began tugging the buttons securing the front of her habit loose.

Her heart pulsed so hard it pounded in her ears.

“Relax,” he whispered, as he looked up to her face, but continued freeing buttons.

She could not. Her heart beat far too quickly.

Beneath her habit she wore only her chemise. She had not been able put on her light corset.

The last button slipped free, then his fingers cupped her breast over the cotton. He looked into her eyes as his fingers gripped and released and his thumb brushed across her nipple.

A sharp little pain caught like a pin-prick.

What he did felt beautiful.

His hands lifted and slid the short coat which formed her bodice from her shoulders then down her arms. It fell to the floor. The cold air touched her bare arms. “Turn and I’ll undo your skirt.”

She shivered as she did so.

“Cold?”

“Not really.”

“We will get into bed soon, and then you will be warm.”

She nodded as her stomach did another somersault.

Once her skirt had fallen to the floor, he kissed her bare shoulder and then turned her to him. He smiled as his hands slid to grip her buttocks over her cotton chemise and pulled her close. Then he kissed her again. A kiss like the one they’d shared when they’d first come into the room, his tongue pressing into her mouth.

When he pulled back all the air had gone from her lungs.

“Ellen…” he whispered, it was a question but she didn’t know what he asked. “Take my coat off for me,” he encouraged then.

She bit her lip, realising she was too naïve. Of course he would expect her to take part. Her fingers lifted to the glinting brass buttons of his military coat, as her gaze fell, but her hands shook too much to free them. A sound of amusement left his throat as he took over the task. She could not meet his gaze as he took it off. An aura of strength and masculinity radiated from him and it travelled through her flesh to her bones. Then he stripped his shirt off too…

Heavens
. He
was
beautiful. She touched him. His stomach and chest were ripples of muscle, and his flesh warm.

He smiled at her when she looked up, with humour in his eyes. She smiled too.

“Will you help me with my boots?”

She nodded as he turned to sit in one of the chairs. He began tugging at the heel of one boot. She helped him.

After his second boot fell to the floor he stood again, and still smiling gripped her chemise by her hips. Her stomach flipped another turn when he lifted it. But she raised her arms so he could strip it off over her head. It left her naked.

“You are beautiful; you have the look of a goddess.” His fingers touched her breast, slipping over the lower curve and then her nipple, before his thumb pressed down to tease it to a peak. She rose to her toes and kissed him. She needed that contact to ground her again, and hold her nerves steady.

He conceded, kissing her back, his tongue pressing into her mouth as his hand gripped and kneaded her breast more firmly, while the other cupped her nape.

I love you.
The words roared through her mind. She was not afraid of him.

When he broke the kiss, gentleness, and love, shone in his eyes. This battered, hardened, young, warrior, who had the marks of war in scars on his skin, who she’d seen kill a man – had a heart of gold. “Take off your stockings on the bed, then get beneath the covers, so you do not get cold. I’ll stoke the fire.”

As she sat, he moved to the hearth. She untied the ribbons forming her garters and then slipped her stockings off. He tipped coal from a scuttle onto the embers. She let her stockings fall onto the floorboards and moved beneath the sheet.

He reached for a poker and stirred up the embers so flames flickered into life.

Her father would have called for a maid to do it, and been angry that a servant had not already thought of it. He would never tend a fire himself. But then Paul had been his own master and servant for years.

The sheets were cold, and the dense feather filled quilt which covered them pressed the cold sheet against her naked skin. She shivered as her nipples peaked.

Paul stood and turned back to face her. He smiled as he crossed the room.

She’d lifted the covers up to her chin.

When he reached the bed he unbuttoned his falls holding her gaze, then slid both his pantaloons and his underwear down. The air caught in her lungs and her heart thundered again. She’d thought his chest beautiful – but the movement of the muscle in his buttocks and his thighs as he bent… then he pushed all his clothing off his feet and stood…

She could not breathe.

He lifted the covers and she moved back to make room for him beside her. He’d not snuffed the candles, but left them burning.

Immediately his lips pressed against hers and his warm hand ran over her cold skin, from her hip to her breast, then he kneaded it once more.

The blissful sensation twisted in her stomach as she rolled to face him and reached her arms about his neck.

His kiss travelled from her lips across her chin, down her neck to her shoulder. Her back arched as if she knew what he was about to do, but she did not, not until the moment his lips touched her breast once quickly and then closed over her nipple. The pressure as he sucked was warm and gentle as his hand slid lower, brushing across her hip, making her shiver. Then it touched her inner thigh.

“Paul?”

He did not answer, merely continued sucking her breast as his fingers brushed over the private place between her legs. The place she knew a man and woman would join, but she knew no more than that.

His fingertips sent tingles across her skin and an ache skipping upwards through her body.

She was warmer now. Her fingers ran through his hair.

Then he looked up. “Do you, trust me, Ellen?”

She nodded, staring into his blue eyes and looking at the curve and length of his brown eyelashes. “Yes.”

Oh
, his fingers slid into her, and hers gripped hard on his shoulders.

“I’ll not hurt you.”

She nodded; she knew that. But she bit her lip as his fingers drew in and out, gently and intimately, invading then retreating.

His lips returned to hers, his tongue pressing into her mouth, distracting her mind.
Paul
. She did love him. She did.

His mouth left hers and returned to her breast, as his fingers continued their caress. He was cherishing her; absorbed in her, she could feel it. Warmth spread throughout her body, reaching in ripples as far out as her fingers and toes. Her legs bent and her knees parted wider for him, as his invasion grew in intensity, in speed and depth.

She was damp where he touched her, and the dampness increased as the warmth did too.

His head lifted. “Ellen…” His fingers slipped free of her then gripped her own and set them against the part of him which would join them. He curled her fingers around him and moved her hand up and down.

Shyness prevailed over every other sense, and anxiety stirred. His fingers slipped back inside her and then she touched him as he touched her. It was awkward, unreal and strange…

“Lie on your back, Ellen.”

She rolled backwards letting go of him and opening her legs wider as he came over her, so he could settle between her thighs.

“It may hurt for a moment.”

She nodded as that part of him touched her, and then as she looked into his eyes, he thrust in, and yes it did hurt, a bursting sensation pierced her, and then there was an uncomfortable pressure.

She felt a little sick. But it was done now; they were man and wife.

He withdrew then pressed in again.

She gripped his arms, realising it would not just be a single invasion. His jaw had been taut before but now a smile played with the edge of his lips as he withdrew again, and pressed in. Her fingers lifted to his hair.

“I love you, Ellen. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She smiled, her shyness receding, and her senses absorbing the odd new feelings. “I love you, also.”

“I will look after you, I swear it.”

She nodded, watching his face as he worked, casting spells in her body.

She could not take her gaze from his and he did not look away from her. She loved him so much. “It’s wonderful.”

He smiled more, and moved more quickly, pressing in and pulling out, again, and again, and her fingernails dug into his shoulders, as her knees bent higher so her toes could curl into the sheet, against the wool filled mattress beneath it.

Her body was flooded with lovely sensations; they gripped in her lungs, caught her breath, and trembled through her stomach. She had no breath left when he thrust hard, once, twice and then pushing deep, his body went as stiff as stone and his eyes shut as he sucked in a harsh breath before releasing it in a sigh which brushed over her skin. The part of him inside her pulsed.

He didn’t move for a long while, and while he lay still, the pleasurable feelings he’d engendered tingled through her nerves then ebbed away.

He opened his eyes and smiled, then withdrew suddenly and rolled to his back beside her. “Come.” He lifted his arm. “We’ll sleep now.”

She pillowed her head on his chest. She felt odd. Like a new person – a person who’d been shown a precious secret other people had been keeping.

He fell asleep and she listened to his breathing, watching the flickering orange candlelight dance about the room.

She was his wife.

~

Ellen woke in a silent room as daylight peaked about the curtains. She’d curled up against Paul who’d turned on to his side. It was Christmas. Her sisters would be waking. They’d have come to her room if she’d been at home. She presumed Sylvia and Rebecca would go to Penny instead. They’d attend mass and eat an informal luncheon with her mother, then dine formally in the afternoon with her father too, and there would be guests invited from local families.

“Good morning.”

Paul turned to face her.

“Hello. Good tidings,” she whispered her seasonal greeting, embarrassment sweeping over her.

His fingers stroked her hair back from her face as a smile curved his lips.

“Merry Christmas.” He kissed her for a while, then the weight of his hips rolled her backwards, and he was between her legs once more and pressing into her. She lost her breath.

He did delicious things, moving within her, the soft hair on his chest brushing against her breasts as he did so.

Her fingers gripped his nape as she held his gaze. He was so steady and strong. Her fingers slid down his back, exploring.

When his end came this time he growled, his eyes shutting again as he ground against her for a moment, then stilled.

He sighed when he rolled off her.

“We will stay here today,” he said, after a moment. “I’ll order breakfast. I’m starving, and then I’ll ask for a bath and we can bathe together.”

That sounded naughty and decadent. She was certain no married couples she knew bathed together. She laughed with happiness.

She missed her sisters and her mother, but she was with Paul and she was his wife.

They spent the rest of the day doing as he’d said; relaxing. They ate breakfast in their room, she back in her habit for propriety’s sake as he sat in his pantaloons and shirt. Then the inn’s attendants brought up a copper bath, and pails and pails of steaming water along with some lavender water to scent it. It was a tight squeeze for them both to fit in it. But Paul sat behind her with his legs bent and parted, and she draped her shins over the edge of the tub. They lay in the water for an age as he ran the soap across her skin and brushed the water over her breasts.

They made love again when they got out, and stayed in bed until he was hungry once more and wanted supper. Then they returned to bed and languished there without sleeping for hours.

She
was
happy.

Chapter Six

“It is a shame you have to endure another long journey so soon, Ellen.” A look of tiredness caught in her eyes. He’d kept her awake half the night. He smiled. She did too. She did not look unhappy about it.

The inn’s grooms were readying their carriage behind her.