The Rake Enraptured (20 page)

The world stilled.

"Colin?" 

He closed his eyes. Opened them again, found her and tried to smile. "Sweetheart?"

"That hurts."

"I'm sorry."

"Can you stop?"

"Yes. Yes, I can stop." He withdrew, his head dropping to her shoulder, and the pain was gone as if it had never been.
He was shaking.

"Colin?" He was silent. "Is something wrong?"

"In a manner of speaking." His voice was very odd.

"What is it?"

"What is it? Only that I want you too damned much," he said, and laughed a bitter laugh that broke in the middle. His breath was humid on her neck. "Give me a moment."

"Are you- Is that it?"

"No. No that is most emphatically not it. But sweetheart, you can't expect to look at me with those eyes and tell me you hurt and ask me to stop and have me just ignore you- Ah, damn it."

"Then
- What? What am I supposed to do?"

"You were doing perfectly well. There's nothing the matter with you. Only that it is meant to hurt you and I am meant to forge on regardless." He rolled far enough to one side to examine her with a single eye, and sighed
harshly. "I find I don't have it in me."

"I am intact?"

"You are."

"Well." She considered this. "That's hardly satisfactory."

He gave a harsh bark of laughter. "You don't say."

"So don't stop. Just . . . forge on. I told you I was going to make a mess of t
hings. I'm sorry."

"Oh no, sweetheart, don't say that." He rolled back to cup her face in his palms, and gave her a rueful smile. "Don't even think it. Nothing is messed up. Trust me. The whole point of marrying is exclusive right to do this to each other
again and again for our lifetimes. We'll perfect it. There's just this one time when it hurts you. I thought I was ready."

"Well I'm ready. Try again."

"No, the plan is to have you transported with joy, and then . . . forge on."

"You're welcome to do that
again. I don't mind at all."

"Ah. That sounds feasible. We're agreed." He kissed her, friendly and playful, his lips softly sucking at hers and she put her hand on his cheek and felt the broadness of his bones there, so different from hers; drove her hand
into his hair and enjoyed the thick strands between her fingers.

"Ah, sweet," he sighed. "I can't tell you how good it is to have you here, mine and alone and your body under me. Too good. Too good for words. I want to make it so right for you and yet all
I want is to be inside you."

"Is it not usually like this?"

"God, no. It's never mattered like this to me. You make me a boy again, hasty and rushing."

"I like it."

"But I think you will like the other even more. Let me show you."

His hand was gentler on h
er, smoothing down her flanks, over her hips and thighs in slow, savoring strokes. His mouth, when it came to her breast, tongued her nipple with a soft, subtle glide. It was sublime. It was calculated to arouse her. Her body was entranced. And yet . . .

"
I like the other more," she said.

Wordlessly he shifted over her, his weight on his elbows, and dropped a line of kisses over her belly and
lower, so she blushed furiously and put her hands out to push him away. He did not allow her to, only captured them and held them firm as he dropped his mouth to her most tender flesh.

"No."

"Give it a moment," he urged her, his breath the most delicate tickle, and she squirmed higher up the bed. He did not relent, his mouth closing over the center of all sensation, and she collapsed. Ah, what it did to her to have his mouth on her there. There were no words for it. It was madness and fire.

"Ah."

"Shall I stop?"

"Don't stop. Never stop."

And he did not, only tormented her for long, heedless minutes as she murmured and sobbed quietly. He released her hands and slowly, languorously inserted a single finger inside her, gliding it back and forth within her with delicate finesse.

Her orgasm was a slow rise to the boil. He took his time, now, and when that moment came and she s
hook and cried out he was there instantly at the entrance to her body and she put her hands on him and urged him closer, even when it hurt, when it burned. Then it was past, he was inside her, deep, so deep and hard and it was very peculiar but good. He shook against her, sought her gaze and held it with a kind of desperation and then his features softened, relaxed and there was peace and wonder in his eyes.

He rolled to his back, taking her with him, still embedded in her, and she sprawled astride him and
discovered to her chagrin he still had both trousers and boots on. Wicked man, and too correct in his assumptions.

"My Julia," he sighed. "My Julia. My love. Know that someday I
will
make that perfect for you. And know there is nothing about this that is anything like I have ever known before."

"Nothing?" she asked in a small voice.

"Nothing."

She lay with him, skin to skin, and wondered how she could ever find herself again, ever untangle herself from being lost in love of this man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-
SIX

"How is it you were not already married when we met?" he asked, one finger idly gathering up a long strand of her hair into a looping ringlet. She was tucked in to his side and the pale morning light of the winter sun lay across them both.

"Circumstanc
es. Lack of fortune, figure and face. You know how it is."

"In all seriousness, I do not understand it."

She sighed. This was not a story she wanted to share. "My grandmother paid for a season. I did not take, but that was in part because I did not take the matter seriously enough. I thought myself too young to marry, and did not exert myself to charm. I didn't meet anyone who entranced me. I entranced no one - or if I raised interest I soon ruined it. Too frank, too outspoken, too clever, said Grandmere. I was supposed to hide these things and do the work of finding a husband. I did not know it was to be my only season. She did not tell me. Perhaps even she did not realize it to begin with. Truly the money should never have been spent at all. She needed to keep it for herself. But perhaps she fixed all her hopes on me. We never spoke of it, afterward, but I blame myself. I should have guessed how things were."

"How old were you?"

"Eighteen."

"That is very young, to expect great perception."

"Perhaps. But I wish I had done better."

"I do not. Otherwise you would be placidly married to some fellow somewhere, and I alone with only my decadence to comfort me."

"I'm sure you would have coped."

"I am not so certain." He took up her hand and began to stroke her fing
ers. "So you became a governess."

"I needed to earn my keep. We were poor but our connections were good. Nobility - even French nobility - is still worth something. A little cachet and my own excellent scholarship. It was a natural choice."

"My poor darling."

"Oh, don't pity me. I was comfortable enough. I still had hope for the future."

"Did you like your season? Would you enjoy being part of Society again?"

"If I had some success, I daresay it would be very different. I loved the balls, the dancing. To me
et so many people held its own thrill. Each evening seemed brimful with possibility. Yes, I liked it."

"We shall make you a success, then."

"I do not think I am made for that world. It does not like me very well."

"That is only because it has not had a pro
per look at you. I shall fix that."

"Will you?" She drew up the sheet that lay across her thigh, and spread it to cover them both. "I think you will find I am a sow's ear."

"It amazes me you see yourself so unclearly."

"It amazes me you look at me at all,"
she said, turning her face to him defiantly.

He took her chin between finger and thumb. "It amazes me I can look
away
at all," he said, very soft.

"I wish you would not say such things to me. I find I can almost believe you. You will break my heart."

"Give it to me and I will keep it safe, I swear it."

"I shall give you my body. I know you will make good use of that."

"I want your heart as well."

"Greedy."

He abandoned sincerity and followed her into idle teasing, knowing by now she withdrew when he pushed too hard. "It is you who is greedy, madam wife. Will that body of yours ever be satisfied?"

"Twice a day, and thrice on Sundays, if I may choose a schedule."

"You will wear me out."

"I make up for lost time. You must expect such a thing if you will marry
a spinster."

"Shall we see if our lunch has arrived?"

"Walk naked to the door, and I shall follow."

"Saucy wench. Wear nothing and I shall give you first choice from the basket."

"You will give me first choice anyway."

"Then wear nothing only because I li
ke to see you."

She looked at him from under her lashes, then rolled to the side of the bed and stood. Slowly she backed towards the door, one liquid movement at a time, watching his eyelids lower, his teasing smile fade. Ah, but she loved to have that pow
er over him. It was a wonder to her. Yet it was not some practiced technique of his, or a pretense. She could see his physical response, his arousal to watch her body move to tease him. When he suddenly threw aside the sheet and knelt up on the bed, splendidly revealed, she shrieked, laughed and fled, knowing he would give chase and wondering only where he would catch her.

A miracle indeed, but he liked her thin form. 

She reached the foot of the stairs before he exited the bedroom, stood there in the shadows and watched him come one slow step at a time.

"You look like a naiad at the bottom of a well," he said.

"And you must be the Greek god Pan."

"Am I?"

"Wanton and beautiful. Perhaps I shall stay in my well, and taunt you, the unattainable naiad."

He stop
ped on the final riser and wrapped one arm around the simple finial of the oak staircase, dark with age and smoothed by many hands. Lounging there, he looked remarkably like those ancient, languid Greek statues, apart from his very modern, very interested dimensions.

"Will you drown me, little naiad, if I step into your deep waters?"

She leaned forward, chin tilted tauntingly. "I shall."

He stretched out a hand and ran slow fingertips over her shoulder and down the slope of her breast. "Perhaps I can lure y
ou out," he said softly. "Will you come play with me, little naiad?"

"What will you give me?"

"So it is to be a trade, then? I cannot give you shiny wood-brown hair, for you already have that. I can't give you skin that gleams like a pearl, or sapphire eye, for you have those too. A white wand of a body and a laugh like bells are already yours. No, I can't think of a gift rich enough to match what you already have."

"You could give me soft lips to kiss me," she said, putting out her own finger to trace it
shyly over the curve of those lips. "Sweet kisses until I can't think. And you could give me hair like midnight to hold and pull on," she tugged him gently until his mouth was less than an inch from hers, "and lead you where I want. And you could give me a big strong body to carry me to our bed, and this," now she put out a hand to glide over his erection, which pulsed and lifted under her light touch, "to fill me and give me pleasure until I can't hold any more. And your clever fingers too. I want them." She took his hand and brought it to cup her mons pubis and without hesitation he slid further, fingertips grazing delicately over her sensitive flesh. Immediately she felt the stunning weakness that had become so familiar to her this past week; the urge to sink down with him upon her.

He knew it, of course. He saw it in her face, no doubt, and took the final step to pick her up and carry her back upstairs, and never mind the food that might await them.

"You tempt me out," she said, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"I drown in you," he told her, his own face buried in her neck.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

It could not last forever, of course. There was more to the world than an out-of-the-way cottage he had hired, a farmer's daughter to bring them a basket of food every day through the snow, and the two of them naked and drowsing away the days in bed.

"I'm bored," she said, standing by the window and looking out at the blank whiteness, renewed by a storm last night. It made her feel trapped.
She was restless with too much perfection.

"I am not enough for you? My heart is broken." He flung a forearm up dramatically to cover his eyes, and sprawled limp on the bed.

"I am not used to being so idle."

"Wait longer. You'll grow accustomed."

"I thought you said you'd become industrious and diligent, these days?"

"The sybarite still lurks
under the surface, at the ready," he said.

"
On
the surface, more like.”

"I don't deny it. So how shall I entertain you?"

"You are right. You're not enough for me." Flawless days of him, nothing but him, and she felt herself slipping away from every anchor to reality.

"I knew it." He shook his head mournfully. "Then we go to the capital? Some town bronze for you? Or would you prefer a quiet country life?"

It was strange to have such choices, to make up her own mind how her life would go instead of straining to pull together a decent existence out of the few options available and doing as was expected of her. "Which would you prefer?"

"I'm not needed on the estates until just before th
e planting, when I shall be on hand to bully reluctant farmers into a proper system of crop rotation. So we're at leisure. Choose as you will."

That did not answer her question. She pulled the edges of her wrapper closer about her and leaned on the windows
ill. What would it be like to go to a country estate as its mistress? She had been trained in the basics of household management, of course, but Grandmere's modest situation had hardly given her the opportunity to practice those skills and it had been long years since she expected to use them. The prospect intimidated her.

Not that a house in the city would be much easier, but at least that was only a house, not an estate and all its workers. And she knew London. Would it be pleasant to be there with money
in her purse? Enough to counteract being the wife of a notorious rake and perhaps the object of pity? In addition, how would he cope when so close to the life he had lived before? He described these changes he had made and said he was pleased with them but they seemed to her a thin veneer.

It was better to face a fear than put it off and let it grow larger in her mind. Yet was it also better to give them a period of peaceful time to learn how to go together as husband and wife?

"We'll go to London, then," he said, breaking into her thoughts. "Far more there to amuse us. You have not truly seen the city and all the possibilities it has to offer."

She was silent. 

The London house was unexpectedly grand.

"I did not realize," Julia whispered, and slipped her
hand into Colin's as they walked up the stairs together.

He gave it a squeeze, and bent his head closer.
"Realize what?"

"Look at this place. I had no idea you lived like this. What will everyone think of me?"

"That you have managed an excellent capture. See, suddenly I have become a prize."

"You were always a prize," she said absently. "But I have no idea how to manage such a place. The servants will laugh at me."

"I'll see they don't," he said, suddenly dangerous.

"Oh, there's no point being fierce abou
t it. My ignorance will be clear to all. What shall I do?"

"Don't be afraid. I have a very good housekeeper, and a decent butler. Only pretend to be aloof and disinterested, and command them loftily to continue as they have been. Or tell them to make all t
he decisions as usual, but bring them to you for confirmation. That way you will learn as you go."

"That is a very good idea."

"Yes, it seems I am useful outside of the bedroom also. After you, madam wife," he said, and opened the door for her to step through.

The staff had assembled inside the hall. Evidently their arrival had been expected. Then she remembered the missive he had dashed off at an inn where they stopped to eat a good beef pie on their slow journey to the City.

She stood very stiffly, and looked them over. A butler, housekeeper, half a dozen footmen and a round dozen chambermaids. They regarded her in turn.

"Brace yourself," said Colin in an undertone and took her down the line, introducing her, as each staff member either bowed or curtsied.
Then, "You are dismissed," Colin told them, and they bobbed respectfully and scattered. "Come into the ballroom," he said. "I want you to see it."

"A ballroom? Of course. How delightful," she murmured.

"It will be. And you'll dance here, too," he said, pushed open a grand pair of doors then held out a hand in proud exhibition.

"Oh," she sighed, walking into it. It was not the very largest ballroom she had been in, but it was a good size, and remarkably, it was hers. "Astounding."

"Madame, if I may have the honor?"

She turned to him, and saw him in a most courtly, old-fashioned bow, his hand outstretched. Then he looked up at her, his eyes twinkling, and her insides felt warm and buttery. When she put her hand in his he straightened, put his other hand on t
he small of her back and swept her into a waltz. The spinning made her feel a little dizzy. Or was it he who made her dizzy?

"Do you rem
ember the first time we danced?” she asked.

"Remember? How could I forget? Such a scold you gave me."

"I didn't."

"You d
id."

"Well you were being very bad, letting all those women dangle after you."

"Until that dragon of a Mama brought me over to dance with you and you looked at me like I was something nasty you had just scraped off your shoe."

"You didn't want to dance wit
h me either."

"I hid it well."

"No you didn't. You practically rolled your eyes and pouted."

"Rubbish. A gentleman never pouts."

"You did. Your lip was out to here." She demonstrated with great exaggeration, and his eyes fixed on the out thrust lip."

"That
looks rather fetching on you. No, don't put it away. Leave it there. I shall suck on it."

"Don't you dare. Someone might put their head around the door at any moment."

"Why should that stop me?" he asked, his eyebrows going up.

"To be caught kissing your
own wife? Dreadfully unfashionable. Besides, I thought you weren't an exhibitionist."

"There is a great difference between displaying oneself and being accidentally caught in enjoyment. One should never defer gratification for the sake of the servants."

"I know you don't mean that."

"Is that a dare? Shall I prove my point on this very handsome parquet floor?"

"You will not!" But he stopped dancing and sank to one knee before her, his hands going to the hem of her dress. "For heavens sake, at least close the door!" He looked up at her with a boyish grin, reading that for the acquiescence it was, and went to close the ballroom doors before returning to his task.

Some time later, lying in a puddle of badly crushed day dress, with her head pillowed on his upper arm, she asked, "Would you like to come with me and meet my grandmother?"

"What? Now?" he asked lazily, and yawned.

"Tomorrow, perhaps. Early tomorrow, before people start to make calls on us. Will anyone call on us?"

"I should think they'll leave their c
ards, at least. Once they know we're in residence. People will want a look at the woman who snared the- Uh . . . There will probably be some curiosity about you."

"I really don't know how to go on, you know."

"What? The redoubtable Miss Preston, governess and teacher of young ladies in manners, elocution and comportment, admits she doesn't know how to go on?"

"Oh, I don't mean that. Of course I know the rules. But there's a frightful gap between rules and fashionable behavior. I don't want to discredit you.
"

"You could never be a discredit to me. I'm proud to show you off to the world, magnificent upright creature." She scowled into his
chest, charmed despite herself that he should feel proud of her, but thinking it typical of a man that he should miss such subtleties. It was not enough to be permitted to enter Society. She wanted to be a success there.

"Well, anyway, I shall go see Grandmere, and you're welcome to come."

"Grandmere?" He gave the word the correct pronunciation. "She's French?"

"She and Gr
andpere fled France during the revolt, and settled here with my mother. The Comte and Comptess de Vral, though Grandpere died soon after."

"The Comptess de Vral. Why is that name familiar?"

"I don't imagine you'd know her. She held considerable sway in the years following their arrival, but she now lives much retired from Society. However from her letters I doubt she lets much go by her of the doings of the
beau monde
."

"Letters?
That
is it. She's your iniquitous correspondent," he cried, propping himself up on his shoulder to stare down at her.

"Fancy you remembering that after all this time. Iniquitous? Not so bad as that."

"To write such things to one's grandchild? I should say it's iniquitous."

"You are a prude."

"Don't you?"

"Ye-es," she said unwillingly. "But she is so amusing, one can't help but laugh. Besides, she raised me after my parents died. I suppose I am accustomed to her viewpoint, even if I don't share it."

"Knowledgeable and disapproving. What a combination. No wonder I was slain."

"You were not. You have a taste for the dramatic. Now we should dress, rather than tempt fate any further." She stood and began vainly to try and repair the damage. No one could imagine - loo
king at her mangled dress - that she had sat in sedate conversation with her new husband while the doors had stood closed this past hour. He watched her lithe body disappear with an expression of regret.

"You will come with me tomorrow?"
she asked.

"No do
ubt I ought to meet this unlikely relative of yours. It seems from her letters she and I have some things in common."

"Do not dare to speak to her of
those things," she warned him with a baleful glare.

"And if she speaks of them to me?"

"She will not. She is the soul of propriety among strangers. She had to learn English ways when she immigrated, and has done it well."

"As I have not, you imply."

"Take that as you will. Now, shall I demand you escort me to my bedroom to lend me countenance-"

"I am probably
not the best candidate."

"You're right. I don't suppose you have useful secret passages hidden somewhere in the walls?"

"Nothing so practical. I could fetch you a cape, milady?"

"That will look very odd, but it will have to do. Good heavens, but it is exas
perating to be married to a hedonist."

"I perceive how you suffer."

"I do. I do."