The Reluctant Suitor (61 page)

“What of your parents?” he asked in some concern as his eyes searched the beautiful visage hovering close above his own. “Are they here yet?”

“They’re with Aunt Tilly and your Uncle Alistair. Considering their delay in joining us, I can only imagine they’ve been told of my return to the town house but nothing more than that.”

Colton’s lips curved in a slow grin. “Won’t
they
be surprised when they finally arrive?”

Growing suspicious of the glowing warmth in his eyes, Adriana leaned near. The strong odor of the intoxicant that Dr. Croft had given him prompted her to arch an elegant brow suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re sober enough to know what you’re doing, my love? I don’t want you to complain later that you had been duped. Perhaps we should delay the nuptials until your head is clear of the influence of spirits and you’re on your feet again.”

“Absolutely not! I don’t want to chance losing you,” Colton declared and cast a quick glance toward Riordan. Although his rival was trying to put on a brave front, his dark eyes had lost their lively sparkle.

Having been very close to losing Adriana himself, Colton fully understood the heartache the man was suffering and felt great empathy for him. “I may lose out altogether if I wait, and I don’t want to take that chance, considering I have serious competition right here in this room. Let’s proceed with the ceremony.”

Believing she was doing what was right and beneficial for her heart and future happiness, Adriana stood beside the bed and repeated her vows with teary-eyed conviction. Her hand was clasped securely within the one belonging to the man to whom she had been promised years ago, and though Lord Sedgwick was not alive to realize the culmination of his heartfelt aspiration, it was a fact his foresight had been instrumental in bringing about their union. Had it not been initiated by the elder years ago, Adriana knew she would’ve likely thrust the memory of Colton Wyndham far behind her and accepted Riordan’s first petition. She had no doubt that she would’ve been happy with the man, but a greater love had reentered her life, and thereinafter she had been held captive by the yearning of her heart. Only by marrying Colton would she be able to utterly appease that longing.

When the good reverend asked for the ring some moments later, there was some confusion, for that small detail had been forgotten. Colton would not let the request go unfulfilled, however. For nigh on to twenty years, he had worn a small family ring on his little finger, and it was this he tugged off and, though it

proved too large, slid over the slender digit of his bride as he repeated the reverend’s words. “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow. . . .”

Tears were streaming down Samantha’s face by the time the ceremony ended, and with an exaggerated sigh of relief, she threw her arms about her friend and joyfully wept with her. “At last, we
are
sisters through and through!”

Congratulations were warmly extended, and also a warning . . . from Dr. Croft.

“My lord, I urge you to consider your injury. Although I’ve liberally dabbed on a paste that has deadened the pain and will reduce the possibility of infection, I plead with you not to stress the wound overmuch. There’s time later for you two to . . . ah . . . get acquainted.”

Percy couldn’t restrain his amusement, which spilled from him in hearty chuckles. “What are you asking him to do, Dr. Croft? Ignore his wife after he’s finally permitted to take her into his bed? ‘Twould take a blessed saint to do that, especially when the lady is as beautiful as his bride. Frankly, if my brother-in-law doesn’t mind hearing a fair sampling of my opinion of him, I think he misses sainthood by a wide margin.”

“Percy, behave yourself for a change,” Samantha bade, her cheeks glowing though she seemed unable to subdue a smile. “You’re embarrassing me. No telling what you’re doing to Adriana.”

Percy chuckled as he drew his wife’s hand through the bend of his arm. “I don’t foresee her cheeks cooling for the next month, my love, so she might as well get used to the heat.”

Adriana did indeed find it difficult to subdue a blush, but Colton grinned as he accepted Percy’s comments as a fairly accurate assessment of his character. He had never claimed to be a saint, but considering how profoundly his bride now held his heart ensnared, he could believe there was more of a chance of that possibility coming into fruition in the future.

Reaching out, he took his bride’s fingers within his clasp and, with his free hand, drew her head down to his for a long, gentle kiss. When they finally parted, Riordan was no longer in the room.

Colton bestowed a grin on the physician. The strong brew of which he had liberally partaken had done much to dull his pain, but not the desires that had inflamed his mind and body for the last few months. “I shall try not to stress myself unduly, Dr. Croft, but I won’t promise anything more than that.”

The physician flicked his brows briefly upward, sensing it would do him little good to reason with his lordship. But then, it was much as Percy had said. The pulchritude of the maid would have made it difficult for any man to ignore her. “Nevertheless, I ask you to be careful. I understand that you were a hero in our confrontation with France. However, consider yourself for the time being as delicate as a newborn. You’re not to move around needlessly, so I suggest that you let your bride coddle you for several days. I’ll leave a supply of powder and instructions with Hodges on how to mix it and treat the wound after it has been cleansed or should the pain become too intense. I recommend that it be applied four times a day to prevent the flesh from becoming tainted. Tomorrow I shall return to make my own assessment, and if you’re worse off, I’ll have to send your wife far from here to give you time to heal.”

“I shall carefully adhere to your instructions, sir,” Colton avouched with a grin. “I’d certainly hate to be separated from her after I’ve finally taken her to wife.”

At last, the couple were alone, but Adriana took the doctor’s advice to heart and offered a solution. “I’ll sleep downstairs so you won’t be tempted to move about.”

Colton shook his head resolutely as a slow, meaningful grin curved his lips. “Nay, madam, you’ll sleep

with me here in this bed, and if I can’t find a way to make love to you without opening up my back, then at least I can hold you within my arms. And please don’t bother undressing anywhere else or putting on a nightgown. If you do, I’ll just have to come searching for you or be forced to remove the gown from you myself. Either way, I could injure myself, and of course you wouldn’t want that. So I urge you, Wife, to consider the mayhem you’ll cause if you fail to heed my entreaty. I’ve been waiting too long to find out whether the vision I saw in my old bathing chamber is actually real or merely a figment of my imagination.

If the latter, then I should be praised for the degree of perfection I created in my mind. If genuine, then I want to hold that vision within my arms and to savor it thoroughly just as I’ve been yearning to do since I returned home.”

“If that is your desire, my lord,” Adriana murmured, her lips curving in a fetching smile. After their troubled separation, she was relieved that she could be with him.

Those warmly glowing eyes seemed to brand her as she lifted her hands behind her neck, but freeing the catch on the gold and sapphire choker caused her difficulty and sent her to her knees beside the bed. “I need your help unfastening my necklace.”

When she sought to lower her cheek on the mattress to give him access to the tiny latch, Colton halted her with a finger beneath her chin. Lifting her face, his eyes probed the darkly shining orbs. “Leave the necklace for the moment, my pet, and kiss me instead. For too long now, I’ve been trying to avoid kissing you the way I’ve been yearning to do for fear of where it would lead us, but I needn’t worry anymore about getting you with child. Simply put, madam, I’m nearly starved for the taste of your sweet lips and all the other temptations I found myself facing whenever I was near you.”

Adriana recalled his kiss on the night of Roger’s attack and grew heady with anticipation. Only the one he had bestowed on her at the onset of their courtship had come close to equaling that singular exchange.

Nothing since then, certainly not his gentlemanly pecks upon her brow or the swift brush of his lips upon hers, had even hinted of his desires.

Pushing herself to her feet, she leaned over him to deliver his request, but his right arm came around her hips as he silently urged her to lie alongside him. As she kicked off her slippers, he tossed aside the quilt that had been spread over his lower half and then patted the narrow space beside him. Willingly complying with his silent urging, she lifted the silken skirt to climb atop the mattress, but was forced to raise it far above her knees to accomplish that task. Had she issued an invitation for her husband to peruse the sights, he couldn’t have been more eager to respond. Ensnaring his gaze, those long, sleek limbs sheathed in dark silk stockings enticingly secured above her knees by beribboned, black lace garters did much to shatter the notion that nothing would ever transcend the spiraling heights to which his admiration had soared when he had perused her naked form in the bathtub. Already he had stored within his memory diverse views of her; this one would be lodged in a niche among the most tempting.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you’re not supposed to stare?” Adriana teased, seeing where his gaze was fastened.

Grinning, Colton swept his hand along her thigh as she pressed alongside him and nestled her head within the crook of his arm. “I can’t help it. The sights enslave me.” He dragged his gaze away from her shapely legs long enough to give her a grin. “Truly, my love, I’ve never seen the equal of
your
perfection.”

Smiling, Adriana ran her fingers through the fascinating feathering of dark hair covering his chest. “Believe me, sir, you’re far from imperfect yourself.”

At the insistent urging of his knee, she lifted a slender limb and laid it over his hip, allowing his thigh to encroach between hers. Her heel found a comfortable niche beneath his firmly muscled buttocks as her

eyes delved with glowing warmth in his. His face slowly lowered to hers, and soon his lips and tongue took possession of hers, searching, demanding, consuming the delectable sweetness until his delicious assault left her feeling faint, and yet he would not relent. He drew her tongue into the warm cavern of his mouth where a flaming torch stroked over it with a slow, evocative rhythm that suggested something more erotic.

Drawing back with a trembling sigh, Adriana whispered, “The way you kiss leaves my head whirling in an eddy. Soon, I fear, my racing heart will take flight.”

His hand slid over her breast, causing Adriana to catch her breath at the scintillating shock of pleasure he elicited as the tips of his lean fingers teasingly scrubbed across a nipple. She arched her back, thrusting the soft mound upward to reap the full measure of his attention. He bestowed it in a way that made her tremble as his thumb strummed with slow deliberation across the sensitive peak.

“You’re beautiful, my love,” Colton murmured huskily, leaving a trail of kisses down her throat, “but you have too many damned clothes on.”

“You don’t,” she stated with a teasing grin as she drew back to savor the sights. Somewhat in awe of her handsome husband, she swept a hand over the steely bulges of his shoulders and traced slender fingers downward along the bandages crisscrossing his chest. With almost adoring reverence, she stroked the rippling thews, the taut ribs, the manly nipples, and began to brush kisses over the ridges and hollows.

Colton watched her, amazed by her gentle passion.

Rising up on an elbow, Adriana stared into his eyes with all the ardent emotions she had kept tightly reined for some weeks. “I love you, Colton Wyndham. I always have . . . and always will. When I was a little girl, you were my idol. Now that you’re my husband, I want to be made complete by you, to become part of you, to know you as I’ve never known you before.”

The gray orbs shone with unmistakable ardor as Colton slipped a hand behind her head and pulled her face down to his. Their mouths were soon forged in another rapacious devourment of lips and tongues that blended the honeyed sweetness of her mouth with the brandy flavored taste of his.

Increasingly beset by his desires, Colton swept a hand downward to her thigh, above the place where a frilly garter secured her stocking, and slid it upward beneath her gown. It was not long before he drew back and stared at her in some astonishment. “Madam, you’re not wearing any pantaloons.”

Adriana blushed, wondering if he’d think her forward. “The skirt of my gown was so narrow, the pantaloons caused unsightly bulges, so I decided not to wear them. I never once imagined anyone would find out. Do you think me lewd, sir?”

Colton chuckled. “Banish the thought, madam. I approve of your decision. It certainly makes it easier for what I have in mind.”

Coyly smiling into his shining gray eyes, she inquired, “What is that, my lord?”

“Need you ask?” He grinned into her shining eyes. “Undressing you is the first order of business, madam.

After that, copulation, of course. The sooner we get to the latter, the sooner I’ll be satisfied.”

His fingers plucked at the placket running down her back as their kisses grew wilder and more frenzied.

When the garment loosened, allowing him to drag it down in front, she quickly wiggled free of its silky confines and tossed it behind her into a nearby chair. When she faced her husband again, he was leisurely devouring the sights. The white satin chemise clung to the ripe orbs as if reluctant to be parted, while the delicate netting of the lace teased him with minute glimpses of the pale pink it swathed.