Unconquered (59 page)

“And afterward?”

Dear God, did he really want to know? “I learn quickly, Jared. Surely you remember that.” She could not resist hurting him a little. Then she shook her head. “Afterward I closed my mind to what he was doing, and I felt nothing.”

“I love you, Miranda,” he said simply. “If anything, I love you more for being so brave.” His lips moved to the soft skin left bare by the deep V of her neckline, playing lightly across it, teasingly darting his tongue into the valley between her breasts.

“Your wife should be above reproach,” she said, a trifle breathlessly. “No mistress of Wyndsong has ever had the slightest blemish upon her reputation.”

“The only scars that remain for you, Miranda, are within your own mind. We are going to begin now, madam, to eradicate those scars.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, desperately trying to squirm away from him, but he held her fast as he pulled her up.

“Oh, yes, wildcat, I understand. You believe that because you responded to another man’s touch you have somehow betrayed my honor, but that is not so. You are not like the elegant married ladies of the ton who whore to amuse themselves or sell themselves to further their husband’s careers. It is preposterous of you to apologize.” Getting her dress undone, he pushed it over her shoulders, and it fell into a puddle around her ankles. He undid the silk straps of her petticoat, and it slid down to join her gown. She was left standing in her lacy drawers, stockings, and garters. Carefully he undid the waist tape that held the drawers, and they fell to the floor.

He let his eyes learn all over again the long pure line of her back with its slim waistline, the soft mounds of her buttocks, the slender thighs, and long, shapely legs. God, had he ever really forgotten? She stood very still, and then suddenly she raised her arms and undid her long hair, her fingers carefully unplaiting the thick braid.

“Are you sure?” she asked him quietly. “Do not take me back out of pity, Jared. That would be a far crueler fate. I do not want your pity.”

“Oh, wildcat, the person I pity is me, if you don’t come back to me. Wait now, I have something for you,” he said, and crossed the floor into his dressing room, re-emerging a few moments later.

He took up her hand and gently pushed a ring onto her finger. Looking down, she caught her breath. “
My wedding ring!
”

“That was the only reason Ephraim Snow was willing to believe that the body taken from the Neva was yours. He never
saw the body; he believed you would never willingly part with that ring.”

She stared at the ring, its tiny diamond stars winking up at her. For a moment she remembered when he had first placed it on her finger, and then she said, “I never would have parted with it willingly. I imagine it was removed while I was unconscious.” The tears fell unbidden from her sea-green eyes, and she rapidly blinked them back. “Dammit! All I seem to do is cry these days.” Then she looked at him. “You were quick to undress me, sir,” she said, and walking boldly up to him, she loosened his white cravat, pulled it off and flung it to the floor.

“That took poor Mitchum twenty minutes to tie,” he said with a mock sigh.

“Take off your coat!” she ordered him, and with a grin he complied. “Now the waistcoat!” Again he obeyed. Her fingers impatiently opened the pearl buttons of his shirt, and palms flat, her warm hands pushed the white silk apart, smoothing over his big shoulders, and down his strong arms. Suddenly his arms came up to pull her against him.

Her breath caught as she felt the silken fur of his broad chest against her sensitive nipples. “Look at me!” His voice was demanding. “Two can play at your game, my pet.” He tipped her heart-shaped face up, and his bottle-green eyes blazed down into her sea-green ones. He held her about the waist with a deceptively loose arm, and she knew if she moved an inch he would crush her against him. She felt him kick off his evening shoes then as he unfastened his pants, shucking them off, yanking off his tight underdrawers at the same time. His eyes never left hers. He was daring her to pull away.

Naked, he knelt, slid one garter of pink rosettes down her leg followed by a black silk stocking, and then bared the other leg. Her skin was beautiful, soft, fragrant, without blemish. Rising, he caught her to him again, and found her mouth. Her arms slid up around his neck, and she pressed her body to his.

“Oh, Jared,” she whispered, pulling her head away from his, “oh, my darling, I missed you so very much!”

He swept her up and carried her to the bed. She held out her arms to him. Groaning, he joined her, drawing her into his arms to kiss her. His mouth demanded, and she eagerly responded.

His hands scalded her flesh, sliding down her back to caress
her buttocks. His fingers tenderly followed the sweet curves of her body, and she moved against him with an abandon that left him breathless. He sought the globes of her breasts, and she shivered as he nuzzled against her breasts. She sought to divert him by reaching down to catch at his hardening rod with her hand.

She stroked him with knowledgeable fingers, and was rewarded by a quickening in his breathing. Miranda quickly twisted her body around, and her head moved downward, her pale-gilt hair spreading over the soft dark fur of his lower belly. She kissed the top of his throbbing manhood, and then her lips closed over him. Her tongue gently flicked round and round the head of his sex, and his body arched with pleasurable shock.

He’d never taught her
that!
For a moment he was angry, and then he realized exactly what she had been trying to tell him. He knew she wasn’t a promiscuous woman. She would not seek out other men. But she was a woman, had been from the moment he had taken her virginity. In the time they had been separated she had learned from another. She had tried to warn him, and he realized he would be foolish to become prudish now. Oh no! Not now when her mouth tortured him so sweetly.

“Wildcat,” he managed to gasp. “Let me move around a bit.” Turning around, he tasted of her. His fingers gently parted her adorably plump lower lips, revealing the dainty, pouting, deep-coral flower of her womanhood. His tongue taunted the sensitive flesh, and she cried out sharply as lightning streaked through her. He continued to tease her, and her lips reciprocated, growing more passionately frantic as her own excitement mounted.

Finally he raised his head, muttering, “Enough of this, Miranda! I have hungered for you for over two years now!”

He swung around, and over her. His manroot was swollen enormously, and it throbbed. “Look at me, you green-eyed bitch,” he commanded her softly. “Look at me!” He caught her roughly, and she gazed up at him. There was love in her eyes, love and urgent desire.

“Jared! Oh, Jared! Love me!” she sobbed, and then she guided him through the gates of passion, and he thrust home. Miranda felt unutterable joy filling her. She clung hungrily to him, wrapping her legs tightly around his body, her pelvis pushing
up to meet his fierce thrusts. “Oh, my darling!” she wept. “Oh, how I love you, my dearest, dearest husband!”

He could easily have released his desire into her at that very moment, for her passionate declaration excited him beyond everything else. But he wanted to prolong their pleasure, their reunion. This was not the girl he remembered. This was a woman, a woman he had helped only a little in shaping.

It was so sweet. Miranda closed her eyes and allowed herself to float. It had never been like this, even with her beloved friend, Mirza Khan, for though he possessed her with tenderness and caring, though he had loved her, her heart had always been with Jared. And Jared loved her. Jared’s body had been the first to love hers, and he had claimed her heart from the very beginning. With a flash of understanding she realized why Mirza Khan had not tried to keep her with him. Lovemaking could be perfect only if lovers loved each other wholly. Friends could pleasure one another, but that was all.

Her nails scored his back, and he laughed softly. “Still have your claws, eh, wildcat?” Relentlessly he drove her up peak after peak after peak so that her luscious body shuddered again and again and again until, sure that she was satiated with his love, he pushed her to new splendors and quickly followed her.

She awoke in the deep of night to find him sprawled on his stomach, one arm cradling her possessively. A happy little smile played at the corners of her mouth. He still loved her! Mirza Khan had told her that if Jared were any kind of man he would not hold her responsible for what had happened, and he didn’t. She almost felt remorseful over the charming prince who had been her lover.
Almost
. She smiled again, remembering what she had said to Mirza Khan: “There are certain things in this world that a wife must keep to herself.”

    Chapter 17    

M
IRANDA WAS FEELING EXHILARATED
. T
HIS WAS TO BE HER FIRST
large social function since her return to England. It almost seemed that she’d never been away. The coming-out ball of Lady Georgeanne Hampton, eldest daughter and heiress to the Duke of Northampton, was the first truly important affair of this season. It was to be held at the duke’s magnificent mansion, which was within shouting distance of the Prince Regent’s London residence.

Miranda welcomed this change, for she felt strong and whole once more. She had lived quietly at Swynford Hall for several months, basking in Jared’s love and the love of her family, and learning all about the small son of whose early life she had been so cruelly cheated. Whatever doubts Jared might have entertained about her suitability as a mother were obliterated forever on the day he saw them together in a chair, Tom showing Miranda a grubby treasure that he prized. Miranda, her whole face alight with her love, was wholly entranced.

How he wanted another child! But she wished to wait until she knew Tom better. Forcing little Tom to share her when she had barely returned seemed so unfair. Besides, she wanted time with her husband, too. Their third wedding anniversary was the first one they had actually celebrated together, and in general they had spent more of their marriage apart than together.

After Christmas had come the welcome news that on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, Belgium, a treaty had been signed between England and America, ending the war. Come spring, they would be free to travel home.

“I want our next child born on Wyndsong,” Miranda declared, and Jared agreed.

The Treaty of Ghent had been a great disappointment to Jared
Dunham, and only reaffirmed his belief that politics was a fool’s game. Never again, he vowed to himself, never again would he involve himself in that which he could not personally control.

Their lives had been almost destroyed by the war, and for what? None of the problems that had led to the war had been solved. The treaty merely provided the return of all captured territory to the power that had been in possession before the war.

Jared was very proud of his wife. Easily the most beautiful woman at the duke’s ball, she greeted old friends warmly with the dignity of an empress. Her ball gown with its bell-shaped skirt was a deep shade of green known as “Midnight in the Glen.” The neckline was low enough to have evoked a protest from him when he first saw it. It dipped down to barely cover the tops of her nipples, and in the back it was just below her shoulder blades. Laughingly she had instructed her dressmaker to add a bit of trim—a dyed-to-match swansdown—as a concession to husbandly outrage. His satisfaction had evaporated this evening when she put the dress on and he realized, to her mirth, that the swansdown only tempted the spectator to blow it aside to see what lay beneath.

The gown had no real waistline, the ankle-length skirt beginning beneath the bustline. There was a wide band of swansdown trimming the hem as well as the neckline. The little puffed sleeves were made of alternating stripes of velvet and silk gauze. Her dark green silk stockings had small gold stars embroidered upon them, as did her dark green kid slippers.

Miranda’s gown was deceptively plain. It actually served as a frame for her magnificent jewels. Her necklace was of round-cut emeralds, each stone surrounded by small diamonds and separated by gold links. It lay flat, glittering against the translucent skin of her chest. There were a matching bracelet and earrings. Her right hand bore a round diamond surrounded by emeralds, and her left an emerald surrounded by diamonds, as well as her wedding ring.