An Infamous Marriage (17 page)

“Did you manage?” Jack asked as she sat back on her heels, gasping.

“Yes. It’s up to Penelope now.”

He edged around to join her, and they crouched side by side on the slick, wet straw. All their passion from earlier had fled, but somehow Elizabeth felt far more profoundly at one with him. When at last two black hooves poked out of the birth canal, one after the other, just as they ought to have done on their own, and the mare, she and Jack were all still breathing, she all but sobbed with relief.

Jack stood, rubbed at his bad leg and extended a hand. She took it, he pulled her to her feet, and they stood in each other’s arms, shivering, as Penelope accomplished the rest of the business as speedily and easily as a good broodmare should. The foal breathed and twitched its miraculously unbroken front legs even before it was fully born.

“Thank God, oh, thank God,” Elizabeth muttered.

Jack’s arm around her waist tightened. “Thank
you.
I never saw anything more splendid.”

She laughed a little wildly—if anyone had ever told her that one day her husband would call her splendid for thrusting her arms shoulder-deep into a
horse
—and then together they helped clear the now fully born foal from its amniotic sac.

“A filly,” Jack said. “Can’t tell if she’s black or dark bay.”

“Ten to one she’ll gray out like her dam and her sire, in either case.” For now, the filly was dark but for a tiny white sock on her right heel. Penelope lifted her head to regard her new daughter and the two humans with annoyance. Elizabeth couldn’t blame her, after what she had just endured. Then the mare heaved herself to her feet, and Jack and Elizabeth stood back as she nosed at the foal who, after several awkward attempts, managed to get herself up on her wobbly legs and stagger to her mother to nurse.

“We did it,” Elizabeth breathed.

“You
did it. Did I mention you were splendid?”

“You did. But you can always tell me again.”

“That I will.” He kissed her temple, quick and hard. “Splendid woman.”

She chuckled. All at once she felt entirely at ease with her husband and glad she was married to him.

“Shivering woman,” he amended. “We need to get you into a warm house and warm clothes.”

“You too. The lads can see to the horses from here, as long as nothing dreadful is going on with the lambing.”

They watched a little longer to ensure the afterbirth came properly, and the mare and foal were none the worse for the harrowing delivery. Then Jack and Elizabeth washed their arms and faces as best as they could at the stable pump, gathered up their discarded clothing, wrapped themselves in blanket and greatcoat, and picked their way across the stable yard and garden to the house in the faint predawn glow.

Chapter Twelve

Elizabeth and Jack let themselves in through the scullery door. It was closest, and both of them were shaking with cold.

Mrs. Pollard and her scullery maid, already hard at work on breakfast and the day’s baking, smiled at them. “Is all well with the mare, sir?”

“We have a fine new filly, safely delivered thanks to Lady Armstrong,” Jack said with a smile that made Elizabeth’s knees wobble.

“I’m glad to hear it, sir. We took the liberty of heating water for your baths—the full bath in your room, ma’am, and the hip bath in yours, sir.”

The full bath was big enough for both of them—a tight fit, but after last night Elizabeth wanted nothing more than to be as close to Jack as possible. They had waited long enough. She was past caring about what message she was sending him, or whether she was yielding too soon. She simply wanted him.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pollard,” she said. She took Jack’s hand. “I think we should go upstairs before we catch our deaths, don’t you, my dear?”

Somehow he must have read her intentions from her eyes or the tight grip of her hand, for his eyes lit as he said, “Absolutely.”

They didn’t speak again until they reached the top of the stairs, where ordinarily she would turn left and he right to go to their separate rooms. “Come with me,” she murmured. “The bath is big enough for two.”

He let out a shuddering breath. “Are you sure? If we share a bath, we won’t stop there.”

She swayed a little closer to him. “I don’t want to stop. I’m sure.”

He took her face between his hands and kissed her, hard. “Lead on, then.”

With a laugh, she drew away from him and all but ran to her door, pausing halfway there to glance over her shoulder to make sure he followed. She felt like a different woman than she had ever been before, someone seductive, confident and yes, even beautiful. The time for games was over, and the time for happiness had come.

He caught up with her by the time she reached her door and embraced her from behind as she fumbled at the latch. His breath was warm on her neck and she could feel him already hard against her and she laughed again, but this time breathily, a blend of nerves and hunger.

At last the door opened despite her shaking hands and they stumbled inside together. The room was still mostly dark, with little of the late February dawn piercing the thick drapes. But the fire glowed with red embers and a few flickering flames, and before it steam rose from the full tub.

“Heaven,” Jack breathed.

“Will we both fit?” she asked, looking at it with sudden doubt. She’d never tried this before, after all.

“We’ll manage, my practical wife.”

“Practical?” She supposed she was, and had just given the perfect example of it, but it wasn’t what she wanted to hear from her husband at this moment of all moments.

He shut the door with a click and tipped her chin up for another kiss. “Splendidly practical and beautiful, but above all splendid.”

“Much better.”

He leaned against the bed to remove his boots, and she bent to help him. “Have you any praise for me?” he asked as the second boot slid off.

His voice was light and tender, but Elizabeth sensed the vulnerability behind the question. She gave it as serious consideration as she could manage in her hungry state while busy undoing her own half-boot laces. “You’re adventurous and generous, and you know how to listen,” she said once she stood straight in her stocking feet. “And so handsome I can’t wait to see more of you.”

“Ah.” He hugged her to him convulsively for a moment, then led her nearer the heat of the fire and the bath. He kissed her again, leisurely and thoroughly, and she lost herself in the warmth and intimacy of it, the slide and thrust of his tongue hinting at the far deeper penetration to come. She felt his fingers find the laces and hooks at the back of her dress and begin undoing them, and she didn’t care where he’d learned to get a woman out of a dress so quickly and surely because it felt wonderful when he reached up to push it off her shoulders. She helped, wriggling until it fell to the floor. She kicked it aside, drew her petticoat over her head and stood before him in nothing but her stockings, shift and corset.

He held her at arm’s length for a moment, his breath coming fast and hard. He drew his thumbs down and inside the top of her shift, over the tops of her breasts, seeking beneath her stays until he found her nipples. He flicked across them, then circled them with a more tender caress. Elizabeth’s knees wobbled and she let out a gasping whimper.

“I can’t wait to see all of you,” he murmured. “And if you like that, think how you’ll feel when my mouth is there.”

Elizabeth gasped—but something wasn’t quite right. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” she said.

“Why, I think you’re right, wife.” He took his hands away for just long enough to shrug out of his coat. “There.”

His fingers were already busy at the laces of her corset, so Elizabeth laughed and said, “You’re still more dressed than I am.”

He pulled back from raining kisses along her forehead to say, “Your hands aren’t broken, are they?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Not at all.” It hadn’t been like this with Giles—once he had started kissing, he had stopped talking, and they hadn’t been given to laughing their way through their intimacies—but she decided she liked Jack’s way just as well. She set her hands at his waistcoat buttons and began to work.

He finished with her laces and ran his hands up her spine to her shoulders. His touch changed from a caress to a thoughtful probe, and then to a deep massage of the sorest spots. It wasn’t a seductive touch. Truly, it hurt, and yet it was such a good pain, such a relaxing pain, that somehow it made her even more his. Her hands stilled at his buttons, and she heaved out a happy sigh. “That’s wonderful.”

“There’s nothing like it for stiff muscles.”

“Ah, yes. Your leg.”

“Indeed.”

“I won’t mind rubbing it, from now on.”

“Good...though there are other parts I was hoping you would rub first.”

She shook her head in mock rebuke, then went back to work on his buttons.

“I’m not surprised you’re sore, after all that last night,” he commented. “At least it should be a quiet day, with little to do. No engagements tonight, thank God.”

“Nothing to do but this.” Elizabeth sought out his trousers buttons. “Do you always talk this much at these moments?”

His brows drew together. “Do you not like it?”

“I do,” she assured him. “But that water isn’t getting any warmer.”

“An important consideration,” he agreed. “Well, then.” He gently nudged her hands aside and managed his own buttons with practiced haste, and she did her part by shedding her stockings, leaving herself naked but for her thin shift.

Now Jack had raced ahead of her. As she peeled off her second stocking, he drew his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. He stood naked before her, and she drank in the sight of him in the flickering firelight—broad-shouldered and sturdily muscled, beautiful but with a certain tension about him even at this moment that made her vow to master the art of massaging his aches away. She laid a palm on his chest—hairy, which was different, but, no, she must stop comparing him to Giles.
She
didn’t wish to be compared. Slowly, she traced her hand down the center of his flat abdomen to the spot she had been shying away from looking at before.

He was big, heavy in her hand. As she circled him with her fingers and his breath grew ragged, she felt a corresponding heat and heaviness in her own most private parts. Her body knew what it wanted, and she could hardly wait, but she was a little afraid, too. She’d been a wife, she’d done this before, but so long ago. And once this step was taken, it was too late to go back. “Five years,” she murmured.

“Long enough to wait.” He kissed her, soft and gentle. “Here.” He slid his hands down her body, found the hem of her shift and swiftly drew it over her head.

Elizabeth shivered from the shock of cool air on her bare skin—and a little, she admitted, from Jack’s avid gaze. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her breasts.

“So beautiful,” he breathed.

Elizabeth shook her head in reflexive denial.

“You are. Believe me in this.” He rested one hand on her shoulder, then stroked down her side, pausing long enough to cup her breast—her ordinary, neither especially large nor small breast—before tracing the indentation of her waist and settling over her hip. “Beautiful. A feast for the eyes and the hands.”

They stood silent for a moment, watching each other, and then Elizabeth found her voice, and such insouciance as she possessed, again. “I’d rather not be a feast served cold.” She stepped away from him and climbed into the bath, sinking down until the still-hot water covered her almost to her shoulders. She lifted a hand and beckoned to her husband.

* * *

Jack could hardly believe his wife finally wanted him, and in her bath, fully naked, after sunrise. He had been ready for a darkened room and having to persuade a shy Elizabeth out of her nightclothes. He didn’t want to ruin this, not now that they were finally going to be a true husband and wife. He wanted her to love this, wanted her to love
him.
She’d asked if he ever stopped talking. Did that mean he talked too much? But he thought she’d liked it. She certainly seemed both amused and aroused, and as at her ease as anyone could expect under the circumstances.

When she beckoned, he obeyed, stepping delicately into the tub lest he splash too much water onto the linen matting around it or spoil the moment by treading upon his wife’s feet. The tub was luxuriantly big for a single bather but just barely held two. Elizabeth drew her knees to her chest to make room, and when he’d settled himself down, he gently drew them apart—her skin so smooth under the hot water—and settled her ankles about his waist. It wasn’t an intimate touch yet, only a way to make room for both of them, but Jack wished he could seize her hips and pull her to him until she straddled him and rode him in the water.

Patience. He had to make this right for her. There would be many times to be quick—or luxuriously, torturously slow—later.

She was beautiful to him, and it pleased some primitive, possessive part of his nature that she was
his,
that no one else could see the subtle perfection of a figure that when clothed merely looked well-balanced and pleasing. She wasn’t ordinary. She was far from ordinary. She was splendid, and right.

He didn’t deserve her, certainly didn’t deserve sole possession of her after all his many affairs, his ability to fall in and out of love again and again. But no more. He may not have earned the right, but he meant to live worthily of his extraordinary wife from this day forward.

“Suddenly you’re silent,” she said, a gravely teasing light in her hazel eyes.

“I didn’t want you to think I talk too much.”

“Now I want to know what you are thinking.”

She kept her voice teasing, but Jack sensed she was nervous. “I’m thinking of you.”

“But
what
are you thinking?”

He shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “How beautiful you are, and how glad I am to be here with you at last. How I want to be a good husband to you. Mostly about all the ways I mean to touch you in the next hour.”

“Oh?” She arched her eyebrows.

He took that as an invitation to go on. “I thought I’d begin with soap,” he said, suiting actions to words by taking up the clear cake of Pears soap Hodgson had thoughtfully left on a little table alongside the tub. “We are, after all, in a bath.”

A smiled played at her lips. “So we are.”

He worked up a good lather, then set the soap down again. “Give me your hands.”

She blinked and complied. He interwove his fingers with hers until their hands were equally soapy, then began to wash her arms, those strong arms that had saved a mare’s and foal’s lives. She washed his, too, and they drew closer together, ending in an embrace with her kneeling astride him. He kissed her, running his lathered hands over her shoulders and back, and she rocked against him. Her sex brushed against his cock, hotter and slicker and wetter than water itself, but he grabbed her hips and pushed her back. “Not yet,” he said.

“I thought you’d be more impatient,” she said, and he smiled at her frustration.

“You’re worth taking the time to do it properly.” By the time he finished, he wanted her beyond mere impatience, begging with her body even if she was too proper and modest to do so with her words. Yet.

He kissed her, holding her at just enough of a distance that he didn’t take her then and there. “We need to finish our bath, to begin with.” He re-lathered his hands. “I haven’t even washed your feet yet.”

She wriggled her toes and kicked, splashing drops of water over the side of the tub. “Jack! That tickles.”

“Does this?” He soaped her calves thoroughly and then stopped at her knees. “Do you know what I’m going to do next?”

“No,” she said breathlessly. “But I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“Naturally. I think I’ll begin with your thighs, the outside of them, all the way up to your lovely hips.” She gasped as he grasped her hips and pulled her against him, letting her feel his cock again for a brief moment. Any longer and he would spend there in the water.

“And then, the inside.” Slowly he worked his way up from the underside of her knees—that tickled, too, from the way she twitched and squirmed—to the place where her legs met her body. He didn’t touch her sex, not yet. He was far from done with teasing her, even though she panted and gasped, her eyes closed and her head lolled back against the edge of the tub.

He shifted her until she sat up, his hands on her shoulders again. “Jack,” she said.

It was almost a whimper, a frustrated sound, but he was not going to make this quick. “I just realized there are places I forgot,” he said, fighting to keep the impatient breathiness out of his own voice.

She shifted restlessly. “You’re driving me mad.”

“Good. I intend to drive you madder still.”

“You
want
a mad wife?”

“In this I do.” He went back for soap yet again, then turned his attention to her breasts, cradling them in his hands. “Have I mentioned you have beautiful breasts?”