Douglas: Lord of Heartache (9 page)

Nor did she want to.

“You are still shy of me.” Douglas was not happy about this, but Douglas-fashion, he was not angry, either.

Gwen smoothed a hand over the blue brocade of the sofa, a lighter blue than Douglas’s eyes. She
was
shy of him. Also… curious. “Shy is an improvement over unnecessarily anxious.”

“It is at that.”

Douglas’s hands settled on Gwen’s shoulders, tugging her back against him. She resisted mostly for form’s sake, but allowed herself to be tucked against his side, his arm coming around her. This was not so very different from a tired embrace at the end of the day, a chaste kiss to the forehead or the cheek.

“So tell me, Guinevere, what your impressions are of intimate relations between a man and a woman.”

Her heart sped up, and her stomach felt as if it were taken over by a flock of hummingbirds. Even so, were she to bolt off the couch in horror, panic, or sheer surprise, Gwen knew Douglas would escort her in to dinner that night with the same manners he’d shown her for the past week. All he’d done was put an arm around her and ask her a question. A simple, direct question.

And she was not horrified. Not horrified at all—though she should be. Horrified and mindful of all the risks that had lurked as close as London since the day Rose had been born.

“In truth, I have few impressions of those relations you allude to. My experience was the minimum needed to result in… Rose.” Also in years of rustication, in shame and ruin.

Douglas drew a pattern on her arm with his elegant fingers, and the quality of his touch warned Gwen his intent was not strictly to comfort or to offer mere affection. The hummingbirds flew upward, creating havoc in her lungs.

“Should I be sad for your sake,” Douglas mused, “because you have paid such a high price for so little pleasure?”

“For no pleasure whatsoever.” Not even the pleasure of a soft, sweet caress on her arm or a good-night kiss to her cheek. Not the pleasure of arguing over the best use of a fallow field, or the pleasure of a quiet, shared meal at the end of the day.

“No pleasure
whatsoever
? Now that is unfortunate.” Douglas’s voice took on an edge. “Were you at least willing?”

“At first,” Gwen said, closing her eyes. He was doing it again, pulling confidences and confessions from her without her intending to part with them—and without her objection.

“But then it hurt,” Douglas surmised, “and your lover would neither stop nor discipline himself to see to your comfort, much less your pleasure.”

Gwen did not move, despite the havoc Douglas’s quiet conclusion wreaked with her composure. In six years, not one person had raised with her the topic of that bewildering encounter, not one person had intimated that Gwen might have been ill-used. “He stopped eventually.”

“And a few weeks later you realized you had lost more than your virginity and your innocence.”

The edge in his voice was at odds with the gentle stroking of his hand along her back, neck, and shoulders. Gwen did not want to contaminate that welling, stealthy pleasure with more words, and certainly not with more old memories.

“I lost my ignorance.” But she’d lost those other things he’d named too, and they had been precious.

“I would like to discuss a transaction with you, Guinevere, but if you find the topic distasteful, we will drop it and forget I ever mentioned it.”

So beguiling were his caresses, Gwen had to concentrate to grasp the meaning of his words: he wanted to talk business.

“I’m listening.” To his hand, to the warmth of him beside her, to his lovely, woodsy scent. To the soft roar of the fire and the ticking of the clock.

And to hummingbirds, soaring about inside her in anticipation of what, she dared not guess.

“You have mentioned that on occasion you will consign goods or products into the keeping of a trusted merchant. You handle wool this way and firewood. If your bailiff cannot find custom willing to pay the price you set, your goods are returned essentially undiminished, and you’re free to offer them elsewhere.”

“I insist on a contract when dealing on consignment,” Gwen managed. She picked up a small green brocade pillow and traced its fleur-de-lis pattern, lest she yield to the desire to apply her hands to Douglas’s person.

“I seek a sort of contract with you,” Douglas said. “A consignment of nonperishable goods, on a temporary basis, for your inspection and possible use.”

His fingers on her neck were exquisitely pleasurable, warm, sweet, and unhurried. Douglas was never in a hurry, and yet Gwen had failed to appreciate that a measured, deliberate approach to life’s pleasures might have intimate appeal.

“Can’t this consignment wait until our task here at Linden is done, Douglas? I’m sure Greymoor or Fairly would be happy to entertain commercial negotiations with you.”

His finger traced the curve of her ear, and Gwen shivered.

“That will not do. The goods I have to offer would have no appeal to your relations. I hope they have unique appeal to you.”

She should pull away. She should ring for the blasted tea tray. She should… keep her eyes open. “Douglas,
what
are you doing?”

“Indulging myself, which is part of the bargain I envisage, but by no means all. And the door is locked, Guinevere. Mrs. Kitts is off at market, and it’s half day for the footmen. We will not be disturbed.”

Douglas and his details. He rubbed her earlobe between his thumb and forefinger, slowly, which was not a detail when Gwen had never experienced that particular sensation before.

She rose off the sofa on shaky knees, the hummingbirds having migrated to her limbs and even her earlobes. She moved a quartet of candle holders on the mantel so they were evenly spaced. “What goods are we discussing, Douglas?”

He stood as well and prowled toward her, but she did not turn. The heat of the fire was before her, and Douglas stood immediately behind her.

“
I
am the goods in question. Myself, Guinevere. I offer myself into your temporary keeping.”

Gwen had to brace herself with a hand on the mantel as Douglas’s breath fanned over her neck. “You offer
yourself
on consignment?”

His lips touched that vulnerable place where her shoulder and throat met, the softest, most tender caress Gwen had endured in her entire life. When his arms slipped around her waist, she was grateful for the support.

“I offer my body for your delectation and pleasure,” Douglas said. “I have something more to offer you as well, Guinevere Hollister.”

Two thoughts collided in Gwen’s brain, the first being that she should stop him
soon
. He was presuming, and his civilities had shifted to improper advances, and those… they led to places Gwen ought not to be so interested in. Places she had not admitted to herself she might go with this man.

With
any
man, ever again.

The second thought was pernicious and wicked—also irresistible. Douglas would be a thorough, considerate, even lavish lover. He would attend to every detail, spare no effort, his discretion would be faultless, and his hands—

“What else do you offer, Douglas, that I haven’t been offered a hundred times before?”

The question she’d intended as starchy came out woebegone. His embrace became more snug, though surely Gwen imagined its protective quality.

“Firstly, you know I would marry you, were you to conceive my child.”

She did know it, but that mattered not at all, for she would never marry him. “Marriage is no inducement to me and never will be.”

“Secondly…” He paused and nuzzled her hair. She hadn’t known grown men suffered the urge or had the ability to nuzzle. “I would never, ever cause you discomfort or awkwardness, Guinevere. Copulation is supposed to be pleasurable for both parties, and I would do my utmost to share that pleasure with you.”

Douglas Allen’s
utmost
was tempting argument in itself.

“How often do you suppose a man has said words like that to me? Many men, for that matter, because they all seem to think I want to hear them.”

“But this man,” Douglas said, widening his stance, “is promising you pleasure and something else, Guinevere.”

Douglas’s promises were trustworthy. Even regarding this unexpected, dangerous, alluring topic—especially regarding this topic—his promises would be trustworthy. “What else do you offer?”

The part of her lost to caution wanted him to touch her breasts—ached for it, and yet Gwen knew Douglas would not presume that far without her permission.

“I would promise you
control
,” Douglas said, his voice dropping to a purr. “When we couple, if we couple, it will be on your terms or not at all.”

His promise was dazzling, the secret wish Gwen did not voice even to herself: to have an intimate companion, somebody who knew her but did not ask her to sacrifice what remained of her reputation, her freedom, her privacy. Somebody she could spend time with far from the prying eyes of family and Polite Society—somebody
safe
.

She brought his hand up to cover her breast. “And if I do not find the goods to my standards?”

“You decline their further keeping.” His voice had gone from purring to growling, and against her backside, Gwen felt the unmistakable tumescence of male arousal. His fingers closed softly over her breast. “What say you, Guinevere?”

She said prayers—for her sanity, for her reason, because the feel of his hand, gentle, exquisitely knowledgeable, and warm on her breast created havoc with her every faculty.

“You will think ill of me if I embark on this… consignment with you.”

His hand went still then shifted to rest over her heart. “My dear Guinevere, I think ill of the man who used you so poorly and took so much without giving anything in return. I want to take from you, too, make no mistake, but I want to
give
as well.”

Between the fire before her and the man holding her, Gwen was warm, but when she gazed at the dreary autumn landscape beyond the windows, she recalled that bleak sense of looking down the years, down the decades, with nothing but more coping, more duty, and more maternal devotion to sustain her.

She had crafted an existence that avoided pain and indignity, avoided any chance of encountering those who might disrupt her peace or threaten Rose’s well-being, but her life also avoided pleasure, intimacy of any variety, and even companionship.

Five years ago, when scandal had hung close at hand and heartbreak even closer, those choices had been understandable, but now, when she considered the idea of Douglas Allen
giving
himself
to her, the hummingbirds went into a frenzy.

“I don’t know if I am capable of enjoying intimacies the way you describe, Douglas. I was told—”

He turned her by the shoulders, which allowed her to rest her head on his shoulder and hold onto him.

“—I was emphatically assured I was not suited to intimate relations.”

“And I was told I couldn’t sit a horse for anything.”

“You ride beautifully.”

“I ride well enough to enjoy it,” Douglas replied, stroking a hand over her hair, “because I practiced on the equine version of a schoolmaster until I was competent.”

“And you’re a schoolmaster?” Though in some regards, that term suited him perfectly.

He traced his nose along her eyebrow, the gesture affectionate, approving even, and not characteristic of any schoolmaster in Gwen’s acquaintance. “By no means am I expert at bedsport, though I am proficient enough that you’ll have pleasure from me. A woman is entitled to that, Guinevere. Shall I show you some pleasure?”

Guinevere was in his arms and more than tolerating his advances, and yet, Douglas knew the battle against her nerves, her fundamental propriety, and even her shyness was not yet won. Five years ago, even a year ago, he would never have importuned a decent woman like this, but he’d learned that life could upend the best plans, and opportunities to discreetly, respectfully share pleasure were fleeting and few.

Which point would not be made with lectures and homilies.

He kissed Guinevere’s cheek, a warning shot, another chance for her to step back, hustle away to the nursery, or find some damned correspondence she needed to tend to. She leaned into him, and he resisted the urge to lay her down on the nearby sofa.

“I’d very much like you to kiss me, Guinevere.”

My, how articulate he sounded. His voice did not betray the riot going on behind his falls or the way his heart thumped hard against his ribs.

“I thought the fellow did the kissing.”

Argument, of course. He was coming to relish it from her. “When the fellow has handed the lady the reins, she decides the pace and direction taken on the outing.”

Guinevere did not have to go up on her toes to kiss him, but she had to look up. Her green eyes were wary, which was wise of her, given the tenuousness of Douglas’s control. Watching him, she brushed her lips to his cheek.

Douglas closed his eyes and waited, waited for that soft, delicate press of her mouth to wander to his lips, waited for the clamoring of his cock to subside enough that he could wallow in the pleasure of Guinevere kissing him.

The impact came gently, hesitantly, devastatingly, then came again, and Douglas could not prevent himself from gathering her closer. “Again, please. Kiss me again.”

Please
kiss
me
forever.

Guinevere did not kiss like a woman starved for the familiar pleasure of carnal attention. She kissed like a woman who had no experience with the way two mouths might pleasure and torment each other. She kissed hesitantly, as if…
she
feared
getting
it
wrong
.

Tenderness crested up and over Douglas’s arousal, and chagrin with it, because he’d taken the situation amiss. Guinevere did not want a man who’d permit her to manage their intimate dealings, but rather, she sought a man to whom she could entrust the considerable remainder of her innocence.

“Take your time, sweetheart,” Douglas whispered. “Take all the time you need.”

Gradually, the kiss became a mutual endeavor, though easing it onto that footing took eternities of patience from Douglas, and very likely wagonloads of courage from Guinevere. When Douglas was nigh to spending in his breeches, she traced her tongue over his lips then paused, as if analyzing his taste.

“Do that again, love. I like it. I like it a lot.”

She fused her mouth to his on a quiet moan, and such kissing ensued as Douglas had never thought to experience in the mortal realm. Guinevere shy but determined was a force of nature; Guinevere giving vent to her curiosity was equal parts trial and triumph. Douglas cupped her derriere for dear life, and she—lovely woman—pressed herself tightly into his embrace.

Until she broke away, panting, and took a step back. She bumped the mantel, her expression dazed as she angled away half a pace. “I must think.”

The wrong words, the absolute wrong words. “I
cannot
think.”

She looked surprised at his admission, then pleased. “You are overwrought?”

“Give me your hand.”

The surprise turned a bit wary. “Why?”

“I adore your independent nature, Guinevere, but please give me your hand.”

She stretched out a hand, and Douglas made a note to list for her all the things he adored about her, for there was a list—a growing list. He brought her palm to his falls, behind which something else had grown considerably too.

“I will not importune you for favors you are unwilling to grant, I will stop when you ask it of me, and I will not cause you pain.” He said these words with their joined hands pressed over his arousal.

Guinevere withdrew her hand slowly. “The Romans swore oaths like this—hand over the testes, or so I once read. I wasn’t sure whether to believe it.” Her tone said she wasn’t sure whether to believe
him
. “One becomes… overwrought.”

Her mind was a wonderful place; her hand over his erect cock was wonderful too. “I am not overwrought, my lady, I am aroused.” He did not descend into cliché, but the term “on fire” came to mind. “I desire you intensely, and hope I can provoke a reciprocal interest on your part.” Hoped it desperately.

She moved away from the fire, back toward the bookshelves. “So this is to be a mutual consignment, your passion traded for my own?”

“Passion, companionship, affection, all that those imply.”

A gong sounded from the direction of the kitchen. Gwen stopped examining the spines of a lot of useless old books, while Douglas wondered if he had time for further exhibitions of his passions before lunch.

“I must see to Rose. She’s to join us at table.”

Douglas held his ground as Gwen made for the door. Her skirts brushed his breeches, so closely did she come to him, and yet, he did not importune her for favors she was reluctant to give.

Reluctant being worlds and universes away from unwilling.

***

“What do you mean, she isn’t coming?” Guinevere looked more than a little disconcerted, and when she put the question to Douglas, her tone was abrupt.

“Lady Heathgate has come down with a bout of influenza,” Douglas replied, handing Guinevere the letter. “She says it’s making the rounds in Town, and travel would be unwise until the epidemic has run its course.”

Guinevere paced the library, the same room where yesterday afternoon they’d begun the pleasurable business of becoming lovers. Since then, the lady had avoided him. She’d absorbed herself with attending Rose at lunch, taken a tray in the nursery at supper and breakfast, and hidden in her room until Douglas had found her this morning in the library.

“Her ladyship’s absence upsets you.”

“Of course it upsets me,” Guinevere countered, whirling on him. “Is my reputation not deserving of protection?”

Ah, treacherous waters indeed. “Your reputation is apparently less fragile than Lady Heathgate’s health, at least in her opinion.”

“But, Douglas…”

He leaned his hips against the front of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, Guinevere?”

“Don’t call me that.”

He made a mental note, probably irrelevant given her present mood: no post-coital naps for him, should he and
Miss
Hollister
become lovers. The lady was inclined toward intense self-doubt when left to her own devices. “Do I take it you have had second thoughts about the suggestion I made to you yesterday?”

“You made a proposition, not a suggestion.”

He didn’t dignify that with a reply, but as she prowled around the library, Guinevere did not look… well rested. Her bun was a bit untidy, her cheeks were flushed, and lines of fatigue bracketed her mouth.

“I will not quibble with you over vocabulary, Guinevere. If you are not interested, you have only to say so. If you are troubled by something specific, I am available for discussion.” And at the conclusion of said discussion, he would chop half a cord of wood, dig a mile-long irrigation ditch in the cold, hard ground, and use a dull saw to prune every tree in the orchard.

She paused, facing him several paces away. “You,” she said peevishly. “You have me agitated, as you are well aware.”

“So I can divine the thoughts of others now?” He knew better than to take that tone with any woman, much less a woman he was attempting—more or less—to seduce. Even so, disappointment made him willing to give her the rousing donnybrook she was spoiling for.

“Douglas,” she said, her tone moderating to include a bit of dismay, “I can’t… how can I face you? How can you face me, knowing that I’ve touched… that you’ve… I can’t do this.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she mimicked his body language, crossing her arms.

“I have not the disposition,” she said softly, “for intimate, frivolous pleasures. To indicate to you otherwise was misleading of me, and I apologize.”

That pronouncement seemed to settle her down a bit, but when Douglas took two steps to close the distance between them, her eyes filled with anxiety. “What are you doing?”

“Winning an argument,” Douglas replied, dipping his head and grazing his lips along the line of her jaw.

“Douglas,” she began sternly, “didn’t you hear what I just said? I’ve misled you, I’m not suited to this, and…”

She nattered on a bit more, while he settled his lips at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She tasted lovely—clean, flowery, and feminine, an intriguing contrast to her starchy tone. He rested his hands on her hips, steadying her—and himself. His thumbs rubbed along the crests of her pelvic bones—did a man ever feel
anything
more sublime under his hands than the cradle of a woman’s pelvis?—and she fell silent on a sigh.

He paused, drawing back enough to take her hands and place them around his waist before resuming his kissing. While his mouth stole closer to her lips, he slid his hands around to cup her derriere, gratified when she angled her neck to offer herself blatantly to his questing lips.

She was tall, but she still had to draw herself up to kiss him. When Douglas finally allowed his mouth to touch hers, Guinevere’s hands were linked behind his neck, her fingers loosening the ribbon that held his hair in its queue.

He was patient with her—patience being the only possible course with Guinevere—waiting for her to gather her courage and kiss him back, waiting for her to sift her fingers through his hair, waiting for her to sigh her pleasure into his mouth.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, Douglas kept his arms around her and drew her against him.

“That was not fair, Douglas.”

“But you would agree kissing is an intimate, frivolous pleasure, and your disposition is adequately suited to it?” To kissing
him
, in any case.

“You make my point for me,” she said as she slipped from his arms. “My body may be more than adequately suited to the pleasures of your kiss, but the rest of me…”

Profound annoyance did not make a comfortable companion to arousal. “You will not permit me to offer you an honorable suit, but you will be insulted by anything less, is that it?”

Her gaze flew to his, consternation in her expression. “No! I am not insulted, Douglas, though I suppose I should be. Maybe I am beyond insult, or I do not regard these attentions as an insult from
you
. I am not insulted, I am overwhelmed, I suppose… Oh, I can’t seem to make myself understood.”

She was pacing again, her arms crossed over her waist, her posture hunched as if a cold wind off the Channel had found its way into the cozy library.

“Try to make yourself understood, Guinevere. Try harder.”

Douglas’s voice was steady enough, while his emotions were in riot. He wanted to throttle her, to ravish her, to wash his hands of her and this whole misbegotten queer start. He’d allowed himself to think something pleasing and fine could be shared between them, just for a little time, to be enjoyed and savored and treasured in memory. His spirits had lifted at the prospect of winning Guinevere’s trust, sharing with her the joys and pleasures of sexual congress, and having her in his life where no other woman had been.

Fool that he was, he’d succumbed to the lure of hope.

She came to rest at the sideboard like a drifting rowboat might bump against a jetty at low tide. “I have lost my nerve. I don’t know how to regain it.”

Her voice, her posture, her green eyes conveyed not only hesitance but also… bewilderment, as if it wasn’t simply her nerve she’d lost but something more profound and precious, something she could not fully grasp herself.

Insight hit him like a blow in the region of his heart: she
had
lost her nerve, not merely for a discreet dalliance in the wilds of Sussex, but
as
a
woman
. That greater loss was old, probably rooted back in her childhood, when her distracted father hadn’t even acknowledged her existence much of the time. An elderly grandfather had simply leaned on her willing shoulder and made her into the son he’d lost, and then Rose’s father—with pain, and shame, and abandonment—had finished the job.

Even now, by leaving Guinevere to manage Enfield, her cousins were complicit in a scheme that was well intended, but that disregarded a woman’s right to her family’s protection.

Every vestige of Douglas’s pique vanished in the face of emotions both protective and oddly sweet. He put his question gently, prepared for any answer she might give. “Guinevere, do you
want
to regain your nerve?”

Her chin came up. “Yes.”

Some distant, disgraced relative of chivalry hurt for her, that she’d been left to rebuild her feminine confidence in near isolation, when a discreet
affaire
, a shared
tendresse
, even a bit of gentle flirtation might have spared her much self-doubt.

“Some journeys cannot be undertaken alone.”

“Douglas…” She stood halfway across the room, solitary and torn, and he did not approach her because she had to know the decision was hers. He might not like her choice, but he would neither question it nor fume nor pout nor brood—very much.

He wouldn’t make it easy for her, though. She would have to come to him and put her trust in him for the duration. That he could be firm on this point even after a long sexual drought was a fig leaf for his dignity.

“I need time,” she said. “With every change, there is loss and gain. I have to know what I’m losing and gaining.”

She’d had too much time. “One can’t always know those things, my dear. Every decision has unintended consequences, and you must resign yourself to living with those consequences.”

That wasn’t what the lady had wanted to hear—she’d been parenting an unintended consequence for at least five years—and yet, Douglas wasn’t finished. “I would beg you to recall, Guinevere, should you decide you want no further personal dealings with me, that choice will bear consequences as well.”