Edith Layton (21 page)

“No,” she said, finally answering his question. “Actually it was the other way around. You see, one night when I was asleep he came to me and didn’t bother waking me. I suppose I was still dreaming, or maybe it was because he was drunk and it took him longer than usual, but I began to feel something I never had before, and I moved. He stopped, and slapped my face, hard. He said he didn’t want whore tricks, and that if I thought he did, I could think again. He blamed it on other women in the colony, some of whom had been whores. He didn’t allow me to talk to them after that.”

“I’m very glad that he’s dead,” Leland said. “Or I would have had to kill him.”

She hit the comforter with a balled-up fist. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Oh God, Leland, you made such a mistake in marrying me!”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t. Whores
do
use those tricks to please men, because women are supposed to move, because passion
is
moving. Most men think of it as a compliment to their skill.” He sat up, turned, and held open his arms. “May I just hold you?”

She nodded, and buried her face in his neck.

“Don’t worry,” he said, one hand making large circles on her back, the way he would comfort a child. “That’s over and done, it will never happen again.”

In time, he felt her relax. A little while later, she drew back. He had to let her go.

“Good night,” she whispered, and lay back down on the feather tick.

“Good night,” he said, and turned his back to her, so she’d never know how aroused he’d been. He’d had to keep that from her when he’d been comforting her. He stifled a groan, realizing it would be a long time until he got to sleep this night.

This could not go on, he thought, and not just for his sake. He spent the next hour thinking how to end it.

Daisy woke to find herself alone. She closed her eyes as the events of the past night flooded back to her. What had gotten into her, why did she talk about such shameful things? She wondered if Leland was out somewhere trying to find out how to annul this marriage. She couldn’t believe what she’d said and what she hadn’t done because she’d lacked the courage to do it. That shocked her. She knew it had disappointed him. She resolved to try harder. This was no way to keep a bargain. He had every right to be angry with her.

But when she saw him at breakfast, there
wasn’t a trace of reproach in his face or a hint of it in his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said calmly as he rose from the table to greet her. “Shall we continue our tour of the grounds today, after breakfast?”

“I’d like that,” she said in a subdued voice.

“We can take a basket with us, and go fishing after,” he said. He eyed her pretty new saffron-colored gown. “But not in that. Let’s go up in the attics, and see if I can find some old waders and breeches for you. I don’t want you enacting the role of Ophelia in the water, drifting away, beautiful, but drowned.”

She laughed. “I can swim, and besides, fish are drawn to women, and if I wear breeches, they won’t recognize me as one.”

“Fish are drawn to women?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“So my father said,” she said, smiling at an old memory. “Or at least so he said when he wanted me to go with him to hold the basket to put his pilfered trout in No gamekeeper ever suspects a little girl.”

“I’m positive any sane trout would know you were female no matter what you wore,” he said loftily. “They’re
my
trout, after all.”

They had a wonderful time that day. Less so, that night.

Leland didn’t attempt anything but a brief good night kiss before he turned his back on her—to lie awake half the night knowing the
only woman he’d ever desired body and soul was so close, and so distant, and wondering what to do about it. More than his resolve and her coldness separated her from him. There was a cocoon of satin bedcovers keeping her chaste. Still, he could smell her perfume and imagine he could feel her body heat, while he tried to subdue his own. It was a sort of penance, he finally decided, which he supposed he richly deserved for past sins.

Daisy lay equally awake, arguing with herself, wondering if she should just rise up on an elbow, wake him, and try to make love to him without hating him for it. She’d thought she could do that with Geoff, and been proven wrong, but maybe it would be possible with this man who was coming to mean more to her every hour she spent with him. She made up her mind in the middle of the night, and was going to wake him, but fell asleep before she could raise her hand to touch him.

“Now, here we are,” he said the next day, as he helped her down from her horse. “We’ll go into the maze, and you find the way to the center, because I’ve told you the secret.”

“I’m to think of the sonnet you will recite, make out the rhyme scheme, turn to the meter, and
that’s
how I get to the heart?” Daisy asked.

“Shhh,” Leland said, looking around furtively. “You don’t want anyone overhearing it.”

“There’s no one here but some birds in the
sky,” she said crossly. “I can’t do it anyway. I don’t know the sonnet! I mean, I
know
it but I never memorized it.”

“Oh, that,” he said, as they went in through the dark hedge. “You don’t have to. I only told you that story because it makes it sound so difficult. I’m not even sure it works that way. Listen, now we’re absolutely alone, I’ll tell you the whole truth of it. I’ll sing you a song that I’m sure you do know, and you turn at the end of each rhyme, first right, then left and then left again and then right. If you start off on your right foot and start singing at six paces, you’ll be there in no time.”

He began to sing an old song in a clear pleasant tenor, a song she knew well enough. It was not one any lady would sing in mixed company.

“I don’t believe it!” she cried indignantly, cutting him off. “You yourself said you told Daffyd the Shakespeare sonnet that was the key to this place.”

“So I did. But that’s not the only way. Am I to blame my ancestor’s tastes?” he asked innocently. “They entertained both high and low, as they lived. They were less priggish in those days. Now, step out on your right foot, and at six paces, begin. And all the verses, mind.”

She looked at him skeptically. He looked back, and shrugged. So she started to pace off her steps, and when she got to the sixth, began singing in a small, self-conscious voice, as much muttering as singing, because they were really very naughty
lyrics. While she sang, she turned at the appropriate places, but when she’d repeated the song five times, now oblivious of how she sounded, she was still in one of the long dark green tunnels that made up the maze. She scowled and looked at Leland.

He was biting his lip, and his eyes sparkled.

“Wretch!” she cried. “You did that just to amuse yourself at my expense.” She batted at his shoulder. He turned aside, and, laughing, captured her hands in one big hand. And then he looked at her and stopped laughing, as she stopped fighting and looked at him.

He drew her close, and kissed her. Breathless and surprised, she kissed him back, and found she had to have more of the taste of him. His mouth was sweeter than she’d remembered. She felt the strength of his long hard body against her own, and it dazzled her. He held her gently and deepened the embrace. She closed her eyes, leaned in, opened her mouth to his, and drank long and deep of his kiss.

They paused for breath, looked at each other, and he kissed her again. Or she kissed him; she neither knew nor cared. His hand on her breast thrilled her. She felt her nipple rising to the palm of that big warm hand, and the thrill of it was like shivering heat. He bent his head to run a burning kiss from her earlobe down the nape of her neck, causing her bonnet to fall back and away. She wanted to discard her gown the same
way, because everywhere he touched felt on fire. She closed her eyes and gave in to the sensations he roused, breathing in the scent of him, of good lavender soap, clean lemony herbs, and Leland Grant.

She wasn’t afraid of disappointing or displeasing him; she couldn’t think to be afraid. His shoulders were hard under her hands; she could feel his heart beating hard against her own. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way and was overwhelmed, yet greedy for more.

But he was the one to stop. “Damnation,” he said on a shaky laugh, as he looked around. “There’s nowhere to go further right now. Why couldn’t we have done this in the middle of the maze? You’ve got us so far from it, it will take time to get there.”

Sense was returning to her, he could see it in how her eyes grew wide. She pulled her bonnet back on and tied its strings with shaking fingers. “You mean you want us to do that here and now?” she asked tremulously.

“No,” he said on a long sigh of defeat. “It would be impossible here; just think of how we’d block the path. We don’t want any wandering hedgehog to fall over us. And I don’t fancy leaning back against the hedges; I doubt they’d support us and I’d think it would be far too prickly in any event. Daisy,” he said in a softer voice, “don’t worry. That was just a good omen of days, and nights, to come.”

She nodded.

He saw her retreat from him as clearly as if she’d struck him. There’d be no further lovemaking now. She was too self-conscious.

“Come,” he said gently. “We’ve been here too long. Let’s go home. Would you like to sing our way out?”

That made her smile and she pretended to bat him, as he laughed and pretended to dance away. They both knew it was pretense, and were glad for the diversion as they walked back to their horses together.

They rode in silence, but as their horses neared the house again, she spoke. “Leland?” she said.

“Yes?” he asked warily, because there was something in her voice that alerted him.

“Can we make love together, today or tonight?”

He stared at her. A slow smile appeared on his lips. “I am your servant,” he said, bowing from the waist. “Anything to please you. Would you like to join me on my horse?” he asked. “He’s really faster, and we can get there straightaway.”

T
hey raced back home, gave their horses to a stable boy, and arm in arm, went into the house. The butler met them at the door. Leland nodded to him, and led Daisy into the hall. A footman there told him the housekeeper had a question about the dinner menu, and then blushed scarlet. And two maids on the stairs paused to gaze at them round-eyed.

Leland stopped in the hall and sighed. “The look on my face gave me away,” he whispered to his bride. “There were times when this home’s hospitality was ill used,” he explained. In those times, he thought, he’d have gone upstairs with a woman he desired despite how many of his servants saw him. But this was different. This was
his bride. And the look on her face now told him it had to be different.

There wasn’t any way that he could take her to their room now without the whole household knowing. He saw that knowledge in her eyes, and realized that must have been like cold water on the fire that he’d lit in her. Because she’d stopped laughing.

But she was obviously determined. She gazed at him with gravity. “Well, we’re here,” she said. “Shall we get on with it?”

All laughter had fled; she was sober, actually steely now. So she’d resolved to take him on, he thought. Gads! He’d assumed a difficult task.

Daffyd and Geoff had told him more about their experiences in the Antipodes than the woman he’d just married ever had done. He’d been content to wait for her to relax and trust him in time. One thing was coming clear, though. That brute of a husband had almost ruined her for lovemaking. The operative word was “almost.” Her new husband was determined to change that, because he felt—he knew—he had to believe—she wanted to change it, too. He’d felt the hidden fire in her.

He’d never wanted a wife who would simply endure him. He could have married any number of well-brought-up young women who would do that. They were trained to. Not only had he met too many eager to learn more from other men after they’d presented their husbands an heir, but
too often such women could never be brought to joy. Nor had he wanted a wife who was wildly profligate. He’d had a mother who had ruined too many lives with her appetites. Still, to marry a woman who dreaded the marriage bed because of what she’d experienced there? But he was ever a man for a challenge.

“Then let’s continue this discussion upstairs,” he said. He signaled to his butler. “What we’d like,” he told the man, “is an assortment of Cook’s cakes. I especially like the little ones, with currants. Can we have them brought upstairs? And bring up a few bottles of champagne from the cellar too. The ’94, the ones without tax stamps, from France. We’ve been married three days, we wish to celebrate. Now,” he told Daisy, as the butler, smiling, left. “We’ll have ourselves a revel.”

Her eyes widened, but she swallowed hard, and went up the stairs with him.

She was laughing in an hour. They’d had champagne, and Leland was telling her about some incident at a revel when he’d been at Cambridge. He’d changed to his silken robe, and seemed comfortable, sitting and spinning stories for her. He was a wonderful storyteller.

She sat on their high bed, cross-legged, her pink gown making a pretty contrast to the peach coverlets. When he finished his last story, she pummeled the coverlets with a fist and groaned with laughter. Her hair had come loose from its ribbon, and it framed her face with rosy gold
curls. Her smile was radiant; she wasn’t intoxicated, merely merry.

“No more,” he said when she held out her glass for champagne again. “You’re feeling too lovely.”

“I am not!” she protested.

“Then get angry with me. See if you can.”

She collapsed into giggles. “You’re right! How can I be mad at someone who gives me such delicious cakes and wine?” She raised her head and peeped at him through errant curls. “I’m not tipsy, I’m just happy. This reminds me of the days before I was sent away, when I’d visit with my friends and sometimes stay overnight at their cottages. We’d tell stories and giggle until dawn. My friends,” she said wistfully. “I wonder what happened to them. After my father and I were arrested, I never heard from them again.”

She sat up straighter. “Too bad for them, right?” she said, tossing her head to clear the curls from her eyes. “I made friends back in Port Jackson. They call it Botany Bay, but no one can live there. We stayed at Port Jackson. And I did have friends there, too. But we never laughed so much. There are people with tales sadder than mine,” she said seriously. “And now,” she said on a deep breath, “I don’t intend ever to be sad again.”

“I’ll try to ensure that you never are,” he said. “That, at least, I can promise.”

He rose from the chair he’d been sitting in, and came to sit beside her. He drained the last of his champagne, then paused and held up the empty
glass, scrutinizing it. “They say that these were made from molds of the breasts of Marie Antoinette,” he mused.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her eyes widen. “But I also heard they’re modeled after those of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of our Henry the Second. I also heard that Paris took a mold of Helen of Troy’s bounty, and that’s where they come from. Odd, that so many lovely breasts figure in stories about one simple glass, don’t you think?

She eyed the glass carefully. She took it from him, and suddenly clapped it over her own right breast. Now his eyes widened.

“Phoo,” she said, looking down to see that the glass didn’t encompass half of her breast. “That doesn’t speak well for me. I couldn’t fit in one of these. Or even two put together. Well, maybe two put together. What do you think?

“Oh! Your face,” she exclaimed, laughing again, and clapping her hands. “I’ve finally done it! I’ve shocked you! And here you were, trying to scandalize me. Don’t deny it. You’ve been telling warmer and warmer stories…why, that’s what happens when
you
drink too much,” she said. “Did you know that?”

“Possibly,” he said, taking the glass from where she’d put it on the bed, and placing it on the night-stand. “But actually, I was trying to warm you up. Seduce you, that is. There are some who say that warm talk enlivens a woman wonderfully.”

He traced one finger along her collarbone, then leaned forward and brushed his lips along it. His hand trailed down toward her breast, his lips following. “I wouldn’t want to put this lovely article in a glass,” he murmured against her skin, as his finger pulled down the neckline of her gown. “There are far better things to do with it.”

He cupped her now exposed breast and brought his mouth to the puckered rosy tip. “Much better,” he murmured.

She sat still, feeling too much to know what to say as he put his tongue to her breast, and then his lips again. Tanner had sometimes squeezed her breasts in lust, or pinched her there as a jest, but he’d never done this. This was extravagantly delicious, it overcame her; she couldn’t assess her feelings.

He raised his head to see her expression.

“This is good, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s too good, I didn’t know…”

He silently cursed the dead man who had obviously never treated her with any tenderness, even in lust. “Oh, it gets better,” he said as he gathered her in his arms.

He kissed her gently, his palm over the breast he’d abandoned, so that the air couldn’t chill her. They sat on the high bed and he stroked and kissed her, touching his tongue to hers. She sighed into his mouth. Her hands went to his head and she held him so she could drink deeper. Her skin warmed; he could feel her heart racing
against his. She moaned, low in her throat. That was what did it. She heard herself and woke from the sensual spell he’d been weaving.

He felt her body stiffen. He drew away.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head; he could see frustrated tears springing to her eyes. “Don’t stop,” she said angrily. “I can’t help it, ignore it, go on.”

“In a pig’s eye,” he said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just thought of what we’d do. Pay it no mind. I’ll get over it.”

“Get over what?”

“Dreading,” she said, and then cursed in a way that made his eyebrows go up. He was impressed.

“It’s fine when I
feel
,” she said furiously. “But when I
think
, it all stops. It must be because I always had to think before, with Tanner. Whenever he came to me. Because I couldn’t bear to feel. Now, when I want it the other way ‘round, this happens. Damnation!” she swore, balling her hand to a fist and pounding the bed, “I didn’t know it or I’d never have married you, or anyone! Do you believe me?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. He thought for a moment, trying to rein in his senses, so he could make sense. “Well,” he finally said, “there are several ways we can fix this. Believe me, it can be and will be remedied. Now, let’s see the best way to do it. We can feed you a whole bottle of champagne and open another. Then you won’t be
thinking at all.” He frowned. “But the problem is that if we get you drunk enough you won’t remember how good it was with us, and we’ll have to start all over again next time.”

She smiled, but it was a small, sad smile.

“Or,”
he said, “we can put you in charge. That’s it! You won’t have to think of anything but what you want me to do next.”

“What?” she said.

He cocked his head to the side. “Of course, there’s the distinct possibility that you won’t know what you want. But that can be sorted out, too. I’ll tell you in advance. Or show you, and you can judge. How does that sound?”

She stared at him.

“Shall I tell you your options?” he asked, smiling.

She bowed her head into her hands “Oh,” she whispered in an agony of self-loathing, “why do you put up with me?”

“Because,” he said softly, “I love you. I thought you knew that.”

She looked up at him.

He gathered her close in his arms. “
Nothing
could be worse than not knowing what’s going to happen,” he told her. “I should have realized that sooner. Sometimes talking about such things can be lovely. Did you know there are some people who would rather talk about it than do it? Well, not you or I, but I think talking can ease
our way. Let me tell you what’s possible. Remember, you will have your choice.”

And then he spoke to her about making love, the things they could do together. He described those things in soft words, delicious words, wooing her with how he phrased them. Nothing he said sounded wrong. He punctuated each lesson with a kiss, and told her about things she’d heard of, but had been grateful Tanner never asked of her. Now, listening to her new husband’s husky, entrancing voice, as he sat next to her with his arms around her, trying to seduce her into a deeper embrace, she found she wanted to try everything he spoke of.

Only once, she stopped him, her eyes wide. “
Good
women do that?” she asked in wonder.

“The
best
women do that,” he assured her. “And I, of course, would do similar, only different, of course, for you. Would you like to hear about that?”

“No,” she said.

He stopped breathing, and silently cursed himself for a fool, to think a woman who had been hurt by a man could be lured by words that told her about what she must think of as only further indignity. He was wondering how to repair the damage, thinking frantically of what to do next, when she pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him.

“Don’t you want to hear more?” he asked,
when he could, though he felt that if he waited longer his heart would surely pound out of his chest.

“Show me
now
,” she said against his mouth. “Please.”

He did.

This time, she didn’t pull away. Not when he kissed her mouth, or when his lips sought her throat, or her breasts. Certainly not when he finally helped her out of her thin gown, which she suddenly found too tight, too warm, and far too concealing.

She paused only once. “Take off your robe,” she whispered. “I want to know what you were talking about, Lee. Oh, I do so want to know.”

“At your service, my lady,” he said. “So do I.” He opened his robe and flung it away.

He cupped her bottom so he could hold her closer against himself, laid her against the pillows, and followed her down to the bed. She felt his excitement, and wasn’t afraid; she was too busy learning how amazing kisses could be and reveling in his caresses.

She wanted to know what he tasted like, she had to touch him as he was touching her, not because it was only fair, but because she
had
to. He obliged her, as, body to body, they sought each other.

Only once did she startle, when he touched her as no man had ever done before. It felt too
wonderful; she was as shocked as thrilled. His hands were gentle; she didn’t even worry when she felt one long finger begin to explore her intimately. She only wanted more. But he stopped when he felt her body leap.

“No, no,” she murmured disjointedly, her face buried in his neck, “Don’t stop, don’t. It’s just that it’s so good and I never knew.”

“Know now,” he breathed in her ear, and kissed her as he went on touching her.

She shivered with pleasure and then gasped for breath, as she felt a spasm of pleasure she’d never imagined. He waited until she realized she wanted even more.

It was more than he’d hoped. She was all fire, and now, all readiness. But she’d obviously listened to what he’d said.

She reached for him. “My choice,” she breathed. “I want the same for you. Like this?” she asked as she finally gently measured his length in her hands. The size and power of him astonished her. He went very still.

For one second, before he answered, she wondered if she’d gone too far, or not far enough. She’d only touched Tanner when he’d been too drunk and unable; when he’d commanded her to ready him, and do it fast. She didn’t want to mishandle this man.

“Any way you touch me is right,” he breathed. “That’s good, that’s fine, that’s perfect, yes.”

He finally stopped her, and moved over her. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “But there’s something even better.”

She lay back, trusting him. He kissed her before he probed her intimately again. He couldn’t believe his luck. She was ready, and she was, at last, greatly willing.