Forced Offer (8 page)

"Why so thoughtful all of a sudden?" asked Wilbur.

"Nothing, nothing at all," said Berrington. "Just thinking what a sharp turn my life gave all of a sudden." He ran a hand through his hair and added:

And that's the last I speak of this."

Chapter 8

They would be three nights on the road, thought Belinda,and only one of those three nights had passed, thinking that to her at least, it was heaven on wheels.

No matter that during the day, inside the carriage, across the table for dinner or when they stopped to rest and tea along the way, there was little conversation between them.

Lord Berrington had said they would arrive at Winterhill on the fourth night. He had provided these bits of information when the silence seemed to hang about them. His voice was now warmer when addressing her, but timid still in his presence, Belinda still spoke little to him during the day and her replies to his remarks were uttered in a voice so low that sometimes he would repeat the statement, thinking she had not heard.

Tonight, thought Belinda, a thrill running through her as she lay in the darkness of the room with only the dim glow of a candle and the soft light of the moon. The moon cast a glow on the sign of the inn she could see from her bed, "The King’s Sword." She had drifted in a half-dream state through the day and into this night.

The hours went by, and then when Belinda, tense from waiting, had decided he wasn't going to come, the door opened. She closed her eyes at the sound, for she suddenly wondered if he would think she was still up because she hoped a repeat of the night before.

She heard him as he placed the bottle of wine and glasses on the table as he had done the night before and heard him as he undressed. Then suddenly she knew the room was in darkness, for the tenuous glow through her lids had disappeared.

He moved closer to her and then wove his arm under her neck, pulling her close to him. Belinda's heart raced. And though she was in her nightgown, he wore nothing. She could feel the warmth of his muscled chest and thighs as she was pressed against him and a shiver of pleasure shot through her body so that she thought she would be unable to stop herself from crying out in joy. This time the bliss of his nearness was not fogged by liquor and she felt every ripple of his body, felt his breath close to her cheek and was completely awake and conscious of every little movement.

More than anything she wanted to be near him again, as near as she had been to him last night. She turned halfway over him, unable to control the impulse that suddenly made her throw her right leg in the space between his legs. Immediately she felt his sharp intake of breath and his swelling against her thigh.

With a groan he sat her up, as though she had been a feather pillow and with both hands removed her nightgown and threw it aside to the floor. She felt a slight shiver on her upper torso and hot warmth in her thighs. His hands, warm and strong, now ran down her breasts, so that darts of pleasure shot throughout her body and she felt now more drugged than if she had been completely drunk. He pulled her down roughly and she now felt his lips on her breasts so that she had to make a supreme effort not to cry out with the shivering ecstasy she was engulfed in. His breath was audible now and then hers too, as they panted and gasped for breath in their climb again to that secret place where there was no one but them, that place she had longed for all day, hour upon hour, since last night. And now they had reached that place in the same instant. Then finally, their sweat mingling, she fell heavily on him as he gave a long sigh of relief. He then turned her a little and he turned with her. "You're sweet," he said. He embraced her, and they fell asleep thus, in union still.

They must have slept only for an hour or so, as they both awoke at the same time to the darkness around and each other's nearness.

Berrington's arm that was relaxed under her now tightened around her as he held her to him by her outside shoulder, pressing her sideways to him. She felt an immense feeling of safety within the warmth of his broad shoulders and hard chest.

"Did you sleep?"

"Yes, a little. Did you?" Belinda marveled how easy it was for her to speak to him in the darkness and in such a situation, when in daylight she was hard put to utter a single word and could not even meet his eyes.

"Yes. Are you thirsty?" he asked.

"Yes. Very much," she said, feeling the parchness in her throat.

"I think that's what awoke me," he said. Slowly he removed his arm from under Belinda and sat up. Then, in the darkness still, as though he too felt more at ease in the darkness, he groped for the wine, and against the window, where the moonlight outlined the thin drapes, he measured out two glasses of wine.

By this time their eyes had accustomed to the dark and she was able to take the glass he handed her and sip it in silence as she sat in the middle of the bed.

She did not bother to think that he had not handed her her nightshift, which was still on the floor, and that he was just as unconscious of the fact that he was sitting nude on the edge of the bed in the darkness.

They sipped their wine in silence, and they both knew, as certain as if they had transferred their thoughts to each other that they would soon be in each other's arms again.

Lord Berrington placed his empty glass on the table and took hers as she handed it to him. Then he reached out to her in the exact moment she reached out to him…

They fell asleep toward dawn and left the inn the next morning three hours later than Berrington had planned.

There was a dreamy weariness about their eyes as they resumed their strange, silent, daytime relationship, avoiding each other's eyes as though they had been strangers thrown together by chance in a public coach.

They slept most of the day, drifting in and out of sleep in the well-sprung carriage, he in one cushioned seat and she in the opposite one.

And as evening fell Belinda looked up at the half moon and sighed, for it was the last night before their arrival at Winterhill. And she somehow knew that in Winterhill she would never know the happiness she had known on the road.

A sexual tension made both Lord Berrington and Belinda awkward at dinner at the Black Horse Inn.

Berrington had secured a small, private room for their dinner but neither was doing justice to the well-cooked roast beef and baked potatoes, nor to the peach cobbler drowning in fresh clotted cream.

Lord Berrington sipped his wine pensively while Belinda sipped hers without looking up and wondered if he would notice that her hand on the stem of the wineglass trembled.

The Black Horse was a large establishment and the proprietor, a jovial red-faced giant had come over to their table to see that all was in order earlier on. After that they had been left alone, for that was the rule for newlyweds.

Lord Berrington made small talk at the table. Belinda was a little more at ease in his company and managed to answer his questions with more than a monosyllable, as she had done so before.

"I noticed that the gown you wore on the road yesterday seemed a little too heavy," he said. If you would like to obtain something from the larger trunk I will have it opened, it is no trouble to do so."

"Yes, perhaps the lighter Levantine," she answered. "The rose gown is a bit heavy. I did not choose it."

"I will have Mason open the trunk for you tomorrow morning, before we leave again. Just have Bessie get the gown for you."

"Yes, thank you."

During the rest of the evening, Lord Berrington continued on like this and dinner was more pleasant and cordial than usual. But even so, he as well as Belinda ate little of the hearty food.

After Lord Berrington had forced a few mouthfuls of the tender meat down his throat, which felt like dust and washed it down with the wine, he stole a glance at his bride.

"You should try to eat a little more," he said, "or you will feel hunger in the middle of the night."

Belinda felt the color rise in her cheeks at the mention of "the middle of the night" and sought refuge in the wineglass. Already, with little in her stomach, the wine was coursing wildly through her veins and getting her light-headed. She made an effort to converse a little more with him as the minutes ticked away.

Belinda savored her wine and her eyes sometimes looked up as he talked and now and then made a comment, as his brown eyes also settled on her now and then.

"Perhaps what I should do is to have this roast beef done up in sandwiches and sent up to our room, in case we should feel hungry later on. Would you like that rather than forcing yourself to eat?"

Belinda nodded and Lord Berrington motioned to the boy who hovered by the door.

Once this order was executed and a wine bottle packed with the sandwiches in a basket Bessie was called.

Belinda left him to his port and went up the stairs with Bessie, Bessie chattering all the way on a hundred topics over which she skipped lightly like a butterfly on a bush while a young boy followed behind carrying the basket.

Berrington felt tense with anticipation as he stared at his glass and wondered at himself.

Not one of the mistresses he had had over the years had ever made him tense with expectation. And here was a girl who had not attracted a first glance, let alone a second one from any of the passengers arriving and departing at this large establishment, who was thin almost to the unhealthy, and with whom he would—at all other times before—rather have been caught dead than in her company, this girl was making his body tingle all over with an urgent need to be again in that velvet blackness with her…

Why? She spoke little during in the day, much less at night. Where was the charm, and why the lure to go blindly into those soft velvet nights like a ghost? She was a virgin, but he had had several of those, for with his looks and position young barmaids and country wenches were forever throwing themselves at him. On one occasion he had been awakened in the middle of the night at a roadside inn to find an obliging virgin in his bed, completely naked. But his tastes had run more to the sophisticated experience of the Zolandes, Claudines and Annettes of the Fashionably Impure, as they were called.

And recalling his current light skirt, Tania Carpelle, he wondered why he had not rested until he had wrenched her from Sir Oliver Chantal's grubby hands.

It seemed ridiculous now. He would no doubt give Tania her 
conge 
now, for she was certainly not earning her keep. He realized now that what he had thought was passion in her was merely clever fakery, and he was disgusted, both at himself and her.

And Lady Celeste! He was appalled at himself. He had been in danger of proposing marriage to that lady. Why was it that he saw her falsity so clearly now when he had not been able to see it before? Was it Wilbur's words that had put him on the scent? But no, he had planned on meeting her even after Lord Wilbur's veiled warning, or not so veiled, for hadn't he said Lady Celeste lacked propriety? He had hinted at his regard for her with the intention of formalizing relations with her, and she had hinted back, though in something more than a hint.

And he had actually believed she loved him. Why was he now so certain that Lady Celeste was incapable of love?

What insight into himself had he acquired of a sudden that made him see this? He was puzzled, and wondered if the shock of finding himself in such a bind as this incredible marriage had given his brain such a jolt as to make him see with clarity falseness and deception where he had seen none before.

With a glance at the clock on the wall, Lord Berrington rose from the table. He had never felt an hour go slower than this one. He then went up the stairs, his step quick and light.

The candle sputtered with the draft he created as he walked in and he saw that Belinda was already in bed but her face was turned toward the silver moonlight on the drapes, and she was not asleep. She did not turn toward him as he walked in, nor did she stir as he undressed, but with the uncanny knowledge he had acquired of late he knew that she yearned for his body as much as he was longing for hers.

He realized for the first time since this journey had begun that he had not kissed her once. This struck him like a bolt and he wondered what she thought of it. She was such a sphinx as he had never known in his life, and he knew with a certainty that he would never know. He blew out the candle and reached for her. She turned to him and he embraced her.

He immediately relieved her of her nightgown and tossed it on the floor without ceremony. He now kissed her neck and felt a lightning rush throughout his body that could not wait as he hurriedly thrust into her, her sharp intake of breath turning his blood to lava so that he felt his skin a furnace against the cool summer night. And even in this hurried manner he felt her passion assuaged and her long sigh mingling with his breath, and sighed with a satisfaction he had never felt before. He reached for her mouth and felt her soft virginal lips respond to him as only a virgin would, expectantly, unknowing. He parted her lips brusquely with his own and thrust his tongue inside her, violating her mouth as he had violated her maidenhood, making her his as nothing had done so before.

She felt her gasp into his mouth and he kissed her with a wildness he had never kissed any woman before and felt tears sliding down her cheeks and got his cheeks wet with them. And he knew without being told that they were tears of joy.

Again and again he kissed her until his mouth and hers were bruised and they were both breathless, gasping as if they had come up for air after almost being drowned.