My Wicked Marquess (32 page)

 

“Are you sure no one can see us?” she panted a while later as their garden stroll took a naughty detour.

“They can't, nor would they dare to try.”

With an admitted ulterior motive, Max had brought her to the far end of the pleasure grounds, into a garden room bounded on all sides by ten-foot boxwoods, and shaded by an ornamental pear tree.

The main attraction of the private garden room was the low-walled goldfish pond with its little center fountain.

When she bent forward to peer down at the well-fed koi swimming about beneath the lily pads that floated on the surface, Max had eyed the beckoning curve of her derriere and found his lovely bride beyond tempting.

He had laid his coat down on the ground for her to kneel on; she had braced her hands against the sun-warmed stone wall around the fountain as he had lowered himself onto his knees behind her.

“I want you…just like this.” He breathed his words softly in her ear. “I want to make love to you with the sunshine on your face. Your body one with mine.”

Drowning deliciously in the golden silk of her hair, he lifted her skirts and took her from behind. Facing forward
straddling his lap, she moved with him, enjoying the ride as he took her with a leisured thoroughness. His hands on her waist guided her motions. With a honeyed moan, she rested her head back against his shoulder, draping her arm languidly around his neck.

High above them, a hawk circled in the blue sky.

Max nibbled her earlobe, but as she let him have his way with her, he found himself growing ever more crazed with his passion for her.

His hands ran up and down her body through her clothing. Needing to feel her skin, he reached under her skirts and grasped the creamy thighs draped over his, her lithe muscles working as she balanced on her knees, her hips lifting up and down, riding him into a lather.

He uttered an epithet of helpless need at the pleasure she stoked in him with her willing innocence. He stroked the fine curls between her legs and caressed her clitoris ever so lightly while he kissed her earlobe. He felt her surging response as his fingers played against her mound, and her wet core clenched him like a sweet, silken glove.

When she moaned aloud with pleasure, he quickly muffled her noise with a hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear.

She obeyed; indeed, the light restraint seemed to arouse her all the more. The sleek, wet grip of her fiery core quivered against his throbbing cock. The lower moan that escaped her from behind his hand begged him for release.

Max gripped her shoulder as he impaled her with slow, relentless strokes, plunging into her, until her soft groans of pleasure frayed the last of his control. He bent her forward, reveling in wild lust as he took her in total, claiming possession. Never had he had it like this before, with this white-hot intensity, never fully sated; the more she surrendered, the deeper he craved, as if she had tapped a well of desperate need in him so long ignored, a thirst that only she could quench. The moment she reached her climax, he surrendered to his own shattering orgasm. It swept through him like a firestorm, each profound pulsation emptying him into
her. She was everything.

A fragment of a thought trailed through his dazzled mind: He wondered with a shiver how Lord Starling had ever survived the death of his first wife. If he had felt anything like the near-obsession Max felt for Daphne, by all rights, he should have lost his mind.

“Oh, Max.” She stayed where she was on his lap, just savoring the feel of his still-swollen member inside her. Reaching up, she dragged her hand wearily through his hair in a dreamy caress.

He loved her touch. He turned his face and kissed her wrist as she petted his head. He never wanted to leave her body.

“I can't believe I ever fought you on this,” she whispered. “You have every right to say you told me so. You never doubted,” she whispered to him, her tone tender and confiding. “It took me longer to see it, but now I know that I was made for you. You were right. A thousand times, you were right from the start and I was wrong.”

“My darling Daphne,” he answered barely audibly, “I only hope that one day I might actually deserve you.”

“Oh!” she murmured, a chiding sound of softhearted protest at his words. But with her very yielding, she conquered yet another hardened fortress in his heretofore impregnable heart.

 

As October wore on, the weeks that passed were a heady time of making their plans for the future, meeting all the people around her new home, and becoming familiar with all the aspects of her new life as Lady Rotherstone.

There were social calls to be made to her new neighbors, many thank-you notes to be written to all her wedding guests back in Town, and a harvest home to plan for the whole estate, with three days of work off for everyone.

She was soon considered a local authority on all things concerning London and the fashions. Back in Town, she knew, Parliament would have reopened for the autumn session, with the more intimate social occasions of the Little Season under way.

Among the local gentry, meanwhile, there was talk of the annual assizes, the county judges making their rounds to hear any new criminal cases or other disputes that had arisen.

An invitation arrived for a hunt ball in November, but each day proved that her friends' information had indeed been wrong. Country life was not at all dull. All around the estate was a hum of activity, some new thing to see and learn about. The estate's mill was busily churning out several types of flours, grinding down the corn and rye and wheat; the distillery fires crackled away, producing an array of potent libations. Daphne watched the workwomen simmering down the ripened fruits of summer with large amounts of sugar to ferment them—cherries, raspberries, currants. Each was boiled down to a thick, sweet syrup to be used in creating different flavors of brandy and wine.

The kitchen staff was on a mighty campaign of pickling and preserves; the field hands hung the new hay in the barn to dry; the gardeners were trimming back the faded perennials and planting more spring bulbs; the stable managers pampered the broodmares already expecting next spring's foals.

Meanwhile, to Max's amusement but Daphne's dismay, the house was so vast that she kept getting lost, until one day, she walked into the central staircase hall and found a waist-high fingerpost sign that her cheeky husband had made for her. It had thick, painted arrows pointing in various directions:
Drawing Room, Music Room, Dining Room
, and so on.

Numerous servants peeked to see her reaction as she stood laughing at the prank and blushing with embarrassment, calling for her husband, whom she knew at first glance was behind it. “Where is that scoundrel?”

“I solved your little problem for you,” he replied as he sauntered out of the library with a grin.

“You!” She chased him, and he ran with a devilish laugh. He hid from her, for, after all, it was an excellent house for playing hide-and-seek. She stalked him into one of the upstairs bedchambers, and when she finally found him, he seduced her.

It became a bit of a game for them, but there were many
other activities afoot. While Max went out for a leisurely bit of shooting, she corresponded with her family, who would be coming to stay with them at Christmas.

She was particularly keen for her two young stepsisters to get a taste of country life.

She wrote to Carissa, too, recounting with some humor the whole process of being measured for her court robes of crimson velvet with miniver trim, as well as for the dainty coronet that was now being made for her, with the silver balls and strawberry leaves of her new rank.

After all, as Max had said, with “Farmer” George in such ill health, likely to pop off at any moment, she would need the full regalia of her new rank for the Regent's coronation, whenever God saw fit to summon their poor mad king to his reward.

Attendance on that day in the proper traditional attire would, of course, be mandatory for the entire aristocracy. Max being Max, he insisted on being prepared well in advance for the inevitable occasion.

He had also made arrangements with the famous portrait artist Sir Thomas Lawrence, who was now scheduled to come early next year and stay with them until he painted her for posterity. When her portrait was done, it would hang above the mantelpiece in the dining room, and in time, she supposed, be added to the gallery of her husband's illustrious family ancestors.

With every day that passed, she felt prouder to have joined his august line. She knew, of course, that his father and grandfather had both been intemperate men with an unhealthy attachment to the cards and the dice.

But whatever people might think of her so-called Demon Marquess back in London, here in the country, Daphne saw all around her, it was a drastically different story.

Perhaps here in the countryside they did not know he was a leading member of the Inferno Club. Or perhaps here he was more at ease and could be himself. All she knew was people for miles around loved him and held her husband in the highest regard.

All of which brought new questions to her mind. The mys
tery of him only seemed to deepen, and the more she loved him day by day, the more determined she was to eventually solve it.

As October turned to November, she still felt she had not quite figured him out. If she dwelled on it too much, it worried her, in truth.

She knew she had a whole lifetime to grow into a fuller understanding of him. No doubt in a few years' time, they'd be finishing each other's sentences. But for now, as happy as they were together, she felt as if she kept running up against an invisible barrier inside him. As if he was happy to welcome her into his heart—but only up to a point.

She had no idea what lay behind the gates of his hidden self. She only knew she did not like being kept out. It made her all the more uneasy, because she might already be carrying his child; it was too soon to say.

At any rate, having made all their social calls on the surrounding neighbors, it was time to extend the hospitality of their home to the local Quality, in turn. Daphne planned her first dinner party as a married woman, to be held in early December. She began consulting meticulously with the man-chef of the house on their menu before sending out her invitations.

While visiting the chef's domain in the kitchens, she noticed that the whole time they were discussing the best foods in season for the grand event, Wilhelmina and the young chef could not stop staring at each other. She hid her smile. It seemed a bit of an attachment might be forming.

Some mistresses might have been angry, but Daphne was glad. Now that she knew what love was like herself, she wanted everybody to experience it, too, especially a young woman as good-hearted as her loyal maid. The chef seemed like a solid young man, and after all, a woman who married a chef would never starve.

A few days later, when Daphne caught Willie savoring a special little vanilla cake that the handsome young chef had lovingly made just for her, she teased her about it, and Willie shyly confessed to their newly blossoming friendship.

Both twins, in fact, had received a warm welcome at the
estate; country folk at heart themselves, they both fit in with ease. Certainly, Daphne had noticed that footman William spent much of his days being followed around by giggling maids.

As for the young orphan boy, Jemmy, he was making new friends and gradually beginning to lose his Bucket Lane attitude.

Daphne had him hard at work with the other servants on the frosty December day of the dinner party.

Several hours before the guests were due to start arriving, she was dashing about the house making sure that all preparations were moving along smoothly. Passing through the entrance hall, she saw their butler paying their country postman and realized the mail had just been delivered. Max had already taken it and was just now opening a letter he had received.

Daphne hurried over to him. “Any last-minute cancellations from our guests?”

“No!” he said cheerfully. “But this arrived for you from London. Another novel from Miss Portland,” he added as he handed her the latest thick letter from Carissa.

Daphne took it with a frisson of happiness, but put it in the pocket of her apron. “I'll save it for later. Too much to do right now.”

“Too busy even for me?” he asked in a wicked murmur, leaning closer.

She blushed. “I'm afraid so, Lord Rotherstone.” She slid her hand up his shoulder. “You can wait until after the party, can't you?”

“If I must,” he purred as he trailed a smoldering stare over her.

“I see you got something from London, too.” She stood on her tiptoes, peeking at the letter he had already opened. “Oh, dear. The old fierce Highlander again.”

“He's keeping me apprised of any new broodmares of particular quality arriving at Tattersall's,” he replied. “I had told him I'm interested in expanding our stock. Man knows his horseflesh.”

Glancing at Virgil's short letter, she scanned a terse de
scription of a black Arabian mare with four white feet, costing a full two hundred pounds. She eyed Max dubiously.

“Are you going to buy her?”

“Maybe. I think I will go write back to him and tell him to make an offer on my behalf.”

“I see. So, you trust him with your money?” she asked dryly.

“Darling, I would trust him with my life.” He bent and kissed her cheek, then marched off across the entrance hall to go and write his answer.

“Maybe when you answer him, you could ask him why he doesn't like me,” Daphne remarked as he walked away.

“Doesn't like you?” Max exclaimed, glancing back and pausing at the bottom of the stairs. “Nonsense.”

“He glowered at me at our wedding.”

He laughed. “That's just his face, Daphne. He couldn't have been happier to see me married off, especially to such a ‘fine young filly.'”

She snorted.