Nola (7 page)

"Are you listening
to me, Mrs. Sawyer, or do I need to hurt you in order to get you to pay
attention to me?" he grumbled, leaning forward, pressing himself even further
up inside her as he did so, his thumb and forefinger pinching and pulling her
left nipple as he continued to ram himself up inside her.

Nola's eyes flew
open. "No, I'm listening."

"What did I just
say,"
came
the hoarse, disjointed question.

Her one
consolation in their physical relationship was that it seemed that he couldn't
remain untouched by it, either.

It was so hard
to think when he was doing this to her - the combination of the pain and the
pleasure wiped away any semblance of intelligence she'd ever pretended to until
it was over. She never seemed to become blase at all about any of this -
despite the fact that her body welcomed him wetly every time, it was still
always a startling thing to feel him inside her, to feel how he made her
stretch for him each and every time, every nerve ending tingling with
anticipation of the ecstasy she knew he was going to bring her to.

"You said for me
to be quiet and not to argue with the Reverend; that it would be unseemly." Her
response was a lot like his - full of heavy breathing and so disjoined it was
almost unintelligible, but it was the best she could do, especially when he
tugged her nipple out as far as it could go, pinching it as tightly as he could
then letting it slip slowly out of the vice like grip of his forefinger and
thumb until she screamed with it, then reaching down to grab her hips and pull
her hard up against him, arranging her legs over his elbows and leaning his
entire considerable weight into her with each thrust.

"And you'd better,
or you're not going to sit down comfortably for a week," he barely ground out,
unable to keep himself from quickening his invasion, following the dictates of
his body rather than his mind yet careful to make sure that she arrived,
screaming and moaning and panting at the top of her lungs just before he let
himself go.

When he'd guided
her down the wide staircase into the huge, paneled receiving room, with its
maroon velvet drapes and textured wall paper, tastefully arranged Louis XIV
furniture and ornately frescoed ceiling, he was secretly reveling in her rosy
cheeks, and the fine, almost imperceptible sheen on her creamy skin. He'd put
both of those there. Introductions weren't necessary, since the Reverend had
been the one to marry them, so he installed her on a settee and went to get
them both an aperitif.

Her behavior was
exemplary for the first half hour of the evening. She was much quieter than
usual, but he knew that that was because he had hurried her downstairs directly
after they'd both climaxed, and she was really still in the midst of her
recovery from a monumental orgasm.

Sometimes he
caught her shifting in her seat. Louis' furniture was certainly beautiful, but
it wasn't made for comfort, especially the comfort of a woman whose privates
were quiet possibly still contracting. He was of a mind to pick her up and
perch her on his lap, which he knew wouldn't be any more comfortable, but would
have been a
helluva
lot more fun for him, if only in
just the "startle and outrage" factor from the Reverend, but she was spared
that fate when
Beakman
came in to announce that
dinner was served.

Her behavior at
the dinner table, however, was an entirely different matter. It seemed that
between the receiving room and the dining room, she recovered enough of herself
to engage in a series of escalating arguments with Mr.
Playfair
,
regarding the role of women in society. His little wife - when she forgot what
she'd been told expressly not to do -
had
a mind full
of modern ideas, whereas the Reverend had a mind full of musty, but tried and
true, platitudes, and neither one of them was going to back down.

"A woman
deserves the same exact rights as a man!" Nola proclaimed loudly, banging her
hand down next to her plate and causing the expensive imported wine in ornate
Waterford glasses to jump. "She should be able to vote, own property, and
remain unmarried without fear of the excoriation of the old frumps in society."
She was leaning over the table, very near to standing up if it wasn't for her
devoted husband's hand on her shoulder, looking directly in the Reverend's eyes
as she spoke.

The Reverend was
already almost apoplectic from their previous discussions, and he followed
suit, his exquisite roast duckling with baby carrots and chives in aspic
completely forgotten, so much so that Father had to lean forward and rescue it,
lest Mr.
Playfair's
shirt end up slathered with most
of his meal. "It is a woman's lot in life to be submissive to men - first her
father, and then her husband. She should be meek and mild and quiet and do her
duty by having children. Being a wife and mother is the highest goal a woman
should ever aspire to - she was created to be a helpmate, to bear children, and
take care of her husband
- "

"She can
raise
the next male generation who will rule the world but
she can't be trusted to vote, Reverend?"

The two of them
were practically nose to nose over the dinner table, until Brandon forcibly
retracted his wife back into her chair, making her land on the hard seat with a
bit of an unladylike "
oof
". She glared at him and he
glared right back at her, raising his eyebrow in what should have been enough
of a warning, but apparently wasn't. They went at it several times over dinner,
and each time, as he reeled his surprisingly rabid wife in, he glanced over at
his father, who was doing his best to suppress his out and out glee at the
situation, but not managing very well.

His grandfather
was doing an even worse job. He was out and out laughing at the both of them.
Of course, he was mostly laughing at Nola's outrageous notions, but that was
okay. He could be forgiving.

His father,
however, shared the same glare he gave Nola, only it worked much better on her
- such as it was - than it did on him. He wasn't going to spank his father
later. But he was most definitely going to spank his wife.

Nola knew that
she was in trouble. She knew it as sure as she knew the next course was going
to be fish, and, of course, it was. Salmon, as a matter of fact, with a lovely,
light herb sauce, served on a Royal
Doulton
bone
china platter. She sat as prettily - and as comfortably as she could - and
enjoyed the meal, deciding - after the fact - that discretion was the better
part.

She was in deep,
deep trouble. Her husband was sitting next to her, fuming none too quietly, and
occasionally reaching beneath the table, where no one could see, and squeezing
her thigh without the slightest hint of gentleness. She had to congratulate
herself, though. At least the Right Reverent
Whatzizname
was still alive. Sometimes, when she heard men talk like that, she just wanted
to rip their heads off. She knew that wasn't a particularly ladylike or
feminine impulse, but it was there in her brain just the same.

It was funny
that discourse like that made her so angry, and yet her husband - who was most
certainly going to spank her silly as soon as they got back to their bedroom -
didn't - much, anyway.
At least not to the extent that she
truly wanted to kill him.

She'd mellowed
towards him to a certain extent. When they were courting - that few short
months - she had been relatively neutral towards him. It had appeared that he
was her fate, regardless of what she might have wanted, and she knew she was
going to do the typical, hypocritical thing and get married to him.
She couldn't not do it
; her parents were over the moon, and
she knew that by doing so that they would be set for the rest of their lives.
She had begun to understand those things that other women had already
confronted - family obligations.

If there had
ever been a time when she was going to kill her husband - so far - it was just
after they'd married, and it was entirely due to what he did to her in that big
bed he insisted that they share. If he'd been what she thought of as a normal
husband - let her have her own room, come to her only occasionally to perform that
strange ritual.

And then she had
become as addicted to it as he was - and it was all she could do to bear the
shame of it. It seemed the more he did it, the more she wanted him to do it.

That was her
cross to bear, despite the unenlightening conversation she'd had with Wilde,
she didn't really feel any better about what went on between them between the
time she retired and dutifully kissed both her father and grandfather in law
good night and kissed them good morning the next day. Nola was quite sure the
two of them knew - or worse heard - exactly what was happening between herself
and her husband every single evening, and sometimes two or three times a night.

Chapter
Five

This evening
wasn't a lot different from their usual - except that she had to be nice to the
Reverend when he left, in hopes that her husband might take pity on her. She
snorted a little to herself. Unfortunately that wasn't likely to happen.

The Reverend was
not particularly gracious, taking it upon himself to lecture her regarding her
place as Brandon's wife. It was actually Alexander who guided him out the door
almost forcibly, as he railed and quoted the Bible about what was her place in
this world simply because she had the misfortune to be born a woman.

That thought -
as well as her contemplation of her own hypocrisy in marrying for anything but
love - managed to depress her more thoroughly in a matter of minutes than she
had been in her life. She was suddenly crestfallen and almost slumped, kissing
her husband's father and his grandfather good evening with what little
affection she could muster, and turning to the stairs knowing that he was going
to be up there shortly, and she was going to be begging him to stop... and then
begging him several minutes later not to.

She was already
undressed when Brandon entered the room, sitting with a copy of "Bleak House"
by Dickens in her lap, resting against pillows to read. When he came in, she
got up, and for the first time in their marriage, she reversed their usual
roles, acting as his valet and helping him undress. He eyed her closely, saying
flatly, "This isn't going to get you off the hook, you know."

"I know."

She wasn't
simpering about, she wasn't sucking up. She was just doing the very wifely
thing and helping him get ready for bed. Of course, he slept in the nude so she
didn't need to get out a sleeping gown for him, or that might have been laid
across the bottom of the bed.

He caught her
wrist when she came back from hanging up his pants. "Are you all right?" It was
the first time in his life that he'd ever really cared about the response to
that question.
Really cared.
She wasn't acting at all
like herself, and he didn't like it. She was so much more subdued than usual.
He'd expected to come up here to their bedroom and have to chase her around the
room like he'd had to on occasion.
But not this time.
The
change had come over her while they were still downstairs, seeing the Reverend
out, and he'd been ranting about what how she should behave as a good wife, and
that was pretty much exactly the opposite of how she usually behaved.

Surprised at his
question, she snuck a look up at him. "I'm fine."

She was most
definitely not fine, and he didn't like her this way at all. Her face was flat,
completely lacking in its usual animation. She looked older somehow, and
intensively unhappy, and he was amazed to realize that that mattered to him.

Brandon had
skated through life, never really being touched by much of anyone else. His
mother had died when he was young, and he'd never really worried much about how
anyone else was feeling, or what anyone else thought.

But Nola was his
wife - the woman he'd be spending the rest of his life with. She would be the
mother of his children, and he was beginning to realize that he didn't want her
to be miserable with him. He knew he had pretty much wrangled her into the
marriage - what woman's family was going to allow her to decline a marriage
offer from a man such as him - the one the papers all called the most eligible
bachelor in the country.

He'd known that
she was a free spirit of sorts - that she had some pretty unusual ideas about
woman and men. Brandon was no babe in the woods about women - they'd been
throwing themselves at him, or had been thrown at him by their families - since
well before he was of age. He'd had Ms. Hughes and her family investigated from
top to bottom by the
Pinkertons
, and also by some connections
that were much less above board. It wouldn't do at all for there to be any sort
of a scandal in connection with his wife or her family.

And there wasn't
- even considering that she'd narrowly escaped arrested at several pro-suffrage
rallies.

With the
exception of her questionable relationship with Everest, and her questionable
thoughts and practices about women's suffrage and some questionable opinions
about men and marriage in general, some of which had been even been published
in small pamphlets distributed at suffrage rallies - in other words, except for
the feelings of the woman herself, Brandon had absolutely no problem with her
family at all. They were, essentially, exactly as Roger had portrayed them in
his quick summary at the ball when she'd originally attracted him.