Once Upon a Tower (14 page)

He nodded, but it was such a clipped gesture that she knew it indicated only that he’d heard her, not whether he would obey.

She could do no more. So Edie stepped up into the carriage. She was no longer Lady Edith. She was no longer the peacemaker in the Gilchrist household. She was no longer an unmarried daughter.

She was the Duchess of Kinross, and there, sitting across from her, was her
husband
.

And her husband . . .

Gowan looked entirely calm and inscrutable but she knew the truth: he had been as moved by the wedding rite as she had been.

When he had promised to “love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health,” she had felt color creep into her cheeks at the expression in his eyes. The breath had caught in her lungs and she had clung to his hands as if they were the only things keeping her upright.

She had never dreamed that wedding vows could mean so much. Nor that she would be so lucky as to find the one man in the world who was perfect for her.

And then, when she had promised to “keep thee only unto him, as long as ye both shall live,” Gowan’s eyes had glowed with a joy that she had seen only a few times in the whole of her life.

Now, she was sitting opposite him in a velvet cloak trimmed with real pearls. After a moment, she allowed the cloak to slip down her shoulders so that her breasts gleamed like the opals in her hair.

A banked flame smoldered in Gowan’s eyes, a fierce interest that made her shift in her seat and straighten her shoulders, which merely served to bring her bosom into further prominence. “You’ve got them,” Layla had told her. “Flaunt them.”

Edie reserved judgment about whether Layla’s propensity to flaunt her bosom in public had done her marriage any good or any ill. But Layla’s propensities—and Layla’s bosom—aside, she was keenly aware that Gowan liked her breasts.

They had said to each other all the words that needed to be said.

The rest of the evening?

No words.

Eighteen

Nerot’s Hotel

London

“I
’ve never been inside a hotel,” Edie said as they entered, looking about with a great deal of curiosity. “I still don’t understand why we don’t simply repair to your house, Gowan.”

“My town house is not acceptable for my duchess,” he replied. The very idea of bringing Edie into a room festooned with jackals offended him. Nerot’s, on the other hand, offered a suitable level of luxurious privacy. If they could not spend their wedding night at his castle, Nerot’s was the next best thing.

Mr. Bindle, Gowan’s butler, came toward them across the entrance hall, followed by a short man with a remarkably full head of hair, which gave him the appearance of a blown dandelion. It emerged that this flowery fellow was Mr. Parnell, the manager of the establishment.

Gowan saw no compelling reason to spend time with the man—surely Bindle had seen to every detail—but he listened with controlled civility as Parnell babbled about the various arrangements for housing his entourage, including Bindle, his cook, and his personal servants.

Yes, he’d brought six footmen and grooms, his cook, his valet, and various other retainers—not to mention their trunks and the carriage bearing Edie’s cello—but surely his retinue could be housed without his help.

He glanced at Bindle, who put a hand on Parnell’s arm and drew him ahead of them at a brisk walk. They climbed a flight of marble stairs, where, at the end of a short corridor, they arrived at a set of tall, lavishly gilded double doors.

“How lovely,” Edie exclaimed.

Mr. Parnell wiped his brow. “The Royal Suite. The doors were brought from France, where they used to hang in Le Palais-Royale in Paris, Your Graces.” He turned the key in the lock and they entered the suite’s great drawing room. Bindle announced that a meal, which was even now being prepared by the duke’s chef, would be brought up in five minutes.

Edie drifted around the room examining the furnishings. She glanced over her shoulder at Gowan and he felt her gaze as if he’d been struck by lightning. She expected him to refuse the meal; he could see it in the sparkling naughtiness of her gaze.

But omitting the meal wasn’t a part of his plan. The last thing he wanted was for her to grow weak from lack of sustenance. He nodded his assent to Bindle and sent him and Parnell out of the room. Then he prowled toward Edie, enjoying the way she stood before tall windows looking like a column of golden light. Her gown had been designed to drive a man into blithering incoherence. It resembled a mere length of fabric wrapped around her. As if a man might reach out and pluck a pin here or there, and a delectable, naked woman would stand before him.

The door opened again, and Mary, Edie’s maid, bustled in, followed by his valet, Trundle.

Gowan glanced over his shoulder. “You will not enter this suite unless you are expressly summoned.”

Mary dropped into a curtsy so low she almost lost her balance. She and Trundle fled.

“Was that truly necessary?” Edie asked.

“My servants are not accustomed to granting me privacy,” he said, reaching out with a finger and tracing the line of her eyebrow, “because I have never before requested it. They will have to learn new ways.”

“You’ve never requested privacy?”

“In the bathroom, of course.”

“Servants come and go as they please?” Her voice was faintly disbelieving.

“Only if they have reason to enter a room, naturally.”

“I am almost always alone. And no one enters my rooms without warning except Layla.”

“When you were playing, the evening when your father joined you, you looked fit to murder until you knew it was he entering your room.”

“It wasn’t
who
he was; it was that he was carrying an instrument. I cannot abide being interrupted while playing, or being asked to stop before I am ready.”

“I shall inform my people. They will not disturb you.” He shifted so that he stood squarely before her, and let his finger run down her cheek and under her chin, tipping it back. “You’re so beautiful, Edie. I am awed.”

“Well, I don’t know why you should be,” she said in that endearingly practical way she had. “Awe is not what I feel when I look at you.”

And indeed, he saw nothing like awe in her eyes; rather he saw a mix of mischief and lust. It made his mind blur, and he nearly lit upon her like a ravening wolf, but he forced himself to remember his plan.

Instead, he bent his head and kissed her gently. The way a gentleman kisses his wife, with reverence.

Edie wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She seemed not to care for the reverence, because her lips were greedy and she demanded a kiss of an entirely different kind. The slightly awkward way she pushed her tongue between his lips lit a slow burn in Gowan’s groin.

Then they were kissing so deeply that he came back to himself only with the realization that she was tugging at his neck cloth. He brought his hand up and stilled hers. “Our supper will arrive presently.” In fact, he was surprised it wasn’t there already. Bindle had said five minutes, and Gowan could usually set his clocks to Bindle’s reckonings.

“Who cares?” Edie whispered. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his neck. He felt a pulse of desire so powerful that it nearly unmanned him.

So he did the only thing he could, and stepped back. As her hands fell away, his neck cloth dropped to the floor.

“Oh dear,” she said, shaking her head. “This is not the moment to become stickish, Gowan.”

The door once again swung open, and Bindle bustled in with his usual silent efficiency, followed by his wine steward, Mr. Rillings, and four footmen bearing a loaded table. The footmen set the table down in the middle of the room, placing chairs at the head and foot.

Gowan introduced his wife to those servants whom she hadn’t already met. Edie’s demeanor was exquisite, as befitted a young lady of her pedigree. She was respectful and courteous to all, with slightly more warmth extended to Mr. Bindle.

They took their seats at the table, which was laden with silver platters, cutlery, and chinaware painted with the ducal seal. Edie stared down at her plate in silence as Mr. Rillings explained his wine choices for the meal.

Then Bindle took over, and began to explain the delicacies that lay under the silver domes. Gowan noted absentmindedly that his servants were doing an excellent job of reproducing dinner at Craigievar, even in the unfamiliar surroundings of a hotel.

His butler was a bit long-winded; this was not news. But as with Bardolph, he had inherited Bindle, and had never thought it worth the fuss to train him to be more succinct.

But now, sometime into the recitation—just as Bindle had begun to describe the
boeuf en daube
—Edie raised her hand. He stopped.

“Mr. Bindle,” she said gently, “I think I should prefer the delights of discovery this evening.”

The butler gaped at her. He was not a man accustomed to interruption. The duke’s household moved in a steady rhythm, as regular as the tides: everything at its expected moment, for precisely the right period of time.

Edie smiled at him, and finally the man understood that it was time to go. He rounded up his footmen and Rillings, and they left the room.

“That was masterful,” Gowan said, raising his glass and grinning at her. It felt good to recognize that he would no longer be the only power in his particular world.
She
would be there, too. Alongside him.

“I am less interested in the preparation and ingredients of food than you must be. This looks and smells like a good beef stew, which is all I need to know.”

“I never listen very closely when Bindle explains the menu.”

“Then why on earth does he give you such a lengthy description?”

“It’s the way it’s always been.”

Her brows drew together. “That does not seem a reasonable explanation, Gowan.”

“I think it makes him happy,” he observed.

She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. Her green eyes surveyed him in a manner that sent a new flush of heat to his groin.

Then she brought the fork to her lips, and he desperately longed to throw the table to the side and be damned if the crash of crockery disturbed all of London. He would carry her to the bed and—

He took a deep breath.

One did not lose control and ravage one’s wife. It was beneath one’s dignity.

“It’s very thoughtful of you to consider your butler’s pleasure, Gowan,” Edie observed, swallowing. Her lips glistened, and he wanted to throw back his head and howl. He didn’t want this damn food.

Instead he sipped his wine and tried to turn his attention to its complexion, made from grapes that grew only in the mountains, of a ripe sweetness, whose color was gold . . . as recounted by Rillings.

And failed.

Edie ate two more bites while he watched her lips from beneath his lashes and reviewed his list.

“I am sorry that your aunts missed our wedding. Will they be distressed, do you think?”

“I doubt that very much. They will be happy to meet you, but they would consider it a betrayal of the scientific temperament to grow excited about a wedding. They have not yet traveled to Craigievar to meet Susannah, for example. That would interrupt the training program of the moment.”

“How much must I eat?” she asked, swallowing another bite.

“What do you mean?”

“I gather that you have decided that I need to fortify myself for the strenuous exercise that lies ahead? It must be I who is in need of food, insofar as you haven’t touched yours.”

“You are my wife,” he said, a little apologetically. “I’m responsible for making sure that you are clothed and well-fed.” Even as he said it, he wondered if it sounded as stupid to her as it did to him.

But if it did, Edie had the tact to ignore it. She rose with the grace that was inherent to her every move, from the slide of her bowing to her walk. Perhaps she did everything to a rhythm only she could hear. He came to his feet, and watched hungrily as she walked from the table toward the bedchamber door.

He stood there, frozen, drinking in the generous swell of her hips.

She looked back at him and smiled. “Gowan.”

He was at her side in a moment. She was a witch, this bride of his. She had but to smile and he knew he’d follow. He probably always would if she looked at him with that hunger in her eyes.

Then he pulled her into his arms, and he was drinking her down, deep and fierce, knowing that she was
his
, finally his. His wife. His lover. His Edie.

He ran his hands down her back and pulled her against his body. They could do that now, fit their bodies together like puzzle pieces. They fit together perfectly, his hardness cradled by her softness.

“Now, Gowan,” she whispered.

So he picked her up and carried her into the bedchamber. Nerot—whoever he was—had installed a bed the size of a small granary. It was as long as it was wide, and hung with pale pink silk embroidered with silver thread and pearls.

It was a bed made for a duchess.

He jerked back the coverlet and then laid Edie on the sheets. She smiled up at him, all her glorious hair swirled at one side. “My wife,” Gowan whispered, dropping a kiss on her brow, another on her nose, another on her lips. “You’re exquisite. May I remove your gown?”

Edie twisted to the side, showing him a line of seemingly infinite tiny buttons running down her back.

So he concentrated on the buttons, trying to ignore the fact that they ended just above a lusciously rounded bottom.

The final button surrendered only to reveal a corset underneath. Edie watched him unlace it without saying anything. Under the corset was a chemise, made of a fabric so diaphanous that he could see the shadow of her nipples beneath it.

“Are you going to remove your clothing?” she asked. He stepped back, thinking that perhaps she felt shy at the idea of being unclothed while he was dressed. “Yes. But there is no need to feel embarrassment, Edie.”

“I don’t feel embarrassed,” she said, smiling at him.

He believed her. There was something about Edie’s straightforward manner that made him think he could trust whatever she said.

“Is that your clan colors?” she asked.

“Aye.” He bent, unlaced his brogues, threw them to the side. “I’m wearing a philabeg or, in Gaelic,
feileadh beag
.” He removed his hose, and unbuckled his sporran.

Edie seemed fascinated. “What’s that little packet for?”

“A few coins.” The kilt was made to be unwrapped with speed—but suddenly Gowan realized that Edie was examining him, every inch of him. He had the feeling that she liked what she was seeing, that she wasn’t hankering after a ropy Englishmen like those he’d seen in boxing saloons.

He removed his coat and pulled up his shirt rather more slowly than he ordinarily would, suppressing a grin at the silliness of it. His arm muscles flexed as he took the shirt over his head and tossed it to the side. But he figured that she might as well see it all. If Edie was put off by his body, she wouldn’t have that look in her eyes.

A desirous look. The same kind of ravenous hunger that was eating him alive.

Right. Time to return to his plan. He made certain that he had each of its points in mind.

On the bed, Edie mimicked him, pulling her chemise over her head. He forgot what he was thinking about. The generous swell of her breasts rose in the air, framed by the graceful arc of her arms, and then he looked lower and saw the curve of her inner thighs, almost hiding a small triangle of golden hair.

The sight threatened to pull him into a dark place in which he would have no control. He refused to succumb. Instead, he joined her on the bed, gently adjusted her body until he had her in just the right position, and proceeded to make love to her.

First, he kissed her until her lips were plump and dark and she was making little hungry sounds in the back of her throat. Only then did he allow his hand to drift below her collarbone. While one half of his brain gloried in the weight of her truly magnificent breasts, the other catalogued the way she writhed under his touch, her arms tightening about his neck and her breath coming shallower and faster. He gave her a little bite, just a tiny one. That made her scream, and he ticked off one of the items on his list.