Seducing the Groom (3 page)

Those vows weighed heavily, having sunk in and wedged themselves into his consciousness, and he couldn’t discard their magnitude. He now had a wife. A comely, engaging, smart individual who would need and expect his courtesy, deference, and respect, yet he didn’t want a wife! He’d liked his bachelor’s existence just how it was!

A wife connoted stability and obligation, responsibility and monogamy, and he’d never been one who could commit to a single woman. Fidelity was a preposterous theory that was beyond his capabilities.

He was nettled by his folly, by the impetuousness that had brought him a lifetime of tribulation and strife. At all costs, he
had
to have his own way, so he’d spent almost thirty years clashing with his father, but to no avail. Look where he’d landed himself! He was wed to a foreigner with whom he’d been acquainted for only a few hours, and he’d been accompanied at the ceremony by his crew of immature, boisterous friends, with nary a family member in attendance.

Standing, he adjusted his trousers, prodding at his cockstand, which wouldn’t abate.

He needed a woman. Not his wife, of course, but a female nonetheless. Weeks earlier, he’d split with Portia. The grasping, avaricious vixen had had the gall to break it off merely because he’d been destitute.

What loyalty! What devotion!

The shrew!

Since their quarrel and his auspicious acquisition of Ellen’s fortune, Portia had been trying to atone, to cozy up, claiming she hadn’t meant the horrid insults she’d hurled, but he’d taken them to heart and had sworn off romantic entanglement altogether. Evidently, his body was strongly feeling the lack.

The deficiency had to be why he was experiencing such a dreadful corporeal gravitation toward Ellen, so some extensive, raucous fornication would suit him just fine. With an amenable partner, he could exhaustively slake his lust so that this asinine craving for Ellen would wane.

Absently, he cogitated on the changes a female would bring to the house, how different it would be to have her constantly about and underfoot. Although there would be advantages too he supposed. She didn’t seem the type who would brook much nonsense from the retainers, so he could anticipate better meals, a cleaner residence, and more vigilant servants with her to superintend them.

And, naturally, there would be the chance to see her first thing every morning, to come down to breakfast and find her sitting in the family dining parlor, with the sun shining like a halo around her flaxen hair, and her gown molded to her bosom, and he’d...

“Get a grip on yourself!” he petulantly grumbled.

He went to the foyer, ready to fetch his outer garments and depart for destinations unknown. After all, where could a married man receive succor and solace on his wedding night without the gossip—that he wasn’t in bed with his wife—spreading like wildfire?

The anteroom was deserted, as were the hallways. The servants were absent. Ellen had given them the night off. He needed a hat and coat, though they all seemed to be conspicuously missing. Up in his bedchamber, he had many and, vastly irked, he trudged up the stairs to retrieve them, wanting to be off, but having no enthusiasm for the journey.

CHAPTER TWO

“He’s coming!” Ellen’s younger sister, Alice, whispered the warning as she swiftly but quietly shut the bedroom door. “It looks as though our ploy was successful.”

Ellen jumped to her feet. “You should have seen him when I leaned over that table in the parlor. Most of my breasts were visible. He almost fell over!”

“What if you’d given him an apoplexy?”

“I was afraid he might expire before having a chance to do the deed!”

They giggled like schoolgirls, then Alice sobered.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“More ready than I’ve ever been for anything.”

“At least I knew my husband on the big night.
And
I was madly in love with him. That definitely helped.”

“I could picture myself falling in love with Stephen.” Considering how her heart fluttered whenever he was near, the notion wasn’t so far-fetched.

Six feet tall, with dark hair and eyes, he was dashing, handsome. His physique was broad at the shoulders, thin at the waist, with long legs and a lithe, muscled torso, but it wasn’t his appearance that had captivated her. It was how he carried himself, the manner in which others deferred to him, how heads turned when he walked by.

Women coveted him for his swagger and sexy disposition. Men envied him for his status and confidence, his attitude and demeanor. Ellen wanted him—for all those reasons and more.

“I’m so worried about you,” Alice said.

“Don’t be. I’ll be fine.”

The two siblings clasped hands, linking their fingers and squeezing tight.

“I’ll be in your
room
,” Alice advised, which caused her to chortle with mirth. As if Ellen would have followed Stephen’s silly order to use another suite. “If you need me...?”

Alice’s voice trailed off in a question, because they couldn’t predict what was about to transpire. Ellen’s new husband was a mystery over whom they’d tittered and fussed for weeks before Ellen had made up her mind to pursue him. Neither of them could say what he might or might not do.

“I won’t,” Ellen courageously maintained. However he might posture and preen, Stephen was a gentleman. A temperamental one certainly, but a gentleman nonetheless. “Go now. Before he discovers that you’re here.”

Alice hugged her and, surprisingly, tears flooded her eyes. “You’re so pretty,” she said. “He won’t be able to resist.”

“My fingers are crossed.”

“I hope it’s as splendid for you as it was for me.”

“It will be.”

Taking into account Stephen’s scandalous reputation with the ladies, she reckoned that the event would be fantastic. By all accounts, she couldn’t have chosen a more apt candidate to ease her through the loss of her virginity.

“Go!” she repeated, suddenly frantic to organize herself, to steady the tingle of excitement and calm her torrent of emotions before his arrival.

Grinning, Alice sneaked out, leaving Ellen to cope with the ordeal alone—as every bride had to do.

She went to the dressing room that divided the two principal bedchambers of the residence, even though it was an area she had no right to occupy. Stephen had tried his level best to keep her at a distance. Without asking her opinion, he’d relocated her accommodations to the other end of the hall, but it was a plan with which she had no intention of complying.

Her husband was about to learn a distressing fact about his wife. She was her father’s daughter in all ways.

Because she was too intelligent, strong-willed, and stubborn, she’d kept her tenacity prudently concealed from her spousal candidates. She’d wanted them to be complacent, to deem her tractable and meek, but she’d been raised to prevail and flourish as enthusiastically as her father had.

Years earlier, he’d been wrongfully convicted of theft. Then, in chains, he’d been transported from his beloved England. Disgraced, he’d journeyed to the New World. There, he’d toiled unbearably, never losing sight of his goals or objectives, and he’d ultimately thrived far beyond anyone’s expectations.

Ellen had acquired perseverance from studying him and, occasionally, she fancied herself to be more determined than he could ever be. She’d wanted Stephen and now she had him. Despite his blunt insistence that they would have a platonic marriage, her aim was deflowerment. Immediately.

After he’d proposed, she’d cordially listened to his drivel as to how he didn’t want to wed, and she’d patiently suffered through his contention that he felt no compunction to execute his noble responsibility to his family and line by siring any children. Unfortunately for him, she wanted a houseful, as well as a loving husband to govern over the large flock she anticipated having.

Stephen was going to be that man. He just didn’t realize it yet.

Anxious, but brimming with undaunted resolve, she stood next to the bathing tub that Alice had obligingly prepared. Insolently, she turned her back, pretending to tarry, waiting with bated breath, as he stomped into his bedchamber and cast about for the cloak and hat he’d had to retrieve—since she’d lugged them all upstairs in furtherance of her scheme.

She was so attuned to him she could feel his movements beyond the wall, could discern the moment he saw her, and she stiffened, her pulse hammering in her chest, her senses festering and overloaded.

Lord, give me strength
, she silently prayed.

Steeling herself, her hands shaky and her knees weak, she untied the bow that bound the front of her robe, and it slid to the floor.

* * * *

Stephen frowned. Could it be?

A light emanated from his dressing room. The door was ajar, and he got a whiff of warm water scented with rose oil.

The smaller room adjoined the next bedchamber, the one that would have belonged to the viscountess had his and Ellen’s been a true marriage, but she couldn’t be in it. As he hadn’t wanted her to misconstrue proximity, he’d specifically advised her to put her possessions in the suite at the other end of the hall.

She wouldn’t have flagrantly ignored his wishes as to where her apartment was to be. Would she?

Like the worst voyeur, he tiptoed to the door and peeked inside.

It was Ellen! Taking off her clothes and preparing for her bath! She’d had his tub filled with steamy water. Towels and soaps had been laid out on a stood next to it. Facing the dressing table, her back to him, she slowly stripped, though there weren’t many pieces to shed.

She removed her robe, easing it off so that it slid down and pooled in a pile of green silk at her ankles. Then the negligee followed. Almost as if she knew he was watching, as if she’d planned to torment and tease his male sensibilities, she worked the narrow straps down, over her breast, her hips, then she slithered this way and that. The garment undulated, then whooshed past her buttocks, her legs.

He blinked. Blinked again. He gulped. She was completely naked! His heart pounded in his chest, his cock vibrated against the placket of his pants.

Chivalry required that he look away, that he sneak out and pretend he’d never seen her, or that he make some noise to announce himself, yet he couldn’t force himself to action. He was frozen, rooted to his spot, and indiscreetly spying like the lowest cad.

She grabbed her hair and wound it into a knot, balancing the exquisite mass on the top of her head while she secured it with combs. With her hair up, her backside was fully visible and, in silence, he exulted in the spectacle, careful not to give himself away.

Rubbing his phallus, he sought to reduce some of the torment she was inflicting unaware. Every time she fussed with a comb, she twisted to the side, providing him with a profile of her body, and he could study her all the way down. Chest, ribs, hipbone, thigh. Her breasts were ample and inviting, the nipples taut and jutting out.

Seductively, she spun toward the tub, which gave him an entire frontal glimpse of her torso. She was flawless, perfectly created for a man such as himself to corrupt. He allowed his torrid scrutiny to travel downward, from her breast to her belly to her mound. Her cushion of womanly hair was as golden as the hair on her head, and he could imagine bending before her, delving into her with his finger, with his tongue.

If he but dared, he could be her first. He could invade her pilfered boudoir and demand his husbandly due. She wouldn’t be able to refuse him, nor would she try. Despite their dubious agreement, she was well raised and recognized her duties as a wife.

How sweet it would be to tantalize and explore! To sample and relish! Her virginal sheath would be a tight, lush haven. He would coax and cajole, persuade and beguile, until he had her writhing and crying out his name.

She would submit, but her surrender would be languid and luxurious.

As he was an accomplished lover, he’d had a succession of refined, worldly paramours join him in his bed. He knew how to introduce her to pleasure, could tutor and inveigle her to heights of passion that she, in her chaste state, could never have envisioned. It would take weeks—nay, months—to thoroughly indoctrinate her into carnality and vice.

The notion was so tempting, so provoking. All he need do was brave that initial step, and she would be his. Forever.

He’d always eschewed the idea of permanence with a woman, but as he tarried, peering at his enchanting, desirable wife, nude and preparing to slip into her bath, the concept of perpetuity didn’t seem so bad.

What would he be giving up? A cadre of friends who weren’t close? A string of blue-blooded women who were little more than whores? So far, he’d only viewed the onus presented by her arrival. He’d failed to reflect upon the benefits, and there abruptly appeared to be many.

She lifted her foot to clamber into the tub, and he tensed, zealously observing, when she halted. He’d thought himself to be hidden in the shadows but, apparently, he’d been detected.

Their gazes linked and held. For a split second, he considered running from the room, escaping to loll in his old life, but something had him locked in place. He couldn’t have left if wild horses had been dragging him away.

With a drive that bordered on madness, he
had
to know what it would be like to take her in his arms.

He walked to the door, pushed it wide, and entered.

* * * *

Brazen as an ancient, conquering Viking, Stephen marched over the threshold. He snuggled himself to her, so their bodies aligned, so close that she could smell the starch in his shirt and the soap with which he’d bathed. His shoe was wedged between her feet. The lapels of his coat brushed her stomach.

He was fully clothed, fitted out to the nines, while she was naked as the day she’d been born. It took every ounce of fortitude she possessed to keep from crossing her hands over her breasts and her lower womanly regions.

She met his sweltering glare with one of her own, refusing to have him assume she was timid or disturbed because, in reality, she wasn’t alarmed in the slightest. Thrilled, yes. Discomfited by his height and audacity, yes. Uneasy at having him behold her nudity, yes.