Tempting the Bride (25 page)

The music stand was in her bedroom, only a little distance from the connecting door, a delicate-looking specimen that was much heavier than it appeared, having been crafted from solid rosewood.

She returned to his bedroom and indicated a spot by the foot of his bed, a monstrous piece of furniture that had served as inspiration for the master of Larkspur’s marital bed. “Here, please.”

He hefted the music stand across the distance and set it down where she wanted, right by the bedpost, in his mind at least, to which the bride of Larkspur had been tied in the opening scene of his erotic story. “What devilry are you scheming, Helena?”

She did not answer him, but only gave orders. “Stand with your back to the bedpost.”

And when he had done so, she considered the stand—which had last been used by a much shorter person, possibly a child—and raised the music rest as high as it would go.

He still wasn’t quite sure what use she could wrest from the music stand, but he was beginning to grasp what she had planned for him. The question was, did he want to acquiesce to her wishes?

He must, because as she pulled out the sash from her dressing gown, causing the latter to fall apart and reveal her from sternum to mons pubis, he only stared, his breath coming in gulps. She took his wrists and tied them together behind his back and to the far side of the bedpost. He did nothing to impede her, but only continued to stare, the size of his lust doubling with every glimpse of her pretty, pretty nipples.

“If you will excuse me for a second,” she said with excessive politeness, her eyes gleaming.

She disappeared into her room and did
not
come back with the dressing robe. He’d seen her naked in bed, but to see her in motion, her pert breasts bobbing ever so slightly—he panted.

“Read this aloud for me, darling.”

He hadn’t even noticed that she’d put two sheets of paper on the music stand—two pages from his manuscript. “Read
that
?”

“Yes, that. Or I’m going to put my clothes back on.”

He knew that must not happen, but it was nearly impossible to tear his eyes away from her legs and the juncture of her thighs.

She came closer, took his chin, and turned his face toward the music stand.
“Read
.”

He cleared his throat and tried to concentrate on the words before him. “‘Now I am the one tied to the bedpost. She inspects me from all angles, smiling as if she has been let in on a marvelous secret.’”

He looked toward Helena; she, too, was smiling, one hand on the bedpost, the other reaching out to trail down his arm. “Keep reading.”

Her touch burned. His voice turned unsteady. “‘She pulls out her hairpins and shakes her head. Her hair falls free, a glorious cascade, strands of it brushing her taut nipples.’”

“Hmm,” said Helena. “Alas, I can’t reenact the hair. But at least I still have taut nipples, do I not?”

She touched one nipple, lightly squeezing it between two fingers. Unseemly noises escaped him; his cock swelled to painful dimensions.

“Keep reading if you want anything to happen,” she reminded him, licking her lips slowly to emphasize her point.

God help him. He was going to turn illiterate very soon, at the rate he was losing his mind. “‘My throat tightens. “You make me mindless with lust,” I tell her. She laughs softly. “No, Larkspear, I am
going
to make you mindless with lust. And the first step is the removal of the rest of your clothes.”’”

Helena unfastened his trousers and pushed them down. “I like the bride of Larkspear—a woman with a plan.”

The next moment Hastings’s underlinen, too, had pooled at his feet, exposing his naked desire. She pressed herself into his side and rubbed one nipple along his arm, while her hand wrapped along his shaft; she gave a soft, throaty laugh as it leaped against the prison of her fingers.

“You are deviating from the story,” Hastings somehow managed to say.

“I know. But in the story you have her on her knees too soon. I can’t do that—I have a reputation to maintain.”

She stroked his length; he groaned with the pleasure of it. Now she sucked on the skin of his shoulder, then bent her head to lick his nipple. He bucked against his restraints.

“Don’t forget to read.”

“I can’t anymore.”

“I am not getting down on my knees unless the story tells me to.”

He growled but acquiesced. “‘In no time at all I was completely naked. She dropped to her knees before me.’”

Helena rounded to his front and knelt, her lips a hairbreadth from his jutting cock, glancing up at him with the tiniest of smirks on her face.

He gave her the next set of instructions. “She extends her tongue and licks the head of my cock.”

“Is that what the story says? I seem to remember differently.”

“That is exactly what the story says,” he lied blatantly.

She smiled, knowing him for the liar he was, and did exactly as he asked, her pink, moist tongue swirling softly where he was most excruciatingly sensitive.

His knees nearly buckled. “Now she opens her mouth wide and takes in as much of my length as she can handle.”

And he was inside her mouth, paradise itself. The sensation alone drove him mad, but there was also the sight of it. She was no longer smiling, but stared up at him with a hunger that almost matched his own. Then she moaned, a sound of such stark need that he lost all control over himself.

He shut his eyes, shuddered, and let her milk every last drop.

A
s soon as she let him free he pushed her against the bedpost, tied her hands behind her, and returned the favor—several times. Then he untied her, carried her to his bed, and made love to her slowly and properly.

Afterward she giggled against his shoulder. “Ask me again how I like your smutty story.”

He turned his face and kissed her forehead. “So…how do you like my smutty story, my dear?”

“I must confess, sir”—her tone was mock serious—“I still have not read the entire work. But the parts I have read have been a work of staggering genius. Why, the nuanced characterization, the heightened tension, and the deft use of the silken cords of her restraint to represent the bonds of matrimony…I applaud you, sir. I applaud you.”

Now she batted her eyelashes, naughty again. “Not to mention it makes me hornier than a camp full of soldiers.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ll renege on my word. Maybe instead of working on revisions for you I’ll write another smutty story instead.”

She poked him in the chest. “That is not allowed. You may, however, write a new smutty story after you are finished with my revisions.”

“And will you stage that story, too?”

She turned up her nose. “Only if it is of the highest quality.”

He laughed and kissed her on the lips.

“I have an idea,” she said, pulling back. “Let us not marry in secret. Let’s instead take full advantage of my loss of memory and have a tremendous wedding. After all,
what woman can bear to have no recollection of her wedding day?”

He was both startled by her audacity and carried away by her sudden enthusiasm. “I
have
always wanted a grand wedding for us.”

She wagged her finger. “And no country wedding, either. We will hold it at Westminster Abbey.”

“And we will ransack Millie’s gardens to deck the whole place with flowers—up to the rafters.”

“Indeed we must. And Venetia’s gardens, too. She’d be insulted if we didn’t ransack the duke’s hothouses as well.”

He rubbed her bottom. “We will put you in a virginal white gown, even though you have been more plucked than a guitar.”

She flicked his shoulder. “How rude. I was going to deck you out in pearls and diamonds, but now I must reconsider.”

“No!” he cried. “Please don’t reconsider. I never look as stunning as when I’m in pearls and diamonds.”

She chortled and fluffed his hair. “So vain.”

“I only want to look good for you.”

She sighed, a happy sound that made his heart swell to twice its normal size. “I think for our honeymoon we will go to Lake Sahara, sleep in tents, and hunt like nomads.”

It touched him that she remembered Lake Sahara. “And stand on the shores and watch the sunrise together.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “when birds in flocks of thousands fly over the lake, their wings white as sails.”

She fell asleep in his arms. He stayed awake for a long time, wondering whether what they had built together would be enough to withstand the return of her memory in full.

S
omeone adjusted Helena’s bedcover. She tended to move about a great deal in her sleep and did not always manage to hold on to her blanket. Often in the morning, her feet and ankles would be quite cold—and in this instance, her calves, too, since she’d disrobed thoroughly the night before.

Warm hands rubbed her feet, then her entire lower half was enveloped in a nice, heavy quilt. She sighed in contentment. The same person came nearer and kissed her on her forehead.

“So beautiful,” he murmured.

She smiled and sank back into sleep—only to reawaken what seemed but a few seconds later with a violent start.

The room was dim and empty, the shutters still drawn. She closed her eyes again, her head feeling woolly, as if she’d grossly overslept. She lay still for a few more
minutes, then slowly pushed to a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

On the nightstand was a photograph of Fitz and her David, standing in the middle of the vast expanse of Tom Quad, the largest college quadrangle at Oxford. Helena had taken the photograph with David’s factory-loaded Kodak camera during one of Fitz’s visits to the university. Shortly afterward, her friend and classmate Mary Dilhorne had passed by. They’d spent a minute chatting together before Miss Dilhorne went on to her next class and David and Helena saw Fitz off at the rail station.

As soon as Fitz had settled into his compartment, before the train had even started, David was already whispering into her ear, “Was that one of your lesbian friends? When are you going to invite me to watch?”

“After you first invite me to watch you as a catamite,” she’d said as she waved at Fitz, “taking it in every orifice.”

The present-day Helena smiled. They’d gone at it like Rome and Carthage, hadn’t they? And she’d fired off a number of excellent retorts she was proud to recall.

At some point during the night, David had gone to her room, collected her dressing robe, and put it on the back of a chair near the bed. She shrugged into the robe, walked to the window, and threw back the shutters. The sun had risen. Bea’s pond reflected brilliantly in the distance. Helena breathed in deeply, filled with a sweet contentment.

Which was disturbed a moment later by a sensation that she’d forgotten something. She chortled to herself. Of course she’d forgotten something—as much as half of her life at one point. But the sensation, as if something had burrowed inside her brain, would not go away.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. Oh, right, the
pages of David’s manuscript. She’d better put them away before the servants came through. But when she glanced toward the foot of the bed, the music stand, as well as the manuscript pages, had already been removed—again a demonstration of David’s consideration.

Still the strange and increasingly disconcerting sensation remained. Was it something to do with Fitzhugh and Company? Had she forgotten to return a set of corrections to the printer? Or neglected to arrange advertising a particular title?

The sensation receded somewhat when it dawned on Helena that she’d at last remembered Millie. A feeling of tremendous fondness suffused her—dear, dear Millie. How they’d all grown to love her, and how she always kept surprising them. Together she and Fitz had proved to be remarkable hosts, presiding over many a joyful gathering of family and friends.

And, of course, Helena and David were always there at the gatherings, trading barbs and disparagements.

Don’t look at him like that.

I shall look at him however I wish to.

He’s younger than you.

Doesn’t matter.

He has small feet.

Excellent. It will cost less to keep him in shoes.

Don’t you know what they say about men with small feet?

Yes: They are less arrogant.

He is too soft for you. You need a man made of steel, Miss Fitzhugh. He is like a bird’s nest, built of twigs and fluff.

Why so much interest in how I feel toward another man, Hastings? If you persist in talking about it, I shall have to believe that you are jealous.

Please, Miss Fitzhugh, you’ll make me laugh. Surely you know by now that for a woman to interest me she needs a pair of breasts. So my concern for you is entirely humanitarian. Mark my words: You will be yearning for a man with bigger feet and a stiffer…spine.

Andrew! They’d been speaking of
Andrew
.

She stumbled backward, her calves hitting the side rail of the bed. She barely felt anything, her horror and dismay obliterating everything else.

Andrew, always happy and eager to talk about all the books under the sun, always gentle and respectful when he didn’t agree with her assessment on any particular volume. Andrew, the first person to tell her that she would make a wonderful publisher, when her family still doubted the wisdom of such a course of action. Andrew, who’d left a bouquet of wildflowers outside her door every day, too shy to leave a card alongside the flowers, until she’d caught him in the act.
If you love me, leave another one tomorrow
, she’d told him. The next day he’d left three.