The Virtuous Widow (10 page)

Ellie smiled. “Oh, yes, that would be lovely. But…a wedding, today…I have noth—” She glanced down at the shabby dress she wore. “I don’t suppose my old blue dress—”

“You look beautiful in anything, my love, but I brought you a dress…and some other things.” He gestured to a portmanteau, which the sergeant had carried in earlier.

Hesitantly Ellie opened the lid. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was a beautiful heavy cream satin dress. She lifted it out and held it against herself. The dress was exquisite, long-sleeved and high-waisted, embroidered over the bodice and around the hem in the most delicate and lovely green-and-gold silk embroidery. It was utterly beautiful… Totally unsuitable for a housekeeper, of course, but did she care?

“Is it all right?”

She turned, clutching the dress to her breasts and whispered, “It’s beautiful, Daniel.”

“The colour is all right, is it?”

She smiled. “It’s lovely, though I’m not exactly a maiden, Daniel.”

“You are to me,” he said. “Anyway, that wasn’t why I chose it. It reminded me of when I first saw you—you were dressed in that white night-thingummy.”

Ellie thought of her much-patched, thick flannel nightgown and laughed. “Only a man could see any similarity between my shapeless old nightgown and this beautiful thing.” She laid the dress carefully over the chair and flew across the room to hug and kiss him.

“A man in love,” he corrected her. “And that nightgown did have shape—your shape, and a delectable shape it is too.” He ran his hands over her lovingly and kissed her deeply. Ellie kissed him back, shivering with pleasurable anticipation.

“Enough of that, my love. We’ll be churched before long. We can wait until tonight.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered.

He laughed, lifted her in his arms and swung her around exuberantly, then kissed her again and pushed her towards the table. “There’s more stuff in the portmanteau.”

She looked and drew out a lovely green merino pelisse, trimmed with white fur at the collar and cuffs and a pair of pretty white boots which even looked to be the right size. Beneath it was a miniature pelisse identical to the first, but in blue. With it was a dainty little blue dress with a charming lace collar. And the sweetest pair of tiny fur-lined red kid boots, perfect winter wear for a little girl. Ellie’s eyes misted. He’d brought a wedding outfit for Amy, too. And of the finest quality. She wondered how he could afford it, but it didn’t matter.

She smiled a wobbsmile and hugged him. How did she ever deserve such a dear, kind thoughtful man? “Thank you, Daniel. I don’t know how—”

“Come on, love, let’s get you to that church, or we’ll be anticipating our vows. The sergeant shall escort you and Amy. I shall meet you there, as is proper.” He pulled out a fob-watch and consulted it. “Shall we say one hour?”

“One hour!” gasped Ellie. “Two, at least. Amy and I need to wash our hair and—”

“Very well, two hours it is,” he said briskly and kissed her mouth, a swift, hard, possessive promise of a kiss. “And not a moment longer, mind! I have waited long enough!”

Freshly prepared for Christmas, the church looked beautiful. Small and built of sombre grey stone, it glowed inside as the soft winter sunshine pierced the stained-glass windows, flooding the inside with rainbows of delicate colour and making the brass and silver gleam. It smelt of beeswax and fresh-cut pinewood. Greenery decorated the softly shining oak pews and the two huge brass urns on either side of the altar were laden with branches of holly and ivy and pine. Braziers had been lit, taking the chill from the air, throwing out a cosy glow.

Ellie and Amy, dressed in their new finery, stood at the door. The sergeant, looking smart and neat in what Ellie guessed was a new coat, had gone to inform Daniel and the vicar of their arrival. Ellie, suddenly nervous, clutched Amy’s hand. Was she doing the right thing? She had only known Daniel a matter of days, after all.

She loved him. But she had loved once before…and had been badly mistaken. She had never felt for Hart half the feelings she had for Daniel. Did that mean she had made the right choice this time…or double the mistake? She shivered, feeling suddenly cold. Amy’s little hand was warm in hers. A tiny white fur muff dangled from her daughter’s wrist. A gift from Daniel…

“Are you ready, love?” The deep voice came from her right. Ellie jumped. Daniel was standing there, with a look in his eyes that drove all the last-minute jitters from her mind.

“Oh, yes. I’m ready,” she said, and with a full heart laid her hand on his arm.

“Then lead the way, Sergeant and Amy.”

Gravely the sergeant offered his arm to the small girl. Like a little princess, Amy walked solemnly beside him down the aisle. As they reached the altar, Amy’s attention was distracted. “Look, Mama, the vicar has a dolls’house, too,” she whispered.

Ellie followed her daughter’s gesture and her hand tightened on Daniel’s arm. To the right of the aisle at the front of the church sat a Christmas diorama on a small wooden table. A stable, thatched with straw, was surrounded by carved wooden sheep and cows and a donkey.

Over the building a painted wooden star gleamed. Inside the stable stood a woman in a blue painted robe, a woman with a serene expression and kind eyes. Beside her stood a tall dark-haired man smiling down at a child not his own, with love in his eyes and his heart.

Like the man at Ellie’s side.

Ellie glanced up at the tall man by her side, looking at Amy as if he’d just received the most wonderful of gifts. She said huskily, “That’s right, darling. It’s a very special family. That’s Mary and that’s Joseph and that’s little Baby Jesus.”

“It’s lovely.” Amy was entranced.

Daniel’s arm tightened around Ellie and he drew her forward as the vicar began.

“Dearly beloved…”

Daniel and Ellie returned to the cottage alone, their footsteps crunching on the cold ground, anticipation their only companion. Daniel lit a fire downstairs, then went upstairs to light another one in the bedroom, while Ellie laid out some supper. They ate almost in silence, eating slowly, barely touching the wine and the game pie that Daniel had brought.

He laid down his knife and fork and said with a wry smile, “I can’t think of a word to say or take in a mouthful of food, love, for wanting you. Shall we go upstairs?”

Tremulously she nodded.

They walked up the stairs with arms wrapped tight around each other. Ellie recalled that first frightful battle to get him up the stairs, his dogged courage as he took each step, and felt a fresh surge of love. How far they had come in such a short time…

When they reached the bedroom, she hesitated, suddenly realising she should have gone up ahead of him and changed into her nightgown. She glanced at the curtains across the sleeping alcove and wondered if she should go behind them to change. It would be a little awkward. There was not much room.

She glanced up at Daniel and the questions in her mind dissipated like smoke as his mouth came down over hers in a tender kiss. She leaned into him, returning the kiss with all her heart. Her hands curled into his hair, loving the feel of hard bone beneath crisp short waves. She could feel the place where he had been injured, where she had cut his hair away.

Daniel felt her trembling against him. He wanted her so much, wanted to dive on to the bed with her and make her his in one bold passionate glorious movement. She was his! His beloved. The woman of his heart. Ellie. Pressing small moist kisses over his face. So soft, so warm, so giving. He felt proud, primitive, possessive.

But she was trembling. And it was not simply desire.

He recalled her shock when he’d touched her intimately, all those mornings ago, her surprise and bemusement at the pleasure his hands had given her. He deepened the kiss, feeling a jolt like lightning surge through him at her enthusiastic, yet endearingly inexpert return of his caresses. She was a married woman, a mother, and a widow, his little Ellie, but of the pleasures between a man and woman she seemed almost as ignorant as any new bride.

Daniel reined of his desires and set himself to introduce his love to the joys between a man and woman. He rained her soft, smooth skin with kisses, running his hands over her, soothing her anxieties wordlessly, caressing her, warming, knowing her.

The cream of the silk gown looked heavy and lifeless against the vibrant delicacy of Ellie’s skin. He unbuttoned the gown, pearl button by pearl button, revealing more and more of her soft, silken skin. He slipped the gown off her shoulders and she flushed shyly under his gaze, all the way down to her pink-tipped breasts. It was the most beautiful flush he had ever seen. He bent to kiss her and when his mouth closed over one nipple she arched against him, crying out with a small muffled groan and clasping his head to her breast.

He glanced up at her and his body pounded with heat and need as he saw her head flung back, her eyes blind with passion. Mastering his own needs, he moved his attention to her other breast, and was rewarded by a long shuddery moan.

Daniel slowly divested her of her clothing, piece by piece, for once not feeling impatient with the quantity and complexity of the underclothes women wore, because as he slid each garment over her skin, she blushed most deliciously and shuddered sensually under the warmth of his hands as they pushed the soft cotton slowly over her skin. He hazily made a note to get her silk underclothes. A few minutes later he changed his mind. It would be better if she wore no underclothes at all…

Finally she was naked, soft and peachy in the flames of the fire he had built. Blushing, she glanced at the bedclothes and then back at him and he realised she would want to cover herself while he disrobed. She was shy and modest, his little Ellie.

She surprised him. “My turn, I think.” Eager hands made short work of his neckcloth and shirt buttons. She hesitated when it came to the fastenings of his breeches, then reached for him. He gritted his teeth, fighting for control as she fumbled with the buttons, frowning with concentration, her hands brushing against his arousal, her breasts swaying softly.

She unfastened the breeches and slowly pushed them down his legs. And stared. It was almost as if she had never seen a naked man before, the way she stared, enthralled. And then she reached out and touched him and he could hold back no longer. He tumbled her back on the bed, and, with none of the finesse he prided himself on, entered her in one long powerful thrust. She was hot and moist and ready for him and she arched against him, her body pulling him in, closing in, welcoming him…and as his body claimed her, totally out of his control, she stiffened, her eyes suddenly wide with shock.

“Daniel,” she panted. “What is happen—?” She arched all around him and her body began to shudder uncontrollably.

“Let yourself go, love. I am here,” he gritted out, himself on the brink of climax.

“Oh, Daniel, Daniel. I love you!” And she shattered around him, sending him over the edge of bliss into oblivion…

He had never known it could be like that. Daniel gazed at his beautiful, rumpled sleeping new bride with bemused wonder. He had thought he would be the one to initiate Ellie into a new world of lovemaking between a man and woman. But if he had shown her a new world, she had shown him one too, a world he’d never even dreamed existed The world of making love with the woman you adored. Physical pleasures, he’d realised, were shallow ephemeral moments, compared with how it had been with Ellie. The moment when she’d come to climax—her first ever…

Would he, could he, ever forget that look in her eyes as she gazed into his, shouting that she loved him…as she shattered with pleasure, sending him into oblivion with her?

It was like looking at a painting all your life and not knowing there was a living breathing whole new dimension waiting on the other side of the canvas. Like eating all your life and not knowing there was such a thing as salt…

No, there were no poetical images to describe making love with Ellie. All Daniel knew was that he wanted to live to a very ripe old age so he could love her every day of his life.

He leaned down and began to wake her with his mouth, smiling as she squirmed with sleepy pleasure, reaching for him even before she was awake…

At mid-morning, a coach arrived to take them to Rothbury. It bore a crest on the side panel. Ellie glanced at Daniel in surprise. It seemed rather a grand coach for a farmer.

He grinned at her. “It belongs to the Dowager Viscountess, Lady Rothbury, my love. When I told her I was bringing a bride to Rothbury, she insisted I use her carriage.”

“She must be a very kind-hearted lady.”

“You might say that,” agreed Daniel wryly. “I put it down to a managing disposition, myself. The woman has made my life a misery since she lost her husband and her eldest son.”

“Oh, the poor lady. She must be lonely, Daniel.”

He nodded. “Yes, she has not enough to do. However, she is expecting her first grandchild any day now and I am hopeful that the child will keep her out of my hair in future.” He picked up a bundle of Ellie’s possessions and winked. “At any rate, having no conveyance of my own as yet, I wasn’t about to look her gift-carriage in the mouth.”

“I should think not.” Ellie frowned thoughtfully as she hurried to collect her things. It was clear that Daniel was a little irritated by his employer’s managing ways. She hoped she could smooth the way between them.

Because of their imminent eviction, Ellie was already packed. She left her chickens for Ned to take, as Daniel said he already had plenty. There was nothing else. In a few minutes, their meagre possessions were placed in the boot of the coach and they’d picked up Amy and the sergeant and were heading north.

The trip to Rothbury was long, but not tedious. They passed the time with songs and games forAmy’s entertainment. And with small secret glances and touches, which recalled in Ellie the magic and the splendour of her wedding night and morning and raised in her body the shivery, delightful expectation of nights and mornings yet to come.