To Love a Wicked Lord (23 page)

He sat up straighter when he saw who slipped through the door and closed it softly behind her. She wore filmy nightclothes and seemed to float toward him. But fairy apparitions didn't have such high jutting breasts that swayed as they moved. He stared, unable to speak.

“Move over,” she said in a hushed voice as she came to his bedside. She giggled as she hopped from foot to foot. “Move, I said, it's chilly in here, selfish one.”

He reached over and pulled her up into bed with him. She was all suppleness and softness in his arms. He buried his face in her neck. He was actually trembling, trying to keep himself under control.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“Well—” she began to say as she threw the coverlet back and crawled under it. She stopped. “Oh,” she said, “you're not wearing anything!”

“It was warm in here,” he managed to say.

“Good,” she said. She swallowed hard and steadied herself, so that he wouldn't guess how worried she was, or how much courage it had taken to get her here. “The thing is, Maxwell,” she said, “that
we're to be married in a matter of weeks, and I remembered something.”

“What?” he asked, staying as absolutely still as his unruly body allowed while she curled closer.

“I realized there was an impediment,” she said as she hid her heated face by kissing his neck.

He grew hot and cold. “What the devil are you doing?” he demanded.

“Hush,” she said. “The walls are thick but I'm not deaf. Don't ruin the mood. What I realized,” she said as she placed a kiss on his cheek, and then one lightly against his lips, “is that you wanted to marry an experienced woman. So I'm here for the experience before we marry. Can you help me?”

It seemed an eternity to her before he answered. And then he laughed and drew her to himself, settling her on his hard chest. “Oh yes,” he said. He wanted to say many more witty things, but couldn't. She kissed him and he was lost to her.

She stopped being afraid once she was in his arms. She was warm and pliant, and moved with him like a true apparition in some rare, erotic dream. She followed his lead and he led her as far as he could and still keep his control. When he was certain her naked body was as slick and heated as his was, he rolled her back to the feather tick, and paused on his elbows above her.

He'd touched her and kissed her and set her to tingling and aching, and made her shudder with new releases, but wonderful as it was, it wasn't enough for her. She knew there was more. Overwhelmed by her own desire, she no longer knew what to do except to have him even closer.

She relaxed, opened herself to him body and soul and looked into his eyes. “Please,” she said.

He sighed and moved to her, and after one moment of difficulty, was within her. She arched her back and clung to him. He tried to be slow, he tried to be gentle, but it was over quickly. The storm of his desire ended their moment too soon for his liking.

“I'm sorry,” he said when he was able, as he lay breathing hard at her side. “Did it hurt?”

“A bit,” she said, raising herself on one elbow. “Is that what you're sorry about?”

“That, and the fact that I was too hasty. I didn't give you time to share everything I felt.” He pulled her close again. “You made me lose control, just as I feared.”

“There's nothing to fear anymore,” she said seriously.

“No, and there never again will be, you wonderful, brave, and brazen creature,” he said, his hand warm on her back.

“At last,” she said, and rested her head against his heart. But then she raised her head. “You make it all sound so final. There's not going to be more of this for us?” she asked with a quizzical smile, gently brushing his hair back from his forehead.

“Oh, for a certainty there will be,” he said. “Give me a moment.”

“And you? Were you pleased with me?” she asked.

“Too much, as I said,” he answered ruefully.

“How can I learn to please you less?” she asked, smiling.

“That is not our aim,” he said, his lips curling in a smile too.

“Ah!” she said softly. “But what can you possibly want then?”

He laughed.

She sighed. “Obviously,” she said, brushing a kiss across his lips, “I'll need a great deal more experience then, won't I?”

I
t was a perfect morning for a wedding, and so said all.

The families took their seats at either side of the old Norman chapel. All were radiantly dressed, as might be expected. Both families were wealthy, after all. And both sides had military gentlemen in attendance, as well as some persons with names of note in London and across the known world. There were others with names of note that weren't so well known and neither were they supposed to be, except at the highest levels of the government.

A renowned scholar's granddaughter was marrying into an ancient dukedom.

Everyone present felt privileged, though they showed it in different fashions.

The scholar's family sat to the left of the aisle with long-lost relatives and students of all ages from many places. The thin and bent old gentle
man who was recognized as the bride's grandfather was clearly pleased. His wife, an improbably yellow-haired squab of a lady, was quiet. But she smiled a great deal.

The duke's family sat to the right. The tall, icy-eyed duke was unbent just enough to be seen as both proud and satisfied. The groom's brother Duncan was beaming. His stepmother, a pinch-faced female who looked like an illustration of bad temper in a medical text, turned her thin lips up in an attempt at a smile. The duke's youngest child looked as though she'd been dragged through a hedge backward, as some whispered. She'd originally been carefully dressed in white with a wreath of flowers in her hair. Now she looked as though she'd been savaged by the shrubbery outside the church. But young Lady Theodosia seemed pleased and proud as well.

The bride and groom at the altar noticed none of this. They had eyes only for each other.

“At last,” the groom whispered to his lady.

The bride grinned. She had no words for her happiness.

When at last man and wife, they embraced.

And for the first time in the history of the ancient chapel, the wedding guests spontaneously applauded.