With His Ring (Brides of Bath Book 2) (31 page)

He was almost paralyzed by the stark
realization that for the first time in his nearly five-and-twenty
years there was another being who shared all that he was. Not just
his riches, but also his tortures. This was perhaps the most
profound moment in his life.

He was at a loss to analyze his emotions for
they were curiously at odds. While one part of him wished to
rejoice over the near physical sensation of being so close to
another being, the other side of him wished to erect a shell around
himself. He'd never had such a feeling of camaraderie with anyone
before as he now shared with Glee, and he wasn't sure he liked the
idea of another person penetrating what had been uniquely his for
all his life.

Jonathan took a long drink from his wine
glass, set it down, and leveled a guilty gaze at Gregory. "Well, it
seems the cat is finally out of the bag."

Gregory held up both hands, palms facing his
brother. "Not by me. My youth is not a topic I discuss with anyone.
Not even my precious wife."
Precious?
Why had he selected
that word?

"I have always felt rather guilty that
Mother played such favorites," Jonathan admitted.

Gregory shrugged. "It's only natural. You
were her own son. I've always understood that."

"Truly, Blanks has never complained," Glee
said. "But a wife deeply in love with her husband, and as an
observer of human behavior, I've been able to deduce a number of
things about my husband's life I would not be privy to through him.
One of the observations, of course, being the words and deeds of
your very prejudiced mother. But I assure you, her actions have not
made Blanks resent you in any way. He loves you the same as he
would were you full brothers, rather than half brothers." She
lifted the wine bottle and poured more wine in their glasses.

"I'm deuced uncomfortable with this
conversation," Gregory said. "Tell me, Jonathan, what amusements do
you hope to find in Bath?"

"The usual, I suppose. When in Bath, what is
there other than the Pump Room and the Assembly Room and
musicales?"

"You missed a bang-up cock fight this
morning," Gregory said.

"I'm not into the sporting life as you are,
dear brother. In fact, I've come to tell you I've written a piece
that's been accepted by the Edinburgh Review."

Gregory's brows arched. "Liberal?"

"Yes. Actually, it's an attack on
primogeniture."

"An apt topic for one who has been denied a
fortune because of primogeniture," Gregory said.

Jonathan smiled. "Now, we're really letting
the cat out of the bag."

"I know our father very well meant to get
around primogeniture with the peculiar stipulations of his will. He
thought me unfit to manage his estates, and he understood I was
possessed of a deep aversion to marriage; therefore, his estates
would go to the esteemed son who was better qualified to see to
their continued prosperity."

Jonathan glared at Gregory. "I
am
the
better qualified."

"Be that as it may, I am married now, and
the estates are mine. Our father did not reckon on my good fortune
in finding so worthy a life's mate." Gregory flashed a smile at
Glee.

"Nor did I, quite frankly," Jonathan
answered.

Gregory grinned at Jonathan. "Then you'll
simply have to be patient and see for yourself."

"This seems a most odd conversation for the
two of you to be having," Glee said. "Like with daggers drawn—but
most amiably."

"I'm more comfortable now that you know
where I'm coming from," Jonathan said. "It's comforting to know you
bear no malice toward me."

"Your malice is not toward me, either,"
Gregory responded. "You merely covet the money and lands that are
in my possession, and I don't even believe your motive's selfish.
Your motive is your desire to see that our father's work does not
go to ruin. Which I assure you, it won't."

"I warn you, I'm willing to do anything in
my power to keep that from happening."

Gregory flashed a grin at his brother. "As I
would expect."

"You two may be amiable enemies, but I don't
at all like this talk." Glee turned to Jonathan. "You must tell me
about your writings. I didn't know you were in possession of such
talents."

"My brother's most serious minded," Gregory
said.

Jonathan addressed Glee. "Yes, Gregory's
forever telling me I don't know how to enjoy myself."

Glee laughed. "Now he's changed so
drastically, he's telling his friends they spend far too much time
in idle pursuits. It's my belief Gregory has a lot more of his
father in him than you think."

Good Lord, could she be right?
Always, it had been Jonathan who was most like their father.
Serious. Frugal. Disinterested in sporting and drinking and gaming
and womanizing. Could Glee see what he himself had never been able
to see? Was he becoming more like his father?

After the sweetmeats were laid and consumed,
they retired to the drawing room, gathering around the game table
where they drank port and played loo, with no mention being made of
the antagonism between the brothers.

Gregory knew Glee had drunk too much wine
when she began calling him
Blanksie
. It was time to put her
to bed.

In his bed.

Chapter 27

His arm around Glee, Gregory climbed the
stairs just ahead of Jonathan. His footstep never faltered as they
passed Glee's chamber door. At the door of his room, he stopped
and, with his arm still resting on Glee's shoulder, bid his brother
a good night.

"We really are so very glad you've come to
stay with us," Glee repeated to Jonathan. "Tomorrow I shall take
you out in my phaeton—only I'll let you drive it."

"I'll enjoy that, though I daresay having my
own stable is a luxury I shall never be able to sustain."

"Then you should ask your brother to
increase your portion. He's rich."

If Gregory did not quickly shepherd his
foxed wife into his room, she might bloody well give away his
fortune.

"Then where would be the challenge?"
Jonathan asked Glee with levity and a twinkling in his green eyes.
"Having been brought up with no expectations, I've learned to be
satisfied with less."

Glee directed a mock scowl at her husband,
then glanced back at Jonathan. "But I daresay you could keep a
phaeton."

"Perhaps," Jonathan said. Then he took
Glee's hand and barely brushed it with his lips. "Thank you for the
hospitality. I shall look forward to tomorrow's drive."

Once in his own chamber, Gregory looked
around. A fire blazed in the hearth, and a lone candle burned
beside his bed, casting a yellow pool on the green velvet which
covered his full tester bed. Though nothing was changed, the room
seemed different. He told himself he was merely unused to coming
here with Glee. This was his private domain, yet here she was
taking her rightful place for the sake of convincing Jonathan their
marriage was no sham.

Though Glee was in her cups, she was not so
bosky she could not dress—or undress—herself. "I'll just step into
my dressing room and slip on a night shift," she told Gregory.

Regarding his own sleep wear, Gregory did
not know what he was going to do. Normally he slept in the buff,
but that would hardly do tonight. Perhaps he could just remove his
coat, shirt and shoes and sleep in his breeches. The idea sounded
devilishly uncomfortable.

As he began to remove his jacket, then his
shirt, in his mind's eye he began to unconsciously picture Glee
doing likewise. Having previously seen her very satisfactory
breasts, he knew their pleasures only too well. Pleasures he could
not allow himself to indulge in tonight. Yet completely against his
resolve, he began to become sexually aroused.

Frowning, he kicked off his shoes and
removed his stockings, then he climbed beneath the coverings on his
bed and sat there to await Glee. The door to his dressing chamber
creaked open and he watched as Glee came through his dressing room,
then glided into the bedchamber. Beneath the fine white linen of
her nightshift he could see her soft curves. Firelight danced in
her auburn hair as she moved toward him—not as a girl but as a
woman. There was no shyness about her as she met his gaze with
smoldering eyes and with uncommon grace moved toward the bed.

She came to the opposite side of the bed
from him and slid under the covers. She was so close, he could feel
her warmth and was conscious of every breath she drew.

"Should you wish to kiss me goodnight?" she
asked in a breathless whisper.

He groaned.
Did a greengrocer have
vegetables?
"My dear, if I allowed myself to kiss you, I'd be
unable to prevent myself from wanting to taste other pleasures I'd
wish you to offer. And that, my lovely wife, was not part of our
bargain."

"Oh, dear."

He blew out the bedside candle, then lowered
himself fully onto the bed. He lay there in the darkness listening
to the crackle of the fire, the whistle of wind beyond the
windows—the unchanged breathing of his wife. The room seemed filled
with the floral scent that was peculiarly Glee's. Yet the fragrance
was light. Like Glee herself.

"Perhaps we should talk," Glee suggested.
"Jonathan might be listening to assure himself we truly are
together."

"We could."

"How are your knuckles?"

"They're not bothering me."

"Good."

Now there was another long silence.

"Blanks?"

"Yes?"

"What about just a little kiss?"

It must be the port she had drunk. She knew
so little of men's appetites she couldn't possibly realize how an
innocent kiss could lead to something much deeper, something that
could strip her of her own innocence.

He willed himself to think of her as
George's flighty little sister, a woman who had agreed to marry him
merely to become a woman of means.

But that portrait of a mercenary Glee was
completely inaccurate. She had shown him tonight she was neither
immature nor superficial. Like granite, she was substance itself.
She possessed a great deal of understanding of human
behavior—especially his. 'Twas almost as if she
were
his
other half.

"I can't kiss you," he said, "for then I'd
be powerless to stop myself there."

She turned to him, and he felt her warm
breath when she spoke. "I shouldn't mind if you didn't stop with a
kiss."

Good Lord, but it must be the port! Surely
she could not comprehend what she was saying. "You can't know what
you're offering."

She drew even closer to him, so close her
leg brushed against his. "But I've said it before, dearest, and I
knew what I was saying then, too."

He could not trust his voice to be free from
the hunger which blazed within him. He turned to her, capturing her
in his arms as she moved against him, fitting herself to him as his
lips came down on hers, hungrily, in an explosion of passion. He
parted her lips, devouring her. She not only seemed not to mind,
from the passion of her reaction, she seemed as eager as he.

He settled a final nibbly kiss on her sweet
lips before lowering his face to kiss her neck, as his hands worked
frantically to slide the nightshift past her slender shoulders.
Then his lips trailed over the bare skin where the shift had hung,
his hands gently stroking her uncovered breasts, lifting them,
kissing them with his wet, open mouth.

When his mouth closed over her nipple, she
gave a soft moan of pleasure. He wanted to hate himself for the
depth of his greed for her, yet how could a union so blessedly
sanctioned be wrong? Glee, his cherished wife, was the only person
who had ever delved beneath the careless facade he revealed to the
world. It was fitting that she share in this ultimate, irrevocable
bond.

Besides, he had never been affected so
profoundly by a woman before. The very sound of her voice, her
evocative scent, and especially the feel of her rounded
slimness—each of these drove him mad with want. But together they
rendered him as powerless as Sampson.

His hand glided over the smooth flesh
beneath her shift. It skimmed over her stomach and fanned out over
the softness of her hips before he began to caress between her
thighs and felt the heady pleasure of her raising her hips and
mashing into his hand. As his finger probed her wetness, she parted
her thighs, whispering provocatively.

Good Lord but she was intoxicating! His
breathing harsh and labored, he raised up to remove his breeches.
"Are you sure you mean to go through with this, love?" he asked in
a husky whisper.

"Oh, yes! Please."

His breeches removed, he settled himself on
top her, one leg nudging hers even farther apart. "It may hurt the
first time," he whispered.

"I don't care, dearest." She cupped her hand
to his face in so tender a gesture he could fall to his knees and
worship her. He eased himself gently into her, prepared for her to
cry out in pain. But she did not. He dared to go a little deeper
and she responded by rocking into him, hungrily, then frantically.
He had thought to go slow, but she wanted—indeed urged—the
shattering, mind-numbing pleasure of their frenzied mating.

He exploded into her sleek warmth and as she
shuddered beneath him she cried out his name. Only she did not call
him Blanks. She crooned
Gregory
, making his name sound
almost reverent.

Her arms tightened across his bare back as
if she did not want him to pull away.

Not putting his weight on her, he rested
deep and low within her.

"Oh, Blanks," she whispered huskily, tracing
circles on his back. "Can we do that again?"

He chuckled softly, then placed her face
between his hands and bent to kiss her gently. "I'm reasonably sure
I shall be able to oblige you, my sweet."