Regency Society. Ann Lethbridge
ran his fingers along the place his lips had touched, finding the tendons, the hollows, feeling movement as she swallowed. It was a lovely, long neck and he wondered if the complexion was pale or a dusky gold.
Her chin was well shaped, with a firmness that hinted at stubbornness. She’d proven that already, so it was no real surprise. And there was her mouth. He smiled, remembering the taste of it. High cheekbones, a dimple, a raised brow. He smoothed it, feeling the tiny wrinkle of confusion on the forehead and the beat of a pulse in her temple. Her eyes were closed. He brushed them with his thumb, feeling the long lashes lying upon her cheeks. When they were open, he was sure that the look in those eyes would be probing, discerning, intelligent. But she would look like a child when she slept, gentled and at peace.
‘Did you discover what you wished to know?’ He heard another faint twinge of doubt in her voice, as though she feared that she had been found wanting on close inspection.
‘You are beautiful. Just as I knew you would be.’
He could feel the heat in her cheeks, the little puff of exhaled breath, and the way her body relaxed beside his, knowing he approved of her.
Then he cupped his hand at the back of her neck, and brought her lips to his to take them as they opened to speak. Her tongue touched his eagerly, and she put her hands on his shoulders, holding him in place as though she suspected, at any moment, that he would regain his senses and reject her.
He took her mouth with deep greedy strokes of his tongue, letting his hands roam lightly over her body, feeling the heat of her through the fabric. Then he found the tie of her robe and reached beneath it, tugging her nightdress upwards until he caught the hem, pulling it until it rested even with her nipples and left her lower body sheathed in nothing but smooth blue silk. He stroked her side through the robe, moving the fabric against her until she gasped with pleasure and fought to free herself from her clothing.
He laughed, rubbing the rougher cloth of the dress against her nipples, dipping his mouth to the bare undersides of the exposed slopes beneath it, kissing the peachskin softness of them, licking up to the place where they puckered with excitement.
Her struggling ceased and she went still, waiting for the moment when he would uncover her. When he did not move, she arched her back and moaned, and he pulled the fabric aside suddenly and feasted upon her, drawing them in turn into his mouth, sucking hard, squeezing them with his hand.
‘Adrian.’ Her voice was tortured, desperate. ‘Adrian, finish quickly.’
‘I am just beginning, my love.’
‘But I fear … I think I am ill … I feel so strange …’ The words came out in a series of gasps.
And he wondered—could it be that a married woman might still be a virgin to her own pleasure? He released her breasts, slowing his attack to let her calm. ‘You will be fine, darling. But you must trust me to know what is best for you. Now help me remove your gown.’ He kissed her on the mouth again as he reached to untie the belt. She struggled out of the sleeves, and between them they pushed the cotton nightrail over her head and to the floor.
‘Now lie back upon the silk. Relax. There is a place on your body as wondrous as the pearl in an oyster. And I mean to touch you there until you submit to me.’ He sank his fingers into the warmth between her legs, deeper between the folds of her to find the spot that he knew would drive her mad. With his other hand, he found the belt of the robe and its silk tasseled ends, drawing one up her belly to dangle it back and forth over her breasts.
She was sobbing now, shaking as though she would fight against the release. So he slowed his hand, resting the pad of his thumb against her as he let his fingers sink deep inside her. She was hot, tight and wet, and he would go there himself soon. And as he stroked he felt an answering throb in his loins to match the one against his hand as her body gave up the last of her control to him.
‘Adrian,’ she cried louder than his pounding heartbeat, ‘I am yours.’ He could feel her, collapsed on her back before him, legs spread wide around his hand, ready to be taken.
He had thought to take her to bed, to carry her if he could. But it was quite impossible, for he could not stand to wait. He curled his fingers inside her and made her shudder again as he fumbled with the buttons on his trousers, and then in his pocket for the sheath he carried.
She froze, and then he felt her scrambling, crablike, away from his touch. ‘What is that?’
He reached for her again. ‘I do not expect you have ever seen such a thing. It is called a French letter.’
‘And what is its intended purpose?’ she asked.
He wanted to groan to her that there was no time for questions, and to put the thing on and ram himself home. But he struggled through the roar of desire in his head to be patient for the sake of her innocence.
‘One might call it a preventative. It can be worn by the man during the physical act of love.’
‘And just what do you seek to prevent?’ she said, distant and cold.
He gritted his teeth to keep his temper and lust in check. ‘Several things. Disease, for example.’
‘You think I have an illness?’ She struggled off the sofa and he heard a wine glass clink against the side table before tumbling to the carpet.
‘Of course not. You are a lady, and have limited experience with such things. But by my recent behaviour, I can hardly be called a gentleman. And it is better, if one cannot see, to be more careful than usual, when one decides to …’ He let the sentence hang open.
‘I found you yesterday, dead drunk in a gin mill, brawling with navvies. And now you wish me to believe that you care so much for your own health, and the health of your women, that you would bother with such a thing?’ The innocence was gone now, replaced by the tart, demanding tone that he had heard yesterday.
‘Better a quick death in a fight than a slow death of the pox.’ He patted his knee, inviting her back on to his lap.
‘Get out,’ she muttered, stepping even farther away.
‘Does it really bother you so?’ He stuffed the thing back in his pocket, wondering if it were possible to make her forget it again.
‘Perhaps it bothers me to think of you consorting with who knows whom. And then coming to me, treating me as a nothing, just as you have always done. Leave me immediately,’ she said more loudly.
‘Darling …’ he gave a diminishing laugh, as though it would be so easy to reduce the pain of what she was doing to him by her delay ‘… it is for the best, really. You are married, and so am I. We do not wish to risk an accident of another sort. Suppose you were to get with child?’
‘Of course we would not want that.’ Her voice was well on the way to being shrewish now. ‘Why would anyone wish to get a child on me? It is good that you cannot see, I am sure, for you would find me so repellent that you would run from me, after only a few days.’
‘That is not it at all,’ he muttered, his desire for her dying in annoyance with her foolish need for reassurance. ‘I am sure that you are most beautiful, as I have already said.’
‘Liar,’ she said, and the word ended in a sob. ‘Liar. Get out. Go away. Do not touch me.’ She pulled the silk robe around her body with a swish to make sure that he heard.
‘You were quite willing enough to have me touch you a few minutes ago. I do not understand your sudden change of heart.’
‘Well, I understand quite enough for both of us. You refuse to lie with me in a normal manner. And so I refuse to lie with you at all.’ She stomped her foot hard enough for him to feel the vibrations of the floor through his boot soles. ‘Get out.’
He stood, doing up his buttons, wanting to storm out the door and to the street, to take the first carriage he could find far away from this place, so that he would never have to see her again.
And then he barked his shin