Embracing Ashberry (42 page)

Ashberry, his feet silent, appeared at the
end of the bed, startling her. “Oh,” she gasped, sitting up, then
relaxing with a smile. The marquess wondered at the welcome on her
face, even as he climbed onto the bed and lay beside her, his robe
left uncaringly on the carpet. He didn’t touch her, except to clasp
her fingers through the coverlet. “Good afternoon, my love,” he
murmured, staring at the canopy on the bed.

Ellie’s smile vanished. “Am I, Stephen?” she
asked softly, seriously.

“Yes!” he growled, rolling toward her. “How
could you even imagine it would be appropriate for you to be
there?” he asked abruptly.

“You want to murder him,” she said
logically. “And I won’t let you do something so, so awfully
foolish.”

“I wanted to make him suffer the way you
have, Ellie,” he ground out. “And I still do.” He was quiet for a
moment. “I saw the look on your face, you know, when she described
what he did to her.”

“He raped her,” Ellie claimed, her heart
pounding. “I could see it in her face.” She laughed shortly. “I’ve
seen that same look on my own face often enough to recognize it.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I never asked you, Stephen, to seek
revenge. I want him stopped from attacking other women, but I never
wanted revenge.” She drew a deep breath before continuing. “I made
my peace with what happened, Ashberry. Being with you, trusting
you, that was the final step in letting go of my past.”

“You shouldn’t have been there,” Ashberry
maintained.

“Perhaps not,” Ellie agreed, “But if I had
come to you beforehand and asked you not to go, what would you have
done?”

Ashberry sighed. She had a point. He would
have ignored her request, probably called on Riley, Griffin,
Alexander and Wendy to prevent her from leaving the house
altogether, perhaps set her brother John up as her guard. “You lied
to me,” he finally settled for, “By not telling me you overheard
our discussion.”

Ellie calmly twisted the argument to apply
to him. “And you lied to me, by not sharing anything about what you
knew, by treating me as a child and not as your wife.”

Ashberry ground his teeth. “It is my
responsibility,” he stressed, “To protect you, Ellie. Not to put
you in the path of something or someone who is going to cause you
immense pain.” He grunted. “Do you have any idea what I felt when
she was telling you about it? I could see your face Ellie; I could
feel the terror in you. I cannot put you in such situations.”

The grunt in his voice, a shadow of the
heaviness that weighed on him, finally seeped into the statement.
Ellie heard it, and her eyes flew open, astonished. He really did,
she reminded herself, loathe anything that caused her pain. His
decisions would always tend to hinge on what he imagined to be
Ellie’s best interest, on what would give Ellie the least pain or
the most pleasure. She pulled her fingers from beneath the blankets
and turning on her side to face him, cupped his cheeks in her
fingers. Ellie had to say the words, even though she was afraid
they would be difficult for him to hear.

“Stephen,” she said softly, forcefully,
“excluding me, exiling me—that causes me immense pain. You choosing
to carry the burden of a man’s death, any man’s death—even if you
weren’t caught—causes me immense pain. Seeing, knowing you are
lying to me and not being able to accept the reasons for it—you
caused me immense pain.” Her voice softened. “I have been in agony,
Stephen, over what to do about this. I can’t bear for you to shut
me out of things that are so important.”

“Why Ellie?” he asked softly, searchingly.
His hands, too, cupped her face. “Why do you need me to trust you,
to trust your strength? Why is it so important to you that I not be
burdened with guilt or with secrets?” At her open eyes, he added,
“Why were you so furious at the idea I might endanger our marriage,
over lives together, over what you consider to be petty
revenge?”

He watched her swallow heavily, knowing he
had unfairly turned the tables, knowing that he needed time to
examine the ache inside him that her words had created. After a
moment, her eyes widened, as if she just realized what he was
trying to force her to admit. Ashberry decided to take the
proverbial ship by its helm. “I think,” he whispered, lowering his
mouth until it was just apart from hers, “I think that you are in
love with me, Ellie. I don’t know why you’ve not admitted it to
yourself yet, why the notion makes you pull back inside your shell,
but I think that you are in love with me. I think that’s why I am
so important to you, why we are so important to you.”

Ellie, unable to come up with a response,
simply raised her mouth the last inch. The kiss was enough, as it
always was, especially with Ellie naked between the sheets and not
interested in pursuing the discussion. Ashberry rubbed heavily
against her as the cauldron inside him, cooled over the course of
Caroline’s labor, began to boil again. He watched the sun to stream
onto their bed as the sheets were thrown back and he set himself to
stoke the fire beneath him to rage out of control and drive them
both wild.

Ellie shuddered as his heat and scent
surrounded her, filled her head. Deliberately, she shut his words
away from her mind, concentrating instead on the sparks created
where his fingers rubbed down her sides and over her hips before
sliding underneath her. Ellie arched as his fingers gripped against
her rump, urging her hips up off the bed to meet his. The heat of
his silken passion pressed between her thighs and Ellie uttered a
series of small, anxious moans as he bent his head and kissed each
breast until the aureoles tightened between his lips.

Helplessly, her hands tightened on his
shoulders, then ran through his hair, even as she began to twist
and squirm. His mouth relentless, Ashberry did not allow her to
deter him, not even when her fists pushed against his shoulders. He
knew, as did Ellie, that her struggle was not against him, but
against the sensations pouring through her body.

Only when her struggles stopped, only when
the heat flooding her had overcome her rationality, only when her
body settled back against the bed and her breasts pressed
invitingly against his lips did his mouth gentle. Only now she was
the eager one. Her hands, now above her and grasped inside his,
gripped the sheets and her hips lifted against his, seeking his
heat as she rocked up against him. Deliberately, her eyes wide as
he lifted his head to meet her gaze, she closed her thighs around
his manhood, rubbing rhythmically until he muttered a soft
imprecation and returned obediently to her breast.

With his hands moved to firmly grip her
bottom, Ellie couldn’t escape the intensity of his intentions, but
neither did she wish to. The color of his eyes had lightened to a
dark gold and Ellie couldn’t seem but to respond to his ardor with
her own brand of innocent wantonness. As he lifted himself off her
and leaned on his elbows, pressing her hips and thighs into the bed
with his rigid length cradled between them, Ellie slid her hands
down over her breasts and cupped them in her hands, squeezing her
nipples out between her spread fingers.

“Tell me I belong to you, Stephen,” she
begged. “I need to know it’s true.”

The breathless request and the sight of her
nipples squeezed and displayed so brazenly nearly made Ashberry
forget everything but losing his soul in her warmth. His voice was
hoarse as he struggled for control. “You, Ellie, dear, are
completely mine. Every precious little inch.” His teeth caught one
of the nipples, tugging on it until Ellie cried and squirmed
deliciously beneath him, her thighs torturing his stiff masculine
heat. When he released the hard treat, it was simply to turn his
mouth to her other breast as his fingers squeezed her bottom and
ground it hard against him. “Every amazing little moan, every
shudder, every delicious little morsel like this one. All
mine.”

Ellie released her breasts to grasp his head
as he sucked. When she screamed from intensity of the sensations,
his hands slid down to the back of her thighs, urging them to open.
Ellie did not hesitate, but wrapped her legs around her husband as
Ashberry surged into her. Without hesitation, he lifted her nearly
off the bed to crush her against him until both of their exultant
noises turned to contented sighs.

Much later, after Ashberry rolled them onto
their sides and cradled her head on his arm, Ellie confessed to
him. “Stephen,” she mumbled, “Do you really think I love you?”

The man looked down at his wife’s head, at
her sated and trusting body as it lay against him. “Yes, Ellie
love,” he murmured, stroking her cheek. “I do.”

She sighed. “I used to think my parents
loved me, but now I think my father does not. And my mother, well,
of course my mother loves me as a mother does—but it has not
stopped her from trying to use me to her own ends. And, and I have
difficulty accepting that what you feel—what you think I feel—is
anything like maternal love.”

Ashberry’s eyes closed as he wrapped her
close against him, smoothing a hand down her back. “And me?” he
asked. “What do you think of my love?”

She thought for a few moments, remembering
the tenderness when he touched her, his determination to protect
her. “I know,” she said gently, “That you desire me physically,
that you find my presence comforting, that you trust me with your
family and your home, that you want so much to protect me from
anything that might cause me pain.”

Against his shoulder, she bit his lip. “And
I know that you call that love.”

She was surprised when he chuckled softly.
“No, Ellie,” he whispered softly, “Those are only the
manifestations of my love. The love I feel is much deeper, in my
stomach, my heart and especially in my head. Sometimes, because I
love you, I overreact to situations I feel may threaten you.
Because I love you, I turn to you for comfort. And while I would
lust after your body without the love, because I love you I can
truly cherish the gift of you have made of your body.”

“Then what is love?” she asked seriously.
“Those silly novels, as you’ve rightly called them, do not say. You
do not say. And I don’t know.” The last sentence was almost sulky
with frustration.

Ashberry shook his head. “Ah, Ellie,” he
sighed. “There is no easy answer to that question—it is quite a
complex emotion and I am still adjusting to it.” He paused,
considering quietly before he continued. “You must look deep inside
you to find out,” he eventually told her. “Deep down where the need
you have to know you belong to me lives inside you, where you
acknowledge that you belong in my arms. I think that is where you
will find it.”

Ellie sighed. Ashberry didn’t have any more
answers for her than anyone else but at least he wasn’t angered by
her reticence. She stopped talking then, allowing the warmth of
Ashberry’s arms to lull her back to sleep.

* * * *

His wife, Ashberry reflected, had said
nothing over the last two weeks about her father’s presence in
London, or even another word about the episode in Eldenwood’s
carriage. Instead, she had given herself to him with a joy even he
could not have anticipated, opening her arms with a smile whenever
he approached her and smiling happily each minute they were in each
other’s presence. Ashberry now waited even more patiently for a
declaration of her love; indeed, he knew he would wait a lifetime
if she needed it.

Three days after Caroline’s baby was born,
he had brought Ellie to his study, sat her in the chair before the
fire and gently kissed her hands.

“I apologize,” he said softly. “For hurting
you, Ellie. I wanted to protect you and instead I ended up leaving
you in pain for a week.”

Ellie had drawn her hands from his and
cradled his face in her hands, leaning forward to kiss him. He had
felt the forgiveness in her mouth and had nearly wept. She had not
held herself away from him even in those three days but he had seen
the hurt and agony in her eyes and wondered frantically how he
could erase it, and why he hadn’t seen it over the previous
week.

Ashberry had reluctantly admitted that he
had been so focused on revenge that he had ceased to focus on his
wife. “The next time you think, or know, that I'm excluding you
from something so important to you, Ellie,” he asked, “Come to me
immediately. I can’t promise I won’t try to protect you, or do as I
think best, but ... but I ask that you give me a chance.”

“All right,” she whispered.

He had smiled, relieved, but was displeased
to find that she already knew a piece of news Riley had not yet
delivered.

“I have to tell you, Stephen, that Papa is
in town. I was in the carriage yesterday and we went past the
house. The knocker was back on the door.”

Ashberry had stilled, not able to guess if
her news was a test or if she simply needed to share it. “And?” he
asked softly. “Have you spoken to him?”

“Of course not,” she frowned at him, “I
promised you I wouldn’t.”

A promise nearly a year old, he remembered.
Overcome again by her astonishing loyalty, he had drawn her close
and kissed her. Endlessly. Until Riley had knocked on the door.

Damning the man, Ashberry had waited,
flabbergasted, as Riley delivered the same news his wife had just
offered. Ashberry had felt reluctantly obliged to share Whitney’s
whereabouts with Edward but avoided a discussion of his intentions
until that evening two weeks later when he found himself in
Edward’s study, where the young man now remained much of the time
out of concern for his wife.

Charlotte, confined to the first floor by
the doctor, her husband and mother-in-law when Edward was not
available to carry her up and down the stairs, was rebellious at
best. Edward frequently felt obliged to guard the doors, though he
was careful to leave her on the upper floor and remain downstairs
when she was in what Ashberry considered a ‘fine temper’. Ellie
went from house to house, holding Caroline’s babe with such
devotion that Ashberry felt his heart aching with every tender
touch of her fingers. He could no longer resist the tenderness that
he had long suppressed and began to silently hope for a child—for a
girl, his heart told him. An heir did not matter—Ashberry knew he
desired most a little angel that followed in her mother’s wake.