JMcNaught - Something Wonderful (50 page)

Never in his entire life had he asked a woman to want him. For that matter, never had he rushed one into bed so quickly as he'd rushed Alexandra tonight, nor had he ever spent himself so fast either. His pride rebelled at his performance in bed tonight and his general lack of control.

Beneath him, Alexandra stirred and lifted her head, tilting it back on the pillow so that she could see his face in the candlelight, studying his taut jaw as he stared straight ahead, lost in thought. "You're angry?" she whispered, filled with disbelief and dismay.

Jordan tipped his chin down and smiled without humor. "At myself, not you."

"Why?" she asked, all lovely innocence and naked woman, her eyes searching his.

"Because I—" He shook his head and clamped his mouth shut.
Because I want you too much
, he admitted angrily to himself.
Because I lost control tonight. Because the simple touch of your hands on me makes me insane with wanting
.
Because you can make me angrier than anyone alive and because, in the throes of my fury, you can make me laugh. Because where you are concerned, I'm vulnerable. Soft…

His father's voice shouted scathingly in Jordan's head: "You can't be soft and be a man, Jordan… A man is hard, tough, invulnerable… A man doesn't need to trust anyone but himself… We use women for pleasure but we don't need them… A man doesn't
need
anyone."

Jordan shoved the memories from his head and forcibly reminded himself what a mockery his father's marriage had been. Still, he wished to God he'd taken Alexandra somewhere else; Hawthorne and the memories that dwelled here made him edgy.

Alexandra's soft, timid words drew him from his thoughts. "May I go to my own room now? I can see that I've somehow displeased you."

Unexpectedly, his heart wrenched at the thought of her believing that. "On the contrary," he said, grinning to hide the truth of his words. "You please me
too
much."

She looked so skeptical that he chuckled. "In bed, you please me," he clarified teasingly, smiling into her eyes. "Out of it, you infuriate me. I suppose the only solution," he huskily added as desire surged through him with renewed force, "is to keep you in bed with me." Bending his head, he took her sweet lips in a deep kiss that soothed his raw emotions. He had made too much of everything associated with their lovemaking tonight, he decided. After all, this was the first time in his life since he turned fourteen that he'd been without a woman for more than a month, let alone an entire year. Naturally, he'd been overeager, overemotional…

And this time, when he made love to her, Jordan lingered over her for hours, holding himself back while he guided Alexandra to peak after peak of trembling ecstasy, and then joining her there.

Dawn was already streaking the purple sky with wide pink slices when Jordan made love to her for the last time and finally fell into a deep slumber.

Cautiously lifting his imprisoning arm from around her waist, Alexandra inched forward and slid out from beneath the sheets. Her body, unused to such vigorous lovemaking, felt weak, limp, and deliriously weary as she walked silently around to his side of the bed and picked up her satin dressing gown.

Sliding her arms into the sleeves, she wrapped the gown around her, then hesitated, looking down at her husband. His dark hair was inky against the gleaming whiteness of the pillow, and sleep softened the rugged contours of his tanned face, making him look almost boyish. The sheet had slid down to his hips, exposing to her view the full expanse of his broad, muscled chest and arms. He was tanned there too, she realized with a start. She hadn't noticed that in the night, but evidently he must have left his shirt off while he was sailing home to England. He was thinner, too, from his imprisonment. Much too thin.

Her gaze moved over him, reveling in the freedom to look at him to her heart's content. He was splendid, truly splendid, she decided with wistful impartiality. In fact, she had not been entirely naive and foolish a year ago when she had likened him to Michelangelo's David.

Unaware of the tenderness of the gesture, Alexandra leaned down and carefully drew the sheet up over his shoulder, then she straightened, but she did not leave. She absently rubbed her arms as the memory of when he had said,
Don't you want me
? sent a thrill of pure tenderness through her.

She thought about the way he'd made love to her the first time tonight, with an urgency and need he couldn't hide, despite all his experience in lovemaking. That first time had been better for her than all the others, because it was the only time he seemed to lose control. A fresh surge of delight washed over her as she recalled his helpless apology… "
I'm sorry, love. I can't wait
." How joyously, gloriously good she had felt—to know that while he was able to make her body feel as if it was on fire for him,
she
had been able to make him burn as well.

He had made love to her repeatedly after that, throughout the night, but each time thereafterwards, he had exercised rigid control, touching and kissing her with the skill and expertise of a virtuoso playing a violin. He had enjoyed her, she knew that, but never again with the sweet abandon of the first time.

And yet, conversely, he had done his utmost to make
her
lose her control. But Alexandra was no longer the child who blurted out her undying love after one kiss—or one entire night of stormy lovemaking. She was no longer a reckless, naive, starry-eyed girl. She was cautious now, wiser.

She was also dangerously fascinated by this unexpected, vulnerable side of her enigmatic husband, she realized, and turned away from his sleeping profile. Returning to her own bedchamber, she softly closed the door behind her.

«
^
»

S
he awoke late
in the morning and chafed under the ministrations of Marie, who insisted on brushing her hair until it gleamed before she was ready to discuss whether Alexandra ought to wear her lavender sprigged muslin or the flounced rose frock.

Alexandra, who could not completely suppress her eager curiosity to see how Jordan might treat her this morning, had to force herself to walk slowly and decorously down the steps. With feigned casualness, she walked by Jordan's study. Through the open door, she saw him at his desk talking to one of his bailiffs. He glanced up as she passed and their eyes met; he nodded a brief greeting at her, but there was something in his expression that hinted of displeasure.

Confused by this unexpected attitude, Alexandra politely returned his nod and continued past his study to the morning room, where she ate in thoughtful, somewhat dismal silence, while Penrose and Filbert hovered about, casting anxious, worried looks back and forth between them.

Wisely deciding that the next three months would pass much more quickly if she kept herself busy, she decided to begin paying duty calls on the cottagers, as well as resuming the reading and writing lessons she'd started before the family had gone to London.

She stopped at the stable to play with Henry, whose sociable nature made him prefer the atmosphere of the busy stable to the hushed emptiness of the house. It was late in the afternoon when she finally returned. Exhilarated from the blissful freedom of driving her own carriage through the picturesque winding lanes that meandered through Jordan's vast estate, Alexandra drove her horse at a smart trot past the house and straight to the stables.

Smarth came rushing forward to take the reins from her, his face wreathed in an overbright smile. Apparently eager to foster matrimonial harmony between Alexandra and her husband, he said, while beaming at her, "His grace has been here more'n an hour awaitin' for you—prowling back and forth, fair champin' at the bit with impatience to see you—"

Surprised and shamefully pleased, Alexandra smiled at Jordan as he strode out of the stables, but her smile abruptly faded when she saw that his face was as dark as a thundercloud.

"Don't ever leave the house without telling someone
exactly
where you're going, and
exactly
when you expect to return," he snapped, catching her none too gently at the waist and hauling her down from the carriage. "Furthermore, you are not to leave the grounds of this estate without a groom accompanying you. Olsen there"—he nodded toward a huge, muscular bear of a man who was standing in the doorway of the stable—"is your personal groom."

His anger seemed so unjustified, his orders so seemingly unreasonable, and his attitude so different from his compelling tenderness last night, that for a moment Alexandra just stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment, then she felt her temper begin to boil as Smarth hastily and wisely removed himself from earshot

"Are you quite finished?" Alexandra snapped, intending to leave him there and start for the house.

"No," Jordan bit out, looking angrier than ever. "There's one more thing—don't ever crawl out of my bed in the middle of the night when I'm asleep again, like a doxy returning to the wharves!"

"How dare you!" Alexandra exploded, so enraged she swung her hand to strike him before she realized what she was doing.

Jordan caught her wrist in midswing, his hand clamping around the slender bones like a vise, his eyes like shards of ice… and for one moment Alexandra actually thought he was going to strike her. Then without warning he dropped her arm, turned on his heel, and strode off toward the house.

"Now, my lady," Smarth soothed, coming to her side, "the master must be havin' a bad day, for I've not seen him in a temper like that in all his life." Despite his reassuring tone, Smarth's kindly old face was twisted with bewildered concern as he stared at Jordan's broad, retreating back.

In silence, Alexandra turned her head and stared at her old confidant, her eyes alive with anger and painful confusion as he continued. "Why, afore today, I never knew he
had
a temper—not one like that. I put him on his first pony, and I've known him since he was a boy, and there be no braver, finer—"

"Please!" Alexandra burst out, unable to endure another of the glowing stories she used to enjoy so much. "No more lies! You cannot make him gallant and fine to me, when he's alive and I can see perfectly well he's—he's an evil-tempered, heartless monster!"

"No, my lady, he's not. I knowed him since he was a boy, just as I knowed his father before him—"

"I'm sure his father was a monster, too!" Alexandra said, too hurt and angry to heed what she was saying. "I've no doubt they're exactly alike!"

"No, my lady! No. You're wrong. Wronger than anybody's ever been if you think a thing like that! Why would you say such a thing?"

Stunned by the intensity of that denial, Alexandra brought her temper under control and managed a weak smile and a shrug, "My grandfather always said that if you want to know what a man will become, look to his father."

"Your grandsire was wrong when it comes to Master Jordan and his father," Smarth said vehemently.

It occurred to Alexandra that Smarth could be a veritable treasure trove of information about Jordan, if she could only get him to tell her the unembellished truth. Stoically, she told herself she didn't care to know anything about her temporary husband, but even while she thought it, she was already saying, albeit a little irritably, "Since I'm not allowed to go anywhere without a guard, would you cafe to walk over to the fence with me so I may watch the colts frolic?"

Smarth nodded, and when they were standing at the fence, he said abruptly: "You shouldn'ta placed that wager against him, my lady, if you'll forgive me for sayin' it."

"How did you know about the wager?"

"Everybody knows 'bout it. John Coachman had it from Lord Hackson's groom the same afternoon it was writ in the book at White's."

"I see."

"It was a bad mistake, announcin' to everyone you don't care nothin' for his grace, and don't never intend to do it. It's a sign o' how much he cares for you that he didn't let it bother him much. Why, even the master's mama wouldn'ta dared do such a—" Smarth stopped abruptly, flushed, and stared miserably at his feet.

"I never meant for it to be a public wager," Alexandra said, then with an appearance of mild interest she casually inquired, "Speaking of my husband's mother, what was she like?"

Smarth shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. "Beautiful, o' course. Liked parties—had all sorts of 'em here, all the time."

"She sounds quite gay and lovely."

"She weren't
nothin'
like you!" Smarth exploded, and Alexandra gaped at him, taken aback both by his vehemence and the realization that he regarded her in such flattering terms. "She never noticed nobody beneath her rank, nor cared for nobody but herself."

"What an odd thing to say! What do you mean?"

"I got to get to work, my lady," Smarth said miserably. "Anytime you want to hear
good
things 'bout his grace, you come back and I'll think o' some."

Seeing that it would be futile to press him further, Alexandra let him go. Yet she couldn't banish the feeling, nor her curiosity over its source.