Just Another Lady (Xcite Romance) (3 page)

‘I’m sorry, my dear. It will be better for you next time.’

‘It gets better?’ Elinor felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth.

‘Yes, very much so, I promise.’

‘I don’t ...’ To her own bewilderment, Elinor found that she was crying; she could not have explained the reason for her tears even to herself.

She fell asleep with the tears still wet upon her face, with her mind full of nothing but the wonders of intimacy. She fell asleep thinking that her marriage might be the most wonderful thing ever to have happened to her.

Chapter Three

LUCIUS HAD LEFT THE room by the time Elinor woke up the following morning. The sun was creeping in through the crack between the curtains, lighting a path across the floor. Elinor felt warm and lazy, stretching like a contented cat as she wriggled herself up to a sitting position. She immediately became conscious of her nakedness, and leaned over the side of the bed to pick up her shift. For a second she thought ruefully of the new nightgown she had bought especially for her wedding night but had never worn; but the ruefulness was overlaid with an outrageous sense of contentment as she remembered what the previous night had brought.

When the maid had brought in hot water, and she had washed and dressed, she joined her husband at the breakfast table. Lucius appeared to be buried in a newspaper, though he put it down long enough to pour Elinor a drink.

‘Thank you.’ Elinor took a sip of the chocolate, and asked, ‘Do we have any plans for today?’

‘Do you want to relax after the exigencies of yesterday?’

‘I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind a quiet day,’ Elinor acknowledged. ‘What about you?’

‘I must see the lawyer to go through a few details of our marriage settlement. Would you like to visit your mother whilst I am doing so?’

‘That sounds good.’ “Marriage settlement”. Could anything make their wedding sound less romantic and more like a business deal? But then, of course, that was precisely what it was.

‘Then, you will want to sort out your clothing and such like,’ Lucius said, with the vagueness only a man could bring to the important subject of clothes.

‘Certainly. Where should I put them?’ Elinor asked. ‘Do you already take up the closet space in the bedroom?’

‘My clothes are in the next room. Indeed, I thought that you could have the bedroom we occupied last night and I could have the adjoining one, during our stays here,’ Lucius said casually. ‘There should be plenty of room for your clothes in the room – tell me if there isn’t, and I will make arrangements.’

Elinor frowned. ‘But I thought ...’ She trailed off. She had thought they would share a bed, a bedroom. But when she considered the matter more fully, she remembered that Lucius’s parents had always had a room apiece. It was, indeed, standard practice in upper class households: her mother and father had been unusual in that they preferred to share.

‘Yes?’ Lucius pressed.

‘Nothing.’ Elinor forced a smile. Perhaps he would join her enough that the solitary room would not seem so solitary, after all. ‘I will sort my clothes out later. For the moment, go back to your paper.’

He didn’t join her that night. Nor the next, nor the next. Elinor tried not to wonder whether Lucius, even in their home village, was getting his satisfaction elsewhere, with more experienced ladies. After all, despite the words in the wedding vows, Lucius had never truthfully promised fidelity. He had made that clear when he had offered for her; and Elinor could not clam that Lucius was not fulfilling his side of the agreement. Her mother could still not be considered well, but compared to her previous state of health Mrs Everton was a different woman. Rid of the constant anxiety about money, as well as being under the care of the best doctor in the county, she was gaining fitness with every day which passed.

No, Lucius had certainly kept his promise. And Elinor must keep hers: be the complaisant wife Lucius required. If she was fool enough to hope that he might ... might what? Be kept satisfied by Elinor alone, an ignorant young woman whose only sexual experience had been her wedding night? Might not care to stray, at least so soon? Even, fall in love with her? Well, if Elinor had ever hoped for any of those, let alone the last, she was a fool indeed and she deserved her disappointment.

‘Idiot,’ she whispered into her pillow, and determined to think no more on the subject.

It was the following week when something occurred to Elinor. If Lucius was not prepared to pleasure her ... she could at least satisfy herself to a certain degree. Some of the things he had done – the places he had touched – were surely possible for her to copy. The night could become, once more, a time of learning and sexual exploration.

The first night, she began slowly, removing her nightgown and revelling in the sensation of the soft sheets against her skin. He had touched her lips with his … Her finger drifted across her lips; she sucked it into her mouth, sliding it in and out. He ran his fingers over her breasts … Elinor’s free hand moved up to cup her left breast, and she moved her palm all around it, conscious of the change to hardness of her nipple as her hand brushed over it again and again. She took the damp finger from her mouth and pressed it to her right nipple, her back arching a little at the sensation. It was not Lucius, it was not as good as if he were there – but there was still something stirring inside her; a tiny flicker of pleasure which Elinor intended to fan. His hands grew firmer. She rubbed her hand harder across her breast, squeezing it gently. The same tingles she had noticed when Lucius held her like this swept across her. Not as big, nothing like as incredible, but still … Making her heart beat that little bit faster. Making her breathing catch, just for half a second.

‘Lucius,’ she whispered, remembering how he’d smelt: musky and manly. She took in a deep breath, imagining she could smell his scent on the air. ‘Lucius,’ she sighed again, sliding her hand down over the pale skin of her belly until it rested on the nest of auburn curls between her legs.

There was a dampness between her thighs, and she ran a finger through it, then brought it to her mouth to taste herself. Then, daringly, she pushed her fingers inside her, just a little distance, and felt how her flesh gave way to her touch. It felt ... nice. For a moment, Elinor was disappointed by “nice” – an insipid word for an insipid feeling. When Lucius had done it, it had been so much more than merely nice. Never mind. She was learning her way; Lucius knew exactly what he was doing. She wiggled her fingers experimentally, fascinated by feeling a part of her own body that she’d never touched before. There was a tingly place just above her fingers, and she pressed the palm of her hand against it. Involuntarily, her hips bucked upwards at the touch, and she caught her breath. That was unexpected. She was not entirely sure whether it was wonderful or terrible; certainly it had brought a definite response from her body. How had she never known about this? How had she never thought to try this before? She thought back to the “old” Elinor of two weeks previously. Had marriage already changed her so much? She suspected it had; and she would not change back for the world.

Soon, however, the honeymoon was over. Elinor visited her mother one last time before she and Lucius set off for London. Mrs Everton was pleased to see her, as always, and they chatted about everything under the sun – except Elinor’s marriage. Elinor’s mother had come to believe thoroughly that Elinor had married for love and love alone (just as Mrs Everton herself had done, so many years previously), and there was no chance that Elinor would disillusion her mother of that comfortable and comforting belief. Nevertheless, as Elinor made to leave, Mrs Everton stopped her, a pale hand on Elinor’s wrist.

‘I shall miss you, my darling,’ she said simply.

Elinor bit her lip. For so long she and her mother had been all-in-all to each other. Even if Elinor’s marriage had indeed been all her mother imagined it, Elinor would have found it hard to be parted by so many miles from her mother. As it was, Elinor had a sick sense of dread about the prospective move to London for the Season. It was so long since her solitary début year there, and her life had changed beyond imagining during those missing years. She felt disconnected, uncertain whether the “society manners” which had once been so natural to her would return at will.

‘I will miss you too,’ she said finally, smiling down at the still wan face of her mother. ‘But I can go with my mind at ease to see you looking so much healthier.’

Mrs Everton tapped the back of Elinor’s hand admonishingly. ‘I will manage quite nicely without you. You are not to spend your precious time with Lucius worrying about your silly old mother.’

‘No, mamma,’ Elinor said obediently, her eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘But I suppose I am allowed occasionally to think of my “silly old mother”, especially since I am peculiarly fond of her? And maybe even – since I am being daring – to address a letter to her, now and then?’

Her mother laughed. ‘I think that might possibly be acceptable, you awful child.’

Elinor leaned down and kissed her mother’s forehead affectionately. ‘You will look after yourself, and I shall look after myself, and we will neither of us worry about the other.’

‘I have no intention of worrying about you,’ Mrs Everton said serenely. ‘I will be imagining you having the time of your life with Lucius – just as you deserve.’

Elinor said her farewells and left, determined that she would not cry. In which determination she was almost successful.

To her surprise, Elinor enjoyed London. There was no reason, of course, why she should not have done so – but it had not crossed her mind that she should. Taken up with the thoughts of her mother’s delicate health and her own unexpected marriage, not to mention the massive changes which had happened to her entire life in the last few months, her predominant feeling had been a determination to make everything work for all the parties involved. Her own enjoyment had not been on the agenda.

Lucius did not visit her room in London any more than he had done, after that first night, in the country, but Elinor was resigned to that now. If he had not needed to gain satisfaction in her arms in the country, he would hardly wish to do so in London where his alternative options were that much broader. Meanwhile, she continued her solitary explorations of her own body, and told herself that it was enough. Although Lucius did not want her, she had no intention of attempting to find solace with another man. Aside from the fact that she owed him that much in return for all he had done for her, there never had been any other man for Elinor, whether she liked to admit it or not. It was his name she whispered when a certain touch of her fingers sent shivers through her body; his mouth that she imagined on her own; his hands ...

She had had one night of pleasure. More than she had ever hoped for or expected. She would be content with that.

Elinor was interested, though not altogether shocked, to discover that Lucius himself was not universally popular. Sometimes she wasn’t certain that she altogether liked him; she was in love with him, certainly, but he regularly annoyed and frustrated her. The ladies of the ton appeared to fall into three separate groups: those who enjoyed his company, and his reputation as a roué, without ever having been attracted to him; those who had once liked him more, perhaps, than they should, and who now regretted it; and those who looked upon Elinor as an interloper, and the only reason why Lucius would not now be marrying them. The middle category was unnervingly large: Elinor wondered sometimes whether Lucius could really have flirted with – seduced? – quite so many ladies. Their attitudes towards her ranged from pitying, through resentful, to out-and-out catty. If Elinor had not known the nature of the gentleman she had married, she thought often, she would soon have been made aware.

‘Mr Crozier’s new little wife.’ Belinda Dolinger had been one of the first “ladies” to use her conversation with Elinor to express her contempt of Elinor’s husband.

Irritating though she had found this expression, Elinor was uncertain, so early on, of Miss Dolinger’s intentions. She had, therefore, bitten her tongue and refrained from suggesting that not only was she not little, but that she was also Mr Crozier’s only wife.

‘That is correct,’ she’d said, nodding politely to her new acquaintance.

‘We all pity you, you know,’ Belinda had continued with a tinkling laugh.

‘Really?’

‘Oh, marry in haste, repent at leisure, you understand,’ Belinda explained. ‘Your marriage was very sudden, Mrs Crozier, was it not?’

Elinor gave her a self-possessed smile – a talent which would become an art form over more conversations with the poisonous Belinda. ‘Hardly. We’ve been acquainted since childhood.’

‘Oh Heavens, you mean he married a country girl from that backwater village of his?’ Miss Dolinger clasped her hands to her mouth as if the words had accidentally been forced from her, rather than being – as Elinor suspected – utterly intentional.

‘That is one way of putting it,’ said Lucius dryly, coming up behind Miss Dolinger in time to hear the last line. He put an arm around Elinor’s waist. ‘Though you might remember Mrs Crozier from her Season in London three years ago, when she was Miss Everton.’ He smiled. ‘Except of course she attended the best parties, Belinda; something that you have never done. Good evening.’

He gently manoeuvred Elinor away, much to her indignation.

‘If she didn’t hate me before that, she’s certain to now,’ Elinor commented crossly. ‘Really, Lucius, that was unacceptably rude.’

‘And what was she?’ asked Lucius. ‘I merely shared a little of the truth with her, Elinor.’

Yes, thought Elinor, a very little. For although it was true that she was as well born as any of the ladies present, it was equally true that directly before her marriage her circumstances had been nowhere near as salubrious.

‘And besides,’ Lucius added calmly, ‘she would never have liked you anyway. I suspect the only person Belinda Dolinger truly loves is herself.’

Belinda’s overt unpleasantness, however, was more easily dealt with than the subtle digs Elinor received from other women. She put the majority of them down to jealousy: she saw how almost every unattached lady – and many an attached one – kept their eyes on Lucius as he did the rounds at balls and card evenings. She could not blame them, really: she was no less easily attracted by the wretched gentleman she had married. And they weren’t to know, she thought resignedly, that he’d married her in order to keep his options open, rather than to cut off his other female options. Lucius’s popularity with the gentlemen, too, was mixed. He had a wide range of friends, many of them ladies’ men themselves, such as Lord Argett and Mr Black; but Elinor was also intrigued to meet other gentlemen, ones whom she saw outside the usual social occasions.