Lord of Scoundrels (20 page)

He pushed her legs apart with his knee. She felt the hard shaft throbbing hotly against her thigh while her own heat pulsed against his questing hand. He found the place where he’d tormented her last night, and sweetly tormented her again, until she cried out and her body spilled its feminine tears of desire.

She clung to him, shaking and desperate, and “
Please
,” she begged. “
Please
.”

She heard his voice, ragged with longing…words she couldn’t understand…then a shaft of pain as he thrust into her.

Her mind went black and
Please, God, don’t let me faint
, was all she could think. She dug her nails into his back, clinging to him for consciousness.

His damp cheek pressed against hers, and his breath was hot on her ear. “Sweet Jesus, I can’t—Oh, Jess.” He lashed his arm about her and rolled onto his side, taking her with him. He hooked his arm under her knee, and lifted her leg up and around his waist. The searing pressure eased, and her panic faded with it. She shifted upward and buried her face in the curve of his neck. She held on tightly, savoring the sweat-slickened heat of his skin, the musky scent of passion.

She was aware of him moving again, inside her, but her untutored body was yielding, and pain was a distant memory. He’d pleasured her already, and she expected no more, but gradually it came, pulsing through her with each slow, possessive stroke.

Pleasure bubbled up inside her, warm and tingling, and her body arched up to welcome it, and joy bolted through her, sharp and sweet.

It wasn’t the same joy he’d taught her before, but every instinct recognized it and hungered for more. She rocked against him, matching his rhythm, and more came, faster and harder, and faster still…a furious race to the peak…a lightning blast of rapture…and the sweet rain of release.

“H
ell and damnation,” Dain muttered as he gingerly withdrew from her. “I’ll never make it to Chudleigh in time for dinner now.”

He rolled onto his back and focused intently upon the embroidered gold dragons above, to keep himself from leaping up and subjecting his wife to a thorough physical examination. Fortunately, with his lust appeased, for the moment, his intellect had resumed normal operation. And with the return of reason, he could sort out the simple facts.

He had not forced himself on her. Jessica had invited him.

He had crashed into her like a battering ram and been incapable of exercising much restraint thereafter, yet she hadn’t screamed or wept. On the contrary, she had seemed to get right into the spirit of the thing.

He looked at her. Her hair had fallen over her eyes. Turning toward her, he brushed it away. “I collect you’ve survived,” he said gruffly.

She made an odd sound—a cough or a hiccup, he couldn’t tell. Then she flung herself against him and, “Oh, Dain,” she choked out.

The next he knew, her face was pressed against his chest and she was sobbing.

“
Per carita
.” He wrapped himself about her and stroked her back. “For God’s sake, Jess, don’t…This is very…troublesome.” He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, very well. Cry if you must.”

She would not weep forever, he told himself. And upsetting as it was to hear it and feel the tears trickling over his skin, he knew matters might have been worse. At least she had turned to him, not away. Besides, she was entitled to cry, he supposed. He had been rather unreasonable these last few days.

Very well, more than that. He’d been a beast.

Here she was, a new bride in this mammoth house with its grand army of servants, and he had not helped her. He had not tried to make the way easy…just as she’d said about his father.

He’d been acting like his
father
. Cold and hostile and rejecting every effort to please.

For Jessica had been trying to please, hadn’t she? She had read to him and tried to talk to him and she’d probably thought the portrait of his mother would be a lovely surprise for him. She had wanted him to stay, when any other woman would have been in raptures to be rid of him. She had offered herself to him, when any other woman would have swooned with relief to escape his attentions. And she’d given herself willingly and passionately.

He was the one who ought to be weeping, with gratitude.

The cloudburst ended as abruptly as it had begun. Jessica squirmed away, rubbed her face, and sat up. “Lud, how emotional one becomes,” she said shakily. “Is my nose red?”

“Yes,” he said, though the light was failing and he could scarcely see straight anyhow.

“I had better wash my face,” she said. She climbed off the bed, picked up her dressing gown, and put it on.

“You can use my bath. I’ll show you the way.” He started to get out of bed, but she waved him back.

“I know where it is, ” she said. “Mrs. Ingleby explained the layout.” She headed unerringly across the room, opened the correct door, and hurried through.

While she was gone, Dain quickly examined the bedclothes and cleaned himself off with a piece of his shirt, which he threw in the fire.

Whatever the cause of her weeping fit, it hadn’t been a reaction to serious physical injury, he comforted himself. He’d found a spot of blood on one of the coverlet’s gold dragons and there had been a bit on him, but it was nothing like the carnage his overwrought imagination had pictured these last three days.

He could not believe his mind had been so disordered. In the first place, any cretin might have understood that if the female body could adapt to dropping brats, it must certainly be able to adapt to the breeding instrument—unless the man was an elephant, which he wasn’t, quite. In the second place, any imbecile might have recollected that this woman had never, since the time under the lamppost in Paris, recoiled from his advances. She had even spoken plainly enough—more than once, without a blink—about his breeding rights.

Where in the name of heaven had he obtained the idea she was fragile or missish? This was the woman who’d
shot him!

It was the strain, Dain decided. The trauma of finding himself married, combined with crazed lust for his bride, had been more than his mind could cope with. The portrait of his mother had finished him off. With that, his brain had shut down altogether.

By the time Jessica returned, Dain had himself and everything else in proper order. Andrews had carried away the heaps of discarded traveling clothes, the valise was put away, the lamps had been lit, a footman was on his way to Chudleigh, and dinner was being prepared.

“It seems you’ve been busy,” she said, glancing about as she came up to him. “How tidy the room is.”

“You were gone rather a while,” he said.

“I had a bath,” she said. “I was agitated, as you saw.” She studied the knot of his sash, her brow furrowed. “I think I was hysterical. I wish I hadn’t cried, but I couldn’t help it. It was a…deeply moving experience. I daresay you’re used to it, but I am not. I was much affected. I had not expected…Well, frankly, I was expecting the worst. When it came to the point, I mean. But you did not seem to experience any difficulty, and you did not seem inhibited by my inexperience or annoyed, and, except for a moment, it did not feel like the first time at all. At least, not what I’d imagined the first time to be like. And what with having my anxieties relieved and the extraordinary sensations…The long and the short of it is, I could not contain my feelings.”

He had read the signs more or less correctly, then, for once, finally. The world was in order. All he needed to do was step carefully, to keep it that way.

“My temper has not been altogether even, either,” he said. “I’m not used to having a female about. It’s…distracting.”

“I know, and I’ve taken that into account,” she said. “Nonetheless, Dain, you cannot expect me to go through this again.”

He stared at the top of her head and watched his neatly ordered world tumble back into chaos. In an instant, his previously light heart became a lead casket, bearing the corpse of a fragile infant hope. He should have known better than to hope. He should have realized he’d make everything go wrong. But he didn’t understand now, any more than he ever had, how he had turned everything so very wrong. He didn’t understand why she’d been sent into his life, to give him hope, and kill it in the first moment he dared to believe it.

His face set and his body turned to stone, but he couldn’t muster the callous laughter or the clever witticism needed to complete this too familiar scene. He had tasted happiness in her arms, and hope, and he could not let them go without knowing why.

“Jessica, I know I’ve been…difficult,” he said. “All the same—”

“Difficult?” She looked up, her grey eyes wide. “You have been impossible. I begin to think you are not right in the upper storey. I knew you wanted me. The one thing I’ve never doubted was that. But getting you into bed—you, the greatest whoremonger in Christendom—gad, it was worse than the time I had to drag Bertie to the tooth-drawer. And if you think I mean to be doing that the rest of our days, you had better think again. The next time, my lord, you will do the seducing—or there won’t be any, I vow.”

She stepped back and folded her arms over her bosom. “I mean it, Dain. I am sick to death of throwing myself at you. You like me well enough. And if the first bedding didn’t prove we suit in that way at least, then you are a hopeless case, and I wash my hands of you. I will
not
permit you to make a wreck of me.”

Dain opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shut it and walked to the window. He sank onto the cushioned seat and stared out. “Worse than…Bertie…to the tooth-drawer.” He gave a shaky laugh. “The
tooth-drawer
. Oh, Jess.”

He heard her slippered footsteps approaching. “Dain, are you all right?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Yes. No. What an idiot.” He turned and met her frowning gaze. “High-strung,” he said. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? I’m high-strung.”

“You’re overwrought,” she said. “I should have realized. We’ve both been under a strain. And it’s harder on you because you are so sensitive and emotional.”

Sensitive. Emotional. He had the hide of an ox—and about the same intelligence, apparently. But he didn’t contradict her.

“A strain, yes,” he said.

“Why don’t you have a bath, too?” she suggested. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “And while you enjoy a good long soak, I’ll order dinner.”

“I’ve ordered it,” he said. “They should be up with it soon. I thought we might dine here. It would save the bother of dressing for dinner.”

She studied his face, and slowly her mouth eased into a smile. “Perhaps you’re not quite as hopeless a case as I thought. What about Sherburne?”

“I sent a footman to Chudleigh with a note,” he said. “I informed Sherburne I’d see him at the wrestling match. Saturday.”

She stepped back, her smile fading. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.” He rose. “You’re coming with me.”

He watched her chilly composure ebb as she took in the last sentence and decided to believe him. Her soft mouth curved upward again and silver mist shimmered in her eyes.

“Thank you, Dain,” she said. “I should like that very much. I’ve never seen a proper wrestling match before.”

“I daresay it will be a novel experience all round,” he said, gravely eyeing her up and down. “I can’t wait to see Sherburne’s face when I arrive with my lady wife in tow.”

“There, you see?” she said, unoffended. “I told you there were other benefits to having a wife. I can come in very handy when you wish to shock your friends.”

“There is that. But my own comfort was my first consideration,” he added as he edged away. “I shall want you about to cater to my whims and soothe my sensitive nerves and…” He grinned. “And warm my bed, of course.”

“How romantic.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “I believe I shall swoon.”

“You’d better not.” Dain headed toward the door she’d entered. “I can’t wait around to pick you up. My bladder is about to explode.”

With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled “Females” and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn’t find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b) a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being.

His expectations in this regard were, like most of his expectations, very low. He would never be an ideal husband. He had almost no idea how to be a husband at all—beyond the basics of providing food, clothing, shelter, and protection from life’s annoyances. And getting brats.

As soon as offspring came into his mind, Dain slammed his dictionary shut. He was in a good humor. He didn’t want to spoil it by fretting, and working himself into another fit of insanity over the inevitable. Besides, there was an even chance the brats would come out like her rather than him. In any case, he wouldn’t be able to prevent their coming because there was no way he could keep his hands off her.

He knew a good thing when he had it. He knew that tumbling his wife was about as close to experiencing heaven as he’d ever get. He was far too selfish and depraved by nature to give it up. As long as she was willing, he wasn’t going to worry about consequences. Something horrible was bound to happen, of course, sooner or later. But that was how his life worked. Since he couldn’t prevent it, whatever it was, he might as well take his motto from Horace:
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
. Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow.

Accordingly, with matters properly sorted out and settled for the present, Dain joined his wife for dinner. During the meal, he further revised his dictionary. To her odd list of accomplishments he had already added a comprehension of the art of boxing. At dinner he discovered she possessed a knowledge of wrestling as well, gleaned from sporting periodicals and male conversations. She had reared not only her brother, she explained, but ten boy cousins as well—because she was the only one who could “manage the lot of ignorant savages.” Yet not one of the ingrates would take her to a professional match.

“Not even Polkinhorne’s bout with Carr,” she told Dain indignantly.

That famous match had also taken place in Devonport, two years ago.

“There were seventeen thousand spectators,” she said. “Would you please explain to me how one female would attract notice in such a crowd?”

“You are bound to attract notice, even amid seventy thousand,” he said. “You are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, as I distinctly recall telling you in Paris.”

She sat back, startled, her smooth cheeks turning pink. “Good grief, Dain, that was a flat-out compliment—and we’re not even making love.”

“I am a shocking fellow,” he said. “One never knows what astonishing thing I’ll say. Or when.” He sipped his wine. “The point is, you will attract notice. In normal circumstances, you would have a lot of drunken louts bothering you and distracting your escort. But since I shall be your escort, there will be no bothering or distracting. All the louts, however drunk they may be, will keep their eyes upon the wrestlers and their hands to themselves.” He set down his wineglass and took up his fork again.

“The tarts had better do the same,” she said, returning her attention to her food. “I am not as big and intimidating as you, but I have my methods. I won’t tolerate such annoyances, either.”

Dain kept his gaze on his plate and concentrated on swallowing the morsel he’d just very nearly choked on.