Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) (38 page)

Eugenia walked to the fireplace, but it was cold and barren, not even ashes in the hearth.

“Shall I start a fire?”

She gave a tight shake of her head and picked up a porcelain Buddha sitting on the mantel. Still facing the fireplace and turning the Buddha over and over in her hands, she said, “I’ve been doing arithmetic all day it seems.”

“And?”

She faced him and shrugged. “As I said, I’ve never been terribly regular.”

“Yes.” He waited for her to continue.

She let out a quick breath and surveyed the room. She briefly clasped a hand over her mouth, then slid her fingers downward over her lips. “I’ve been ill. In the morning. Afternoons, sometimes. It started this week.”

He had, in the course of his life, dreaded hearing such words from his lovers. He’d not faced those consequences before because he’d been lucky, careful, and circumspect. Now? A mass of emotions burst over him, rained down on him. Part of him was terrified; part of him was overjoyed. He wanted to pick her up and spin her around. He did neither. Nothing, absolutely nothing with her was easy. What he wanted was her to be happy with him. Instead, she held back tears.

She said, “I’m sorry.”

He crossed the room and took her hand in his. “I’m not. Nor should you be. No tears. I won’t have that, my love.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm then went down on a knee. “Will you marry me, Ginny?”

She gazed at him unflinchingly. “Why ask when there’s no choice?”

“There are always choices.” He kissed the other side of her hand. “Some are harder than others. Not this one. Not for me. Must it be so for you? Marry me. Now. Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“I’ve a special license.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Of course.”

“Marry me. Or am I to have your brother’s rage heaped upon my hapless self?”

“You know I will.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He stood and pulled her toward him. The satisfaction of knowing he was getting what he wanted was tinged with uneasiness. He wanted her to marry for love, and she wouldn’t be. “This was always a possibility. You knew that. As did I.”

“And this—”

He kissed her on the mouth. Just once. Not long enough to be crude, but not so short a kiss that she didn’t have time to respond to him. He took a breath and stopped. With the tip of his first finger, he smoothed the space between her eyebrows. “I recognize that frown. Stop. You’ve nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of you. You’ll want for nothing.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“I won’t be the sort of husband who expects his wife to follow him in all things.”

She dropped her forehead to his chest. “Don’t be so decent.” She whispered, “Please, don’t. I can’t bear it.”

He drew a deep breath. “This is what I want.”

“And here I thought you were overcome by passion.”

“Oh, never doubt that I was. As were you. Several times as I recall.” He laughed very softly, but she heard and thumped her fist on his chest.

“Don’t make me laugh.”

He cupped the back of her head and drew her closer. “I have seen your goodness. Your kindness, your generosity. Your wit. I lust for your independent mind as well as your body.” He waited a beat. “There. Does that help?”

His coat muffled her laugh. “Horrible man.”

“Yes. Awful. I know. I shall willingly give you all that I possess.” The words, which he had intended to sound certain, instead took on a recklessness that threatened to give him away. He could not stop himself. “My heart, too. Have you not yet accepted that you have that?”

She lifted her head. “I know.”

“When I am with you, I’m happy. I won’t ask you for anything more.”

“What about someone who loves you? Someone head over heels in love with you?” She leaned against him, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You should ask for that.”

“Robert would be glad to know I will take care of you.”

She brushed her fingers over his cheek. “All that and diamonds, too?”

“Yes. All that.” He set her back a step. “I’ll come with you to fetch your coat.”

She closed her eyes, and he could see her trying to hold back tears. “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not pregnant after all?”

“There’s very little in life that’s certain. What if the sky falls or the world ends? Suppose tomorrow is Judgment Day?” He allowed his hands to slip off her shoulders. “And then suppose it’s not. We can’t wait until you’re showing, for God’s sake. That won’t save me from your brother’s wrath.”

She let out a short laugh.

“Shall I send a servant for your coat or will you want Martine with you?”

“Martine. She’s waiting for me.”

He picked up his things, blew out the candles, and headed back upstairs. When they reached her room, Martine was in the anteroom dressed to go out. She held Eugenia’s coat in her arms. He returned her a considering glance. Of course Eugenia’s maid would know her employer’s intimate condition. And the man responsible. “I trust you are not presently armed.”

She patted the pocket of her coat and gave him a rather vicious smile.

He set down his hat and gloves and put on his coat. “Pray don’t shoot me yet.”

She returned him an unflinching gaze. “Depends why you’re here, milord.”

“After you’ve helped Lady Eugenia with her things,
please go to the mews and ask one of the grooms to bring my carriage, the plain one, to the side street. No livery. Wait for us there.”

“Milord.”

He put on his gloves. “We’ll be there shortly. Thank you, Martine.”

Forty minutes later, he stood before the clergyman with Eugenia at his side. Her hand rested atop his raised one as the man read off the words that bound him to Eugenia for as long as he should live. He put his mother’s ring on her finger, and moments later, he was a married man.

Whether he would ever have his heart’s desire was another matter entirely.

Later that night.

N
OT A
H
AMPTON
. A B
RYANT NO LONGER
. A T
ALBOT
.

What on earth had she just done?

God knows she was returning to Bouverie a different woman from the one who’d started out from that labyrinth of a house. No longer Lady Eugenia or Mrs. Bryant. She was a married woman again. To Fenris.

They’d decided, she and Fenris, not to make a formal announcement of their marriage. Camber would be told. Hester. The Bouverie staff. Mountjoy would be told when he arrived in London. She dreaded each and every revelation to come.

Fenris held her hand during the entire drive from the reverend’s house to Bouverie. He frequently swept a finger over her wedding band. He didn’t let go except to leave the carriage at the side exit of Bouverie. He opened the gate one-handed and then turned the key over to Martine and let her open the side door.

When Martine opened the door for them, he swept Eugenia into his arms and carried her inside. He kissed her once, quickly and on the mouth, before he set her on her feet. “Well,
Lady Fenris.” His voice was all smoke and desire, with a large amount of satisfaction thrown into the mix. “Welcome to Bouverie.”

Emotion jammed up her throat and kept her from replying. Instead, she rested her head on his chest. What had she done? Nothing but what had to be done.

Still with his arms around her waist, he twisted to look at Martine. “I’ll see to her tonight. We’ll call if you’re needed. Her room.”

Her maid bent a knee and headed for the down staircase.

“Martine?” he called after her.

“Milord?”

“Thank you for not shooting me.”

“It was a near thing, sir.”

He took the candle Martine had left them. With Eugenia’s hand in his, he led her upstairs. But not to her room right away. They ended up in the Turkish room where he secured the door. She found herself glad to have a few moments to gather herself. He always knew, didn’t he?

“Lady Fenris.”

Eugenia shook herself, but her stomach remained firmly lodged somewhere around her toes. She stared into Fenris’s face. Her husband’s face, and if he hadn’t still held her hand, which he did, she might have crumpled to the floor. “What have we done?”

“I’ll take that as a rhetorical question.” He watched her. Examined her. He could lay her soul bare with his eyes. He stripped off his greatcoat, hat, and gloves, letting them fall to the nearest end of the divan. While she watched, he stripped down to his skin, efficiently and quickly. Naked, he put his hands on his head and slowly ran his fingers back through his hair.

From the moment he’d set his fingers to undo his cravat, Eugenia had stopped thinking about anything but him. The man and his magnificent body and that she was soon going to be able to touch him. Say what you would about her utterly conflicted emotions; there was no denying the physical attraction that sang between them.

He stayed just as he was. Naked. Hands on his head. Erect. And she glanced away to see his body reflected in the glass. Front. Side. Back. The sight was so beautifully erotic she had to close her eyes. She would lose everything if she continued to look at him. Everything.

“What do you see?” he said.

She dragged her eyes open and met his gaze. The sleepiness was gone, replaced by a stark emotion that peeled away her years of resentment and hurt. Gone. Vanished in his eyes. Vanished in the ring he’d put on her finger.

He held out a hand.

“The impossible. I see the impossible.” The words came on a breath. He loved her. She saw and could no longer deny it. He loved
her,
and she was humbled that he allowed her to see, even believing she did not return those feelings. “I see forever.”

She took a step toward him and put her hand on his. His fingers closed around hers. “What do you see?” She put her other hand on his chest. Palm over his heart. She closed her eyes and let the beat of his heart thrum through her. Slowly, she opened her eyes. “When you look at me? What do you see? For I suspect the woman you see is a stranger to me.”

He turned her around, and her coat and bonnet joined the pile of his clothes. He unfastened, as quickly as Martine ever did, the buttons of her gown. She smoothed her skirts.

“I see you.”

“My God, Fenris. I married in a muslin gown I wear when I do not expect company.”

“You look lovely. Comfortably lovely.”

“How could you let me go out like that?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “Madam, I was not about to give you an excuse to change your mind.”

To her horror, tears threatened, because he loved her, and she didn’t have half his courage. Her eyes burned and not a single word could pass the lump in her throat. With her assistance, he managed the rest of her clothes. He stood behind her when she, too, was stripped to her bare skin. He
rested his fingers on her shoulders, dancing the pads from her very upper arms to her throat and back.

Candlelight reflected in the glass a dozen times. She watched him behind her. His head was bowed and a lock of his dark hair had fallen across his forehead. In the glass, the man behind her ran just the tips of his fingers downward, over the curve of the side of her breast.

“Ginny,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her, and he rested his chin on top of her head. He slid a hand over her belly and left it there, fingers spread. “Ginny, my love. I’m not sorry at all.”

She turned in his arms, and this time, she took his hand and walked backward to the divan. As she lay back, he resisted. Instead, he leaned against the upholstered back of the divan, one knee bent to the ceiling. The view of his cock transfixed her.

He tugged on her hand and straightened his leg. “You may have all of me, madam.”

“Might I?”

A sly grin appeared on his mouth as she straddled him. “If you’re very, very good, yes.”

She lifted her hips and, a hand around his sex, seated herself, slowly. Wonderfully. He sucked in a breath and thrust up against her push down. “Yes.” She whispered the word. “Yes. Just so.”

“Lovely. You, so lovely.” He brushed his fingers over her breast, then down the midline of her body. Once again, he spread his hand wide over her belly.

She brushed back that wayward lock of his hair then kissed him and rocked forward. She tasted his mouth. Took him, drank deep of everything she’d refused to imagine before. One of his hands covered her breast while the other held her bottom, and for a while they made love like this, slowly, with one or the other of them from time to time looking away to watch in the glass.

At one point, his eyes were half closed because he was watching the joining of their bodies, and she stared at his face. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, and she
slowed the roll of their hips. She cupped his face between her hands and tilted his head to hers. His gaze flicked up to hers, and something tugged at her chest, a feeling that expanded until it could not be held in and brought a sob rushing out of her.

“My darling Ginny.” He looked at her as if she were his world, and her heart clicked into place. Her love for Robert wasn’t pushed aside. She would always love Robert, but there was room in her heart for another love.

He made her happy. When that had happened, she didn’t know, but she was happy when she was with him. And sometimes, at times like this, she thought that feeling was more than happiness.