The Arrangement (23 page)

“Less,” she said, slipping her hand from his arm.

He smiled and listened for her door. As he heard it close, he could hear Martin’s firm footsteps coming along the corridor behind him. Martin had been stiffly formal this morning—and ever since the announcement of the betrothal.

“Martin,” he said as his dressing room door opened and he preceded his valet inside. “Did you come to my wedding as I asked?”

“I did, sir,” Martin said.

Vincent waited for more, but all he could hear was Martin setting the water jug down on the washstand and preparing his shaving gear. He sighed. Had he gained a wife and lost a friend? For that was what Martin was, what he had always been.

“She did not look like a boy today,” Martin said abruptly as Vincent slipped off his coat and waistcoat and Martin helped him with his neckcloth before hauling his shirt off over his head. “She looked like a little elfin creature.”

It was stiffly, grudgingly said. And
little elfin creature
sounded like more of a compliment than an insult.

“Thank you,” Vincent said. “She did not do this deliberately, you know, Martin. I, on the other hand, did.”

“I know,” Martin said. “Idiot that you are. Keep your head still now or I’ll be slicing your throat. And you will be wondering if I did it deliberately. If you are still alive to wonder anything at all, that is.”

“I trust you.” Vincent grinned at him. “With my life.”

Martin grunted.

“It’s just as well,” he said, “since I get to come at you with an open razor at least once a day. Take that grin off your face or you are going to get an uneven cut to take to your lady.”

Vincent sat still and expressionless.

Peace, he supposed, had been declared.

A little elfin creature.
He remembered holding her against him on the far side of the stile in Barton Coombs. Yes, he believed it. She was just the opposite of voluptuous. He had always favored voluptuous women—as what red-blooded male did not? But he was eager for his bride anyway.

A little elfin creature.

He opened the door into the bedchamber after he had dismissed Martin. He knew the room. He knew where the bed was, the dressing table, the side tables, the fireplace, the window. And he knew as soon as he stepped inside that he was not alone.

“Sophie?”

“Yes, I am here.” There was a soft laugh. “Do you know where
here
is?”

“I believe,” he said, “you are standing at the window. And it is still not dark, I suppose?”

“The room looks out on the back of the house,” she said as he made his way toward her. “Onto the garden. It is very pretty. One could almost forget one was in London.”

He reached out and touched the windowsill. He could feel the warmth of her close by.

“Would you like to forget?” he asked her. “Do you not like London?”

“I prefer the country,” she said. “I feel less lonely there.”

A strange thing to say, perhaps, when one considered the relative number of people in the town and the country.

“I feel less of a lone being,” she explained, “and more a part of something vast and complex. I am sorry. That does not make much sense, does it?”

“The emphasis is too much upon humanity alone in town?” he suggested. “And more upon humankind as part of nature and the universe itself in the country?”

“Oh,” she said, “yes. You do understand.”

He thought of her dream cottage with its pretty garden and a few friendly neighbors. Ah, Sophie.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand closed about it and his other hand about the other, and he drew her against him. She was wearing a silky nightgown, he could feel. One item of her bride clothes? He hoped so. He hoped she was feeling pretty and desirable. He could feel her draw a slow inward breath.

He was wearing just a light brocaded silk dressing gown. Perhaps he ought to have had Martin dig out a nightshirt for him—if there was one to dig out, that was. It was possible none had been packed when he left home, for he always slept naked.

He moved his hands inward, lifted her chin with his thumbs, and found her mouth with his own—that lovely wide mouth he remembered with its generous lips. He licked his own just before they joined hers, waited for the trembling in hers to cease, and stroked the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until they parted. He slid his tongue into her mouth and felt a shiver of desire as she moaned softly deep in her throat.

He moved his hands to thread into her hair. It was soft and silky and not nearly as thick as it had been last time he felt it. It was very short.

“Sophie.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “Are we putting on a display for anyone who happens to be strolling in the garden?”

“Probably not,” she said. “But I will close the curtains.”

He heard them sliding along the rail after she had turned from his arms.

“There,” she said. “Now no one will see.”

And she moved back against him and slid her arms about his waist. Ah. She was not reluctant, then.

“I am glad you cannot see me either,” she said. She drew breath audibly. “Oh, I did not mean to be offensive.”

“Because you are not worth looking at?” he asked her. “Sophie, who destroyed all your sense of self-worth? And don’t tell me it was your looking glass. Well, I cannot see you and never will. I can never contradict you—or agree with you. But I
can
touch you.”

“That,” she said, “is almost as bad.”

He laughed softly, and she did too, rather ruefully, he thought.

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

He laughed again and slid his hands beneath her nightgown at the shoulders and pushed it off and down her arms. He stood back and straightened her arms with his hands and heard the garment slither all the way to the floor.

She inhaled audibly.

“Do not worry,” he said. “I cannot see you.”

Her breath shuddered out.

He touched her. He explored her with light hands and sensitive fingertips—thin shoulders and upper arms, small breasts that nevertheless fit softly and warmly into the palms of his hands, a tiny waist, hips that hardly flared below it, a soft, flat belly, a slender bottom with cheeks that fit his hands as her breasts had done, legs that were slender and yet sturdy as far down as he could feel.

Her skin was soft and smooth and warm. She did not have the boniness and angularity of many thin people. She was just small and not particularly shapely. Not at all voluptuous. He could feel himself harden into arousal anyway. She was his bride. She was
his,
and there was a certain exultation in the thought. He had found her himself and married her himself, without any help from anyone. Eyes were not always necessary.

He returned his hands to her face, cupping it and kissing her lips again.

“Have the bedcovers been turned back?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“Lie down, then,” he said.

“Yes.”

Was she being the mouse again? Her voice was higher pitched than usual.

Or just a virgin bride on her wedding night?

He removed his dressing gown before lying down beside her. It was impossible to know if the sight of him was shocking her. Her breathing had been audible and slightly ragged from the start.

His hands explored her again. He lowered his head to kiss her mouth, one cheek, one ear—he drew the earlobe between his teeth and nipped it. He kissed her throat, her breasts. He suckled one while he rolled the nipple of the other gently between his thumb and forefinger.

She remained passive, though her breathing was more labored and her skin was warmer and her nipples hardened beneath his touch.

He kissed her stomach, found her belly button, and swirled his tongue about it while his hand slid between her warm thighs and moved upward to find the core of her femininity. She was hot and surprisingly moist.

She drew a sharp inward breath and stiffened.

“Sophie.” He raised his head above hers, though he did not remove his hand or stop stroking her lightly, parting folds with his fingers, circling the tip of one about her opening. “Are you afraid? Embarrassed?”

“No.” Her voice was definitely high pitched now.

He suspected she was both.

And he suspected she considered herself physically undesirable.

He took one of her hands in his and moved it to his erection. He curled her fingers about it and held them there.

“Do you know what this means?” he murmured into her ear. “It means that I want you, that I find you desirable. My hands, my mouth, my tongue, my body, all have touched you and been well pleased. I want you.”

“Oh.” Her hand was still about him and then released him.

He was not lying to her either.

“I am going to come inside you,” he said. “I am afraid I will hurt you this first time, though I will try not to.”

“You will not hurt me,” she said. “Even if there is pain, Vincent, you will not
hurt
me. Oh, please. Come.”

He smiled his surprise. She wanted him too.

She reached for him as he moved over her and lowered his weight onto her. She parted her legs before he could nudge them apart with his, and when he slid his hands under her, she lifted herself and snuggled her bottom into his hands. And when he positioned himself at her opening, she pressed her legs against his and tilted herself.

His arousal became almost painful. He wished suddenly that he was not so large. She was such a little thing. And when he pressed slowly into her, he met a tightness and a heat that filled him with the warring reactions of elation and terror. Elation because a man could not ask for any sensation more erotic and filled with promise; terror because she was too small for him and he was about to tear her apart and cause her a pain she could not disregard.

She was moaning and pressing toward him.

He felt the barrier. It seemed to him that it was impenetrable. He was going to harm her.

“Come,” she was urging him. “Oh, please come.”

And he forgot about gentleness. He drove inward with one firm thrust, and he was sheathed in her to the hilt, and she was first gasping and tense and then gradually relaxing about him—before she clenched inner muscles and inhaled slowly.

“Vincent,” she whispered.

He found her mouth with his, kissed her open-mouthed, plunging his tongue deep.

“Sophie,” he said against her lips. “I am sorry.”

“I am not,” she said.

And he raised himself on his forearms so as not to crush her while he worked, and he took her with hard, deep strokes, holding back his pleasure because he knew there was more of it to be had and because he knew she wanted the whole of it even though she was going to be very sore afterward.

He could hear the erotic wetness of the consummation.

She was all sweet, hot, wet woman. She smelled of sweat and sex. And she was his.

She was his wife.

A little elfin creature.

And packed full to overflowing, every inch of her, with hot sexuality.

He worked in her for long minutes until he could hold back no longer. He pressed inward, held deep, and let his seed flow until he was drained and utterly relaxed.

His selfishness was the first thing that struck him when he returned to himself a couple of minutes or so later. He had intended being gentle and somewhat restrained with her this first time. Instead, he had been vigorously engaged in her for far too long. And now his whole weight was on her. She felt deliciously warm and damp. She smelled enticing.

He disengaged from her as gently as possible and moved to her side. He found her hand with his own and curled his fingers about it.

“Sophie?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did I hurt you terribly?”

“No.”

He turned onto his side to face her.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” she asked. “I was told it was going to be lovely. Lady Trentham told me. It was lovelier even than that.”

Would she never cease to surprise and delight him?

“I did not hurt you?”

“You did,” she said. “You hurt me at the beginning and you hurt me toward the end. And I am hurting now. It is the loveliest feeling in the world.”

What?

“Lovely?”

“Lovely,” she repeated. “Some pain is lovely.”

“Are you serious?” He was grinning at her.

“Yes,” she said. There was a short pause. “Did I disappoint you?”

Ah, they were back to that, were they?

“Do I look disappointed?” he asked her. “Did I
feel
disappointed?”

“I have no figure,” she said. “I am almost as flat as I was when I was a girl. Someone—God?—forgot to let me grow.”

It would be comical if it were not also sad.

“Sophie,” he told her, “you felt every inch a woman to me. I could not possibly have enjoyed that more than I did.”

“How kind you are,” she said.

“I am only sorry,” he said, “that it cannot be repeated tonight.”

“It is not even tonight yet,” she said. “It is still only dusk.”

What was she saying? Had she really enjoyed it too, pain and all? He was not a very experienced lover—a bit of an understatement—and was doubtless nowhere near the world’s best lover. Perhaps that did not really matter, though. They were both lonely people—yes, sexually speaking he
was
lonely. The comfort and pleasure they could give each other would surely outweigh experience and expertise.

“Perhaps when tonight has become almost tomorrow, then,” he said, “we will try again, will we? But only if you feel up to it. Only if you are not too sore.”

“I will not be,” she said with such conviction that he laughed and drew her into his arms and against his chest. And then he stopped laughing and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Suddenly he felt more like weeping.

That damned
arrangement
. Would he ever be able to put it from his mind? Would she? Would they ever be able to just relax into their marriage?

“Sleep now,” he said. “Our wedding day is officially ended, Sophie. It was a good one after all, was it not?”

“Yes.” She snuggled against him, and incredibly was almost instantly asleep.