“Remember, Prudence. Remember how you can feel.” He drew her toward him and captured her lips with his.
In his kiss, too, she could feel the power of his desire. As his kiss deepened, she felt threatened by the enormity of his passion. He would be swept away by it, governed by its uncontrollable recklessness. He would be driven by that overwhelming need to take her, to claim her body to satisfy that hunger which had been building for heaven knew how long.
Well, let him, she thought. Just let it run its course, get it over with.
Ledbetter drew back, frowning. “Prudence, what's the matter?”
“Nothing. Don't stop, William. I'll be fine.”
Her husband gave an impatient sigh. “Not in that frame of mind you won't. Hell, I thought we'd worked this out.”
“We have. I tell you there's no problem. Please just proceed.”
He made a low growl of frustration. “Very well. Take off your night dress and climb into bed, wife.”
Prudence blinked unhappily at him, but did as he demanded. She dropped the night dress on the floor, her back turned to him, and quickly worked her way under the coverlet, where she lay stiff as a board. Ledbetter was still sitting up in bed, glaring at her, so she closed her eyes. Prudence heard him snuff the candle and steeled herself for his touch.
Nothing happened.
She felt him settle down into the bed, as far away from her as he could possibly manage. “Really, William,” she whispered. “It's all right.”
Her husband said nothing.
“I'm sorry. Truly I am. I don't mean to be so stupid. Just go ahead and get it over with.”
Ledbetter merely growled.
Prudence could have wept. She'd made a mess of things again, and all because of her idiotic, and probably quite unrealistic, fears. Why hadn't she merely kissed him back, as she had done the last time they were in bed together? That had been an entirely pleasurable—even exciting—experience. And now she'd offended her husband. Not only rejected him, but proved to him that she didn't really trust him at all. What a sorry excuse she was for a wife!
Well, matters could not remain thus. She must do something to sort this out, and if Ledbetter wouldn’t speak to her, or take action, Prudence decided that she must. Carefully she inched her way over until she was close enough to touch Ledbetter. Since his back was to her, she placed a tentative hand on his hip. There was no response, not even that frustrated growl of his.
Prudence brought her body up closer to his, at first with just her own hip pressed against his bottom, but that caused no reaction, either. How could he ignore such a brave move on her part? Surely he must know what it cost her in determination to bring her vulnerable body so close to his!
With her heart pounding in her throat, Prudence shifted so that her whole body pressed against the length of Ledbetter. Her head fit in the curve of his neck, her breasts pressed against his back, and her lower body wrapped around the firmness of his buttocks. She rested one hand on his hip and, because it seemed a tempting thing to do, after a while she stroked his hip and thigh.
There was a decided reaction to this move on her part. Ledbetter captured her hand and refused to release it. Still he said nothing, however. She would have thought he’d be glad of her stroking him! He seemed to like nothing better than stroking
her
!
Prudence found that her body longed to be stroked. Her naked breasts against his back seemed to remember the feel of his hands on them. She shifted so that her breasts rubbed gently against his skin, and again. Where were his hands to cup them? Where was his mouth to take her nipple in and suckle it? The sensations he had aroused in her on previous occasions were prickling at her memory and in her bosom. Is this how he felt when she was close to him?
She kissed his neck, and his shoulders. The sensation of need for his touch grew deeper, and she allowed it to find expression in those hungry little kisses. She continued to rub her breasts against his back, to offer them some desired stimulation. Her body felt shockingly ripe with desire.
“Will?” she whispered near his ear. “I want you to touch me. I need you to touch me.”
Her husband shifted now, turning over to face her. In the darkness, even with her eyes adjusted to the night, she could not read his face well. He seemed to study her for a long time. “I don’t want any sacrifices from you, Prudence.”
She silently shook her head. He had released her hand to roll over and she brought it to his thigh, allowing it to stroke him in the way she wanted him to stroke her.
Tentatively, he brought a hand up to stroke her cheek, and, as he had done earlier, she turned her face to kiss his palm. He cupped her face in both his hands and stared deeply into her eyes. Prudence didn’t flinch away from his scrutiny, or from the kiss he gave her next. It was a gentle kiss, lacking the searing passion of his previous kisses. Prudence responded with quite a different kiss, one filled with all the longing she was feeling. When her husband deepened his kiss, she met his desire with a matching need.
His hand came to cup her breast and she sighed with pleasure. His gentle stroking excited her, making her slightly breathless. When he lowered his mouth to take one nipple in and draw on it, a pleasure so great overcame her that she moaned. And the tingling in her body seemed to radiate lower as he kissed and suckled her breast, until her whole body felt filled to bursting with a glorious need.
She realized that he had been stroking her thigh as she stroked his. And his hand moved now between her legs. For the briefest of moments she felt herself stiffen, and then she spread her legs to welcome his stroke on her inner thigh. His hand paused and he said, “Do you want me to touch you there, Pru?”
“Yes. Now.”
He laughed. She could feel the rumble of it through his body, a surprisingly sensuous experience. He said, “If something doesn’t feel good, just say so, my sweet.”
“It feels—marvelous.” And indeed it did. His fingers had reached the apex between her legs and continued to stroke there, surprising her with the intensity of her reaction. She felt almost giddy with the sensations that coursed through her body. His mouth on her breast, his fingers rubbing a most sensitive spot, Prudence could scarcely breathe. Her body, which had felt ripe before he even touched her, now felt close to bursting.
She could feel his manhood straining against her leg, and knew that his passion was as highly aroused as her own. His fingers slipped inside her and she froze.
He sighed. “Ah, Prudence, please trust me.”
“I
do
trust you,” she said fiercely. “It’s myself I don’t seem to trust, Will. Believe me.”
He withdrew his fingers from inside her and she caught his hand. “Please, it felt so good a moment ago. Would you do that again?”
“With pleasure,” he said, kissing her forehead and beginning to stroke again at that point between her legs that made her feel giddy.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “I can hardly bear how exciting that is, Will. It makes me feel like . . . Oh.” She moaned, her body writhing beneath his touch. “Oh, God. I think I’m going to burst. Oh, Will.”
She clasped him to her as her body convulsed with the most astonishing rhythmic pleasure, releasing all that amazing pent up tension. She cried out and felt tears stream down her cheeks. “Please, please, make me yours, Will,” she whispered against his throat.
He shifted her beneath him and plunged his manhood into her so swiftly that she hardly realized what was happening. There was a moment of sharp pain, followed by a lesser discomfort as he thrust into her again and again until he cried out in release.
They were joined in a way that mesmerized Prudence. She'd had no concept of how it would feel to have an empty part of herself filled by a part of her husband. As Ledbetter lay on top of her, he shifted his weight slightly to one side, leaning on his elbow and looking down at her. With his other hand he rubbed away the moisture on her cheeks.
“Are you all right, Prudence?” he asked, his brow drawn down with concern. “Should I remove myself?”
“Oh, no. Please don't.” Prudence hugged her arms tightly around his back. “Stay with me.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Not as bad as you'd feared, eh?”
She shook her head. “I've been such a fool. Can you forgive me?”
“There's no need. I daresay I'm as relieved as you are to have this first time behind us. It won't hurt from now on. And there's so much to explore. You have the most delicious body.”
He kissed the swell of her breast, his tongue circling her nipple, his lips tugging gently at it. “Your body can offer you extraordinary pleasure—as it does me.”
A soft moan escaped her. “Can we do it again?” she asked.
Ledbetter laughed and kissed her softly on the lips. “Not right away, my sweet. And I’m afraid you’ll be sore for a while, perhaps a day or two. Best to let that heal, given your fears about pain.”
“But I won’t worry about that—
now
. Don’t you think we’ll want to . . . to try it again tomorrow night?”
“Well, we probably would,” he admitted, grinning at her, “but I’m going to be off in the morning, so that will serve as a useful separation until you heal.”
Prudence’s heart sank and her voice had a slight edge to it when she asked, “But where are you going, William? You hadn’t said anything about leaving.”
Her husband shrugged as he withdrew from her and rolled over to the side of the bed. “I have some matters to clear up, concerning Mr. Youngblood, mainly. I won’t be away long, Prudence. After all, we’re giving a dinner for the neighbors in a few days.”
She was silent, trying to reason with herself about this revelation. It was not, she assured herself, that he had only stayed around long enough to make her his wife in more than name. There was indeed something havey-cavey about the business with Mr. Youngblood, and of course Ledbetter would be anxious to set matters right. “But you've already used my dowry to settle your debt with Mr. Youngblood, haven't you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ledbetter admitted. “I doubt there's any way I can retrieve that, and in time the estate will absorb the cost. But I
have
to know the answers to a number of questions, Prudence. There is a suspicion in the air about my father which I should try to clear.”
Prudence pulled the coverlet up to her chin and regarded him with a frown. “And what if you were to find that the suspicion was correct? What would you do then?”
“I don't know,” Ledbetter said irritably. “There won't be much I
can
do, I'm afraid. Don't worry that any of it will reflect on you.”
“That is not my fear,” Prudence said, an indignant catch in her voice. “If, after all, your father wronged Mr. Youngblood, then your mother has certainly done her utmost to right the wrong. If, on the other hand, Mr. Youngblood has not been wronged, but has played upon your mother's sympathies, then perhaps you will be able to find some remedy in the law. In either case, my dear Ledbetter, I don't understand how rushing off is going to provide the answers to your very natural questions. You would probably do as well to begin your search here, where your father lived all his life.”
Ledbetter expelled a snort of frustration. “I've already done what I could in this neighborhood, Prudence. No one is going to admit to me that my father sowed his wild oats right here in the county. You'd think for all I've been able to discover that he was a paragon of virtue—which I can tell you he was not! No, I'm going to dig around where Youngblood currently lives, see what I can find there. Can't you see that it's my responsibility to discover the truth?”
Prudence sighed, and forced herself to speak without a trace of the disappointment she felt. “Certainly I can, William. You owe it to both your parents, and to yourself, of course. If you have exhausted the possibilities around Salston, naturally you must travel farther afield. I shall miss you, of course, but I will have Catherine's company for the next few days.”
“Very true,” he said heartily. “You and Catherine seem to go on well together. Perhaps she can stay until I return.”
“I don't think she will wish to stay at Salston any longer than is absolutely necessary. She will want to be back in the bosom of her family.”
“I know Geoffrey wants her home. Well, you'll be busy after she leaves, getting ready for our guests. That always seems to take a great deal of planning and consulting with Cook, and with Mrs. Collins. I daresay you'll scarcely notice I'm gone.”
“Oh, I'll notice,” she said, her voice soft and a little whimsical. “But I'm used to being left behind.”
If Ledbetter wondered what she meant by that, he had the good sense not to question her. Instead he leaned across and kissed her. “Good night, Prudence. When I return,” he promised, “we'll take up where we left off tonight.”
“I do hope so.”
* * * *
Catherine pronounced herself well enough to endure the carriage ride to Hawthorne Manor a day and a half after Ledbetter's departure. Prudence knew she would miss having mother and child with her, but she was well aware that Catherine could scarcely contain her desire to be in her own home with her husband and children around her. So she waved merrily as Sir Geoffrey handed his wife into the old-fashioned barouche, and she was a little surprised when Sir Geoffrey returned to speak with her.
“Can't thank you enough for the care you've taken of Catherine and the babe, Lady Ledbetter. Frightfully sorry to have made it necessary.”
“Nonsense! I can hardly think of a more wonderful experience, Sir Geoffrey. And I appreciated the opportunity to get to know your wife better. I hope she'll be up to coming to our dinner on Saturday, but we will certainly understand if that's not possible.”
“She'd like nothing better. Never one to be slowed down by a lying-in! And my mother will be here to help by then.”
“Will she? Oh, please include her in our invitation. Ledbetter has the greatest fondness for your mama.”
“Know he has.” Sir Geoffrey shook his head. “Can't imagine why he thought he had to go haring off that way. Damnedest fellow for acting on the spur of the moment—begging your pardon. Well, he'll be back for the dinner, so he can't be gone long.”