Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (25 page)

“My love,” he found himself whispering against her mouth. “My love.”

He would not touch her where he most wanted to touch her. Not with his hand. Not yet. She was only just beginning to relax again and accept the fact that the marriage act—for him, at least—involved nakedness and the touching and caressing of every part that modesty had kept hidden through her life. He sensed that he must wait for the more intimate and ultimately more pleasurable touches of full foreplay.

He turned her onto her back and lifted himself over her. He nudged his knees between her thighs and she opened them without further bidding. She was relaxed, acquiescent, heated. He slid his hands beneath her, positioned himself carefully, and mounted her slowly but steadily, moving without pausing beyond the unfamiliar barrier of virginity, though he felt her sudden tension and gasp of pain and panic, until his full length was embedded in her. He held still there, waiting for her body to master the shock of being penetrated for the first time.

God! Dear God in heaven, the urge to let go and to drive on with the act was almost overpowering. He clenched his teeth hard and pressed his face into her hair. She had raised her knees and slid her feet up the bed. He could feel the slim length of her legs against his own. Her body beneath his was soft and warm and intensely feminine.

He drew a few steadying breaths and lifted his weight onto his elbows. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and he could see that she lay with her eyes
closed, her head thrown back on the pillow, her mouth slightly open.

Lord, he thought, watching her face as he withdrew slowly and as slowly sheathed himself in her again, she was enjoying it. He watched her as he loved her with steady, rhythmic strokes. He would continue the rhythm, he decided, feeling her inner muscles begin to clench involuntarily about him, until she had come to full pleasure. Even if it took another half hour.

And then she opened her eyes. For one moment, so brief that he thought afterward he might have imagined it, they were heavy with passion. Then they were fully open and even in the darkness he could see them fill with tears and he could see the tears spill over. With his body he could feel her first sob even before it became sound. He knew that she was fighting to control both tears and sobs. But she failed miserably.

He closed his own eyes and did what he had been fighting not to do for what had seemed like an eternity. He abandoned control and drove into her swiftly and deeply until he felt the blessed spasms of release and his seed sprang in her.

He lowered his weight onto her body and his face into her hair again. Her sobs sounded as if they were tearing her apart.

He moved to her side, disengaging himself from her body, and brought her with him, his arms locked about her. The very best thing he could do for her at the moment, one part of his mind told him, was to leave her alone. That was what she must want more than anything
else in the world. But the instinct to comfort was stronger in him. He cradled her in his arms while she wept, murmuring some nonsense into her ear, stroking his fingers through her hair with light fingertips.

When she quieted eventually, he took a corner of the sheet and dried her eyes and his chest with it. Her eyes were closed, he saw. She made no move to pull away from him. When he drew the bedclothes up about her, she seemed even to cuddle closer to him.

He held her, his mind and his heart numb. He should leave. He should give her privacy for the rest of the night. God, how was he going to be able to come back tomorrow night to do this to her all over again? And yet how could he not? What sort of a nightmare of a marriage were they facing?

Tomorrow morning he would tell her everything, he decided. And yet everything would not exonerate him. Far from it. If she knew everything, she would know she had been only a helpless pawn in a game. That she had been of no importance to either of the players—to either Kersey or himself. How would he convince her then that he would make her the figure of primary importance in the rest of his life?

And would it be enough even if he could convince her?

Numbness did not last nearly long enough sometimes, he thought. He must leave. He must not indulge himself like this with the physical pleasure of holding her warm and naked body while his own relaxed into the
physical satiety that followed a vigorous sexual encounter. He must leave.

But even as he made the decision he realized that incredibly she was asleep. The physical and emotional exhaustion of two days had caught up with her and she slept snuggled up to his body like a trusting child.

He felt a tickling in his throat and swallowed. He had not cried for so long that he was not sure he would know how to do it. He swallowed again and tried to blink the moisture from his eyes.

S
HE WAS WARM AND
relaxed and comfortable. And for a moment—just for the merest moment—she did not know where she was. But then she did, and her very first thought was a treacherous one. She was glad he was still holding her. She was glad he had not gone back to his own room, as Aunt Agatha had assured her he would after he had done that to her. He was warm and solid and she could hear his quiet breathing. Strangely and quite unreasonably she felt safe. She would have gone all to pieces if he had left her.

She kept her eyes closed and grief washed over her again. Grief because this was her wedding night yet he was not Lionel. When she had opened her eyes earlier as he was … doing that to her, she had … what? Expected to see Lionel? Had she kept her eyes closed imagining that it was he making love to her? No, not really. Not even at all. She had firmly shut her mind to Lionel, not invited his image into her marriage bed. But even so …

Oh, the reality of it all had hit her at that moment. She was naked on the bed, spread wide, and her body was being used by someone who was not herself. It belonged to him, to be used for the rest of their lives whenever and however he chose to use it. She was no longer in possession of her own body or of her own person. She had felt in that moment all the total and permanent loss of privacy. Even the inside of her body—there—no longer belonged to her.

And yet she had been enjoying it. The amazing and totally unexpected intimacy of his kiss, the touch of his hands on every part of her body, especially on her breasts, about which she had been self-conscious for several years because they were larger than anyone else’s she knew, the feel and smell of his naked body—she had relaxed into the enjoyment of it all. And when he had—well, when he had come inside her, hurting her and then frightening her because she had not thought there would be enough room, and when he had started to move, she had thought she would swoon with the wonder of it.

It was not that she had imagined he was Lionel. It was just that when she had opened her eyes and seen in the darkness that he was not Lionel, but Gabriel, she had felt deep grief. For if she could lose Lionel so cruelly one night and enjoy this just two nights later with the man who had torn her away from him, how could she convince herself that she really loved Lionel? And yet if she did not, then everything she had lived for in the past five years had been an illusion. And if she could be enjoying
this with this man, how could she feel moral outrage against him?

She had wept for the weakness of her body and the fickleness of her heart. She had felt all the humiliation and horror of weeping openly while he was still doing that to her, but she had been quite unable to stop herself. She had been at the point of exhaustion.

She had wept because he was not worthy of her liking or her respect. Because he was totally without honor. Because he had cruelly destroyed her and severed her relations with the man she had loved deeply—or perhaps not loved at all—for five years. And because she had enjoyed his two kisses while she was still betrothed to Lionel and was enjoying the deep intimacy of the marriage act with him.

She had wept because her body wanted to love him while her mind and her heart never could. Never.

And yet she was married to him for the rest of her life. She would live with him in the intimacy of daily life unless he chose to give them separate establishments. She would get to know his habits and his preferences and his tastes and perhaps his thoughts just as she now knew Papa’s and Samantha’s. And she would bear his children. His seed was in her now. He would continue to put more there until she conceived—and she would continue to enjoy the process.

She was a married lady. No longer a virgin. And this was the man who owned her. Not Lionel. Gabriel. He smelled musky, she thought, inhaling slowly and deeply. And sweaty. He smelled wonderfully masculine. She
tipped her head back suddenly, alerted perhaps by a change in his breathing. His dark eyes were looking back into hers.

He lifted one hand and stroked the backs of his fingers over her temple. “I am so very sorry, my dear,” he said softly. “I know the words are woefully inadequate, but they are the best I can do. It is a damnable mess I have got you into, but there is only one way out. We can only go forward and try to make something workable out of what seems impossible tonight.”

She stared at him, remembering the Chisleys’ garden and the library and Lady Bromley’s orchard. Remembering that she had liked him.

“Can you try?” he asked. “Will you try?”

She really had no choice. She really did not. “I cannot.” She closed her eyes. “Gabriel, I cannot bear the thought of you touching your father’s wife as you have touched me tonight. I cannot bear the thought that somewhere in Europe you have a child who is both your daughter and your half-sister. It is horrible and obscene. I cannot bear it.”

She tried to pull away from him, but his arms tightened. She felt horrified suddenly, and dirty, remembering that she had enjoyed what he did to her.

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice stern. “That I am guilty of one offense does not mean that I am therefore guilty of every offense of which I have been accused. You believed me once, Jennifer. I have never touched my stepmother unlawfully. I am not the father of her child. I did not abandon her. I took her away because she was
miserable and afraid and desperate. I took her because my father might have done her harm and because the blackguard who had impregn—well, who had impregnated her had taken himself off as soon as it appeared that his fun might bear consequences and then denied all association with her. I took her away to a place where she could bear her child in peace and comfort, and I left her there because she had discovered that it was a place where she could start again and perhaps find respectability and even happiness.”

She pressed her face against his chest. She was so naive. She had always believed everything he had told her, despite warnings, despite all the evidence against him. She was believing him now.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we will write to her, Jennifer. Both of us. You will ask for the truth and I will beg her to tell it. You may read my letter before I send it. If that will not satisfy you, I will take you to Switzerland after I have reestablished you here with the
ton
. You will believe it when you see her—and when you see her blond, blue-eyed daughter. Catherine is as dark as I am.”

“You do not need to take me or to write,” she said. “If you say it is so, I will believe you.” Her voice was toneless, but she knew she spoke the truth. If he said it, God help her, she would believe him. She wanted so very, very badly to believe him. The realization startled and rather frightened her.

“No,” he said quietly. “We will write so that you will feel not a shadow of a doubt. Of that at least I am not guilty. Just as I am not guilty of writing that letter. The
other things, yes, to my shame. I wanted to end your betrothal. I wanted to charm or force you into it. I even went as far as compromising you with that kiss. But I could not have been so wantonly cruel as to write that letter and ensure that it fell into the wrong hands on just that occasion. I could not have done that to you.”

The temptation to believe him was strong. But if not he, then who? There was no one else. It would make no sense.

“I think you are right,” she said, drawing her head back and looking at him in the darkness again. “I think we have to go on and just hope that time will bring some healing, some—well, something. I think you are right. I am so tired of hating.”

His fingers, feathering through her hair, felt soothing. “After a week or two of appearances here,” he said, “I will take you to Chalcote, my dear. You will like it there, I believe. There we can learn to be comfortable together.”

“Chalcote,” she said. “Is that not near Highmoor House?”

“Yes.” His hand stilled for a moment. “Just a few miles away.”

“That is where—” she said, and broke off. That was where Lionel’s uncle lived. That was where Lionel had spent the spring two years ago when she should have been making her come-out and when they should have become officially engaged.

“Yes,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. “Two years ago. Just before I went north to spend the summer
with my father. I did not spend the summer as it happened. I left within the month with my stepmother.”

She closed her eyes. “Chalcote,” she said. “I want to go there. Perhaps there I can forget. Perhaps there we can make something of this marriage after all, Gabriel.”

She was giving in to the enemy again. She had no moral fiber at all, she believed. But he had not done that horrible thing with his stepmother. She believed him on that. And he said he had not written that letter. It made no sense, but he was adamant about it while admitting everything else.

Something was nagging at her consciousness. Something that was almost there but not quite. Something that maddeningly refused to present itself to her conscious mind for consideration.

“Jennifer,” her husband was saying, “whether you wish it or not, I will be claiming my marital rights each night. I believe it is essential to any hope we have for the future. But only once each night. If I desire you more than once, you will have the right to refuse the second and any succeeding time.”