Its light revealed that no traps waited. Verity was in bed, her dark hair streaming over the white sheet that covered her.
He reminded himself that tonight’s goal was to give her pleasure, that he had some amends to make. Wife or no, rights or no, wisdom dictated that he ensure she never thought of this as a painful chore. He approached the bed while he fought a rear guard action against the effects of an erection so hard it amazed him.
She was little more than a shadow under that sheet. Her eyes were closed but their thick lashes fluttered. He set the lamp on a far table, shed the robe, and walked to the bed.
To his surprise she opened her eyes. She watched him.
Examined him
. She was a mere six days away from being an innocent, and she observed his nakedness with the frank curiosity of a practiced courtesan.
He slid under the sheet and reached for her, and had another surprise.
“You are undressed already.”
“As are you.”
“Yes. However—”
“Was I supposed to wait in my dinner dress? Or an undressing gown? No one explains these things, at least not to me. You tore my favorite dress the last time. My girl plies a good needle, but it will never be right again. If I have made a mistake, I am sorry, but I thought to spare my wardrobe from your impatience.”
“Your solution is both practical and welcomed.” He gathered her soft warmth close to his body. “There will be no impatience this time, and it is only uncomfortable for women the first time. You will know pleasure to the end tonight, Verity. I promise.”
W
armth. Strength. Flesh pressing flesh and frightening physical intimacy that assaulted all her senses. She hid her shock, but his naked body touching hers in so many ways kept stunning her, as if her own nakedness had not expected the boldness to go both ways.
It was different for her from the first kiss. No feeble protests. No attempts to collect herself. No struggle to deny the power. She had accepted how it would be when she dismissed her girl, removed her favorite nightdress, and climbed into this bed.
He took his time anyway. He lured and seduced with deep, claiming kisses. His hand caressed with a mastery that demanded her whole body join her decision to surrender to the inevitable.
The sheet fell down their bodies so nothing covered them. She was exposed to the light he had brought in, and to his gaze. She watched his kisses move over her, forming tiny brands on her, each one making a thrill enter her blood. Awkwardness faded under the onslaught of sensations that woke and captivated her body.
She watched his hand move over her. A very masculine hand, strong and hard and darker than her skin. He caressed around her breasts while he kissed her neck and shoulders in ways that created a pulse far below, where her body trembled from the memory of what was to come.
Desire. That was the meaning of that tremble. All the pleasure encouraged its spread and growing intensity. She noted what was happening, how every caress and kiss lured her with titillations that soon preoccupied her consciousness.
She did not resist the descent into pure carnality. There was no reason to anymore. She released the last of the awkwardness. She submitted with both relief and resignation. As with the last time, pleasure banished the guilt for a while. Later, perhaps, most likely, she would contemplate how she had betrayed her hopes, her legacy, even her very life by succumbing to this man. Later she would think of Michael and his crooked smile with nostalgia and worry about his fate.
When Hawkeswell’s fingertips started teasing at her hard, sensitive nipple, she closed her eyes so nothing distracted her from the delicious excitement he gave her. His head lowered and he intensified the effect with his mouth and tongue and teeth on her other breast. She held on to him, clutched at his shoulders and arm. Her back arched and her breasts rose and she begged for more with her body and thoughts.
All of her was alive. All of her was sensitive to the slightest touch. All of her was wanting. Desire beat like a soft drum, in her head and in his breaths and through her body. It merged with her very pulse, and throbbed in rhythm to physical cravings. More, yes, more. Joyful, excruciating pleasure. Kisses and caresses both gentle and rough, and madness, wonderful madness, destroying all restraints and reveling in the primitive glory.
That hand now, that powerful hand, sliding lower, too slowly, far too slowly so that moans sounded in her head and ears. Moving down her body toward that pulse. Nothing mattered now except that. It was all there, all the desire and pleasure. She grasped his head and held it to a kiss. Her kiss. Her fury, wanting more, urging more. She spread her legs as that hand neared and she whimpered within the kiss.
“You are too impatient,” he chided quietly. His hand closed on her inner thigh. Her hips rose instinctively, a reflection of the cries in her head.
“Is this what you want?” His fingers brushed against flesh that wept and waited with furious desperation.
A devastating shock of pleasure streaked through her. Then another and another. Madness growing now. Awareness constricting to a small circle in which nothing but need existed.
Finally one profoundly different sensation, starting more intensely and rising sharply, then splitting through her whole body and essence, through her blood and flesh, in one long, deep tremor that stunned all her senses.
He had been waiting for her astonishment. He came over her then, his lower body meeting hers. He pressed into her and she did not know if it hurt or not. The remnants of the tremor still echoed and her awe left no room for awareness of pain. She felt the intimacy, though. The scent and closeness. His body’s dominance of her shouted into her daze.
His masterful hand positioned her legs as he wanted them, then pressed against the headboard to leverage his moves while he filled her and took her and overwhelmed her body and soul.
“
W
ill you always tell me when to leave that door unlocked?” Her voice inserted this practicality into the long silence, but after the power had begun to pass.
He did not mind, although his head was hardly up to discussing logistics. He was accustomed to negotiations of one kind or another with women in bed.
“You should probably do so every night. I do not believe that formal announcements are customary.”
“Then I am never to know? Am I supposed to wait, awake, to be sure I am ready if you choose to do this? If you do not make a visit, I could wait all night when I should be sleeping.”
“I do not think there will be any danger of that.”
“Are you saying that you intend to come here
every night
?”
He had meant that she would fall asleep, and not really wait all night no matter what her notion of duty. However, her question was a fair one, and her astonishment a timely reminder of her ignorance.
“Probably so. For a good while, yes, I will most likely come to you every night.”
He did not ask if that would be agreeable. He was not inclined to open those kinds of negotiations.
“I do not think that will be so distasteful,” she said. “Perhaps you were correct, and in this one way we will suit well enough.”
He rose on his arm and looked at her puckered brow. It matched her voice, which was full of deliberation. “We will suit more than well enough, if you remain bold and honest.”
“Bold and honest? Is that how you perceived me?”
“They are as good as any other words to describe how you take pleasure.” They also described much about the rest of her too, he decided.
“I was taught by my governess that husbands prefer modest and virtuous.”
“I am glad that you proved such a poor student of the lesson.”
“Then you did not find my lack of restraint shocking?”
“Not at all.”
“I did. I expect you did not because you have experienced such things before with all those other women.”
Rather suddenly she had led him onto swampy ground. He heard no accusation in her voice. She was only being her bold and honest self. He stepped carefully all the same.
“Other women? Oh, from my distant past, you mean. Here I had clear forgotten about them.”
She giggled, then laughed hard. When she had caught her breath, she angled up and gave one of her bird pecks on his cheek, then fell back on the bed. “I thank you for trying, Hawkeswell. Being the bold and honest sort, I have no illusions, however.”
The swamp fairly oozed now. He decided this little conversation had gone on long enough so she would not feel neglected.
He kissed her, and lingered when pleasant memories flowed on the intimacy, then left the bed.
Chapter Fourteen
H
awkeswell’s house on Hanover Square appeared less tired than Greenlay Park. Not the best address, Celia had written in a letter. Fashionable society had long ago moved on. That the Earls of Hawkeswell still lived there reflected their fading fortunes over the last few generations.
Certain chambers encouraged Verity to think that living here would be very pleasant anyway. The library might need redecorating the way his aunt Julia said, but Verity liked its jewel-toned upholstery and dark woods, and the fine, large windows that looked down on the square.
In contrast, the drawing room seemed cold, with its fastidious, fine-boned furniture and severely classical decor. She suspected that the drawing room had not been used often in recent years. She doubted Hawkeswell entertained much at home. If gentlemen friends called, he probably received them in that nice library, or up in his apartment.
“Here is the garden,” Hawkeswell said, opening one of many French doors in the long back gallery that also served as a ballroom. “Promise that you will not scold.”
She stepped onto a fine, deep terrace paved in what looked like rough marble. The garden stretched before her, broad and deep, all the way to a brick wall at the back that masked some buildings that she assumed were coach houses and necessities.
“Oh, dear.”
“The gardener is not the best, you mean.”
“He is incompetent. The yews are ruined, and all the shrubbery poorly pruned. He does not know the first thing about landscape, I fear.”
“I trust that you will correct him.”
She went down the steps and stood amid the disaster. “I am not sure that I can. This may be too much for me.”
“Get whatever help you require. Release this gardener and hire another. Hire three. I leave it in your hands.”
She surveyed the series of silly little flower beds that broke up the walkways. The entire property needed a new design.
They completed the tour, ending at her apartment. As with her rooms at Greenlay Park, these had been treated to new fabrics not so long ago. She wondered if Colleen and Aunt Julia had seen to it at both houses, and not Hawkeswell at all.
Yet it seemed to matter to him if she approved. He watched her finger the bed drapes and look out the window. He strolled behind her as she opened doors and drawers in the dressing room.
She spied a door on the far wall beyond the dressing table. “Another odd passageway?”
True to his word, he had used that passageway every night since the first time. She had begun waiting for him. Sometimes, while she waited, she saw him as she had that first night, walking toward her, naked and aroused, his eyes dark and his expression taut. She would sense her body stirring and her breasts getting sensitive in anticipation of what was coming.
“No passageway this time. The dressing rooms adjoin directly.” He opened the door to show his own, with its wardrobes and tables and some chairs. A manservant stopped hanging a coat and bowed. “This is Mr. Drummund. He has been my valet for . . . How long has it been now, Drummund?”
“It has been my honor for twelve years now, sir. Since you were at university.” Drummund seemed touched by the attention.
“He had his hands full early on,” Hawkeswell said. “Life has become much duller the last five years or so, has it not, Drummund?”
“Never dull, sir.” He returned to the coat. “There is mail. I was about to send it down to Surrey.”
Hawkeswell turned his attention to the letters. Verity returned to her own apartment and found mail waiting for her as well. It had been sent just that morning.
Audrianna wrote to say that she and Lord Sebastian had also returned to town. Verity sighed with relief at the reassurance that one of her dear friends would be close by.
H
awkeswell dipped the pen and signed the stacks of vellum that Thornapple had set before him. With each scrawl of his signature, he took control of Verity’s fortune.
The solicitor had been the image of professional indifference about the entire matter. However, as the last heavy page turned, he removed his spectacles and examined Hawkeswell while he folded each page just so.
“I hope that you will accept a little advice about this inheritance that your wife received, Lord Hawkeswell.”
“Of course.”
“This is an industrial enterprise. It is more subject to economic vagaries than wealth derived from land. The potential is much greater, but so is the danger. Lady Hawkeswell brings a handsome income to you, and with the dissolution of the second trust that collected her profits while she was a minor, a good deal of money reserved from that period. There is no guarantee, however, that the income will continue.”
“I expect that the need for iron will increase, not decrease. While there are no guarantees, there is also no reason to assume a decline.”
“You are wrong there. The decline is at hand as we speak. The ironworks are solid, but currently are suffering from a postwar depression. Furthermore, over half the amount each year derives from the boring and machining. Currently they have an advantage, due to Joshua’s ingenuity in devising a new method. He never patented it, you may know, because to do so would mean revealing the method itself, and he did not trust others not to steal. Should it become known, however, the advantage would be much depreciated.”