Edith Layton (18 page)

T
hey got to the inn just before night fell. It was everything the Swan hadn’t been.

Their room was large, the bed enormous, piled high with clean coverlets and pillows. The walls were thick, the windowpanes solid. Brenna could hear the wind tearing up the world outside, but it was snug here, and the firelight cast warm russet reflections on everything. There was no dirt or vermin, and thinking of that, no evil relatives either. Brenna sighed with relief.

“Weary?” Rafe asked, as he came up behind her. “Well, rest. We’ll set out when the weather clears and not a moment before. There’s no hurry anymore, Bren.”

She nodded. That was true. They were going to London. But then? The world, and in particular their world, was a long, open road before them. Years
stretched ahead. She crossed her arms over her breast, hugging herself. She’d no idea of what those years would hold. Her feeling of contentment vanished. Now, suddenly, she realized she was in this place with a man, a relative stranger, who’d share all those years with her. And her body as well. She’d wanted him as husband; she had him now. But the whole adventure of their meeting and marrying seemed rash and bizarre, now that she’d stopped traveling and could think.

“Don’t,” he said, coming up behind her and putting his arms over hers, holding her so she rested against his chest. “Don’t worry. I can see it in your eyes,” he said to her questioning look as she turned her head to see him. “Such telling eyes you have, Bren. You could never speak again and yet say everything with them, I think. Yes. It was a rare muddle we got ourselves in. Now we can sort it out. Don’t worry. We will.”

She nodded, and stirred. He released her instantly.

“Yes. Well,” he said with resignation. “So. I see we have to start anew, do we?”

He was still as a statue watching her, the firelight casting him in bronze. There was weariness in his face, a certain sorrow that called to her, if only because she knew how hard he tried to conceal it.
Poor Rafe,
she thought.
He’d plenty of practice at that, hadn’t he? All his life, in fact.

It wasn’t just pity that stirred her now. There was that. But there was also a long-denied hunger and curiosity, and a need to let him know she wanted to comfort him and needed him to comfort her too.
“Rafe?” she said softly. “We need to start. Anew or not. Don’t you think?”

He studied her a long moment. “I’d like to,” he said, but didn’t move.

She smiled, tremulously. “Yes,” she said, lowering her gaze, “I mean
that
.”

She wondered if she’d die of embarrassment, or hurt, when he still didn’t make a move toward her. It wasn’t a filthy room, she thought frantically, nor was his family there. Was it that Annabelle’s spirit was still haunting him? Or…

He closed the space between them in a second. He swooped her into his arms and hugged her hard. He laughed, his eyes sparkling. “Damme, Bren! But you are a one! There I was, worrying what to say, how to broach it. I’m not good with words and didn’t dare make a move. How could I? I’ve brought you nothing but confusion since we met…”

He stopped speaking and looked down at her eyes. They were wide and dark and deep. But he saw no refusal in them, only a searching question. Her lips were parted. Those lovely upturned lips. He kissed her, and answered her question. And stopped worrying.

He smiled all the while he shrugged out of his jacket, never taking his eyes from her. He put his hands over hers as she fumbled with the ties on her gown. “No,” he whispered. “My job.”

He kissed each inch of skin that came into his view as he slid her gown off. Her hands tried to seek his skin through his shirt. But it was a fact of life that she wore less than he did, and so she soon stood naked in
the firelight before him, while he still wore shirt, breeches, and boots.

So he does keep his clothes on,
she thought sadly, her hands going up to cover herself. He smiled at her belated display of modesty. “I feel like some kind of slave girl,” she murmured in embarrassment, suddenly struck by the inequality of their positions.

But so she looked to him, like some temptress from an erotic tale of a lucky traveler’s encounter with a harem girl, as she stood clothed only in her inky tresses and golden firelight. Her breasts were high and dusky peaked, those peaks taut from the cool of the room, or her excitement as she saw his eyes go to them. One of her hands tried to cover the dark triangle between her long and shapely legs, emphasizing it. His gaze roved over her. Her waist curved, as did her hips; she had a gently rounded curve of a belly. She was a symphony of sensuous shapes.

He wanted to tell her so. He wanted to tell her she was no one’s slave, he was instead slave to his desire, humbled because her passion matched his own. Overwhelming lust stopped his tongue. “No slave, no more than I am,” he could only murmur, trying to say it all.

He broke from his reverie and took her in his arms. His mouth found hers, his tongue touched hers, his hands discovered her, then clutched her closer. When she hung her arms round his neck, his hands were free to learn her again.

Impatient, he picked her up and took her to their bed. He left her only long enough to tug his boots off,
and then, with a muttered oath, left off undressing himself to return to her. She was waiting for him, in every way.

Her mouth was hot under his; she squirmed at his every touch, and he touched her everywhere, rejoicing in the feel of her and her incredible response to him. His body ached for her; actual pain suffused him. Even that was delicious. Somehow he found the time, between tasting the dark wine of her lips and the nutmeg spice at the tips of her breasts, to drag off his neckcloth and pull off his shirt and his breeches.

But he had to keep stopping to return to the feast of her body. She smelled of rare flowers, salt, sea, and heated female skin. Soon that skin was as damp as his; his hands slid as they caressed her. Soon after, he found the entry beneath that dark apex was slick, ready for much more than his questing touch. He could scarcely believe his luck.

She was everything her looks had promised, eager, knowing, welcoming, ardent. So very ardent that she made him forget his resolve to take his time. He felt like a starving man permitted at a feast. It was not so much greed as overwhelming need—his, and hers, he’d swear it. Lost in her taste, brought to a fever by her touch, and brought to unbearable excitement by her blessed eagerness, he found there was no more time to play at love. There was only time to groan at the sorrow at having to leave off that delicious play and catch his breath at the thought of what lay ahead. Only time to whisper his intent and delight, and rise over her. And then only a last sec
ond to sigh at the incredible wonder of it before he joined his lips and his body to hers at last.

Then there was only time to realize, as she stiffened beneath him, that something that had been hindering his advance had suddenly given way as he gripped her bottom and drove into her. There was no longer time to help her share the incredible ecstasy of what he was doing or to pause because he was bringing her pain. He was a man with absolute control, but it was much too late to stop. The way was clear; he surged into her again and again because his body demanded it. But there was alarm mingled with his rapture when he reached his moment at last.

He dropped his head to her shoulder, shuddering with relief, and appalled. He rose up on his elbows again.

“Bren,” he said, seeing the blank shock in her eyes, “I didn’t know! By God, you didn’t tell me. I’m sorry, but you never said!” She closed her eyes and he saw tears at their corners. “Bren,” he whispered, “I didn’t know. I thought…”

“You thought my morals matched my looks,” she said dully.

He took a breath. “But you—you never said otherwise.”

She didn’t answer. He realized it hadn’t been her responsibility to tell him. It had been his to believe the best of her. He levered himself up and looked down at her and himself. He winced, and felt his stomach knot. Blood was part of his stock and trade; he was immune to the sight of it. Not this blood. There wasn’t much, but it was far too much. It was
hers. He’d never thought of sex as a medical matter. He should have. It made him feel even worse.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, dreading her answer.

“No…a little, I suppose,” she said. The burning pain had subsided to a dull ache, and it wasn’t just physical now.

She closed her eyes and turned her face aside so he wouldn’t see her disappointment, and sorrow. She was dazed, disturbed, and growing angry—with herself. Why had she been so rash, so eager?

He heard it in her voice. “I’m sorry. If I’d thought, I’d have been able to make it easier.”
Maybe,
he thought; he didn’t know. He’d never thought about it.

He covered himself and went quickly to the wash-basin, poured water on a cloth, and returned to her, wordlessly. He’d taken her as a man would take an expensive whore, with enthusiastic lust and no expectation of encountering innocence or resistance. He knew; he’d done it in his time. He’d never known a virgin. If he’d imagined she was one, he’d have prepared her for hours before he’d tried her.

He’d have, by God, he thought in shame; he’d at least have fought himself and not let passion strip him of grace as well as reason. He’d mistaken natural generosity for eager experience, and felt like a clod, a fool, a man who had misused a rare gift. Mostly, as usual, he felt unworthy. He handed her the cloth. “Use this. Or shall I?”

She sat quickly and drew herself up into a knot of arms and knees. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m making a muddle of this, aren’t I?”

“You?” he asked. “By God!”

He put the cloth aside. He perched a hip on the bed and put an arm around her. “I’m not good with words. Not much good with actions either, am I?” he asked bitterly. “Bren. Look. You felt so good, you were so willing, I didn’t think. I never knew a maiden. Or thought one would be interested in such as me. I can be gentle. I want to be. Please, don’t be angry, or give up on me.”

She peeked out from the curtain of her hair. “I’m not angry with you.”

“You should be.”

She sniffed. “It’s as much my fault. I mean, I was crazed too, wasn’t I? And everyone thought that since I was engaged—and since I never told you otherwise…But I didn’t know it would hurt!”

He scowled. “It won’t again. Look, can we mend this?”

She looked at him warily.

“Not right away,” he assured her, as he stood again. “I’ll just go wash up now. But you’ll see. No more pain, Bren. Never again. Only pleasure in the future, I promise. And not until you want it.”

When he returned to her, she’d washed, put on her night shift, and burrowed under the coverlets.

He shed his robe, slipped beneath the covers, and drew her into his arms. She laid her head on his chest. She was stirred by the feel of that naked chest against her cheek. And saddened too.
So,
she thought with little satisfaction,
he doesn’t wear clothes to bed, at least.
Well, that was something; it did feel good. But it wasn’t enough. She’d wanted so much, and gotten so little. She’d gotten the pleasure of knowing she gave
him pleasure, and that was something, she supposed. But for herself? The prelude to love had been thrilling, but the actuality had been only a painful and bewildering scramble, almost violent and certainly not sweet. No wonder men were so interested in females. No wonder women made them marry before they let them make love. She gulped down her sudden self-pity. His arm tightened around her.

He smelled of firewood and shaving soap. Silken hair covered the hard muscles that lay beneath her ear; it tickled. The pain he’d caused had stopped, subsiding to a dull ache that yet held a curious throbbing that was almost pain. It grew as she thought about how close he was to her. She moved her head and heard the rapidly accelerating beat of his heart. She put her hand over it and felt his body react. It reminded her of how even the sturdiest steed would twitch and shudder at the merest touch of a fly on its sleek hide.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” she murmured.

“For you,” he whispered, his warm palm on her back, “it beats only for you. No more for now. Except for sleep.”

But she couldn’t sleep with him so near and so obviously awake. She heard it in his heartbeat; she felt it in his breathing.

“Bren?”

She picked up her head and gazed at him.

“Oh, Lord, but you make it hard for me,” he breathed.

She startled; her eyes went wide.

So did his. He heard what he’d said, and silently
cursed his clumsy tongue. This was no time for a warm jest. But surely she hadn’t understood that other coarser meaning? He dared not stir lest she know how very much true that other meaning was.

“Do I?” she giggled, then looked, then dropped her head again and smothered her laughter against his chest. “So I do,” she gasped.

Now
he
startled.

“I lived with the army,” she said, smiling at his reaction. “I heard many things.”

“Little wretch,” he said tenderly, stroking her back, vastly relieved that she could and would laugh with him, even now. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Wasn’t it?”

His hand stilled. “Maybe not…You don’t mind?”

“I don’t. I’m flattered.”

“And interested?” he asked, and held his breath.

She considered it. Surely women were not such fools as to endure pain for nothing but someone else’s satisfaction? Perhaps she should wait until tomorrow, though? But he was so near, and so dear to her. The longer she waited, the more nervous she’d be. And he might not understand. Her mama always said the moon should never set on a married couple’s quarrel. This wasn’t one, but it was certainly a misunderstanding. Or was it? She was curious. There was so much that hadn’t been realized, his mere presence promised so much more, and he’d said there could be more…and he’d never lied to her. That decided her.

The end of her night braid tickled his chest as she
nodded. He ran a hand through the braid, loosening the silken burden, spilling it across his body until he could hardly breathe for the cool, perfumed splendor of it against his skin.