Secrets of a Summer Night (30 page)

Giving her sated flesh a last savoring lick, Simon worked his way back up her body. Her thighs were limp as he pushed them wide apart, the head of his shaft nudging against her. Looking down into her dazed face, Simon smoothed her hair back from her forehead.

Her lips curved in a wobbly smile as she glanced up at him. “I forgot all about my bank account,” she said, and he laughed softly.

His thumb brushed over the edge of her forehead, where fine skin blended into flossy hair. “Poor Annabelle…” The pressure between her legs increased, delivering the first intimation of pain. “I’m afraid the next part won’t be nearly as enjoyable. For you, at any rate.”

“I don’t mind… I… I’m just so glad that it’s you.”

No doubt it was an odd thing for a bride to say on her wedding night, but it brought a smile to his lips. He lowered his head and began to whisper in her ear, even as he tightened his hips to breach her untried flesh. She forced herself to hold still despite the instinct to writhe away from the intrusion. “Sweetheart…” His breath became ragged, and as he paused inside her, he seemed to struggle for self-control. “Yes, that’s it… just a little more…” He moved in another careful advance, and hesitated again. “A little more…” He deepened his entry in lingering degrees, carefully courting her body into accepting him. “More…”

“How much more?” she gasped. He was too hard, the pressure too intense, and she wondered anxiously how this could ever be anything but uncomfortable.

Simon gritted his teeth at the effort it took to hold still. “I’m about halfway there,” he finally managed, an apologetic note in his voice.

“
Half
—” Annabelle began to protest with a shaky laugh, and winced as he pushed again. “Oh, this is impossible, I can’t, I can’t—”

But he kept impelling himself deeper, trying to soothe her pain with his mouth and hands. Gradually it became easier, the pain fading into a mild, prolonged burn. A long sigh escaped her as she felt her body yielding, her virginal flesh conceding to the inevitability of his possession. Simon’s back was a mass of tightly cobbled muscle, his belly as hard as carved rosewood. Holding himself deep inside her, he groaned, while a shiver ran across his shoulders. “You’re so tight,” he said hoarsely.

“I-I’m sorry—”

“No, no,” he managed. “Don’t be sorry. My God.” His voice was slurred, as if he was drunk on pleasure.

They studied each other, one gaze sated, the other brilliant with yearning. A sense of wonder crept over Annabelle as she realized how thoroughly he had controverted her expectations. She had been so certain that Simon would use this opportunity to prove himself her master… and instead he had come to her with infinite patience. Filled with gratitude, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him and let her tongue enter his mouth, and she drew her hands down his back, until her palms reached the hard contours of his buttocks. She stroked him in shy encouragement, urging him to sink deeper inside her. The caress seemed to eradicate the remainder of his self-control. With a growl of hunger, he pushed rhythmically inside her, shaking with the effort to be gentle. The force of his release caused him to shiver hard, his teeth gritting as sensation culminated in blinding rapture. Burying his face in the filtering strands of her hair, he soaked in her honey-slick warmth. A long time passed before the iron-hard tension left his muscles, and he let out a slow breath. As he withdrew carefully from Annabelle’s body, she winced at the intimate soreness. Perceiving her discomfort, he caressed her hip in gentle consolation.

“I may never leave this bed again,” he muttered, cuddling her in the crook of his arm.

“Oh, yes you will,” Annabelle said, half-drowsing. “You’re going to take me to Paris tomorrow. I won’t be deprived of the honeymoon you promised.”

Nuzzling into her tangled curls, Simon replied with the trace of a smile in his voice. “No, sweet wife… you won’t be deprived in any way.”

D
uring the two weeks of their honeymoon, Annabelle discovered that she was not nearly as worldly as she had considered herself to be. With a mixture of naïveté and British arrogance, she had always thought of London as the center of all culture and knowledge, but Paris was a revelation. The city was astonishingly modern, making London look like a dowdy country cousin. And yet for all its intellectual and social advancements, the streets of Paris were nearly medieval in appearance; dark, narrow and crooked as they twined through arrondissements of artfully shaped buildings. It was a messy, delightful assault to the senses, with architecture that ranged from the gothic spires of ancient churches to the solid grandeur of the Arc de Triomphe.

Their hotel, the
Coeur de Paris
, was located on the left bank of the Seine, between a dazzling array of shops on rue de Montparnasse and the covered markets of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where exotic produce and fabrics and laces and art and perfume were displayed in bewildering varieties. The
Coeur de Paris
was a palace, with suites of rooms that had been designed for sensual pleasure. The bathing room, for example — the
salle de bain
, it was called — had been fitted with a rosy marble floor and Italian tiled walls, and a gilded rococco settee where the bather rested after the exertions of washing. There was not one but two porcelain tubs, each with its own boiler and cold water tank. The tubs were surmounted with a painted oval landscape on the ceiling, designed to entertain the bather as he or she relaxed. Having been brought up with the British view of a bath as a matter of hygiene to be conducted with expediency, Annabelle was amused by the notion that the act of bathing should be a decadent entertainment.

To Annabelle’s delight, a man and a woman could share a table in a public restaurant without having to request a private dining room. She had never had such delicious food… tender cockerel that had been simmered with tiny onions in red wine… duck confit expertly roasted until it was melting-soft beneath crisp oiled skin… rascasse fish served in thick truffled sauce… then, of course, there were the desserts… thick slices of cake soaked in liqueur and heaped with meringue, and puddings layered with nuts and glacéed fruit. As Simon witnessed Annabelle’s agonized choice of what to order for dessert each night, he assured her gravely that generals had gone to war with far less deliberation than she gave to the choice between the pear tart or the vanilla soufflé.

One night Simon took her to a ballet with scandalously underdressed dancers, and the next, a comedy with lewd jokes that needed no translation. They also attended balls and soirees given by acquaintances of Simon’s. Some were French citizens, while others were tourists and émigrés from Britain, America, and Italy. A few were stockholders or board members of companies that he had part ownership in, while others had been involved with his shipping or railway enterprises. “How do you know so many people?” Annabelle had asked Simon in bewilderment, when he was hailed by several strangers at the first party they attended.

Simon had laughed and gently mocked that one would think that she had never realized that there was a world outside of the British aristocracy. And the truth was, she hadn’t. She had never thought to look outside the narrow confines of that rarefied society until now. These men, like Simon, were elite in a purely economic sense, actively engaged in building fortunes, many of them literally owning entire towns that had been built around rapidly expanding industries. They possessed mines, plantations, mills, warehouses, stores, and factories; and it seemed that their interests were seldom confined to just one country. While their wives shopped and had gowns made by Parisian dressmakers, the men lounged in cafes or private salons for endless discussions of business and politics. Many of them smoked tobacco in tiny paper tubes called cigarettes, a fashion that had started among Egyptian soldiers and had spread rapidly across the Continent. At dinner, they spoke of things that had never been mentioned in front of Annabelle before, events that she had never heard of and had surely not been reported in the papers.

Annabelle realized that when her husband spoke, the other men paid keen attention to his opinions and sought his advice on a variety of matters. Perhaps Simon was someone of little consequence in the view of the British aristocracy, but it was clear that he wielded considerable influence outside of it. Now she understood why Lord Westcliff held him in such high esteem. The fact was, Simon was a powerful man in his own right. Seeing the respect that others paid him, and noticing the coquettish excitement that he inspired in other women, Annabelle began to see her husband in an altered light. She even began to feel somewhat possessive of him — of Simon! — and found herself beginning to simmer with jealousy when a woman seated next to him at supper tried to monopolize his attention, or when another lady declared flirtatiously that Simon was obligated to partner her for a waltz.

At the first ball they attended, Annabelle stood in an anterior parlor with a group of sophisticated young matrons, one of them the wife of an American munitions maker, the other two Frenchwomen whose husbands were art dealers. Awkwardly fielding their questions about Simon and reluctant to admit how little she still knew about her husband, Annabelle was somewhat relieved when the subject of their conversation appeared to claim her for a dance. Impeccably dressed in a black evening suit, Simon exchanged polite greetings with the laughing, blushing women, and turned to Annabelle. Their gazes locked, while a lovely melody began to play from the nearby ballroom. Annabelle recognized the music… a popular waltz in London, which was so haunting and sweet that the wallflowers had agreed that it was literally torture to sit still in a chair while it was being played.

Simon extended his arm, and Annabelle took it, remembering the countless times in the past that she had spurned his invitations to dance. Reflecting that Simon had finally gotten his way, Annabelle smiled. “Do you always succeed at getting what you want?” she asked.

“Sometimes it takes longer than I would prefer,” he said. As they entered the ballroom, he put his hand on Annabelle’s waist and guided her to the edge of the swirling mass of dancers.

She experienced a pang of giddy nervousness, as if they were about to share something far more significant than a mere dance. “This is my favorite waltz,” she told him, moving into his arms.

“I know. That’s why I requested it.”

“How did you know?” she asked with an incredulous laugh. “I suppose one of the Bowman sisters told you?”

Simon shook his head, while his gloved fingers curved around hers. “On more than one occasion, I saw your face when they played it. You always looked ready to fly out of your chair.”

Annabelle’s lips parted in surprise, and she stared up at him with a wondering gaze. How could he have noticed something so subtle? She had always been so dismissive of him, and yet he had noticed her reaction to a particular piece of music and remembered it. The realization brought the sting of tears to her eyes, and she looked away immediately, fighting to bring the sudden baffling swell of emotion under control.

Simon drew her into the current of waltzing couples, his arms strong, the hand at her back offering firm pressure and guidance. It was so easy to follow him, to let her body relax into the rhythm he established while her skirts swept across the gleaming floor and whipped lightly around his legs. The enchanting melody seemed to penetrate every part of her, dissolving the ache in her throat and filling her with unruly delight.

Simon, for his part, was not above a sense of triumph as he guided Annabelle across the floor. Finally, after two years of pursuit, he was having his long-sought waltz with her. And more satisfying still, Annabelle would still be his after the waltz… he would take her back to the hotel, and undress her, and make love to her until dawn.

Her body was pliant in his arms, her gloved hand light on his shoulder. Few women had ever followed his lead with such fluid ease, as if she knew what direction he would take her in before he even knew it himself. The result was a physical harmony that enabled them to move swiftly across the room like a bird in flight.

Simon had not been surprised by the reactions from his acquaintances upon meeting his new bride — the congratulatory words and subtly covetous gazes, and the sly murmurs of a few men who said they did not envy him the burden of having such a beautiful wife. Lately Annabelle had become even lovelier, if possible, the strain leaving her face after many nights of dreamless slumber. In bed she was affectionate and even frolicsome — the previous night she had climbed over him with the grace of a sportive seal, scattering kisses over his chest and shoulders. He had not expected that of her, having known beautiful women in the past who invariably lay back passively to be worshiped. Instead, Annabelle had teased and caressed him until he’d finally had enough. He had rolled on top of her while she giggled and protested that she wasn’t yet finished with him. “I’ll finish you,” he had growled in mock-threat, and thrust inside her until she was moaning with pleasure.

Simon had no illusions that their relationship would be continually harmonious — they were both too independent and strong by nature to avoid the occasional clashes. Having relinquished her chance to marry a peer, Annabelle had closed the door on the kind of life she had always dreamed of, and instead would have to adjust to a far different existence. With the exception of Westcliff and two or three other wellborn friends, Simon had relatively little interaction with the aristocracy. His world consisted mainly of professional men like him, unrefined and happily driven to the endeavor of making money. This crowd of industrialists could not have been more different than the cultivated class Annabelle had always been familiar with. They talked too loudly, socialized too often and too long, and had no respect for tradition or manners. Simon was not entirely certain how Annabelle would accommodate such people, but she seemed game to try. He understood and appreciated her efforts more than she could have known.