The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle (16 page)

She confounded him by opening her mouth and nibbling on that provoking digit, eyes watchful and ardent as she challenged him and shifted to show him she was quite happy between the softness of the mattress and the hardness of his fit, honed body.

‘You didn't marry a properly shrinking young lady, I fear, Charles,' she teased huskily and hoped her half-lowered eyelids and invitingly pouted lips were enough to let him know she was very ready to do
that
again as soon as it might be possible.

‘Well, that's good news, then,' he said conversationally and infuriated her by prising himself away from his bride, to stir the dying fire into new life and add a couple more logs to it before carefully replacing the fireguard.

‘Not so far as I can see,' she complained and tensed for some hasty action as she refused to admit to herself that he looked like a fire-lit Greek god come down to earth from Olympus.

How could he be less eager to repeat that delightful seduction of each other's reeling senses and eager bodies than she was? Less caught up in the wondrous world he'd just created for them as lovers, then walked away from to attend to the everyday, even if it was to keep them both warm? She felt the burden of her love and his refusal to acknowledge he felt anything but desire and affection in return; after such exquisite pleasure, such transforming joy, she suddenly felt so lonely with her love for him.

Jumping out of bed and donning all her clothes before riding off into the night on wild young Adonis seemed a
good idea all of a sudden, so she could put some distance between them as well and ride off the fury and ache of knowing that, yes, he wanted her as his bride and his lover, but not with the driven, helpless need she felt for him.

Yet she had to watch helplessly, because she couldn't trust her disobedient legs to even hold her up after that wondrously tender introduction to the joys of the marriage bed, and her new husband was striding about the room as easily as if he bedded formerly virgin wives every day of the week. Irrational anger and unwilling, merciless arousal at the very sight of him, so magnificent yet so separate, ground deep in her belly, even as she knew she was being unreasonable. Maybe he understood her better than she knew, for his expression was rueful as he eyed her warily, as if she might explode like an unpredictable firework any moment and he was judging which way to jump to get out of the way.

‘I'd hate for us to argue so soon after you became my wife in
every
sense,' he asserted lazily as he strolled back to the bed and stood surveying her restless body and stormy eyes cockily, his manly grin as slow and appreciative and infuriating as he surely meant it to be. ‘But, after that performance, I'll certainly never regret taking a dutiful little miss to my bed.'

‘I'm
not
a dutiful little miss!' she almost shouted at him as she bounced up off the mattress and faced him on splayed knees with a militant frown and, she hastily realised, nothing else to dignify her protest with. She wanted him to be as shaken by that amazing consummation as she was, yet still his iron composure held and he shielded his most private thoughts from her.

‘We certainly made very sure you're not a miss in any
sense of the word just now, my Roxanne,' he drawled and let his impudent gaze appreciate the effect her restless bouncing about had on her naked breasts, even as they betrayed her by visibly tightening and thrusting themselves at him in shameful argument with her brain, or most of it anyway, the part that wasn't as deeply in thrall to him as her wretched, disobedient body.

‘And luckily I'd far rather have my wayward, headstrong wife than a pattern card of all the virtues any day,' he added, his eyes devouring her naked curves as she drew deep breaths to try to calm her temper and wondered whether to be furious or deeply complimented.

Whatever he needed to do to revive his passion for her had clearly been done, for there was no hiding his aroused state any more than she could conceal hers when neither of them had a stitch of clothing between them.

‘Yes, you're quite right,' he observed as he took in her wide-eyed survey of his manly assets, and not even her simmering temper and this muddle of love and resentment and frustration fighting for supremacy inside her could overcome her appreciation. ‘I'm clearly unable to keep my hands, or anything else of mine, off you for five minutes together, wife.'

‘And fortunately for you it's mutual, or we'd have a reckoning for your insults right now instead of later,' she informed him as crossly as she could manage with a flush of excited anticipation burning on her cheeks and a gleam of wonder in her eyes as they roved over his body with admiration and avarice and a possession that he looked right back at her with interest. ‘I believe the night is yet young, husband,' she murmured in what she hoped was a seductive husk that would remind him this was their wedding night, and therefore to be savoured and
looked back on with joint and distinctly smug nostalgia during all the years they might have together.

And definitely not filed away among all the other nights he'd spent in other women's arms, she decided militantly, as she discovered much of her irrational fury was made up of jealousy. She reminded herself she had an advantage none of the others possessed: she was his wife and he'd promised to be faithful. All she had to do now was make sure he forgot the rest and stayed happy within that rash promise for the rest of their lives.

‘I do believe you're right, your ladyship,' he drawled with a flattering intensity in his caressing gaze and stopped striding about the room displaying his manly attributes for her delectation and seduction, only to stand next to the bed and stare down at her instead.

Close to her, he was suddenly dangerous again, powerful and untamed and potent, and she swallowed a little nervously in deference to the maiden she'd been until such a short time ago. Then she recalled the wife and lover she now was and reached for the glorious reality of him and shamelessly plastered as much of her receptive body against his as she could physically manage.

‘I'm always right,' she managed to assert, despite her tightening nipples and a shudder of pure delight he must be able to feel.

‘So I'm content to let you believe, for now,' he murmured and surprised her by kneeling in front of her and pulling her across him so he would penetrate her only as her body adjusted itself to his rampant and eager shaft within her. It was gently compelling, urgently wanting on both their parts, but above all it felt deeply sensuous and caring as he fitted himself to her. ‘Take it slowly, my darling, there's no hurry, and if we're to do this
every night we must be gentle now, since it's all so new to you.'

‘I don't care how it is, just so long as it is,' she admitted distractedly and felt his chuckle vibrate through her so intimately she wondered if it was possible for a woman to melt of pure desire and love.

‘Well, I do,' he informed her with not altogether assumed sternness.

‘Teach me then,' she responded crossly as he used his superior strength to gentle her frustrated striving and settle her into a dreamy, leisurely rhythm that none the less threatened to drive her slowly insane with passion and her absolute desire for more and more and yet more.

‘Very well,' he murmured at last in reply to her demand. ‘We've tried fast and furious, let's see how you like slow and sensuous and sweet.'

It was very slow and infinitely sweet as he showed her how the finest, most gentle of movements could drive a pair of lovers to the edge of insanity and then over it, into a satisfying and lengthy climax beyond even her wildest fantasies, now reality had so far exceeded any pale imitation of the truth she'd dreamt of before her wedding night.

And after that extravagant intimacy, that protracted loving introduction into the joys of the marriage bed, he watched her drift off into a sated, contented sleep and sighed regretfully before pulling the covers up round her and sliding out of her bed to resume his heavy silk robe and take one last, memorising, protracted look at his bride before he took himself off to his own chamber for the night.

A
week later Roxanne wasn't quite so new to the delights of her husband's lovemaking, although he'd taught her more every night as promised, and she often wondered how any woman could ever be expected to actually sleep when there were such fiery glories to be experienced. All the same, she yawned over her luncheon, knowing full well that Stella and Lady Samphire, who'd driven over from Mulberry House where they were staying for now, were exchanging amused, indulgent looks across her weary head. Yet somehow she was struggling to feel as happy and content as such a well-pleasured new bride ought to. The urge to confide and even seek the counsel of more experienced ladies was strong, but she nobly resisted it.

Charles was an attentive husband, even during the day when there was little chance of anything more intimate between them than a lingering kiss, or a stolen embrace. He consulted her about estate matters and
even took her advice when it didn't clash with his own views, and when it did they had a vigorous and enjoyable argument, and sometimes the day went her way and sometimes his. After simmering over his solution to a dilemma being favoured over her own this very morning, she'd stormed about the garden for at least half an hour before she forced herself to acknowledge he was right. Infuriating and inconsiderate of him though it might be, she couldn't hold it against him and would tell him so when he returned from the Home Farm.

Yes, Charles was a very good husband in so many ways, so why did she find it so disturbing, so distancing, that he'd never once spent the entire night with her? He always left her bed when she was asleep, so exhausted by his passionate lovemaking and her equally passionate reception of it that she couldn't stay awake to watch him go, however hard she tried. She'd done her best to tire him so much with her demands for the exquisite pleasure his body could give hers that he'd let go his defences and sleep in her arms for once, make himself as vulnerable to her as she seemed fated to be to him every single night. Yet fulfilment and weariness always defeated her and she'd never managed it.

No matter how many times they made love, no matter how many new ways he showed her for a man and a woman to couple and give each other glorious, heady pleasure doing so, he'd not slept with her. Not once. She sighed and regarded the beautifully cooked chicken and the warm, crusty bread roll spread with golden butter from Hollowhurst's own farm as if she despaired of them and not her guarded husband.

‘Perhaps a rest would do you good this afternoon, Roxanne, my dear,' Lady Samphire suggested indulgently.

‘Yes, indeed,' Stella said with a mischievous, knowing look that Roxanne shouldn't find irritating, but did so all the same. ‘It'll never do if you fall asleep in your soup on your first bride visit tonight. There would be far too many ribald jokes over the port and brandy once the gentlemen were alone if you did that; poor Charles would be mortified.'

‘Poor Charles, indeed! He'd be slapped on the back and congratulated on his startling vigour until he preened like a turkey-cock,' she replied irritably.

‘Then I wonder at you for putting yourself up to make a fairground diversion of yourself, girl, when a few minutes of being sensible and actually sleeping when you seek your bed for once will prevent it,' Lady Samphire told her far less indulgently, and Roxanne thought ruefully that, if Charles ever lacked a defender in his besotted wife, he'd have one until she breathed her last breath in his grandmother.

‘Quite right,' she conceded as she decided she'd probably be impatient with her herself as well today, if she didn't inhabit her own skin, so she smiled at the peppery old lady. ‘I'll take myself off on that worthy errand as soon as you've told me what you're both intending to wear tonight, for I can't seem to relish my food today, however much Cook tries to tempt me.'

‘Very well, then,' Lady Samphire observed with a sharp nod and bent a look on Stella that forbade her to comment on that curious fact.

 

‘It's far too early to tell,' she warned her niece as soon as they were alone in the well-sprung carriage on their way back to Mulberry House.

‘Of course it is, and I certainly had no intention of implying the dear girl could possibly be
enceinte
yet, they've only been married a week, after all,' Stella replied indignantly.

‘The way they've be stealing off to their bed early every night to mate like a pair of lusty rabbits in the springtime, it'll be a miracle if she isn't before very long and you'd be a fool if you didn't suspect it. All the same, she don't need us watching her like hawks every time she pecks at her food or lies abed a little later than usual in the mornings. This is Charles we're talking about, after all, and anyone can see he's intent on seducing her whenever and wherever he gets the least chance to do so. Little wonder if the girl's at risk of becoming exhausted from his incessant attentions.'

‘Lucky thing,' Stella said with a rueful look that admitted to her aunt she very much missed the joys of the marriage bed herself.

‘Aye,' that lady agreed with a sigh, then shot her startled niece a militant glare. ‘I may be old, Stella Lavender, but I ain't dead yet, even if I do have to rely on my memory to tell me Charles's grandfather at least had the good taste to lust after his wife when he recalled he had one.'

‘If he'd had better taste, he'd never have left you alone long enough to risk another man noticing you were a neglected wife.'

‘He knew I loved him too much to take comfort else
where, the rogue. I only pray Charles don't follow him in that as well as impudence and arrogance.'

Seeing a very genuine concern on her aunt's face, Stella considered such a notion for a moment and dismissed it with a decided shake of her head. ‘Not he, Charles is more like you in character. He'll love once and always, and I think he's already done so, whether he admits it or not.'

‘I truly hope you're right, but there's something holding him back from admitting it to himself or Roxanne, and it vexes me to know what. Anyone can see that girl's head over ears in love with the damn fool.'

Stella shrugged and was looking almost as troubled as her aunt when the subject of their anxiety breezed into their temporary sitting room before they'd hardly settled down for tea and a good worry, and he told them they looked like a couple of professional mourners at a wake.

‘Cheek, my lad, that's all I ever hear from you,' his grandmama accused him stalwartly.

‘Considering you'd very likely throw something at me if I informed you that you're the light of my life, Grandmama, cheek is my only option.'

‘Don't waste your breath bothering me with such an untruth, when there's someone not so far off you should waste your cozening words on rather than me,' she said with enough seriousness in her brusque tone to make him frown.

‘I'll not cozen my wife any more than I would you.'

‘You're an idiot, boy,' the Dowager informed him wearily as she sighed deeply and looked her age for once, ‘and likely to lose everything you hold most dear
if you don't look into your heart and let someone else know what's rattling about in there for once.'

‘Handing out advice, Grandmother?' he asked satirically. ‘How very unusual of you.'

‘No need to mock my natural wish to help those I love not to make a complete mess of their lives. I mean it, Charles, you risk far too much if you persist in refusing to do as I recommend.'

‘So it's your wise counsel you're offering me and not royal commands for once, is it? That's a notable first, I must say.'

‘I'm sorry I just told Stella you're a better man than your grandfather, because it's plain to me now you're as impervious to the finer feelings of those about you as he was. Well, go to the devil in your own way, then, and I wash my hands of the consequences, but disturb that poor girl of yours when she's finally getting some rest this afternoon instead of more of your rakish attentions, and I swear I'll swing for you.'

Saying which her ladyship swept from the room in a swirl of silk petticoats and indignation and marched off to pace her chamber out of sight and sound of the rest of her household.

‘I'm not sure whether to follow her or stay and sympathise,' Stella said with a wry smile.

‘Oh, stay, Stella mine. It seems I'm to avoid my lady's chamber when I get home
and
be at odds with my formidable grande dame, so stay and tell me I'm not quite as bad as I'm painted, before I sink any lower in my esteem and everyone else's.'

‘You're well enough, but I wouldn't want you for a husband,' she told him bluntly.

‘Just as well I never had the least inclination to stand
in a better man's shoes then,' he observed a little more seriously.

‘Even if we weren't related, I wouldn't wed you, Charles. I value my serenity far too much.'

‘Yet my wife seems happy enough,' he challenged, oddly stung by her implied criticism.

‘Yes, but I made a love match, Cousin, so “happy enough” wouldn't offer the least temptation for me to risk my heart and peace of mind, even if either of us wanted me to.'

‘Well, it does very well for me,' he defended himself dourly and strode out of the room without any of his usual meticulous courtesies and, instead of speeding home to his bride as he'd intended, rode off to inspect a faulty roof he'd meant to put off seeing until Roxanne was with him.

He was quite capable of running an even larger estate than this alone, after commanding a man of war for the last three years of his naval career, then his own squadron. And if Roxanne wasn't happy with their bargain she should tell him so, instead of leaving Stella and his grandmother to decide there was something amiss.

 

Charles brooded over his wife and his acres all the way to Deevers Farm and had to force himself to examine the gables and hips in the minute detail Deever insisted on when he was there.

It wasn't as if he was a domestic tyrant or careless of his wife's happiness, he assured himself as he finally made the journey home through the fading daylight of the December afternoon. He was a considerate husband who applied himself enthusiastically to satisfying her every desire, and he'd even ceded her some of
his responsibilities. That was more of a concession than she knew, when he'd commanded a ship's company for more years than he cared to remember. Perhaps that was the problem, he decided with a sigh. He was used to command, and it was a solitary business. No matter how fine his lieutenants and warrant officers, a naval captain was isolated by the respect he must command if his ship was to be an effective weapon of war.

Yet he was at peace now and intent on building a new life, so
had
he set Roxanne at too great a distance? And if he went on doing so, might it prove dangerous or even disastrous? ‘Yes' and ‘perhaps' seemed to be the correct answers to those uncomfortable questions, but she wasn't the one complaining, so perhaps he'd not been wrong to give her room to live a life of her own, after all. They'd only been wed a week, every night of which he'd spent in her bed, proving to both of them she meant more to him than any other woman he'd ever encountered, in bed or out of it.

Even so, Roxanne had spent most of her adult life at Hollowhurst as companion and lieutenant to her great-uncle, then had taken Davy Courland's place while he evaded his responsibilities. She probably didn't know she was more crucial to him than any other female could be. She was four and twenty, but did that mean she was up to snuff any more than some little débutante, pitch-forked from schoolroom to ballroom between one day and the next?

One Season in London when she was far too young to fit her exotic looks or passionate temperament had done nothing to tell her what power she might have over a man's imagination and ardour. His fists clenched at the thought of her discovering she could enthral other men
with enchantress's eyes and a responsive, tactile body, when it had been formed for their mutual delight. But could any woman be so ignorant of her own charms and remain completely safe in mixed company?

Probably not, and then there were the wolves. More unscrupulous rakes than he'd ever been, waiting, hoping that he'd get her with child before the honeymoon was hardly over, so they could pounce while he complacently turned his back on his wife and preened himself on his own potency. His frown became a glower as he tried to get a vision of Roxanne being seduced by one of the scum who preyed on young society wives out of his mind. He'd kill the carrion who dared, then put a watch on his wife every waking hour of the day, while he kept her so occupied at night that she'd lack the energy to stray, even if he left her any will for it.

 

His expression was still formidable when he returned home with bare minutes to get bathed and dressed for a night of mild dissipation at the Longboroughs. Even so, he was ready to offer Roxanne his arm as they met at the top of the stairs like models for a marriage portrait. She was in her beautiful ivory-velvet bridal gown, as she was to be the guest of honour tonight as befitted any new bride in her first month of marriage, and he was tricked out like a dandy in his dark blue coat, gold-embroidered ivory-silk waistcoat and a cravat so exquisitely tied that young Longborough would probably long to plunge a knife in his back even more ardently than ever.

 

‘Good,' his grandmother pronounced when she greeted them on entering the Longboroughs' drawing room, ‘I despise this shabby-genteel fashion of gentlemen dining
out in their riding breeches, or even worse, those new-fangled trousers instead of decent knee-breeches and silk stockings. I'd not put up with having the stables or barracks brought into my house, so why should any other respectable woman endure such cavalier treatment?'

‘And it does show off a finely turned, gentlemanly leg so beautifully, don't you think?' Stella added with apparent innocence.