The Secret to Seduction (21 page)

Sabrina sounded desperate. “Mary, I never
wanted
to be a countess. And I never know where my ‘handsome husband’ is.”
Husband. Husband husband husband.
She wondered if the word would ever feel natural emerging from her lips. It didn’t now, particularly since she’d for some time pictured an entirely different man in the role.

“I never wanted to have blond hair that would never curl, but it’s what I have, isn’t it?” was Mary’s fractured philosophy. “We must make do. Although, I must say, I think you’re doing considerably better than just making do. Will you go on a honeymoon journey?”

Sabrina stared at her incredulously. “
Mary.
For heaven’s sake. Everyone seems to forget that this marriage wasn’t precisely planned by either of us. The earl and I are
hardly
lovebirds, no matter what you saw, and no matter what he told my father. The earl merely did his duty by me in order to salvage my reputation.”

“As he should, as he ruined it by kissing you, did he not?”

Sabrina was not inclined to take the blame for anything at the moment, so she remained silent.

“And that’s no excuse not to make the best of everything, now, is it?” Mary persisted.

Sabrina sighed. She thought again of that miniature of her mother and wondered, not for the first time, whether there might be anyone else like her on the planet, or if she had been her mother’s only child. She loved Mary for her essential cheerful goodness, but everything always required a good deal of explanation with Mary.

“Well, I suppose someone ought to talk to you about your wedding night. I ought to tell you what happens, since your mother isn’t here to tell you. And he
will
want to come to you tonight, no doubt, as his duty as an earl is to get an heir, of course.”

Sabrina suspected she had more than an inkling of what would happen. But now she was as alert as a spaniel.

She waited.

“Well…they lie on top of you and”—Mary cleared her throat—“you know.” Mary said this somewhat hopefully, with an air of finality, as though she hoped she needn’t explain it in more detail.

Sabrina did rather know. She’d seen chickens, dogs, and cattle at it; she knew that the way in which she and Rhys had melded together just the other night wasn’t the entire story.

But after a moment of silence, she couldn’t resist.

“Mary…I think there’s more,” she whispered.

Mary gaped for an instant.

“I
knew
it! He
did
ravish you!” Mary said triumphantly.

“He didn’t.” Ravishing implied that something had been
done
to her, when in truth it had all been rather mutual.

There was a pause.

Mary narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “All right, then. Very well. You’re right. There
is
more,” she revealed, slowly.

Sabrina waited, half in hope, half in dread.

“But not a very good deal more,” Mary expounded with some resignation. “And it’s over quickly enough, so you needn’t worry. I typically use the time to plan the next day’s dinner.” She sounded cheerfully matter-of-fact about it. “And I am so fond of Paul that I don’t mind it overall, as he seems to enjoy it so thoroughly. We’ve become quite great friends. And it’s my duty as a wife, you see, as it shall be yours.”

Sabrina stared at her friend, boggled yet again. She couldn’t help remembering the Earl of Rawden’s words:
Perhaps you take pleasure in duty.

Then again, whereas before she could have slapped the Earl of Rawden for kissing her, now it was her duty to accept whatever attentions he intended to bestow. And yet . . .

What about the need that comes up on you so suddenly that you feel as though you’ll explode from it, and then you do explode from it in the most extraordinary pleasure you’ve ever known?
Sabrina wanted to ask. Just to watch Mary’s expression change.

It occurred to her that it was probably different for every man and woman. Not every man can be The Libertine, with his intimate knowledge of how to please a woman, or the women of London wouldn’t trail him about and cast their virtue to the wind, as rumor had it. Nor would he be accompanied by famous, beautiful opera singers.

And not every husband and wife will be fond of each other, or become great friends. Or know each other’s whereabouts at any given moment.

Sabrina felt a quiet sense of desolation then. She wondered which she preferred. The pleasure, or the friendship.

She did know she would very much like to not be lonely anymore.

“Do you love Paul, Mary?”

“Of course,” Mary said, blinking in surprise.

And then Sabrina was sorry she’d asked, because it just made her feel lonely again.

And then Mary and Paul were gone, and her father left soon after. He gave her a hug, and kissed both cheeks, and with them went the last of what Sabrina knew of Tinbury and her old life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M
ARRIED.

Rhys regarded his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t feel particularly different. Well, apart, that was, from the feelings of guilt, resentment, and nerves. All of
those
were fairly new for a man who had grown accustomed to doing precisely as he pleased, when he pleased, with whom he pleased.

And he’d never before felt any of those things before bedding a woman.

But, oh, yes. He couldn’t deny there was also anticipation. And lust. That was more pleasant.

They were all gone, Lady Mary and Lord Paul and Vicar Fairleigh and even Wyndham, who, surprisingly, drew the line at staying under the same roof with a newly married couple. He’d returned to London along with Sophia.

“See you in a day or so, old man,” he’d said, with a tip of the hat and a tilted smile. “I’ll keep the secret of your wedding for as long as you’d like me to.”

How amused the whole of London would be to discover The Libertine in his chambers, downing brandy, mulling his reflection, postponing the inevitable, when a beautiful young woman waited for him in the adjoining room. He could hardly avoid doing his husbandly duty by his bride, nor did he precisely want to avoid it.

But despite his reputation, he’d never before taken a virgin.

He worried that Sabrina would be afraid; and in a way, he resented the very fact of his worry. He rubbed the back of his neck distractedly, and then drew in a long breath.

At last he seized the brandy decanter and two glasses, and prepared to step forward irrevocably into the rest of his life.

Sabrina dressed for bed in her night rail, the only night rail she currently possessed, and unpinned her hair with unsteady hands, shaking it out. There would be a maid to do this for her if she’d like, and to help her dress, she’d been told by Mrs. Bailey, and yet she couldn’t imagine employing a person whose sole purpose was to treat her like a child, to dress her and undress her, to groom her. But then again, she was a countess now, and perhaps it was her duty to employ as many people as possible to do as little as possible. There would be more dresses, and lovely fine things to sleep in, too. She’d been told that a modiste would be in to see to it. She was to choose new fittings for her use if she disliked the fittings currently in her room; she could choose from any of the furniture in this grand house.

She hadn’t the faintest idea whether she liked or disliked her fittings. She wasn’t entirely certain she knew what the word “fittings” meant. She did know the room was immense, comfortable, warm, and lonely.

This entire room was just for her, and the earl supposedly would sleep in his own chambers adjoining hers, to visit perhaps when the mood took him. Perhaps, as far as earls were concerned, wives were fittings, too.

The shades in the carpet, the curtains, the counterpane, the plump soft chairs, were soft green and gold, forest shades. She liked the colors, she decided. Feminine and soft in the leaping firelight. And so different from the life she’d dreamed of.

Oh, she was nervous. Her conversation with Mary lingered in her mind, and the evening in the statue gallery lingered in her mind, and she didn’t know what to believe or think about what would transpire this evening. In truth, she was a little afraid. And in this moment, she was willing to undergo just about anything for the company of another person. At the vicarage in Tinbury, Vicar Fairleigh had slept alongside his wife until the day she died. And Mary and her husband, Paul, had formed a friendship. Sabrina wondered if she dared hope such a thing would come to pass for her and the earl.

An ivory-handled brush and comb, lovely things, lay side by side on the vanity table before a mirror. She took up the brush. The fire beckoned; the pelt of some soft dark animal was spread before it. Sabrina sank down upon it and dragged the brush through her hair in the first of what would be one hundred strokes, hoping the homely familiarity of the act would make her feel a bit more like herself. And as she brushed, she began humming a tune, one of the tunes she’d played on the pianoforte in Tinbury. She tried to remember the words, inserting hums as she sang where she couldn’t remember the proper lyric.
One stroke. Two strokes. Three
—

She froze midbrush, abashed, when she noticed Rhys standing in the doorway that connected their two chambers, half in shadow.

She wondered how long he’d been standing there, listening to her fractured song, watching her brush her hair.

He was wearing light trousers and a white shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Coatless, bootless. Not nearly as undressed as she was, but nevertheless, about as undressed as she’d ever seen a man she wasn’t related to.

He gripped two glasses in one hand and a decanter in the other, a brown-gold liquid filling it part of the way up.

“Good evening,” Sabrina managed at last. Appalled to hear her voice emerge thready.

He smiled a little at her formal tone. “And good evening to
you,
Countess. May I join you?”

“In the song?” It was a jest, an attempt to rally her nerves.

He lifted up the decanter, a gesture. “I’ll have to drink a good deal more than this before you can persuade me to join you in a song.”

It was her turn to smile a little. “You’ve had a bit to drink, then?”

“I’ve had a good
deal
to drink,” he corrected somewhat ruefully.

An awkward silence ensued.

And uncertain as to what she should do—fling herself upon the bed?—Sabrina began to rise.

“No, do stay where you are,” he said hurriedly. “I find I’m rather in the mood to sit upon a fur in front of the fire.”

She sank to her knees again, and refrained from folding her hands into fists in her lap. She wasn’t certain what to do with them to make it appear as though she wasn’t outrageously nervous.

“Would
you
like something to drink?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“It’s brandy, Sabrina. Not poison. And you may want it.” Lightly said.

He tipped some into a glass, held it out to her. After a moment’s hesitation, gingerly, she took it.

She sniffed at it; the fumes made her blink. He was watching her, so she tipped it into her mouth; it was smooth, and burned just a little, pleasantly as it touched her tongue. And as it traveled down her throat, tendrils of fire fanned slowly out in her veins, nicely blunting the edge of her nerves.

Ah. So
that’s
why he was drinking.

Here was a man who was said to have made love to dozens of women, all of whom had wanted him, no doubt. All probably as sophisticated as Sophia Licari. And for a wife he was now tied to someone as green as the hills in Tinbury, who only had an inkling of what to do with a man, and that only because he’d shown her one or two things the other night in front of a statue of Persephone. Oh, and she’d read about some of the others in his own book.

No wonder he was nervous.

Or perhaps he drank because he suspected she would bore him.

Rhys was still terribly quiet. His eyes had gone dark, watching her, his pupils large in that sea of blue. What she saw in his eyes was unmistakable: they wandered over her, his eyelids somewhat lowered, over where she knew her thin night rail hid very little, and where he now had a right to peruse. It made the intent of his visit to her unmistakable. Which made his next words almost startling.

“Shall I brush your hair for you? I seem to have interrupted you at it.”

“Oh!” She blushed. Good heavens, would she ever cease blushing before this man? “Well. I suppose so. If you’d like.”

He smiled a little and held out his hand by way of answer, and she placed the handle of her brush in it.

He slipped down from the chair and knelt behind her. Odd how potent his presence was even when she couldn’t see him at all. She pretended, for an instant, that she was blind. What words would she use to describe him? Large, definitely. A tart, rich smell: brandy, a hint of smoke—wood and cigar. Something else, a scent clean and sharp, soap perhaps. But the overall impression was one of warmth, and strength. She somehow knew she’d always sense him if he were near, even if she were blind, even if a room were dark as pitch.

“Hmmm…,” he mused, teasing her a little. “How does one go about this?”