Chapter 24

CHAPTER24

Edwin stared at his wife. “I am already on thin ice with society, Joanna.”

“Damn them all,” she replied. “Do you think we are the only couple to steal away into the gardens tonight? At least we are married.”

Edwin frowned. “I have always been appalled by impropriety.”

“Yet, one of the first things you said to me was that I could take a lover and drink from dusk until dawn. That hardly sounds like a gentleman who is appalled by impropriety,” she retorted, making a very astute point.

He floundered for the words to explain. “I wanted you to be free. You were not supposed to want to stay at my side.”

“Well, you are stuck with me. And is this not freedom, taking a moment of privacy to embrace your wife?” The moonlight caught an irreverent twinkle in her eyes. “I assure you, I felt liberated in the carriage earlier. It appeared that you did, too. Indeed, I recall you being more amused than appalled when you described what I had said in my sleep.”

Heat flooded his cheeks, remembering. He still did not know what had possessed him to admit to what he had heard when it might have been far kinder to say nothing. Then again, he did not regret what had happened afterward; he regretted only that he could not do more, for reasons that waged war in his head.

“I was being honest,” he said, slipping his arms around her waist. “We promised to be.”

Joanna gazed up at him, her brow creasing slightly. “Then answer something for me.”

“Very well.”

“Have you begun to care for me? Have you begun to think of me as your wife?” Her voice caught as she asked the question, as if fearful of the response.

For a moment, he said nothing, tossing a mental coin between telling the truth and lying to her, to spare her. The latter would have been far easier; the sensible part of his mind screaming at him to push her away, to keep her at a distance, to be the cold, aloof gentleman she had first married, so she would not want more from him. Or, rather, so he would not have to face her disappointment.

But the words that eventually rolled off his tongue were not lies. They were difficult, uncomfortable truths. “I care,” he said quietly. “You are my wife.”

“Am I dear to you, as you are to me?” she pressed urgently.

He nodded.

“Then, do not be afraid of the opinions of others. As long as you protect me in all other aspects of our life together, I shall protect you from the scorn of society,” she told him, her body relaxing in his embrace. “Why, even tonight, the guests have warmed to you. After ten o’clock, I did not hear a single unkind sentiment. One countess even remarked upon the untrustworthiness of the scandal sheets, declaring they must have been mistaken.”

He rolled his eyes. “You did not hear that.”

“I certainly did!” she protested, taking him by the hand. “Now, kiss me.”

His heart jumped with desire, but his gaze flitted toward something in the near distance. Without explanation, he scooped his wife into his arms and headed toward that beacon of solitude: a small boathouse, jutting out onto the fishing lake that glittered enticingly beneath the moonlight. The crowning glory of the Rotherham grounds.

“Edwin!” Joanna shrieked, kicking her legs. “I have these limbs for good reason! Set me down!”

Edwin smiled, “I cannot.”

“Whyever not?”

“You will seek to steal a kiss, and I cannot permit thievery,” he replied.

She threw back her head, elongating her slender neck, and laughed. “You did it, my darling! A joke—a real joke!”

“I have always been an excellent student.” He flashed her a wink that set her laughing again; the sound was so beautiful to Edwin’s ears that he felt as if he were floating on air.

“Who is this man and what have you done with my husband?” she teased, lifting her hand to his face, making a show of observing him. “You are as handsome, but you cannot possibly be him.”

He chuckled. “Silence, or I shall drop you in the lake.”

“You would not dare!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain of that?”

Carrying her to the edge of the fishing lake, he stretched out his powerful arms, holding her above the water. As she squealed and squirmed, laughing with easy delight, he pulled her back to the safety of his chest and carried her the rest of the way to the boathouse. Fortunately, the door was not locked, though it groaned on its hinges.

Once inside, Edwin set his wife down and turned to close the door behind them. He had barely pulled the bolt into place when he felt Joanna’s arms slide around his waist, her bosom pressing against his back as she stood on tiptoe and grazed her lips against his neck. He paused, closing his eyes as a shiver of bliss ran through him.

“Patience is not one of your virtues,” he murmured, turning.

She grinned. “I confess, it is not.”

With the fire of her kiss stoking his own passions, he hoisted her up into his arms, her legs locking around his waist as his hand slid up the curve of her spine to the base of her neck. Cradling it, he urged her head toward his, catching her mouth in a ravenous kiss.

Supporting her shapely backside with his free hand, he resisted the urge to steal a mischievous squeeze as he turned and pressed her against the boathouse doors. She gasped as her back knocked into the old wood, the sound sparking something dangerous within him: the lighting of a fuse that, once lit, could not be stopped.

She kissed him harder, seeming to share his sentiments, her lithe thighs gripping him tighter as he had once imagined they would. A skilled rider’s thighs, so powerful he doubted he even needed to hold her up.

With that in mind, his body pressing her against the doors, he let his hand seek the hem of her skirts. Ruffled from her position, his palm skimmed her bare skin far sooner than he had anticipated. So soon, in fact, that he almost snatched his hand away again, for her soft, smooth skin was hot to the touch.

“You are… magnificent,” he told her, his hand daring to move higher, caressing the lean muscle of her thigh.

She moaned against his lips as she grabbed his face and kissed him with a fervor that shook him to his core. “You are,” she insisted, breathless.

Quickly navigating the ribbon of her drawers, he curved his hand beneath the flimsy material, letting desire guide him. A moment later, her startled gasp told him he had found the sensitive spot he had sought.

“Oh… oh, Edwin!” she panted, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her legs tightening around him as he slowly drew his fingertips in teasing circles around that bud of pleasure. A bud that would bloom into euphoria, if he tended to it well.

Moving away from the doors, careful to avoid the drop where floorboards gave way to water, Edwin carried his wife to an empty spot and kneeled with her still in his arms. Performing a tremendous feat of contortion to remove his tailcoat while still crushing his lips against hers, only abandoning her sensitive bud for a moment or two, he laid the garment out on the dusty ground.

That done, he leaned forward, laying her down upon his makeshift blanket. His lips plundered hers, their tongues dancing a secret waltz, his hands relishing the curves of her waist and hips, and the softness of her bosom, as he teased her neckline to the side and freed her pert breasts.

Caressing her breast as he rolled his hips, pushing against that sweet, intoxicating heat between her thighs, he felt his control slipping. He wanted her like a drowning man craving air to breathe, but if he did not find restraint, he would regret it later.

Please her. Exhaust her until she does not desire more, he told himself.

Following his desperate instructions, he drew his kiss away from her lips, running his tongue along the line of her throat, tasting the warm spice of her skin as he made his way down to her tempting bosom. Indeed, he could not resist the call of her pert, pink nipples, compelled to close his mouth around that intimate flesh and suck until Joanna bucked beneath him.

“Edwin!” she writhed, gripping handfuls of his shirt, “oh, my darling!”

He smiled against her skin, and moved lower, kissing the mustard-yellow silk of her gown and wishing she was stripped bare before him. But with another Lord’s manor so close by, he could not risk her having to put an entire gown back on if someone happened to approach the boathouse… drawn by the sounds of pleasure within.

With an urgency that frightened and thrilled him in equal measure, he eased her skirts up to her hips and hooked his thumbs underneath the top edge of her drawers, skimming them down her thighs until they were free of her entirely. He dropped the undergarments onto the floor and dipped low, scooping his arms beneath her thighs and back over her hips, holding her in place.

“Edwin?” Joanna called, her voice uncertain. “What are you—?”

She did not get to finish the sentence as his lips brushed against her inner thigh, savoring the soft strength as he kissed his way up to the hidden pearl that he hoped would distract her from the prospect of finally consummating their marriage. And distract him, too.

The first taste was paradise, sweet upon his tongue. Her response made it all the sweeter, her back arching up off the ground, her neck curving with it as a gasp poured from her lips. Beneath his hands, he felt the way her muscles tightened, her skin prickling with gooseflesh; a shiver rippling through her, though the night was warm.

“Oh… oh, goodness,” she panted, as his tongue tasted her again. Her hands ran down the curves of her waist to the gathered heap of her skirts, clutching at the fabric as if to ground herself.

Concentrating upon the sounds of her pleasure, Edwin attuned himself to the change in her breathing and the intensity of her gasps and moans, letting it instruct him in an art he was not accustomed to. Yet, she said so much without saying anything at all; her body speaking a language that he understood, if he listened closely enough.

He slowed to the writhing of her body, circling and caressing with his tongue, as he drew one hand away from her hips. Brushing his fingertips up and down her inner thigh, his longing soared as she gasped in short bursts, her body straining as if the pleasure was too much, and yet not enough.

Slowly, he brought his fingertips to the heat of her hidden depths, teasing gently for a moment or two, to let her know what he intended to do.

“Yes, my darling!” she urged, granting permission. “Yes!”

Timing it to perfection, he eased his fingertips inside her as he rolled his tongue in a teasing stroke across her swollen bud. The effect was like magic. A blissful cry escaped her throat, her body thrashing, her hands desperately trying to reach for him. Pushing his fingers deeper, taking care not to rush, he smoothed his free hand up her stomach, meeting her grasping fingertips until they interlaced.

She squeezed his hand tightly as she cried out, “Yes, Edwin! Oh… oh… you… you are a… sorcerer!”

He resisted the urge to laugh, returning his full attention to her secret pearl, while his fingers moved slowly within her. A prelude to a performance that could never happen, no matter how much he wanted it. But if teasing and tormenting her in the best possible way was supposed to be a distraction for them both, he had severely misjudged how it would fuel his raging desire. Every gasp and moan and shiver and cry brought him closer to throwing caution to the wind and taking the risk.

I cannot, I cannot, I cannot, he repeated inside his mind, rolling his tongue to the rhythm of the words.

Just then, her body froze, her muscles clenching, her breath catching in her throat. Thinking he had done something wrong, he squeezed her hand to ensure she was well. She squeezed back, as an almighty cry filled the air, her sweet voice calling his name as no one had ever called his name before.

“Edwin! Oh, my darling, my Edwin! Yes… Oh, yes!” Her entire being trembled as she gripped his hand tighter, the sound of her pleasure ricocheting between the wooden walls of the boathouse, no doubt drifting out onto the water. But, at that moment, Edwin could not have cared less if someone heard.

As her body began to relax, her cries transforming into ragged breaths, he slowly withdrew his fingers and turned his head to kiss her inner thigh, before making his way back up to her lips.

There, she kissed him with a satisfied laziness, smiling against his lips, her expression deliriously content.

“You are truly a gentleman of mystery,” she said, sighing. “A continuous, glorious surprise.”

He buried his face in her neck, kissing her. “Did that please you?”

“What do you think?” she chuckled, hugging him closer. “But do not make me leave. Let us sleep right here. I could not move, even if a horde of outraged socialites were marching toward us with their torches and pitchforks.”

It worked, he realized, with some relief, though there could be no relief for the burning need in his loins.

From beyond the grave, his father had still managed to find a cruel and unusual punishment to make his youngest son suffer. Edwin now understood that killing his father had been retribution for his mother, but letting the bloodline die would be vengeance for his brother. A consolation for the guilt Edwin carried. He could not relinquish that simply because he was falling hopelessly in love with his wife.