Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

F rederick woke up to the feeling of sunlight on his face. Eyes closed, it spread across him, warming him, making him smile as the fresh day dawned. He was having a good dream.

Hannah lay across his chest, her eyes closed, her breathing soft and peaceful. Frederick looked down at her sleeping face, smiling to himself—frowning also, for that smile confused him as much as anything.

There had always been the chance that upon waking, Frederick would feel waves of guilt and disappointment for what he had done last night. After all his talk of self-control and chastity, he had lost that control, his walls coming down as he had taken his wife in ways that just the thought of them made him stiffen beneath the sheets.

How had it happened? There was no need to question it, for it had felt like a long time coming. Really, the fact that he had held out for so long should have been what impressed him most—at least that was what he told himself.

But it had happened, and he knew for that reason, there was no point in pretending that it had not, or trying to re-institute his rules of no touching or kissing. With how intense last night had been, how animalistic and raw and passionate, the only way he could keep himself from doing that again was if he was chained down.

“Good morning,” Hannah croaked, her eyes still closed, likely half-asleep but somehow sensing that he was awake.

“She wakes.”

“And he watches.” She chuckled. “See anything you like?”

“A few things.” He laughed. “I confess, this is not the worst way to wake up.”

“And to think…” She kissed his chest, and it sent tingles through his body. “You almost missed out.”

“Is that how you remember it?”

She pulled back and sat up, raising a derisive eyebrow at him.

God, she was beautiful in the morning. The way the sun lit her face. Her breasts, rising and falling with her soft breaths. Her messy hair, falling around her face in clumps. And those lips…

“It is not how I remember it. It is as it happened.”

“You should know, I was playing with you the whole time,” he said with a shrug, forcing himself not to grin. “I always knew it would come to this and was just waiting for the right time.”

“Liar!”

“Are you calling me a liar?” He pretended to clench his jaw and scowl at her. “You better watch what you say.”

“Or what?”

His eyes flashed, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. She yelped as he pulled her to him, and then she moaned as he took her lips in a searing kiss.

Naked, she rolled on top of him, her thighs straddling his waist. Her body was soft, perfect. His hands rubbed and squeezed her buttocks. His mouth found her breasts. Her hand wrapped around his throbbing member. It was all he could do not to lift her immediately and sink her onto his length.

For a moment there, the guilt threatened to overtake him.

There was a good reason that Frederick had denied himself this pleasure for so long. And there was a good reason that even when he decided it was time to marry, he knew he would continue to deny himself it.

But he pushed that thought away as Hannah kissed down his neck, licking his nipples and giggling all the while., He could already feel her wetness as she rubbed herself against his thigh, and he wanted to sink himself inside her more than he had wanted anything.

As to that guilt, there was a way to curb it for now. The same method he had used last night. While he might sleep with her, while he might enter her and give himself to her as any husband should, he would not finish inside her. Again, for that same reason, a burden he had carried with him for six years now.

He just hoped that Hannah did not realize it and did not question him, for if she asked, he wasn’t sure what he would say. Such was the weight of his burden.

“Frederick,” Hannah whispered in his ear, “I want you inside of me.”

“Do not tell me what to do…”

Still, without delay, he lifted his wife as if she weighed nothing and sank her onto his member. She gasped, he groaned, and together they welcomed what was surely the first of many glorious mornings to come.

“Tell me, please!” Amelia begged, completely ignoring the plate of food before her—so very unlike her.

“Amelia,” Frederick sighed. “It is not a story for little girls. Nor is it appropriate for the breakfast table.”

“But—”

“I said no.” He looked at her, his expression one that she knew well enough by now.

Amelia half-opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. A scowl was her response, then she pressed her lips together and began to pick at the cakes on her plate as if they were poison.

Across from her sat Hannah, who was watching the interaction with a coy smile that Frederick was beginning to recognize a little too well. Her eyes flicked from him to Amelia, and even before she spoke, he was forced to stop her.

“Do not even think about it.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“Lies!”

“Hannah,” he groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “It is not an appropriate conversation. You know it is not!”

“Oh, only if we tell the full story.” Hannah waved him off.

“The truth, you mean?”

“I think Amelia deserves to know,” she said simply. “Otherwise, she will be forced to come to her own conclusions, and the imagination of a little girl is far worse than anything we could come up with.” She winked at Amelia. “Isn’t that right?”

Amelia giggled. “Yes.”

“So…” Hannah looked at Frederick pleadingly, even going so far as to flutter her eyelashes. “How about you let me tell her, and if you think I have crossed the line at any point, you can stop me.”

“Why do I get the feeling I am going to regret this?” he sighed.

She laughed. “Because you know me, is why. But it’s too late now.”

“Tell me, tell me!” Amelia cried joyously.

“Right.” Hannah nodded her head, flashed a smile at Frederick, and then focused on Amelia. “The story of how your father and I met…”

The morning had started pleasantly before descending into a tale that Frederick knew to be far too inappropriate for his six-year-old daughter. By the time he and Hannah had made it downstairs after another rigorous lovemaking session, Amelia was seated at the table, waiting for them.

She was eager this morning and excited. Having been tentative toward Hannah the previous day, their little dip in the pond had changed her attitude completely. Now, she was obsessed in that way that only children could be. She seemed to think that Hannah was the funniest, most interesting person in the world, while her father was nothing but a big, old bore.

As they settled in, she fired question after question at Hannah, all about who she was and where she had come from. How many sisters did she have. Who were her friends. What was her favorite food. What was her favorite animal. What was her favorite color! Anything she could think of.

Once Amelia calmed down a little, the conversation turned to the rumor the Dowager Viscountess had been spreading around the ton, and with Amelia sitting there watching them, Frederick had no choice but to control his temper.

“She will not get away with it,” he had said.

“Who?” Amelia had asked.

“I still think we should speak with her,” Hannah had argued.

“Speak to who?” Amelia had asked again.

“I will not,” Frederick had insisted. “It is beneath me. It is beneath us.”

“Then there isn’t much else we can do.”

He had growled angrily at that. “That aunt of yours… she will not get away with this.”

“She is just upset,” Hannah had sighed. “And I am certain that come a few days, she will realize that she has made a mistake.”

“A few days will be too many. This rumor needs to stop, now.”

“What rumor!” Amelia had then demanded.

It hadn’t taken long for the conversation to shift to the wedding itself, and it was at that moment that Amelia had seized the chance and demanded that her father finally tell her how he and Hannah had met.

“… and that was when my aunt caught us!” Hannah explained.

“Wrestling?” Amelia’s face contorted into a ball, and she could not have looked more confused. “But why were you wrestling?”

Hannah was doing her best not to giggle. “That is a good question. Frederick?”

Frederick shook his head at her and sighed. “Because I had mistaken Hannah for your uncle William. The room was dark, so you can see my mistake.”

“Uncle William?” Amelia echoed, confused. “You thought Hannah was Uncle William?”

“Well, we have a similar build,” Hannah said, her body now shaking with suppressed laughter. “So when your father jumped on me and I tried to fight him off, we were caught in the act, and rather than announce to the ton that your father lost a fight to a girl like me?—”

“You lost?!”

Frederick looked flatly at Hannah. “Yes, I lost.”

Hannah took a deep breath, and then another to keep herself from losing it. “And rather than risk this humiliation, your father had no choice but to marry me.”

Beaming, she reached across the table and took Frederick’s hand in her own.

Frederick continued to look at her with a very unimpressed expression… even though he was also working rather hard not to chuckle.

“Father…” Amelia could not have looked less impressed. “You lost to Hannah. But she is half your size!”

And that did it. Hannah burst into laughter, which had Frederick doing the same. He tried to cover his mouth, and Hannah slapped his arm as she snorted and giggled and made noises that were unlike any he had ever heard. And all the while, Amelia watched them, having no idea what was going on or why it was so funny.

Yes, Frederick felt some guilt for what had happened last night and this morning. And likely, he would continue to feel it for a while—a problem that he was not sure how to solve. But moments like this certainly helped, for it was as he laughed along with Hannah that he was forced to admit that right here, right now, he was the happiest he had been in a very long time.

Who would have guessed that a ‘wrestling match’ could lead to such a thing?