The Arrangement by Mary Balogh

11

The Duke of Stanbrook was a tall, elegant, austere-looking gentleman with dark hair just turning to gray at the temples. Viscount Ponsonby was a blond god with a slight stammer and a mocking eyebrow. The Earl of Berwick was a young man, perhaps only a few years older than Lord Darleigh, and would have been entirely good-looking if it were not for the wicked-looking scar that slashed diagonally across one side of his face. Lady Barclay was tall and coldly beautiful with smooth, dark blond hair and high cheekbones in a long oval face. With Lord Darleigh and Lord Trentham and the absent Sir Benedict Harper, they were the Survivors’ Club.

Sophia found them terrifying despite the fact that they all bowed courteously to her before the wedding breakfast and kissed the back of her hand—except Lady Barclay, of course, who merely wished her happy.

She thought they had all looked at her and found her wanting. They all thought her an opportunist, a fortune hunter, someone who had taken advantage not only of good nature but also of blind good nature. And they were his dearest friends. As close as sister and brothers, he had told her. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps they felt protective toward him and therefore suspicious of her. She felt chilled.

The Earl of Kilbourne, Lady Trentham’s brother, was also a handsome, formidable-looking gentleman. He also had been a military officer.

Everyone was courteous. Everyone made an effort to keep the conversation moving, to keep it light in tone, to keep it general so that they could all participate. Mrs. Emes was a shopkeeper’s daughter and widow of a prosperous businessman. Miss Emes was their daughter. Mr. Germane was also a businessman, a member of the middle class. They were not excluded from the conversation, Sophia noticed. Neither were they made to feel inferior.

But she, who was a gentlewoman by birth, felt suffocated by the grandeur of her wedding guests, her husband’s friends.

Her husband!

As yet it was only a word—and a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Strangely, foolishly, it was only while the wedding service was proceeding that she had fully understood that she was getting married, that she was consenting to become a man’s possession for the rest of her life. She did not want to think of her marriage that way. Lord Darleigh was not like that. But church law was. And state law was. She was his possession, to do with as he would, whether he ever exercised that power or not.

She wanted to feel joyful. For a few fleeting moments during the day she had done—when she had walked along the nave of the church this morning while the organ played and she saw Viscount Darleigh waiting for her, a warm smile on his face; when they had stepped out of the church to sunshine and a group of cheering onlookers and a shower of rose petals; when she had first heard the pots and pans clattering and clanging behind the barouche; when Lord Darleigh kissed her; when an elderly gentleman stopped on the pavement to watch the barouche go by and raised his hat to her and winked.

But the wedding breakfast was nothing short of an ordeal. Try as she would, she could not force herself to participate in the conversation and replied in monosyllables whenever a question was directed specifically at her. She was not giving a good impression, she knew. How could she expect to be liked?

She ate scarcely anything. She tasted nothing.

Lord Trentham rose to propose a toast to the bride, and Sophia forced a smile to her face and forced herself to look about the table and nod her thanks to everyone. Viscount Ponsonby rose and toasted her husband and elicited a great deal of warm laughter. Sophia forced herself to join in. Lord Darleigh rose and thanked everyone for making their day a memorable and happy one, and he reached out a hand for hers and bent over it and kissed it to a few murmurings from the ladies and applause from all.

Sophia relaxed a little more when they all withdrew to the drawing room, for Constance Emes came to sit beside her.

“It is awe-inspiring, is it not?” she said, speaking low for their ears only. “All these titles? All this gentility? Hugo has taken me to several ton balls and parties this year, at my request. I was frightened out of my wits the first time or two, and then I came to see that they are all just people. And some of them, though not the ones here, are really quite uninteresting because they have nothing to do but be rich and try to amuse themselves for a lifetime. I have a beau, you know—well, a sort of beau. He insists I am too young for a formal courtship, and he thinks I ought to aim higher, but he will come around in time. I love him to distraction, and I know he loves me. He owns the ironmonger’s shop next to my grandparents’ grocery shop, and I am never so happy as when I am there, in one shop or the other. We have to find what will bring us happiness, do we not? I think Lord Darleigh is one of the sweetest gentlemen I have ever met. And he is gloriously handsome. And he likes you.”

“Tell me about your ironmonger,” Sophia said, feeling herself relax.

She smiled and then laughed as she listened—and caught the steady, considering gaze of Lady Barclay on her. The lady nodded slightly before turning away to reply to something the Earl of Kilbourne had said to her.

And then, after tea had been served, it was time to leave. The butler had just murmured in Lady Trentham’s ear that the barouche was waiting at the door. Sophia’s wedding night was to be spent at Stanbrook House, one of the grand mansions on Grosvenor Square. Fortunately, the duke himself was not to be there. Neither was his guest, Lady Barclay. Sophia’s new clothes had been packed up by Lady Trentham’s maid this morning after they left for the church and sent to Stanbrook House. Directions had been given for the other new clothes still to be delivered today to be sent directly there.

Sophia counted back days in her head. Yesterday was the shopping day. The day before was the second day of the journey, the day before that the first. Then there was the day of the proposal, then the day of the assembly, then the day when she had walked out just before dawn and watched Lord Darleigh’s arrival at Covington House.

Six days.

Less than a week.

She had still been the mouse a week ago. Still the scarecrow, with her chopped hair and ill-fitting second-hand clothes.

Less than a week.

Now she was a bride. A wife. Her life had changed, suddenly and drastically. And she was behaving like a bewildered mouse.

Sometimes one had to make a determined effort if one was not to drift on in life unchanging. Change had come to her life, and she had the chance to change with it—or not.

She got to her feet.

“Lady Trentham, Lord Trentham, Mrs. Emes, Miss Emes,” she said, looking from one to the other of them, “I do thank you with all my heart for opening your home to me, for being so kind, for arranging this wonderful wedding breakfast. And Mr. Germane, Lord and Lady Kilbourne, Lady Barclay, Lord Ponsonby, Lord Berwick, Your Grace, thank you for coming to our wedding, for coming here. We expected a quiet wedding day. It has been anything but that, and I will always remember it with pleasure. Your Grace, thank you for letting us use your home until tomorrow.”

All conversations had stopped abruptly. Everyone was looking at her—in surprise, she thought, and she wondered if her heart would stop hammering or if it would simply stop. She was even smiling.

Viscount Darleigh was on his feet too.

“You have taken the words out of my mouth, Sophie,” he said, “and there is nothing left for me to say.”

“You said enough at the breakfast table, Vince,” Lord Ponsonby told him. “It is your wife’s turn. P-personally, I hope you are the last Survivor to wed for at least a week or two. My v-valet will be running out of dry handkerchiefs to hand me.”

“It is my pleasure, Lady Darleigh,” the Duke of Stanbrook said, giving her a look that was both penetrating and … approving?

And then they were all on their feet, and Sophia found herself being hugged by the ladies—even Lady Barclay—and having her hand kissed again by the gentlemen. Everyone was talking and laughing, and she and Vincent were somehow swept out to the street and into the barouche.

“Are the pots and pans gone?” Lord Darleigh asked.

“Yes,” she told him.

“And everything else?” he asked. “There were ribbons and bows, I suppose? And flowers? No, they are not gone. I can smell them.”

“They all remain,” she said.

“You are a bridegroom only once, Vince,” Lord Trentham reminded him. “And Lady Darleigh is a bride only once. Enjoy having the whole world know it.”

And amid much laughter and cheering and good wishes, they were on their way.

“Thank you,” Lord Darleigh said, taking her hand in his. “Thank you for what you said, Sophie. It was lovely. I know you found the whole thing an ordeal.”

“I did,” she agreed. “But I realized suddenly that I was seeing it all through the eyes of the mouse I have been most of my life. Timidity is not appealing, is it?”

“The mouse is to be banished forever, then?” he asked her.

“To reappear only in the corner of some of my sketches,” she said. “But that mouse is usually a saucy little thing, winking or leering or looking frankly nasty or self-satisfied.”

He laughed.

“Have you seen anything satirical today?” he asked her.

“Oh, no, my lord,” she assured him. “No. There was nothing to ridicule or laugh at today.”

There was a short silence.

“There was not,” he agreed. “But am I to remain my lord, Sophie? You are my wife. We are traveling toward our wedding night.”

She felt a strange, sharp stabbing of sensation to the lower part of her body and found herself clenching inner muscles and fighting breathlessness.

“Vincent.”

“You find it difficult to say?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Even though your grandfather was a baronet, your uncle is a baronet, and your father was a gentleman?”

“Yes.”

She wondered what Sir Terrence Fry would say if he knew she had married Viscount Darleigh today. Would he ever know? A notice had, apparently, been sent to the morning papers. Was he even in the country? And would he care if he saw the notice? Would Sebastian see it? What would he think? Would he let his stepfather know?

Vincent lifted her gloved hand and held it against his lips. Passers-by were smiling at the barouche and pointing it out to one another with smiles and even a few waves, she could see.

“Think of me as that naughty boy Vincent Hunt, who used to sneak out of Covington House at night through a cellar window in order to swim naked in the river,” he said. “Or, if that is too shocking an image, think of me as that very annoying Vincent Hunt who used to hide in the branches of trees when he was seven years old, stifling giggles and raining twigs and leaves and acorns down upon the unsuspecting heads of villagers as they passed beneath.”

She laughed.

“That is better,” he said. “Say it again.”

“Vincent.”

“Thank you.” He kissed her hand. “I have no idea what time it is. Is there still daylight? Is it afternoon or evening?”

“Somewhere between the two,” she told him. “It is still full daylight.”

“It ought not to be,” he said. “It ought to be dark. It ought to be time when we arrive at Stanbrook House to take my bride to bed.”

She said nothing. What was there to say?

“Does it worry you?” he asked her. “The wedding night?”

She bit her lower lip and felt that unfamiliar raw feeling low down again.

“A little,” she admitted.

“You do not want it?”

“I do,” she told him. And of course she spoke the truth. “Yes, I do.”

“Good,” he said. “I look forward to getting to know you better. In all ways, of course, but at the moment I mean specifically in the physical sense. I want to touch you. All over. I want to make love to you.”

He would be bitterly disappointed, she could not help thinking.

“Have I shocked you?” he asked her.

“No.”

He kissed her hand again and held it on his thigh.

They had changed their clothes and partaken of a light dinner. They sat together in the drawing room afterward, talking about the day. She described the clothes some of their guests had worn; he described the smells inside the church. She described the way the barouche had been decorated; he described the sounds on the streets—what he had been able to hear of them above the din of the hardware they were dragging behind them, that was—and the smell of the flowers. She told him about Constance Emes’s young man and Mrs. Emes’s budding romance with Mr. Germane. He told her about Lord Trentham’s first meeting with the then Lady Muir down on the beach at Penderris. They both agreed that it had been a memorable day.

“Is it dark outside yet?” he asked at last.

“No.”

It was early summer, of course. It did not get dark until well into the evening.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Just coming up to eight o’clock.”

Onlyeight o’clock?

She had taken his arm to come into the house and to go in to the dining room and to return to the drawing room afterward. Apart from that, they had not touched each other. Yet it was their wedding day.

“Is there a time,” he asked her, “before which one is not allowed to retire to bed?”

“If there is a law,” she said, “I have not heard of it.”

He was humming with the desire to consummate his marriage, and although she had admitted that she was a little worried, she had also assured him that she wanted it too. The longer they sat here, the more worried and nervous she was likely to become.

Why had he felt obliged to sit out the rest of the day until a decent bedtime? A certain nervousness of his own, perhaps? He had never been with a virgin. And this was not just an experiment that need not be repeated if it was not to his liking—or hers. It was important that he get it just right. Not too much this first time—he did not want to frighten her or disgust her or hurt her. But not too little either. He did not want to disappoint her, or himself.

It was important to get it right.

“Shall we go to bed?” he asked.

“Yes.”

She had said in the barouche on the way here that she must cast off the mouse, her alter ego. It was not going to be easy for her, he realized. And he half smiled at the memory of the determined little speech she had delivered just before they left Hugo’s. It had been gracious and pretty, and the attentive surprise of his friends and the other guests had been almost tangible.

“Take my arm, then,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Yes.” She took it.

And then she surprised him again when they had passed out of the drawing room and ascended two of the stairs to the floor above. She stopped and spoke to someone else—presumably a servant.

“Send Mr. Fisk up to Lord Darleigh’s dressing room, if you please,” she said, “and Ella to mine.”

Ella must be the maid George had assigned to her for tonight.

“Yes, my lady,” a man’s voice murmured respectfully.

“My lady,”she said softly.

“I still find myself wanting to look over my shoulder when people address me as my lord,” he told her. “I probably would if I could.”

He knew the way to his room, their room for tonight. He always memorized directions and distances quickly when he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He did not like the feeling of being lost, of being dependent upon others to take him wherever he needed to go.

He paused when he judged he was outside his dressing room. The door of the bedchamber came next and then her dressing room, which had not been needed until today.

“I can go the rest of the way alone,” she told him.

“Let us compromise,” he said. “I will stand here until I hear your door open and close. And I will see you in the bedchamber in half an hour’s time? Less?”

“Less,” she said, slipping her hand from his arm.

He smiled and listened for her door. As he heard it close, he could hear Martin’s firm footsteps coming along the corridor behind him. Martin had been stiffly formal this morning—and ever since the announcement of the betrothal.

“Martin,” he said as his dressing room door opened and he preceded his valet inside. “Did you come to my wedding as I asked?”

“I did, sir,” Martin said.

Vincent waited for more, but all he could hear was Martin setting the water jug down on the washstand and preparing his shaving gear. He sighed. Had he gained a wife and lost a friend? For that was what Martin was, what he had always been.

“She did not look like a boy today,” Martin said abruptly as Vincent slipped off his coat and waistcoat and Martin helped him with his neckcloth before hauling his shirt off over his head. “She looked like a little elfin creature.”

It was stiffly, grudgingly said. And little elfin creature sounded like more of a compliment than an insult.

“Thank you,” Vincent said. “She did not do this deliberately, you know, Martin. I, on the other hand, did.”

“I know,” Martin said. “Idiot that you are. Keep your head still now or I’ll be slicing your throat. And you will be wondering if I did it deliberately. If you are still alive to wonder anything at all, that is.”

“I trust you.” Vincent grinned at him. “With my life.”

Martin grunted.

“It’s just as well,” he said, “since I get to come at you with an open razor at least once a day. Take that grin off your face or you are going to get an uneven cut to take to your lady.”

Vincent sat still and expressionless.

Peace, he supposed, had been declared.

A little elfin creature.He remembered holding her against him on the far side of the stile in Barton Coombs. Yes, he believed it. She was just the opposite of voluptuous. He had always favored voluptuous women—as what red-blooded male did not? But he was eager for his bride anyway.

A little elfin creature.

He opened the door into the bedchamber after he had dismissed Martin. He knew the room. He knew where the bed was, the dressing table, the side tables, the fireplace, the window. And he knew as soon as he stepped inside that he was not alone.

“Sophie?”

“Yes, I am here.” There was a soft laugh. “Do you know where here is?”

“I believe,” he said, “you are standing at the window. And it is still not dark, I suppose?”

“The room looks out on the back of the house,” she said as he made his way toward her. “Onto the garden. It is very pretty. One could almost forget one was in London.”

He reached out and touched the windowsill. He could feel the warmth of her close by.

“Would you like to forget?” he asked her. “Do you not like London?”

“I prefer the country,” she said. “I feel less lonely there.”

A strange thing to say, perhaps, when one considered the relative number of people in the town and the country.

“I feel less of a lone being,” she explained, “and more a part of something vast and complex. I am sorry. That does not make much sense, does it?”

“The emphasis is too much upon humanity alone in town?” he suggested. “And more upon humankind as part of nature and the universe itself in the country?”

“Oh,” she said, “yes. You do understand.”

He thought of her dream cottage with its pretty garden and a few friendly neighbors. Ah, Sophie.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand closed about it and his other hand about the other, and he drew her against him. She was wearing a silky nightgown, he could feel. One item of her bride clothes? He hoped so. He hoped she was feeling pretty and desirable. He could feel her draw a slow inward breath.

He was wearing just a light brocaded silk dressing gown. Perhaps he ought to have had Martin dig out a nightshirt for him—if there was one to dig out, that was. It was possible none had been packed when he left home, for he always slept naked.

He moved his hands inward, lifted her chin with his thumbs, and found her mouth with his own—that lovely wide mouth he remembered with its generous lips. He licked his own just before they joined hers, waited for the trembling in hers to cease, and stroked the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until they parted. He slid his tongue into her mouth and felt a shiver of desire as she moaned softly deep in her throat.

He moved his hands to thread into her hair. It was soft and silky and not nearly as thick as it had been last time he felt it. It was very short.

“Sophie.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “Are we putting on a display for anyone who happens to be strolling in the garden?”

“Probably not,” she said. “But I will close the curtains.”

He heard them sliding along the rail after she had turned from his arms.

“There,” she said. “Now no one will see.”

And she moved back against him and slid her arms about his waist. Ah. She was not reluctant, then.

“I am glad you cannot see me either,” she said. She drew breath audibly. “Oh, I did not mean to be offensive.”

“Because you are not worth looking at?” he asked her. “Sophie, who destroyed all your sense of self-worth? And don’t tell me it was your looking glass. Well, I cannot see you and never will. I can never contradict you—or agree with you. But I can touch you.”

“That,” she said, “is almost as bad.”

He laughed softly, and she did too, rather ruefully, he thought.

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

He laughed again and slid his hands beneath her nightgown at the shoulders and pushed it off and down her arms. He stood back and straightened her arms with his hands and heard the garment slither all the way to the floor.

She inhaled audibly.

“Do not worry,” he said. “I cannot see you.”

Her breath shuddered out.

He touched her. He explored her with light hands and sensitive fingertips—thin shoulders and upper arms, small breasts that nevertheless fit softly and warmly into the palms of his hands, a tiny waist, hips that hardly flared below it, a soft, flat belly, a slender bottom with cheeks that fit his hands as her breasts had done, legs that were slender and yet sturdy as far down as he could feel.

Her skin was soft and smooth and warm. She did not have the boniness and angularity of many thin people. She was just small and not particularly shapely. Not at all voluptuous. He could feel himself harden into arousal anyway. She was his bride. She was his, and there was a certain exultation in the thought. He had found her himself and married her himself, without any help from anyone. Eyes were not always necessary.

He returned his hands to her face, cupping it and kissing her lips again.

“Have the bedcovers been turned back?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“Lie down, then,” he said.

“Yes.”

Was she being the mouse again? Her voice was higher pitched than usual.

Or just a virgin bride on her wedding night?

He removed his dressing gown before lying down beside her. It was impossible to know if the sight of him was shocking her. Her breathing had been audible and slightly ragged from the start.

His hands explored her again. He lowered his head to kiss her mouth, one cheek, one ear—he drew the earlobe between his teeth and nipped it. He kissed her throat, her breasts. He suckled one while he rolled the nipple of the other gently between his thumb and forefinger.

She remained passive, though her breathing was more labored and her skin was warmer and her nipples hardened beneath his touch.

He kissed her stomach, found her belly button, and swirled his tongue about it while his hand slid between her warm thighs and moved upward to find the core of her femininity. She was hot and surprisingly moist.

She drew a sharp inward breath and stiffened.

“Sophie.” He raised his head above hers, though he did not remove his hand or stop stroking her lightly, parting folds with his fingers, circling the tip of one about her opening. “Are you afraid? Embarrassed?”

“No.” Her voice was definitely high pitched now.

He suspected she was both.

And he suspected she considered herself physically undesirable.

He took one of her hands in his and moved it to his erection. He curled her fingers about it and held them there.

“Do you know what this means?” he murmured into her ear. “It means that I want you, that I find you desirable. My hands, my mouth, my tongue, my body, all have touched you and been well pleased. I want you.”

“Oh.” Her hand was still about him and then released him.

He was not lying to her either.

“I am going to come inside you,” he said. “I am afraid I will hurt you this first time, though I will try not to.”

“You will not hurt me,” she said. “Even if there is pain, Vincent, you will not hurt me. Oh, please. Come.”

He smiled his surprise. She wanted him too.

She reached for him as he moved over her and lowered his weight onto her. She parted her legs before he could nudge them apart with his, and when he slid his hands under her, she lifted herself and snuggled her bottom into his hands. And when he positioned himself at her opening, she pressed her legs against his and tilted herself.

His arousal became almost painful. He wished suddenly that he was not so large. She was such a little thing. And when he pressed slowly into her, he met a tightness and a heat that filled him with the warring reactions of elation and terror. Elation because a man could not ask for any sensation more erotic and filled with promise; terror because she was too small for him and he was about to tear her apart and cause her a pain she could not disregard.

She was moaning and pressing toward him.

He felt the barrier. It seemed to him that it was impenetrable. He was going to harm her.

“Come,” she was urging him. “Oh, please come.”

And he forgot about gentleness. He drove inward with one firm thrust, and he was sheathed in her to the hilt, and she was first gasping and tense and then gradually relaxing about him—before she clenched inner muscles and inhaled slowly.

“Vincent,” she whispered.

He found her mouth with his, kissed her open-mouthed, plunging his tongue deep.

“Sophie,” he said against her lips. “I am sorry.”

“I am not,” she said.

And he raised himself on his forearms so as not to crush her while he worked, and he took her with hard, deep strokes, holding back his pleasure because he knew there was more of it to be had and because he knew she wanted the whole of it even though she was going to be very sore afterward.

He could hear the erotic wetness of the consummation.

She was all sweet, hot, wet woman. She smelled of sweat and sex. And she was his.

She was his wife.

A little elfin creature.

And packed full to overflowing, every inch of her, with hot sexuality.

He worked in her for long minutes until he could hold back no longer. He pressed inward, held deep, and let his seed flow until he was drained and utterly relaxed.

His selfishness was the first thing that struck him when he returned to himself a couple of minutes or so later. He had intended being gentle and somewhat restrained with her this first time. Instead, he had been vigorously engaged in her for far too long. And now his whole weight was on her. She felt deliciously warm and damp. She smelled enticing.

He disengaged from her as gently as possible and moved to her side. He found her hand with his own and curled his fingers about it.

“Sophie?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did I hurt you terribly?”

“No.”

He turned onto his side to face her.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” she asked. “I was told it was going to be lovely. Lady Trentham told me. It was lovelier even than that.”

Would she never cease to surprise and delight him?

“I did not hurt you?”

“You did,” she said. “You hurt me at the beginning and you hurt me toward the end. And I am hurting now. It is the loveliest feeling in the world.”

What?

“Lovely?”

“Lovely,” she repeated. “Some pain is lovely.”

“Are you serious?” He was grinning at her.

“Yes,” she said. There was a short pause. “Did I disappoint you?”

Ah, they were back to that, were they?

“Do I look disappointed?” he asked her. “Did I feel disappointed?”

“I have no figure,” she said. “I am almost as flat as I was when I was a girl. Someone—God?—forgot to let me grow.”

It would be comical if it were not also sad.

“Sophie,” he told her, “you felt every inch a woman to me. I could not possibly have enjoyed that more than I did.”

“How kind you are,” she said.

“I am only sorry,” he said, “that it cannot be repeated tonight.”

“It is not even tonight yet,” she said. “It is still only dusk.”

What was she saying? Had she really enjoyed it too, pain and all? He was not a very experienced lover—a bit of an understatement—and was doubtless nowhere near the world’s best lover. Perhaps that did not really matter, though. They were both lonely people—yes, sexually speaking he was lonely. The comfort and pleasure they could give each other would surely outweigh experience and expertise.

“Perhaps when tonight has become almost tomorrow, then,” he said, “we will try again, will we? But only if you feel up to it. Only if you are not too sore.”

“I will not be,” she said with such conviction that he laughed and drew her into his arms and against his chest. And then he stopped laughing and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Suddenly he felt more like weeping.

That damned arrangement. Would he ever be able to put it from his mind? Would she? Would they ever be able to just relax into their marriage?

“Sleep now,” he said. “Our wedding day is officially ended, Sophie. It was a good one after all, was it not?”

“Yes.” She snuggled against him, and incredibly was almost instantly asleep.

And so began the rest of his life—as a married man.

For better or worse.

He tried not to wonder which it would be.