The Plain Bride by Chasity Bowlin
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was very late when they returned home, but when they entered the townhouse, there was no great rush to part company. They walked slowly up the stairs together, until they reached the door to her chamber.
“Invite me in, Thea. There are things we need to discuss privately,” he said.
“It is your house.”
“It’s your room,” he countered. He would not push her or bully her as he’d done before.
With a hand that visibly trembled, she reached out and turned the knob to open her chamber door. She stepped over that threshold and paused for just a moment, before stepping aside and leaving the door open for him to follow.
Stepping inside, he closed the door softly and turned to face her. “It’s about your proposition. Your desire to have a child.”
“I thought it might be. You’ve made a decision, then?”
“I have,” he said. “I agree to your terms. We shall consummate our marriage and remain together until you have a child. Then I shall procure a small estate somewhere in the south—Bath might be to your liking—where you may live comfortably with the child.”
“Our child,” she corrected. “Not the child. You may not wish to be a part of their life, but you will acknowledge them, I hope.”
“Yes, of course. I did not mean to imply otherwise. But you must understand my need for distance in some ways. Whatever child we have, it will be much better off for not having me as a part of its day-to-day life. You do see that, don’t you?”
She frowned. “I see that you believe it. I also see that when I lived in my father’s house, I heard how stupid and ugly I was so many times that I believed it.”
“No one is telling me that I am a terrible man who would make a terrible father, Thea. I am not being abused in that way,” he replied.
“But you are,” she answered. “And, perhaps saddest of all, you are doing it to yourself.”
The accusation stung. It rattled him, and so he lashed out. “I’m not some broken thing to be repaired by you. I didn’t need your father’s brand of salvation, and I do not require yours, either.”
Her lips curved in a mockery of a smile. “It is just as well. I wasn’t offering salvation or redemption. Only observing. The type of salvation and redemption you require is something I cannot give you.”
Goaded by his temper, he stepped forward and caught her wrist, pulling her to him. It was a firm grip, but not bruising. She could have broken free of him if she wanted. But she did not. He could see that in her eyes. “You are so very pious, Thea. You stand in judgement of me because you do not know the pleasures to be had in wickedness.”
“I do not judge you any more than you judge me. You think me plain and dull, pious and hypocritical. Before you stumbled into my bedchamber by mistake, you didn’t even know I existed, because I was beneath your notice,” she answered bitterly.
It was an accusation he couldn’t deny. “I see you now. But the question, Thea, is whether or not you are ready for my attentions?”
He did not give her the chance to answer. Instead, he did the very thing that he had been so tempted to do since that night at the inn when he’d cut her ridiculous stays from her. He dipped his head, pressing his lips to hers.
Despite his piqued temper, it was a gentle kiss. The slings and arrows they seemed to throw at one another all the time did not extend to this particular use of their lips. Her response was hesitant, stilted—but it was a response and not a reluctant one. She hesitated out of uncertainty about the mechanics of kissing, not the desire to kiss and be kissed in return.
The temper that had sparked it faded into only a whisper of memory. Instead, he focused on that soft and gentle scent of roses that clung to her, on the delicate texture of her skin beneath his fingers, on the soft sighs and shuddering breaths that escaped her as the kiss continued. It grew, transforming into something that he did not recognize. Slow, languorous, alternately teasing and tender… It was still surprisingly chaste. Nothing more intimate than the gentle melding of their lips. But he wanted more, and he worried what might happen if he demanded it.
Still, instinct would not be denied. And the need to taste her more fully, to deepen that kiss until it mimicked the very carnal acts that he wanted to indulge in with her, it guided him more than thought ever would. When he slid his tongue gently over her bottom lip, she froze. But it was shock more than fear, he realized, as after a moment she settled against him.
That sort of innocence was something he couldn’t even recall. It should have halted him, should have made him reconsider his current course. But it did not. He wasn’t certain that anything existed in the world that could sway him in that moment. And so, he hauled her closer to him, wrapping his arms tightly about her until she let out a startled gasp. Then he swept his tongue between her parted lips, a gentle invasion that had her going stock-still against him. But only for a moment. Then, for lack of any better description, she simply melted against him. Her arms draped about his neck, and her breasts pressed against his chest until he could feel the hardened buds of her nipples. Then his hands were sliding over the elegant black velvet gown, down to her hips then to the lush curve of her bottom, pressing her against him so intimately that even the most innocent of misses would be unable to mistake his desire.
Reaching for the simple lacing at the back of her dress, he loosened the tapes there until he could tug the short velvet sleeves off her shoulders, the bodice slipping low enough to reveal the upper swells of her breasts. Only then did he pull his lips from hers. Immediately, he began to kiss the curve of her jaw, the long and slender line of her neck, her collar bone. But every kiss was calculated and measured to sweep her away, to ignite her passion to such a fever pitch that when he stripped that gown from her entirely, she’d never think to protest in maidenly shyness.
It was proving to be both an efficient and effective strategy.
Until her maid walked in.
The maid’sstartled shriek brought Althea firmly down to earth. She was no longer floating on a cloud of bliss as the man she’d secretly longed for most of her life kissed her senseless. Instead, she was scrambling to back away from him and tugging her dress to rights as she did so.
She dared glance back at him, and what she saw had her cursing him and the maid. Naked hunger burned in his gaze. He watched her like a predator, his eyes never leaving her as he took in every detail, from her mussed hair and kiss-swollen lips to the fact that her breathing was far from even.
“Sarah, thank you, but I…I do not need assistance tonight,” she stammered.
“Yes, m’lady. My apologies, my lady, my lord,” the girl mumbled and then beat a hasty retreat.
As the door clicked closed behind her, Althea dared to face him directly. “What are you doing?”
“You want a child, Thea. Even for your puritanical sensibilities, I refuse to approach carnal acts as a drudging chore. Our bodies were made for pleasure, after all.”
She shivered at the promise in his voice. “I was not expecting that.”
He smirked. “I daresay there are many aspects of lovemaking that you will be surprised by. I look forward to introducing you to all of them.”
“I’m not ready,” she said.
“I’m aware. I never anticipated that I would take your virginity tonight, Thea. But I had thought, if you’d let me, that I would show you the pleasure you are capable of.”
If not for the interruption, it wouldn’t have even been a question. Had Sarah not entered the room when she did, Althea had little doubt that he would have had her naked and doing all manner of wicked things. But they had been interrupted. The haze of pleasure induced by that kiss had lifted long enough for doubt and fear to return. “I can’t think. We go from snapping at one another to-to…”
“Kissing,” he supplied. “You can say it without going to hell.”
“That was not merely a kiss,” she said. “It was a seduction, and we both know it.”
“I had not planned it to be. There was no great plot afoot, Thea. That is not how I live my life. Planning things is for other people.”
“I need time to think, to acclimate to this change in our relationship.”
“The change you asked for,” he reminded her. “I cannot make the act less pleasurable… Well, I could, but it goes against all reason to do so.”
She shook her head. “I’m not asking you to make it less so. I’m asking you to give me a moment to think about it, to digest it all.”
“You have until tomorrow night…but only if I get to kiss you again,” he offered.
“That isn’t fair!”
He stepped forward, sweeping her into his arms once again. “Life rarely is.”
Those words were still ringing in the air when his lips settled on hers once more. If the first kiss had been gentle, this was anything but. Hard, hungry, demanding. It robbed her of breath and left her incapable of thought. He stroked his tongue over her lips, sliding it between them in a blatantly carnal manner that left her reeling. Even more so, she returned that kiss, stroke for stroke. He commanded her, she realized. Her mind had no say in the matter, for her body simply swayed to his will. Like the snake charmers of India, he had found the tune that mesmerized her and left her pliant to his control.
When he let her go, it was so abrupt that she stumbled. But he was simply gone. He’d strode quickly toward the door and into the corridor beyond. A moment later, she heard another door slamming, and she sank to the floor on her knees.
“He will destroy me,” she murmured. “And I will let him.”
