‘My mother had six children, including a set of twins. She delivered every one of us safely. It was influenza that killed her – heartbreak, in truth, because she had lost my father, whom she loved more than life.Hedied on the hunting field – a stupid, pointless accident that need not have happened. People die every day for ridiculous reasons or none, Gabriel. We cannot keep each other safe. No one can, however strong their love is. Life is not like that.’
He pulled her closer and buried his face in her neck, whispering against her skin, ‘That sounds like painful wisdom, Georgie. When did you grow so wise?’
‘I am not wise. I am anything but wise; my family would laugh to hear you say so. I too have been selfish, and foolish, and spoilt. Perhaps people like us need to fall in love to make us look outside ourselves and think of others for the first time. But that’s not true, really, is it? Or at least not of you, even if it is true of me. Because you never wanted to marry, and yet you knew you must for the sake of all the people who depended on you, and you were prepared to do it. That doesn’t sound very much like selfishness to me, my love.’
He laughed against her throat and ran his hands down her body possessively, her flesh catching fire anew at his touch after having been starved of it for so long. ‘It is like your generosity to say so, but I do not think that you will persuade many people of your point of view. Most people would laugh to think that my agreeing to take my choice among the most beautiful debutantes society has to offer, agreeing to make love incessantly to the woman I chose until she conceived a child, then reserving the right to go back to my careless bachelor ways if I so desired, was any great sign of selflessness. I dare say most of the men in England would be very happy to be in my shoes!’
‘I do not care about most of the men in England, only you.’
‘I cannot tell you how glad I am of it. But I am still selfish. And now I would rather let all those people who depend on me down than lose you. You know I would. And damn the consequences.’
‘I don’t think that’s true. Not really. I know you better than that. I think as the months and then the years passed with no heir for Northriding, you would look at the anxious faces of the people around you, people you’ve known all your life, and that too would begin to torment you. I know it would torment me; not even to try to have a child. I think it would be bound to cause a rift between us, a little crack that slowly opened upinto something bigger. If we try and cannot, of course, that is a different matter, or so everyone keeps telling me.’
‘You’re sure about this, my dearest love?’
‘I am not sure about anything except the fact that I love you.’ She smiled and stroked his silvered head; when he heard her words, he had pressed his lips to her throat with passionate intensity, and tightened his grip on her body. ‘But I am beginning to realise that I do want a child, for myself as well as for you. I felt a sharp, unexpected pang of dismay when I realised that I had not conceived, and that made me reflect. And I think too that I could come to love this place and its people, and want to be a part of it. Something about it speaks to me, you know.’
‘I do know. I realised that when I first saw you walking on the beach. I can’t wait to show it all to you properly, my queen.’
‘And also,’ she said, slipping her hand under his jacket and beginning to unbutton his waistcoat, ‘I grew up in a house full of children, you must realise. It is what I am accustomed to. We may say terrible things about each other, and to each other, but we all love each other dearly, and would take on all the world and fight it if one of us needed it. I would be very happy to create a family of my own – of our own – in that image. Or at least to make the attempt.’
‘Am I to understand, my love, that you would like to begin on the project this very instant?’ His waistcoat was undone, and Georgie was now tugging impatiently on his shirt to free it from his breeches, so that she could slide her hands up under it and touch his skin at last.
‘I think it only sensible!’ she said, and as she spoke he rose to his feet, still holding her, and carried her from the room, past the liveried footmen in the hall, who stood up straighter and hastily banished grins, up the grand staircase to her bedchamber.
43
When they reached her room, he set her on her feet, though he did not release his grip on her. ‘We had barely begun, had we?’ he said tenderly as he looked down at her. ‘Three or four precious, unforgettable days of passion, of exploration, and then I came so appallingly close to losing you. Shall we start again?’
‘That sounds wonderful.’
‘What do you want from me, then, my beautiful bride? I am entirely at your command. Your pleasure, as you must surely know by now, is mine.’
She told him, whispering in his ear, and drew him towards the bed. ‘I think I can manage that,’ he said. ‘But shall I undress you first?’
‘Perhaps in a little while.’
‘And shall I undress myself?’
‘Yes! You can do that. And I will watch you. I believe I would enjoy that.’
She slipped off her silk evening shoes, and lay back against the pillows without taking her eyes from him. He ripped off his cravat and threw it aside, then shrugged out of his coat and waistcoat. He pulled his shirt over his head and stood smilingdown at her in his black satin breeches, and she drank in the sight of his muscular chest, slim waist and strong thighs. He began to unbutton himself and she bit her lip as the tantalising line of dark hair that ran down from his belly was revealed. She had kissed her way down it the day after they were married, and she would again, but not now. He sat beside her on the bed, and slipped out of his breeches and stockings. He was naked, magnificent, and hard for her. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Very good. Now come here.’
He came to lie beside her, and she pulled his head down so that she could kiss him. They were open-mouthed, hungry, fierce, their tongues exploring each other, and she ran her hands up his back and dug her fingers into his taut muscles. Presently he released her mouth with one long, last lingering kiss and began to work his way down her throat, pressing his lips to her skin, to the hollow where her pulse beat, and biting her gently where she was most sensitive. His warm, naked, beloved body covered hers and she spread her legs so that he could lie between them and she could wrap herself around him for the first time in what seemed like years, though it was only weeks. She was still clothed, of course, but only in two layers of delicate, gauzy material that was barely a barrier between them. Her nipples were almost painfully hard, so sensitised already that the mere touch of the lace of her chemise was arousing, yet frustrating, for she wanted more. ‘This gown…’ he murmured against the curve of her shoulder.
‘Do you like it?’
‘That’s by no means strong enough a word,’ he said, kissing the valley between her breasts, where the jewel still lay, and then pulling down the silver gauze with intent fingers to reveal one taut globe covered with the merest wisp of lace. He did not pull the lace aside, but fixed his hungry mouth on her with her chemise still in place, and she gasped at the heat and wetness ofhim and the sheer rightness of it. His clever tongue worked its way under the lace and circled her nipple, and then he used his teeth to drag aside the material, tearing it a little. His teeth just grazed the exquisitely sensitised, erect flesh with superb control, just hard enough, not too hard, not too soft, and she moaned and pushed up against him, urging herself into his mouth, arching her back, pressing her pelvis against his. His hand was on her other breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers, tantalising her through the material that still covered her there. She dug her heels into the mattress and her nails into his skin.
Presently he pulled back a little, so that he could push the gown down completely and bare her breasts. They were flushed, and she was so aroused that when he blew on one engorged nipple she whimpered and writhed under him. He laughed, a low, intimate, triumphant sound, and took her in his mouth once more and sucked on her hard, one tight bud and then the other. ‘I think…’ he whispered a little while later against her hot skin, and between words the tip of his tongue teased the very tip of her, and it was almost unbearably good, ‘I think I could make you come like this, without laying a finger on any other part of you, without touching you in any other way.’ She moaned incoherent assent. ‘But you don’t want that, do you? Not now?’
Before she could remind him what she wanted, before he made her beg again, he dragged her skirts ruthlessly up about her waist – another petticoat ruined – and slid into her, claimed her completely, with a breathless, slick movement that made them both cry aloud at the fierce perfection and completion of it.
She had told him, when she had whispered her desires to him a few moments since, that she did not want him to be controlled, tentative, careful of her as though she were fragile and might break under him. She was not, she would not, and she wanted all of him, all of his passion and his strength pounding into her. She locked her legs tight about his waist, gripped his buttockstightly with both hands, and moved with him in complete unity of purpose. They came together, panting, gasping, kissing with frantic urgency, desperate to join and not be parted. Never to be parted.
When at last they lay in each other’s arms in the dazed aftermath of passion, he smoothed the silvery fabric – now sadly, possibly irrevocably creased and crumpled – over her thigh and said, ‘Do you know what I would like to do, Georgie?’
‘I don’t. I hope it’s wicked and shocking,’ she said lazily, her own tongue coming out to explore his nipple, as it seemed only fair recompense.
