“Your Grace?” she asked, her tone hesitant, wide eyes going from his hands to his face.
Her guard was down, it was plain to see, and she looked every bit like a woman who’d had to live her life by the whims of a violent man. She was a wary thing, his buttercup.
Surely not his, though?
His, answered something deep inside him, just as quickly.
“Promise me something?” He deposited the bowl on the bedside table with care, his gaze never leaving hers. “You will dispense with the formality between us forever. From this moment forward, I am only Sebastian to you.”
A frown creased the creamy perfection of her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
His self-loathing increased tenfold. “You have done nothing for which you need apologize. I, on the other hand, have. This… consummating our union… I should never have come to you tonight. And for that, I must apologize to you. I promised you a courting, and within a day, I’ve made a liar and a cad of myself.”
And worse, he added inwardly.
A man without honor was not a man at all.
“Sebastian.” A soft smile transformed her features, and if she had been beautiful before, there was only one word to describe her now. Radiant. She glowed. Daisy was a force.
“As we’ve already established.” He found himself smiling back at her like a bloody escapee from a lunatic asylum. “The sort of churl who doesn’t appreciate his wife’s tardiness at dinner.”
“Yes.” Her smile widened, and so did his, and for a beat, he fell into her green gaze, mesmerized by that simple way she had of making him see levity where he was certain none could be had. “Then you must promise me not to apologize for what happened tonight. A churl you may be, but a cad and a liar, surely not.”
Christ, she didn’t know how wrong she was.
He had not returned to her side to make a confession, however. He jerked his attention back to the bowl of water. Best to act while it still remained warm. And there was utterly nothing to be gained by mooning at his beautiful pawn of a wife. A woman suspected of treason.
For some reason, the reminder didn’t hold as much ice and warning as it once had. He dipped one of the towels into the bowl, saturating it, before wringing out the excess. Slowly, he joined her on the bed.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes going wide.
Curious that she would only question him now, when the damage had long since been done. With his free hand, he nudged her knees open. “Tending to you, buttercup. Let me, please?”
She resisted. “I’m perfectly capable of—”
“Of course you are,” he interrupted, not at all surprised. Something had told him that she would be independent to the last. This was a woman who had been relying on herself and herself alone for far too long. “But I want to do this for you.”
Her flush heightened as her eyes searched his. At long last, she nodded, her jaw tensing, the only outward show of her nervousness. “If you must.”
It was a means of doing penance, and a small one at that. He guided her thighs open, swept aside the fabric of her dressing gown once more, revealing her mound in all its perfection. Blood smeared her thigh. Her cunny was pink and wet with the evidence of their lovemaking. His cock surged anew at the sight, some primal force in him relishing his claiming of her.
She was his, by God.
He moved the wet towel over her, cleaning her. First her thigh, then her pretty pink flesh, washing her, worshipping her. She didn’t attempt to close herself to him or push him away, simply remained still and silent, allowing him to complete this torturous task he’d assigned for himself.
Two sets of bloodied sheets in two nights. He hadn’t an inkling what the servants would think, but it was too damn late to worry about such trivial repercussions now. The most damning consequences of all would follow if Carlisle ever got wind of it.
“I hurt you,” he said again, because he still recalled the way she’d gone rigid beneath him when he’d torn past the barrier of her innocence, and because he hated himself for giving her any sort of pain at all, for deceiving her even now.
He dried her with the other towel and kissed her inner thighs. Would have continued, kissing all the way to her cunny, tasting her where he longed to taste her the most, but her hands flitted to his shoulders like twin butterflies, urging him upward. He allowed her to move him where she would. He wouldn’t dream of pushing her too far, and he’d already taken far more than he had a right to take.
“It was nothing.” She gripped his elbows and drew him toward her.
But it wasn’t nothing. He hadn’t liked hurting her. Hated that he was hurting her still with every action, each small deception. He would make up for it the only way he knew how.
As though it was the most natural thing in the world, his mouth connected with hers. The kiss was long and slow and deep. Leading once more to the path of ruin. With great reluctance, he tore his mouth from hers and returned the towel to the bowl.
He had never before spent an entire night in bed with a woman, but he had also never deflowered an innocent before either. It was bloody peculiar, but he didn’t want to leave her. Before giving his rational mind the chance to confuse matters for him, he turned down the lights and shucked his dressing gown. With her help, he made short work of Daisy’s as well.
