Lizzie wasn’t sure what he meant, but a smile trembled on her lips.
He let go and dragged a hand through his hair. “I can’t make love to you like this, in secret. Damn it, I want you to be my bride!”
The truth that she had honed and polished in her mind over the miserable years of her marriage slipped out of her mouth. “I don’t plan to marry, ever again.”
His hands slid down her arms. “Why not?”
“A wife is no more than a possession, a thing. She has no rights, she has no money, she has nothing. She is nothing.”
Oliver brought her right hand up to his mouth and pressed a warm kiss onto her palm. “You would never be nothing to me. Never. You’re everything to me.”
“I would be your possession, legally and otherwise.” Lizzie bit her lip. “I want to be free. I like you. I truly do.”
She stopped because something painful flashed through his eyes.
“I believe I feel something more than that for you,” he said, his tone oddly courteous, like that of a medieval knight. “I seem to have fallen in love with you, Lizzie Troutt.”
She blinked up at him. “That’s impossible.”
A corner of his mouth tipped upward. “Why?”
“You scarcely know me.”
He cocked his head. “I feel as if I’ve known you my entire life. I have never asked another woman to marry me; I’ve never even considered it. Yet I saw you, Lizzie, and within a day, I wanted to put a ring on your finger.”
Lizzie realized she was gaping, and snapped her mouth shut. “That’s impossible.”
“You’re beautiful. No, you’re more than beautiful. You’re exquisite. You’re intelligent, wry, and funny; you like to read; you don’t like fancy balls, but you like to ride, even though I haven’t seen you on a horse yet; you have an incredible waist; your hips are even better; your mouth drives me crazy; your eyes are beautiful; I want to make you laugh.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
“I want to make you laugh, and I want to make sure you eat. I want to see you limp and sweaty and pleasured on my bed. If you don’t want howling plums in the house, that’s fine, but I would love a little girl with your mouth and all that hair. It was all I could think about when I watched Mayne holding his baby girl. I want you, Lizzie, in my life, and in my bed, and anywhere else you’ll have me.”
Her eyes searched his face. He was a man who said what he thought, directly. You could trust him to tell the truth.
“You don’t ever take advantage of people, do you?” she asked.
A look of distaste cross his face. “No.”
“Your sister is doing so.” It hadn’t escaped her that Adrian had dumped her on his mother because he needed a caretaker, and Oliver’s sister had done the same with her own daughter.
“My sister is my family. And I love Hattie. She’s a royal pain, but I still love her.” His large hands caressed her back, tempting her to sink forward into his arms again.
Lizzie swallowed hard. Oliver was such a good man, and it was so ironic that they met because he came to apologize for doing something unkind.
If she married him, he would never be unkind. She knew it in her bones.
“I don’t have any money,” she said, her eyes fixed on his so she could see if there was even a trace of disappointment. “I gave it all to Sadie’s son, and my jointure was very small.”
No disappointment.
“I have no need for money. I only need you.” His voice was achingly honest.
Lizzie stepped back so his hands fell to his sides. She couldn’t think when he was touching her. Oliver’s hair tumbled over his brow; he would never bother with an elegant hairstyle.
“Do you have a valet?” she asked.
“No.”
He didn’t apologize or explain. He just waited for her to make a decision, his dark blue eyes steady, seeming to realize that she had to think it out.
“I don’t like eating six courses, and I read too many books, and I am easily bored.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“Perhaps this would be a good idea, and perhaps it wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“We may not suit, on coming to know each other better.”
“You suit me,” he said simply. “I know it. I will do my best to suit you.”
There was something about his bluntness that made her heart sing. It made her knees weak, even more so when Oliver began to deftly untie his neck cloth, exposing the strong neck that she had ogled earlier in the day.
Lizzie pulled her mind back to the topic at hand. Never mind the fact that he had unbuttoned one of his cuffs, and was working on the other.
Just as if—well, as if they were married. As if he’d come to her chamber after supper with family, and an impromptu game of croquet, and . . .
He was pulling off his waistcoat.
“Are you undressing?” she said weakly.
“I am,” he said, taking off his boots and then his stockings. Lizzie discovered that she was fascinated by his feet. They were so long, and powerful looking, and yet somehow graceful.
Something flashed in the corner of her eye, and she looked up. His shirt was gone. She let her eyes drop from the powerful column of Oliver’s throat down to his shoulders, down further to the wide arc of his chest. His body narrowed to a waist that rippled with muscle, a light furring leading to the top of his pantaloons.
Her heart was beating in her chest with a ferocity driven by lust. She wanted to touch him, caress him. Lick him.
She gulped, a small sound in the quiet room. His eyes were raw with desire and yet tender as well.
“I suppose I could try marriage again,” she said shakily. Her eyes darted over his body.
He was laughing again, not as loudly as before, but joyfully. “I would be very grateful to seduce you—and to wed you. I’ve had a cockstand since about five minutes after I met you. It’s starting to hurt.”
His stomach muscles rippled as he laughed, which was one of the most enticing things she’d ever seen in her life.
“Really?” she squeaked.
“When I walked into the drawing room two days ago, I was focused on meeting Cat. But I registered that you were gorgeous. Then you didn’t come down to breakfast the next day. I waited for an hour, pretending to read the paper.”
“I was afraid.”
He walked closer, bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. “Don’t ever be afraid of me, sweetheart.”
“I won’t,” she said with a gulp, feeling the strength of that promise reverberate through her bones.
“May I take these breeches off? They no longer fit . . . they’ve become bloody uncomfortable, as a matter of fact.”
It was a moment of decision, Lizzie supposed, and yet there was nothing to decide. He was hers, or she was his . . .
Possession was not what she thought it was.
“I’ll do it for you,” she whispered. She ducked her head, and her hair tumbled forward. Corkscrew curls ranging in color from pale sunshine to wheat fell over Oliver’s arms as he steadied her, falling over her hands as she fumbled at his waistband.
She found the top button inside his placket. His trousers were strained because of—well, because. It made it difficult to work the button through.
His hands drifted over her shoulders and down her front, shaping a tender caress. “Your breasts are the perfect size for my hands,” he murmured.
She looked up.
“May I?” he asked.
She frowned, puzzled. “Yes?”
With one swift movement, he ripped her French nightgown open to the waist.
“There they are,” he breathed, his voice reverent, dark.
Lizzie looked down absorbing what she saw. She was just the right size for his hand
s: not too big, not too little. Oliver bent his head and captured one of her nipples, making her cry out in startled pleasure.
One of his hands slid to her waist, holding her still so that he could ravish first one breast, then the other, making her breath come in little pants.
“Oliver,” she whimpered, as a callused thumb rubbed over her breast, making her knees almost buckle. “I . . .”
“Lizzie, sweetheart.” He pulled back, the light in his eyes so ferocious that he resembled a wild beast. And yet that huge body was contained, at her service.
“You don’t think my mouth is too large?” she blurted out.
When Oliver roared with laugher, she spread her hands flat on his abdomen because it was enticing to be able to feel laughter as well as hear it.
“Your mouth is most tempting thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, once he quieted. There was a raw quality to his voice that told her he was telling the truth.
Again.
Always.
Smiling, she went back to wrestling with his trouser placket, working the second button free, eliciting a groan when her fingers brushed his shaft.
Oliver removed her hand from his trousers and ripped open his placket himself. “I can’t take it any longer.”
Lizzie couldn’t think straight, not when he was shoving his trousers down his legs and his tool was springing forward.
“Look at yourself,” he commanded.
She glanced down. Breasts, waist, hips—her nightgown had caught on them, thank goodness—below that, pink toes. Plus pale curls falling over her shoulders and cascading almost to her waist.
Then, like magic, she saw herself through his eyes: slender but rounded, sensual shadows and curves, hair that enticed, hiding her nipples. An erotic body.
“It’s as if someone knew my innermost desires, and shaped you only for me,” he said hoarsely.
Lizzie brushed her hair behind her shoulders, hearing the stifled noise he made and loving it.
She gave a little wiggle and a desperate, raw groan broke from Oliver’s lips.
As she pushed down her nightgown, a shadowed patch of curls appeared, along with legs that were so slender that her thighs seemed plump in comparison.
Oliver didn’t say a word. He just stood before her, offering bold evidence of his arousal.
Aroused by her. By her body. By herself.
She would never again think of herself as an unattractive country mouse. She realized, with a thrill that went to the bottom of her toes, that she had found a man just like her brother-in-law.
Just like the Earl of Mayne.
A man who was possessive in good ways, but not in bad. Who would love and shelter her, but also encourage and embolden her.
Oliver scooped her up and lay her on the bed. Thinking about what would make him happy, Lizzie decided to be bold. Her hands drifted over his body until he opened heavy-lidded eyes and growled, “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I can’t take it any longer or I will shame myself.”
Excitement caught in her throat and blocked any words, but she nodded. His heavy body arched over hers and he began kissing her, starting at her breasts, sliding lower to her stomach, lower still.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked in alarm.
But he was sure, murmuring something about honey and flowers. His tongue slid down her inner thighs as his roughened thumb dragged down her most sensitive parts and she stiffened all over, toes curling as a sheet of flame swept through her body.
“Oliver!” she cried. Her fingers curled in his hair, holding him in place. He made a rumbling approving sound, licked her again, and thrust a broad finger into her.
Just like that, Lizzie felt herself convulsing, crying out in bliss, her body curling up toward him. Sweat sprang out all over her body, but he didn’t stop, he kept kissing her, murmuring about how beautiful she was, and one erotic spasm swept straight into the next and she was tightening around his finger all over again, sobbing this time, her fingers pulling his hair.
“Come here, come here,” she cried, hands sliding over his shoulders, pulling at him. Finally his body hovered over hers again, and he began sliding inside her.
He was large, too large.
They had to stop while she caught her breath. She wiggled, and discovered how good that felt.
Stopped again—he groaned and dropped his forehead onto hers—while she decided whether she felt like a bottle with a cork.
Or whether there was something amazing happening, some liquid, excruciating torment.
Her body decided for her, pushing up against him, seating him deep in the tight clasp of her body.
“Please,” she cried, forgetting anything but this, the feeling of completion and heat and madness. “Oliver!”
With a deep grunt, he took over. Poised above her on his elbows, kissing her until heat began climbing up her limbs again and she turned her face because she had to breathe—she’d forgotten how to breathe—she had to shriek.
She did shriek as his hot length drove deep into her body, over and over. Oliver’s shuddering inability to control himself was like oil thrown on a fire: she arched like a bow beneath him, her body breaking apart and reforming into something new.
Part of that new Lizzie lived for Oliver, woke at Oliver’s touch, sang at the way he thrust one last time, a harsh sound torn from his throat . . . then collapsed on top of her, crushing her.
They were sweaty and slippery. The room rang with the silent echo of their cries. The bed had lost everything but the bottom sheet.
Oliver had never known it, but when a woman breaks into a laugh while a man is still inside her, it’s an aphrodisiac like no other. A joyful laugh is reinvigorating, even if that man has just made love—really made love—for the first time in his life.
He kissed Lizzie and then asked for the sixth or seventh time if she would marry him.
No, he demanded it, and this time, she said yes. Then they made love all night, tender, passionate, crazed.
The next morning, he dragged his future wife out of bed, sleepily protesting, out to the stables, onto a horse.
Then, when she proved to be a trifle sore, he took her onto his lap and kissed her as his mount meandered through a meadow, going wherever he willed.
Lizzie never knew exactly why Oliver took her out in the dawn light. It had something to do with her sister. She didn’t know why he kept tickling her and making her laugh so hard that she almost fell off the horse a few times.
“I always wanted to make love in a field,” he told her, perfectly seriously.
She felt her eyes go round. “In a field?”
“Yes, in a field, and then return to the house and get married.”
“What?”
“Did I forget to mention that Joshua took a carriage last night to fetch a marriage license from the Bishop of Chichester?” His smile was the wicked, sleepy smile of a reformed rake. “It’s his first act as my future brother-in-law. We’ll marry in St. Mary’s church in Walberton, Lizzie, just as soon as you’ll have me.”
“Oh,” she breathed. She could cry . . . or she could laugh.
Laughter is a medicine that cures the greatest anguish, mends the sharpest humiliation, cures the soul.
So she laughed.
Epilogue
YOUNG MASTER BERWICK was born on an early spring morning, approximately nine months after his parents met.
It had been a mercifully quick birth, which meant that his mother and father were able to focus on their new baby, rather than collapsing in exhaustion.
Mostly they stared at him. In fact, if he had but known it, that would quickly become one of their favorite occupations.
Mind you, their comments were not always complimentary.
“How’s the plum today?” was a common question.
Except they bo
th knew precisely how the plum was, since they couldn’t seem to stay away from the nursery.
They had to replace one well-recommended nanny because she believed in foolish ideas such as children being presented in the drawing room for a half-hour only, and otherwise kept to a strict routine in the nursery.
That wouldn’t have allowed the plum to go out in the pony cart, or to be taken on picnics so that his cousin Hattie could tickle him until he turned purple from laughing so much. It wouldn’t have allowed his mother to find a shady spot in the gardens, and breastfeed her baby while she read the latest novel.
Or his father to find the two of them, and throw himself down on the blanket and watch, waiting until the plum fell asleep, looking as round and fat and plum-like as only a much-nurtured, much-loved, and much-fed baby can look.
That allowed his parents to work on their next project, a little plumlet to go with the plum.
“This one will have your hair,” Oliver murmured.
Lizzie was laughing, the sound drifting across the gardens. “How can you be so sure? Cat’s three children all have Joshua’s hair, and look at the plum. Your hair, exactly.”
Oliver had built a little tent over the baby so that if his son awoke, he wouldn’t be shocked by parental frolicking. He had lulled his wife with kisses and whispered compliments and hungry caresses.
He had managed to slide her gown up to where he wanted it, past her plump thighs and still slender hips, though she ate considerably better now that they’d found a cook who understood vegetables.
“I just know,” he said.
And he was right.
A Note About Croquet and Countesses
CAT AND JOSHUA’S game of croquet was, obviously, played in an unlikely location. A young gentry family would have played it on the lawn, although they wouldn’t necessarily have called by that name. The first mention of croquet in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from a citation in 1858. But the OED notes that croquet resembles the ancient game of closh, as well as pall-mall, also known as paille-maille, which was a popular outdoor game in England by the 1600s. All three of these games involved hitting a ball with a mallet through and around obstacles, though none, I would venture to say, were played with the bravado and gaiety of the young Windingham household.