“The scheme is almost too clever for you to have thought of alone. Do I see Lady Rawlings’s delicate handiwork?”
“Do you—do you truly think that of me?” Her voice shook.
Either Carola had become a fine actress, or she was truly stunned. “What else should I think?” His eyes searched her face. “I cannot imagine a single reason why you would frequent my bed. Unless someone has changed your mind, you consider intercourse to be a messy, utterly tedious, and rather painful task. Please let me know if I have misquoted you.”
She bit her lip. Tuppy strained to see her face. Were her eyes filled with tears? A dangerous part of his heart thumped—the part of him that had seen an effortlessly joyous angel dancing and asked for her hand five days later.
He clenched his jaw. “Well, Carola? We are both older and wiser than we were. I hardly think that we need to pretend that you would initiate an activity you found so unpleasant, at least without a very good reason.”
“I had better go,” she said. There was a little shake in her voice that confirmed his suspicions. She began scrambling toward the other side of the bed.
Instantly he changed his mind. Did he really give a damn if she were pregnant by another man? He would never discard his wife. He grabbed her arm. “Cara.” The pet name he gave her during their brief marriage fell unconsciously from his lips.
She shook her head. “Please, let me go.”
He pulled on her arm. Now he was determined to find out what was going on.
“It’s all right about the baby.” His other hand came up, willy-nilly, and touched the little curls at the nape of her neck. He loved—he used to love the way they were so white-blond and soft, just there. “I’ll take care of your child.”
She still didn’t look at him. He tugged gently on the curl he held. “It’s just me, Cara. Your irritating old husband, remember? You can tell me about it. I didn’t—I didn’t expect you to remain chaste, after all. We have been apart for three years.” It was almost true. Hoping was not the same thing as expecting.
She shook her head and mumbled something he couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“Four years.” She looked at him, and her eyes were drenched with tears. “It’s been four years and two months.”
He blinked. “Ah.” He pushed away a tear that was snaking down her cheek. “Don’t cry. It’s not important, whatever the problem is. You don’t have to sleep with me. I’ll never, ever make you do that again.”
To his dismay the tears overflowed and a sob broke from her chest. Tuppy felt a sickening pang in his stomach. He had found Cara to be one of the most incomprehensible people he’d ever met. He felt as if he’d lost the ability to understand simple English the moment he put the ring on her finger.
“I’ll give you the divorce, if that’s what you want,” he said desperately. “There’s no need to cry. You can marry Charlton, or I will acknowledge the child. And you don’t have to sleep with me. I would never humiliate you that way.” He wiped off the tears that were falling so hard that he couldn’t stop them with his fingers.
Then, without warning, she flung herself into his arms and plastered her lips against his. They were soft and full, and it all came back in a rush—his young self, so drowned in desire that he could hardly control himself every time he kissed her.
He pushed her away, embarrassed by the memory of his own foolishness. “As I said, you needn’t embarrass yourself or me, Carola. I will acknowledge your child.”
It was as if she didn’t hear him. She just lurched forward again and actually pushed him against the bedboard. And kissed him. Tuppy had a moment of claustrophobia and gasped for air, and in that second her tongue met his and he was a drowning man. He had never felt with anyone else the rush of erotic sensation he felt with his young, obstinate wife. Certainly not with his desultory mistress of the past year or so, an older and experienced widow who admitted him to her home with a measured enthusiasm that suited them both.
Carola’s tongue met his eagerly, and with a sad little pang, he thought that Neville Charlton had certainly taught his wife a thing or two. But he pushed the thought away and simply kissed her fiercely, with all the pent-up longing he felt every time he saw her.
Two things occurred to Tuppy during that long kiss: two facts slowly crystallized in a shaking wave of lust. The first was that he doubted his wife was making up her enthusiasm just to mask an unwanted pregnancy. Such a sophisticated lie wasn’t in his Cara’s nature. But the second was that, for some unknown reason, she had come to his bed wearing a nightgown with a corset under it, which seemed to imply that she had no intention of taking that nightdress off. In fact, it implied that she wanted to look her best—and if she never intended to undress, what the devil was she doing in his bed?
So, from the depths of his lust-fogged mind, he pushed her away and growled, “Carola, tell me what the hell you’re doing in my bed.”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“Carola,” he said, dangerously.
“I came to make—to seduce you,” she said in a little, unsteady voice.
His belly throbbed, and his resolution slipped another inch. “I know that’s not the truth,” he said, fastening his mind on the corset. “This seems more along the lines of an old-fashioned comedy to me—the moment of the bed trick.”
The flash of surprise on her face confirmed his suspicion. But anger didn’t follow, just a weary sadness. “So you’ve arranged for people to find us together, have you? I suppose that will ensure that your child’s paternity is unquestioned. And then you needn’t go through with something as distasteful as actual intercourse.”
“I don’t know why you keep talking about a child, Tuppy,” she said, in a steady voice. “I am not carrying a child.”
He pounced. “Oh? Then why, my dear, are you wearing a corset unless it is either to prevent me from seeing your swelling belly or to look your best when we are opportunely interrupted?”
She blushed. The light was dim but there was no mistaking his Carola’s blushes. Her skin was so porcelain white that she blushed as red as a peony flower. She didn’t say anything, though, just wrung her hands. She was so adorable that Tuppy felt another surge of lust that almost crippled his reason.
“Well?” he asked, through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t want to disgust you.”
“Because of the child?” Tuppy asked awkwardly.
“There is no baby! This corset doesn’t even cover my belly—see?” She smoothed the thin cloth of her nightgown against her body, and he could clearly see that the corset ended just above her waist. Her tummy had a gentle curve that fired him with desire but said nothing of pregnancy.
“Then why are you here?” His tone had all the bewildered frustration of a man who had never understood his wife since her first bout of tears on their wedding night.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks, mortified.
He tipped up her chin. “Carola?”
She took a deep breath. “You were correct when you noticed that my—my dress size has changed since we married.”
“What?”
He didn’t have to sound so shocked. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I made a mistake coming to your room. This is absurd!” And this time she moved so quickly that she was off the bed before he even blinked.
He slammed himself in front of the door just as she pulled a robe from behind a chair. Clearly, the corset was one of those female things that there was no point in deciphering. “Why were you in my bed?” he said, standing before the door.
“Because I wanted to seduce you!” she shrieked.
He stared at her, dumbfounded.
“But now I don’t, you big oaf! And don’t you dare mention that baby again. I don’t have a baby, and it’s unprincipled of you to even suggest that I might have—that I would do such a thing as sleep with a man not my husband!”
She stood in front of him and her golden curls turned into a fuzzy
halo around her head. Tuppy could feel a heat in his chest that was so deep and so hot that he might expire. “You wanted to seduce me?”
She glared at him. “Wanted. I’ve changed my mind.”
“No, you haven’t,” he said. He reached out and grabbed her shoulders, pulling her to him.
His kiss was just as clumsy as she remembered. There was nothing polished about Tuppy: he was direct, and fierce, and awkward. But it was different now. She melted into his clumsy kisses as if he were more polished than Byron himself. When he pulled her roughly against his hard body, it didn’t occur to her that he showed no finesse. Instead she trembled all over and arched back against him. He spun her quickly and backed her against the door, which was just the kind of unsophisticated thing he used to do.
He wrenched off her robe because he couldn’t get the tie undone. His hands fumbled, but everywhere he touched her, she burned with liquid pleasure.
It wasn’t until they were lying on the rug and Tuppy had managed to bundle her nightgown over her head that she came even slightly to her senses. She opened her eyes to find him hanging over her, braced on his elbows, and the lock of hair that was falling over his eyes was so dear that she had to brush it back and kiss him. When they emerged for air he still looked troubled.
“Cara,” he said, and his voice had such a deep resonance that she almost wept to hear it. But he was talking, and so she wrenched her mind back to his words. “Would you be greatly distressed if I removed your corset?”
His big hand hovered, and she shuddered with desire to feel him—and blushed when she realized what he was saying. Shyly she pulled her hands from his shoulders and unlaced the front.
He closed his eyes for a second when she pulled the corset open and her breasts spilled free. For the first time Carola thought that she might have misunderstood him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. His voice was everything his hands were not: reverent, delicate, hushed. But she arched into his hands, his wonderful hands and then his mouth—
“You don’t think I’m overfleshy,” she said before she lost all capacity for thought. “You really don’t, Tuppy? Because you said I was fat.”
“Fat?” His voice splintered with surprise.
Carola started to smile. He never did answer her, but his mouth was on her breast, and after a while she didn’t care what he might have said.
It was only when they were both undressed and he rolled on top of her that her body remembered and tensed, grew a little rigid. He stopped kissing her.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered against her lips. But his hand slid down her hip—it was—surely he never touched her like this when they were first married! He eased the stiffness away, soothed the fear away.
“Would you rather be in the bed? I didn’t turn the lamp down. I remember that you don’t think it’s proper—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Carola said with a little pant. And she found, to her surprise, that she meant it.
Still, she stiffened again when she felt him between her legs. It was confusing—the liquid warmth that seemed to have taken over her body, and her memories of painful intrusion. She couldn’t help it. She yelped when he entered, even though he was cautious.
“Does it hurt?” he said, and his deep voice shook.
“No,” she whispered. And it didn’t. It felt as if molten gold spread through her legs and she moved her knees up and he fell in, a little way, and a harsh noise came out of his mouth. So she nudged against him again, and he came to her more, and more.
She never bothered to tell him how much finesse he had, because he didn’t have any. And she lost the inclination to lie. Instead, she sobbed his name and clung to him as he moved in her hard and fast and without any finesse or delicacy at all. The whole experience had nothing to do with being a good rider, or any of those things her mother had said. It was about moving together in a dance so fierce and hungry that Carola experienced something she had never expected or imagined. And the only thing she could do was clutch him to her as hard as she could and even—after a while—move with him.
“The French call it a petit mort,” Tuppy told her later, lying on his side and stroking her neck. His fingers wandered downward and his eyes laughed at her.
“That’s absurd,” Carola managed.
But his fingers were dancing over her skin, and there really wasn’t any point in arguing about terminology.
32
Regret Is a Morning Affair
Cam was one of those people who slept so soundly that it was as if his spirit had gone visiting. Gina had never thought about it, but now she discovered that she was the opposite type of person. When Cam rolled over, she woke up. When his large hand settled on her hip and pulled her bottom snugly against him, she stared wide-eyed into the darkness, wondering what was going to happen next. Nothing happened. He just breathed heavily into her neck, and then after a while he started snoring, although he kept her pulled tightly against him.
The stretches of darkness gave her plenty of time for luxuriating in her own foolishness. By sleeping with Cam—if one could call it sleeping!—she had discarded all her dreams of marrying the responsible, kind marquess. As the wakesome hours wound on, Sebastian grew into a larger and larger figure in her mind: a figure of fatherhood, a man who would live in England and take care of his family. A man who would love her, as opposed to calling her “love.” Who would not spend his time fashioning naked women in stone, but doing responsible, organized things. She ignored her sense that Sebastian spent most of his time on horseback. Anyway, he surely didn’t snore. Sebastian was far too proper for snoring.
Most of all, she kept returning to the fact that not once, not even once, had Cam said that he loved her.
When dawn broke, Gina woke from a dream in which Cam gaily introduced her to a buxom woman he called “the lovely Marissa.” She pushed his hand off her hip and stared into the gray light, trying to decide whether it would be worse to marry Sebastian, who might have a mistress on the side but would never let her know about it, or Cam, who would likely parade his mistress before her. The very thought of it made her hand curl into a fist. She would kill the woman, she would…Gina was appalled at her own ferocity. What was she thinking?
It was more than likely that Cam would sail to Greece and not return for another twelve years. That meant she was going to spend the rest of her life in the sort of twilight marriage she had already experienced.
By the time morning finally came she was desperate for sleep. She was also irritable, exhausted, and incoherently anxious to let her husband know how dreadful a sleeping companion he was. And if her unspoken feeling was that he was a dreadful husband, well, she would let him know that too.
He on the other hand had the cheerful joy of a man who wakes up to find his hand on the thigh of a delectable woman.
Until he got a measure of that woman.
“You snore,” she said accusingly.
Cam tried to look innocent. “I do?”
“You snore and you groped my body during the night!”
He tried harder for the innocent look. “I do? It’s only because you’re so beautiful.”
She shot him a scornful look and he closed his mouth.
“I’ve had no sleep. None! When you weren’t snoring, or groping, you were kicking, or pulling away the blanket.”
“I’m sorry. Is there some way I can make you feel better?”
He started kissing her neck as she sat on the edge of the bed.
She felt nothing but acute irritation. She leaped to her feet so fast that he almost toppled off the side. “Absolutely not. I am going to dress and return to my chamber immediately. I believe we shall have to keep separate rooms, if only so that I can sleep.”
“Shame on you, Gina. You who insisted that you would share a bedchamber with the marquess.”
“I’m quite certain that Sebastian would not be as disruptive a sleeper as you are!” she flashed back, pulling on her gown. “Will you check
the corridor, please? I would hate to be seen leaving your chamber.”
Cam pulled on his trousers and thought for a moment. Then he asked, quietly, “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? I hardly think I need to detail the reasons why!”
“I would be interested in your reasoning.”
“Our marriage was annulled three days ago,” she pointed out. “Even if we didn’t find out until yesterday, the fact remains that we are unmarried at the moment.”
“You sound as if you regret the fact we consummated our marriage,” Cam said.
She avoided his eyes. “Not at all. Are you?”
“Why on earth should I be?” he said in a lazy, rough tone.
Gina swallowed. Obviously he meant to carry out the plan he’d proposed in the ballroom—that they continue as they were, and simply share a bed on the few occasions when he visited England. “You won’t be as free,” she stated.
“Free?”
“If we are truly married, you can’t return to Greece.”
“No?” he asked.
“No.” Her voice almost wavered but she caught it. “If we are married, we should live together.”
“Greece is my home.”
“So is Girton. If you insist on leaving for Greece, well”—she hurried ahead—“I shall inform Finkbottle that I am not compromised after all.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then: “I dislike blackmail, oh my duchess.”
“I don’t mean to blackmail you,” Gina replied. “I simply believe—”
“You simply believe I am the sort of wastrel who would take my pleasure—and my wife’s virginity—and waltz off to Greece without you as if nothing had transpired.”
She swallowed.
“I consider myself compromised,” he said tightly. “I am compromised by the situation and by my own lust for you. As it happens, I am not the sort of man who overlooks my responsibilities. But you don’t believe that about me, do you?” There was a self-loathing to his voice that stung her heart. “After all, you easily believed that I would shape your naked body into pink marble and sell it in the public square.”