Petrie said, “But I—”
Martha rounded on him again, this time her voice black with warning, “You say another word and I’ll stuff the blancmange up your nose.”
“Martha, you must show me proper respect, you—”
Angela said, “You don’t want to waste the blancmange on Petrie’s nose.”
As for Cook, she had seemed perfectly content to stand quietly and look from Jason to Alec Carrick, not a single aria bursting out of her mouth. “Petrie’s nose? My blancmange, Miss Angela? Oh goodness me, that’s a sort of food, isn’t it? How could I forget? Ah, two such lovely gentlemen. I must ease my parched gullet.” She drank down her glass of champagne, carefully set the glass on the sideboard, and went to the kitchen, saying over and over, “How can I make both lovely gentlemen stay right here so I can feed them until they swoon on my kitchen floor?”
“I’ll drink to that,” Hallie said. “Father, I’ve never seen you swoon.”
Alec’s eyes met his future son-in-law’s. “It happens,” he said. “Believe me, it happens.”
Petrie moaned.
CHAPTER 33
Jason and Hallie Sherbrooke spent their wedding night under the distinctive curved eaves of the master bedchamber of Dunsmore House, Georgian in mood if not in style, set gracefully on a broad tree-covered promontory just outside Ventnor on the southeastern coast of the Isle of Wight, the summer residence of the duke of Portsmouth. After a two-hour steamboat ride from the mainland, they’d arrived at Dunsmore House, windblown and sunburned, smiling from ear to ear at the housekeeper, Mrs. Spooner, and ready to tear each other’s clothes off.
Once upon a time, Mrs. Spooner had been intimate with lust, having five grown children to show for it, and not to mention being three months shy of a half dozen grandchildren. She certainly recognized it when it stood in front of her, though she wasn’t certain which of the two had greater lust for the other. The simple beauty of this couple would warm the coldest heart, which hers wasn’t. “Well, now, His Grace told me you were two special young people and so you appear to be. Come in, come in. You’ll have the large bedchamber that looks out at the harbor and all the fishing boats. It’s Her Grace’s favorite bedchamber and the sheets are all fresh for you. What a fine day to begin your married life.”
Because she wanted them to eat, Mrs. Spooner herded them into the breakfast room, smaller and more intimate than the grand dining room, and quickly served them cold chicken and warm bread for dinner, and fresh peas from her own garden in Ventnor. She said comfortably as she passed Mr. Sherbrooke the platter of chicken, “Only I will be here to see to you.” She passed Hallie another small loaf of hot bread, whispered close to her ear, “Eat up, my dear. One will need strength with that one.”
Hallie gave her a blinding smile. “Yes, I certainly hope so.”
Mrs. Spooner patted her arm. “The duke and his family always like their privacy, and so you’ll have it too. Maids will come during the day, but they won’t bother you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Spooner. I’ve never had privacy before. I have three brothers and a sister and—” Hallie blinked and shrugged. She’d looked at Jason. “I forgot what I was going to say.”
“Well, this is your honeymoon, now isn’t it, Mrs. Sherbrooke? It’s not a time for brains.”
“Mrs. Sherbrooke,” Hallie repeated slowly, staring at Mrs. Spooner. “Isn’t this the oddest thing—from one day to the next I lost my name.”
“The new name—Sherbrooke—is charming, though I’m certain your father prefers Carrick, just as Mr. Spooner prefers his name over mine, which was equally unique.”
“What was your maiden name, Mrs. Spooner?”
“Why, I was Adelaide Bleak, certainly of a pessimistic bent, that name. Now. I’m thinking that the last thing you and Mr. Sherbrooke would want is tea served in the drawing room, so I’ll bid you good night.”
Hallie and Jason looked at each other. She said as she chewed on a buttered hunk of fresh bread, eyes nearly closed in bliss, “We’ve been married for seven hours now.”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Spooner is very nice.”
“Yes. Are you through with your dinner, Hallie?”
She gulped down the bread. “Yes. Oh yes, Jason. Do you know my aunt Arielle told me to let you take the lead, to try to restrain myself? She advised me against taking you to the floor. She assured me that men enjoyed that, but not at first. She blushed while she said this—I’ll tell you, that took me aback. She said men liked to be in control during the first romantic encounter, which is a good thing since they know more about the business—and she blushed again. I told my father her advice, and he laughed and laughed, told me he doubted you’d mind being jumped at any time, on the boat or on dry land or on a dining room table. Hmm. This table is very nice and long and—”
He was nearly shuddering himself out of his boots, his hands clenching and unclenching. It hurt him to say it, but he finally managed it. “No table tonight. Your father is right. You have my permission to jump me whenever the mood strikes you. I won’t ever mind.” He drew in a deep breath and Hallie would have sworn he shook a bit. “It’s going to be close.”
She wasn’t a fool. She knew what that look meant. It was delicious, that look; it made her heart race, her skin tingle. She raced from the small breakfast room, up the wide front stairs, down the corridor, to the large corner bedchamber. It was light and airy, not that she cared a whit, and she knew the furnishings were perfectly arranged—well, perhaps those two big chairs would be better pushed together and placed at the foot of the bed in case one was so tired one couldn’t make it all the way. She started to ask Jason what he thought about the chairs, but stopped cold.
Jason came into the bedchamber at that moment, closed the door, locked it, and leaned against it. “I left the house all those times because I wanted you so badly.”
“You what?”
“I visited other ladies, they took care of me, sent me home exhausted and back in control of myself, for a few days at least.”
“That’s quite the oddest thing I’ve ever heard. I wouldn’t have minded you kissing me, Jason, with or without your shirt. You’re telling me you went to other women because you thought I wouldn’t like it?”
“No, that’s not it at all. You’re a young lady, Hallie, a virgin, and a gentleman doesn’t seduce a young lady who’s also a virgin. But that’s over now. Don’t ever think I’m another Lord Renfrew. I’m now your husband. I will be faithful.”
“Were those other ladies enthusiastic? Like I was in the stable?”
“Well, yes, why wouldn’t they be? I’ve known all of them for years.”
“You don’t have all that many adult years, Jason.”
“A man gets started as soon as he’s able, Hallie. All the ladies are older than I am, not that it matters at all.”
“I have yet to get started.”
“I know.” He pushed off the locked door, pulling off his vest and cravat as he walked to her, then tossed them on the arm of a chair. So that was the purpose of the chairs being on the way to the bed. He paused a moment and pulled off his boots and socks. He never took his eyes off her.
“I can see that you’re uncertain about this now that we’ve reached the sticking point. It’s quite all right. Trust me. I’ll take care of everything.” He unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it, let it fall to the carpet.
He was naked to the waist, just as he’d been that morning when her father had paid a surprise visit to the stables.
“Oh my.” She cleared her throat, tried again. “Do you know, I rather liked you all sweaty.”
“It’s a warm night. Perhaps I’ll sweat for you before it’s over. Perhaps you’ll sweat too.” He held his arms wide. “Take me down, Hallie.”
It was the longest jump she’d ever made in her life, true, but he took a step forward to catch her, settled her legs around his waist. She cupped his face between her palms and kissed him all over his face, until, laughing,
he pressed her against a wall, and lifted his hand to cup her jaw. “Hold still,” he said, and kissed her, really kissed her, not nipping little bites, piddling little licks, but a deep kiss, one that blurred the world and made her legs slip. He cupped her bottom before she fell off him and carried her to the bed.
He grinned down at her. “Don’t move. Let me get the rest of my clothes off and then I’ll start on yours.”
“No, let me do it.” She bounced to her feet and fell to her knees in front of him, her eyes on those buttons. Jason’s breath whooshed out of his lungs. His wife of now close to a third of a day was kneeling in front of him, her hands on his britches’ buttons, and she was kissing his belly.
“Hallie, the damned buttons. It’s important to unfasten the damned buttons.”
She said absolutely nothing, looked up at him through the veil of her hair, her eyes so filled with excitement, fear, and lust, he wanted to laugh, then he didn’t because she unbuttoned three buttons in a flash and was kissing his belly, and lower. Her fingertips touched him, stroked him, held him, and he felt her warm breath on his flesh. “Oh God,” he said, and knew it was going to be very close. “You’ve got to let me go, Hallie. No, don’t kiss me, not now, I can’t bear it. Take your hands away.” He didn’t want to, the good Lord knew he didn’t, but he grabbed her beneath her arms and hauled her up, grateful that she’d released him at the last moment. “That’s very nice, really, don’t get me wrong, a man loves for a woman to touch him with her hands and her mouth, rub her cheek over his belly, her hair all tangled, her breath hot, but I can’t take it at this particular moment, Hallie. There are other things now.” He shuddered, gulped down a deep breath. “It’s your turn.”
“You mean there’s a certain order to this business?”
“Not really, but a man doesn’t want to maul, well, never mind that. Trust me.”
“But I want to touch you again, and your taste, Jason, it makes me want—”
“Be quiet. Your words make me see things and start shaking. Close your mouth. I know what’s to be done.” Even as he got her out of her clothes, she touched him, tried to kiss him. “Stand up.” When finally, she was naked, he took a quick step back. He knew she’d be beautiful, hadn’t doubted it for an instant, but the reality of her, the fact that they were here together, married, for God’s sake, and she belonged to him now and forever, made him look at her differently.
“I will try to make you happy, Hallie,” he said, and then there were no more words. He got his breeches off, picked her up and laid her on her back, coming down over her, his mouth on hers, the length of him against her soft flesh.
“Don’t worry about any of this,” he said into her mouth. “Just do what I tell you.”
“What do you want me to do first?”
He shuddered like a palsied man. “Open your legs for me.” She parted her legs, just a bit.
“That’s right, that’s exactly what I wanted you to do. Mayhap a bit more. That’s it.” He wondered how a man could bear this. Pleasure, he thought, drugging pleasure, but she was a virgin, she didn’t understand what all this was going to feel like, even if she knew what happened between Dodger and the mares. He knew he couldn’t simply take her, he had to do things right. His twin had confided in him that he’d mucked up his own wedding night, and when he’d awakened, he was afraid Corrie had left him. “It was an awful feeling,” James had said, shaking with the memory. “If I’d had a sword I would have run myself through. Force yourself to back off. Don’t fall on her and yell like a wild man.”
Jason backed off, came down on his knees between her legs. He held her ankles, slowly pulled her legs farther apart. Her legs quivered. “You are so bloody beautiful.” He was looking at her, between her parted legs, and she was so embarrassed and so excited, both at the same time, that she lay there, staring at him. “Tell me what to do, Jason.”
He never looked up, merely shook his head slowly. “Nothing at all, just let me do what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“First I want to put my mouth on you. If you don’t know what I mean, don’t worry about it, only know that I’m going to make you scream. Yes, I can do it without trembling myself off the bed.” But he didn’t have a chance. Hallie lurched up, knocked him backward and came down on top of him, covering all of him she could manage. He was laughing so hard it gave him a measure of control, thank God.
“Oh my,” she said into his mouth, “tell me what to do, Jason, but be quick about it.”
He sat her upright to straddle his belly, told her not to move, to watch his hands stroke every beautiful inch of her. “Know these are my hands, Hallie. They’ll be on you for the rest of our lives. Ah, the feel of you, the smoothness of your skin. I am a very strong man.” He grinned, pulled her down again. When his tongue was in her mouth, he whispered, “This is how I’m going to be inside you, like my tongue, but first—”
She was frantic when at last he caressed her with his mouth. He’d told her he was going to do this, but she hadn’t been able to grasp the reality of it, what it made her feel, and he knew it, and didn’t stop. When he felt her stiffen, felt her back arch, felt her pulling out his hair, he was a king. Her scream and her shudders, her hands fisting on his arms, her hot breath against his neck, it turned his king’s brain to mush. He drove inside her in the next moment, felt her maidenhead give, felt her jerk of pain. He touched his forehead to hers when he was against her womb. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry. Lie still, let yourself get used to me.”
“It’s hard.”
That was certainly the truth. “I know, but try. It will get better.” She was still holding herself stiff, but when he didn’t move, her body began to ease around him. He felt himself deep inside her. Soon he was moving, slowly.
She lurched up, stared at him, her eyes blind. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, it’s happening again, Jason. This is too much, simply too much, and surely we will both die of it. Please, don’t stop.”
When he himself yelled above her, feeling that delicious soft body of hers twisting and heaving beneath him, he was glad he hadn’t mucked things up. He’d given her pleasure twice, it was well done of him. And they were both sweating. It was very well done of him.
Hallie lay in the darkness that had finally swallowed up the midsummer day not more than ten minutes earlier, and listened to Jason’s deep, even breathing. He’d fallen over her, given her a silly smile and fallen asleep. She remembered as a child how she’d slept with her father, realized now how careful he’d been to wrap her in her own covers first.
To sleep with a man, to lie naked with a man, to feel him against her, his cooling flesh, the inner heat of him that didn’t lessen, it amazed her. She wondered if Jason was dreaming, and if so, what he was dreaming about right now. About her?
Probably not. She remembered Lady Lydia, now her grandmother-in-law, her veiny old hand lightly patting Hallie’s as she leaned close, smelling like ironed lace and the fresh lemon wax she rubbed into the eagle head of her cane, and whispered, “Jason is a fine young man. Give him what he needs, Hallie.”
“What do you think he needs, Grandmama-in-law?”
“He needs to have his heart rekindled.”
He needed to have his heart rekindled? What did that mean? He needed her to love him?
Was what she felt for him the same as what she’d felt initially for Lord Renfrew? She didn’t think so. This was deeper, richer, more urgent.
Did she love Jason? Well, if it was love she was feeling leaping out of her, she wasn’t about to blurt it out to him. No, she realized, lightly laying her hand on his belly, feeling the muscles tighten unconsciously, what he really needed was to trust again. To trust her. And maybe that would rekindle his heart.
Her new father-in-law approved of her, she knew that, and he’d said as he’d touched his fingertips to her cheek at their wedding breakfast, “Trust is a precious commodity, fragile yet binding once it’s accepted by both the heart and the intellect and has
burrowed deep inside. Be yourself, Hallie. All will be well. My son isn’t a dolt.”
“No,” she’d agreed. “He isn’t.” What trust was, she thought now, was an elusive commodity.
It was a meaty goal, this trust and rekindling business, after what this Judith woman had done to him five years before. She snuggled next to him, wondering if it would be all right to wake him up. Why not? He’d told her she could jump him any time. She eased down his body, kissing every inch in her path. When she took him into her mouth, he nearly arched off the bed, fisted her hair in his hands, and groaned like he was in mortal pain.
When he came into her, still not entirely awake, she pulled him close, felt all of him deep inside her, closed her eyes, felt his whiskers against her cheek, and thanked God for sending her to Lyon’s Gate that particular day two months before.
Once again, early the next morning, Hallie lay on her back, panting for breath after the cataclysm, her eyes nearly crossed. She felt she could sink through the bed, perhaps sink through the floor as well. What room was beneath the bedchamber? She didn’t want to move. Her eyes jerked open at Jason’s appalled voice. “My God, it looks like I killed you!”
“Wha—what?”
“Oh God, how many times did I take you?”
“What a strange way to say it. Take me—like I didn’t have any say in it.”
“Hallie, it doesn’t mean anything. Wake up.”
“I don’t want to wake up right now, Jason. My brain isn’t working well, only my mouth. I certainly remember the last time you, ah, took me—just five minutes ago. How can you even talk?”
“Hallie, are you all right?” He sat down beside her, grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
Her head fell back against the pillow, and she moaned. “I feel like my bones have faded out of me. Let me lie here in endless bliss, Jason. I’m all right, I must be since I did speak to you.”
“Yes, but you looked ridiculous while you spoke, grinning like a loon with no sense.”
She giggled. He looked harassed. She watched him rake his fingers through his hair, stroke his whiskered chin. She realized he was now looking down at her belly, perhaps even lower, and somehow the covers were gone. She yelped, trying to pull the covers over herself. He stayed her hand. “Ah, damn me and damn my randy self. Forgive me, sweetheart, I had no idea, I mean, I know that virgins bleed the first time, but—oh God, blink your eyes at least three times at me if you’re really awake and not just grinning like that because you’ve fallen back asleep and are dreaming.”