“Ah,” he said.
Garret tasted a little salty, a little like soap, a little like something else…essence of Man. Or essence of Mayne? He shivered when she kissed his flat little nipple, so she did it again. And again.
He wasn’t saying anything, but Josie had heard about men in the morning. They were bears. Everyone knew that. Sulky. Sullen. Fine. He could simply lie there and sulk, and allow himself to be used. So she…used him.
She trailed her fingers and sometimes her lips all over his broad chest. Muscles, Josie discovered, weren’t hard the way they looked, but warm and rather silky to the touch. And if she put her lips against his skin, tasted him, even nipped him with her teeth, he shuddered again, a tiny shake, as if a chill wind blew over his skin.
His heart was beating harder and faster, and she smiled inside herself. He had almost no chest hair, which was, she thought, rather unusual for a man. At least…
“Why don’t you have chest hair?” she asked. She had just discovered that when her hair trailed across his chest he made a tiny sound. A good sound, she thought.
When he answered, his voice was slow and dark, and the smile inside her grew. “I don’t have chest hair because…I don’t have any.” He wasn’t making a lot of sense, but she could forgive him that.
He deserved a bit of punishment, though, for saying that she spoke like an infant. “Of course, I don’t know why you should have chest hair,” she said, drawing her hair across his chest again, and enjoying the little puff of air that came out between his teeth. “I would look very odd with chest hair.” She looked down at her chest and then looked up to meet his eyes.
Her nightgown was caught under her knees, and her breasts stood out against the light fabric as if she were wearing nothing at all. One thing that was good about her breasts was that they didn’t sag down toward her waist, the way women’s breasts sometimes did. He seemed to like them too.
“What do you think?” she said.
He blinked at her.
“Of my breasts?” she prompted him. “I think they’re rather cheerful.”
He cleared his throat. “Cheerful?”
“Well, I would prefer to have a smaller version because they go so well in gowns. I have my mother’s figure, as I understand it. But anyway, I’ve always thought that my breasts were…cheerful. They stand up, see?”
His lips parted.
She was really enjoying herself. Of course, she was playing a part. But wasn’t she always playing a part? Wasn’t everyone always pretending to be something they weren’t? And didn’t he deserve it for acting as if she were a brainless little twit, too young for marriage?
So she pulled her nightgown even tighter against her chest. Her breasts were rather lovely, if she said so herself. Now that she’d got over the idea they were too large.
“Well,” she said, “perhaps I should go find a bowl of porridge…in the schoolroom, don’t you think?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Isn’t that where we babies belong?”
He was reaching out for her like a man in a desert. “Stupid of me,” he said, his voice sounding rather choked.
“Yes, well,” Josie said, swinging her legs over his as if to leave the bed, which caused her nightgown to fall back on her thighs.
“Come here, you dastardly infant,” Mayne said, and then he moved so suddenly that she didn’t even sense it happening, and she was pinned beneath him. “Make fun of me, will you?” he growled at her.
“You’re the one who called me a Bartholomew babe,” she taunted, loving the weight of his body on hers. “Perhaps I’m just too young for marriage?” To prove her point she arched her back just a bit, just so that her breasts rubbed against his bare chest.
“Vixen,” he muttered, bending his head.
But she twisted away from his kiss. “Why did you look so surprised to see me when you woke up? Tell the truth. Had you forgotten who I was?”
“Did I look surprised?” His head moved lower and he began doing the oddest thing: kissing her breast through her nightgown…Josie moved her legs restlessly. It felt wonderful.
“Yes, you did,” she said, gathering her thoughts together. “I do believe you had no idea who I was.”
“I knew who you were,” he said, drawing her nightgown off her shoulder.
“Then why the confusion?”
“Because I’ve never woken up with a woman,” he said. His lips skated along the skin of her shoulder, leaving a little path of fire.
“Nonsense,” she said rather breathlessly. “We don’t have the sort of marriage where you must ladle on the fibs, Garret. I know you’ve woken up in beds all across London.”
He made a muffled sound that seemed to be a negative.
He was kissing her breast, and the rough feeling of it washed over her like a wave, drawing her into someplace where she couldn’t seem to think of a clever retort.
When Mayne raised his head he found that his wife was lying in an attitude of pure, boneless pleasure. He pulled her nightgown down even farther, over her other shoulder. There was a small sound of cloth ripping and Josie opened her eyes. He rubbed his thumb across her nipple and she closed her eyes again.
There was no doubt in his mind that she had the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen. The women he’d slept with had high, hard breasts, like small apples. Josie’s were soft and abundant, spilling into his hands like a gift. Her nipples were as exquisite as the rest of her, pink and delicate.
He couldn’t help thinking about the first woman he fell in love with, Lady Godwin. She was slim and straight, and held herself very erect. He knew what her breasts were like, because she affected the gauzy floating materials of the day. If he ever found Josie wanting to wear those gauzy kinds of dresses, he’d lock her up before he’d let another man see her breasts.
Josie’s breasts made his heart ache just to look at them. They made his loins burn with a desire to sink into her softness, her womanliness that was so very different from the hard planes of his own body.
Josie’s mouth was open slightly, all lush crimson lips and sweet mouth. He couldn’t wait so he pulled her toward him. “Josie,” he said.
She was pulling him down onto her, panting a little.
“I don’t wake up with women…ever.”
“Mumph,” she said, and then, “Oh, oh—oh.”
Mayne felt as if he had received a benediction. Her legs curled naturally around his back and she was coming to meet him, her eyes open now.
“That’s so wonderful,” she said. But then: “No—ouch—stop now!”
He choked on a laugh and stopped, as commanded.
“Perhaps you might come a bit closer now,” Josie commanded.
“Do you like it?” he asked, wondering why he felt like laughing. He never laughed during bedroom intimacies. After, perhaps. Or before. Never during.
“When it doesn’t hurt. But I preferred what you were doing last night.”
Mayne paused for a moment. “What?”
“What you were doing last night,” she said, smiling up at him. “That was lovely. This is—” she wriggled under him “—not quite as perfect. Very nice, but—”
The laughter was growing and growing. No woman ever corrected him in bed. In fact, generally speaking, they had no complaints.
But he readjusted, pulled back, and then lunged forward. As his lady commanded. And she let out a little shriek that wasn’t the least bit ladylike.
So he decided that he had the desired angle, as she put it. And then he decided to try another angle. She approved. A third: she didn’t like it. In fact, she got quite cross and reached behind him and pulled him toward her.
Which made him start shaking all over and then he stopped thinking about angles, because her hands were on his ass, shaping him, pulling him into her, closer and closer. He could hear her panting, little unladylike pants, and urging him on.
The sunshine was pouring over both of them, and whereas all the slim women of his acquaintance had hidden their bod
ies from view, Josie was there, every creamy inch of her. So he forced himself to stop, pulled away even though his little cat of a wife grew almost abusive, and feasted on her, all the curves and deliciousness of her. Let himself learn every dimple. Ended up kissing that poor part of her that hurt so much last night.
It didn’t seem to hurt anymore, though, and really, his young wife had quite a temper when aroused. In fact, she was threatening all sorts of things by the time he came back up and silenced her with a kiss that left her boneless in his arms.
Whereupon he slipped back into her, found the angle she loved as naturally as if it were breathing, and then put her exactly where he wanted her, clinging to him, her hair tousled and her eyes soft.
Looking at him as if he were the only man on earth, the only man for her, the only one.
Which he was.
“What do you mean, you never wake up with women?” Josie asked sometime later. He knew the question was coming. She was cuddled against his side, all boneless soft silken skin, and he was grinning up at the ceiling and reminding himself that there was a reason to live. He’d just discovered it.
“I always leave during the night,” he said, settling her more comfortably into his shoulder. “That is, I left.”
“You do? What do the ladies say when you leave?”
“Not very much.”
“Don’t they wish you to stay? I quite enjoyed waking up in this fashion.” He glanced down at her to see if she were trying to shock him, but apparently she wasn’t, because she had one cheek against his chest and she looked utterly content.
“So did I,” he said.
“Well, didn’t they?”
“I never gave anyone the chance.”
“Why not?”
He moved a little, uncomfortable, until he realized that he’d lost contact with her hip and he wanted her right next to him, so he pulled her tight again. “I suppose it felt too intimate.”
She was smiling. “You are a virgin,” she announced.
“Not that I noticed.”
“A morning virgin.”
“As long as I’m not immaculate,” he said wickedly, and turned on his side so he could see her face.
“’Tis a sad thing to lose one’s virginity,” she said, her eyes dancing with laughter.
“Is it?”
“I shall never call a unicorn to my side now, you realize.”
“Are you acquainted with a good many horned quadrupeds?”
“There was a bull in my father’s pasture one year who was monstrously ferocious,” Josie said. “His name was Bumble, but you could hardly say we were acquainted, for all he almost gored me from behind.”
“More the fool you to go into his pasture,” Mayne said.
“How did you know I did that?”
“Because I know you, Josephine. You will always go into the bull’s pasture, and I suspect I shall spend the rest of my misspent life keeping you safe.”
“No you won’t.”
“I won’t?”
“You’ll be too busy,” Josie said. “With your stables. You know, I had an idea about that.”
He hated talking to other people about his stables, but he was so comfortable that though he waited for the little chill of disfavor to settle over him, it didn’t.
“What do you think would happen if you bred Manderliss with Sharon?”
“Nothing much,” he said. “Sharon has that bent hock, you know.”
She was silent for a moment. “But she also has those gorgeous long withers.”
“And if you put them together with Manderliss’s speed and stamina, it would be splendid,” Mayne agreed, tucking her even closer. “The pair I was thinking about is Sharon and Seaswept.”
“Really?” Josie sounded doubtful. “Didn’t you tell me that Seaswept has a slight sway back?”
He loved the fact that she had never forgotten even the tiniest details he’d told her about his stables. He told her that a year ago.
“You know who else would be a good match?” Josie said. “Rafe’s Hades.”
“His withers are too short.”
“But Sharon’s withers are long, so perhaps it will all work out. I think it’s tiresome the way people only mate horses within their own stables, unless they pay extraordinary amounts to stud a champion who won a race or two. The best champions come from lively mixtures,” Josie said with conviction.
Mayne thought that over. “Actually, Rafe has a young mare in his stables who might be a brilliant match with Seaswept.”
“In that case, you could trade with him, and mate Manderliss with his Lady Macbeth. Because I can just imagine the colt they would produce.”
Mayne could too: a gorgeous, flowing-maned bronze horse.
“We’ll have to live on your estate,” Josie said rather sleepily. “You can’t let someone else play about with a colt from Manderliss and Lady Macbeth.”
“Of course,” Mayne said, knowing that he had meant to all along. He was tired of being an absentee horse manager. Tired of reading the breeding magazines, and arranging things, and then leaving for the season, even though it was foaling time.
“Won’t you miss London?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Josie said. “I’ll have to leave you on your own in the country while I gallivant at balls.”
The surge he felt in his chest stunned him and he was silent.
“I’m just joking,” Josie said, with a gurgle of laughter in her voice. And then she was asleep.
So he lay there and resorted his priorities. There were the stables and the season and London. All those tawdry days and nights lost at Almack’s and less savory places fell to the bottom of the list. His stables rose to the top.
But perhaps…not quite to the top.
There was something else too.
But he didn’t want to explore that thought; it felt too frightening to explore.
38
From The Earl of Hellgate,
Chapter the Twenty-fifth
From the moment I saw her, I knew that she was the One…the One to complete my soul, fill in all the rough, unpolished edges that had formed during my years of depravity, preying on the impure desires of married women. I saw her on the other side of the street…delicate, pure and clear as a shaft of sunlight. I saw her…and I loved her.
It was embarrassing, waking up again to find that afternoon light was streaming in the windows. But her maid didn’t seem to think it amiss when she finally climbed out of the bath, dressed, and wandered downstairs. In fact, Josie was rather shocked by how kindly everyone was, until she realized that she was now the mistress of the house.
In truth, she felt like a guest. How could she be married to Mayne? Josie, Countess of Mayne? It did not ring true. Perhaps this was all a dream.
And yet…
She’d done it!
She probably looked like a complete idiot, smiling to herself. But wasn’t a woman allowed a moment of triumph? Josie walked straight past the dining room and out the glass-paned doors leading to the side garden. She knew where her husband would be on a fine morning—well, afternoon—and he wouldn’t be indoors.
“It’s all quite straightforward,” she said aloud to herself, the laughter bubbling up inside, “Tess married, and then Annabel married, and then Imogen married—
“And then I married!”
It sounded like a fairy tale, it really did. All four of them married. Happy.
She was going to be the best wife that Mayne ever imagined. She would be sweet and loving to him at all times. Not that it would be any great sacrifice. She actually caught herself skipping on her way to the stables around the back of the house.
She knew perfectly well what kind of women men fell in love with. Honey-sweet women. Since she would never be angry or sharp-tempered, he was as good as hers.
She found Mayne leaning against a stall talking to Billy. He looked up at her with a smile.
“Good morning to you, Billy,” Josie said, ignoring her husband
for the moment. “And how are you keeping yourself since the Ascot? Have there been any more problems with those devilish nuts?”
“Not a bit of it,” Billy said. “I used the recipe you sent me, your lady. And may I say that all of us here in the stables are that happy about your marriage to his lordship? We don’t think he could have found a better match for hisself in all of England.”
Josie could feel herself going a little pink.
“What do you think of Selkie?” Mayne asked. Selkie was a big, rangy chestnut with plenty of bone in his leg.
“He’s lovely,” Josie said, holding out her hand so Selkie could lip her palm.
Mayne reached over and scratched Selkie between the eyes. “He did very well for me. He won a few small races and then was cut out at the Derby. He doesn’t quite have the heart for racing; if he feels as if he’s losing, he just settles back and accepts his place. I’m retiring him to stud.”
“Is he an Arabian?”
“Exactly. By way of the Byerley Turk.”
“Byerley was all the way back in the 1600s, wasn’t he?”
“What a pleasure to have a wife with such extraordinary knowledge of horses.”
It was all so companionable and pleasant that Josie could never have believed what happened next. But however it happened, within a few minutes she and Mayne were bellowing at each other. Bellowing!
It was all Mayne’s fault. He had picked up the idea somewhere that the sire, the male horse, introduced to his sons the characteristics of his own father, but passed on to his daughters the characteristics of his mother.
“I don’t agree,” Josie said quite reasonably. “In fact, that’s absurd. You’re saying that characteristics are qualified by the gender of the animal.”
“Precisely,” Mayne said. “You see it all the time. If you put a stallion to stud who has a well-ribbed body, you’ll find it in a colt. If the result is a filly…no. Characteristics pass on through the male line to the male. And the reverse.”
“Absurd,” Josie said again, warming up to her subject. “Let’s take a really famous horse as an example. Where do you think that Eclipse’s offspring got all that temperament they exhibit? Not from Eclipse. It comes through the mares they put him to stud with. What’s more, Eclipse’s sire was Marske, and yet Eclipse’s broad chest came from his dame, Spilletta. Everyone says that!”