by Anne Gracie
But it wasn’t her fault she’d unleashed his demons.
She wasn’t the demon who haunted him.
She was just his innocent bride who’d been attacked as a child and spent the next eight years in a convent. And he’d treated her like a…
He turned on his heel and marched back the way he came. No harm done. He hadn’t bared an inch of her skin, and it would do her no harm—in fact probably it would do her a lot of good to feel the pleasures of arousal.
Not that the pleasures of arousal were doing him a lot of good. He grimaced and adjusted the fit of his breeches. Not all that pleasant. But it was different for a woman.
As long as he didn’t pounce on her—and he wouldn’t—his self-respect would remain intact.
He wouldn’t touch her again like that until they were in England. He’d promised her time to get used to him, and she would see she’d married a man of his word. She might not be a virgin but she needed time to get used to him, to accustom herself to the idea of having a man in her bed, in her body.
In England, that green and pleasant land, his emotions were not raw and jagged and edging out of control but safely stored away in the dark. Yes, he’d seduce her in England, gently, carefully, as a gentleman should.
Luke would not allow the demons of his past to contaminate his marriage. Or his bride. He returned to the inn, calm, cool, and firmly in control of his body and his marriage.
He’d been gone longer than ten minutes. He knocked quietly before unlocking the door, so as not to alarm her. As he entered, she sat up, lustrous dark tresses spilling over pale shoulders, a siren by candlelight. Damn.
“I thought you’d be asleep by now,” he said.
“No.” Her eyes were huge.
“I won’t be long.” He turned his back on her and quickly stripped to his undershirt and drawers. He normally slept nude. No chance of that tonight. Or any other night until they reached England, he reminded himself.
He blew out the candles and climbed into bed, careful not to touch her in any way. “Good night, Isabella.”
“You’re going to sleep?”
“Of course.” His body ached for release.
“But I thought…”
He clenched his jaw. He knew what she thought. Damn him for a fool. “I promised you time,” he reminded her. “I keep my promises.”
Silence followed, and just as he was starting to hope she’d fallen asleep, she said, “I’m glad you came after me, today.”
What did one say to that? “Good,” he said crisply. And then, before she could turn it into a conversation, he said again, “Good night.”
The truth was, it was too damned intimate, lying there side by side in the dark, talking. He never shared beds with women. Not to sleep. And certainly not to talk. It was unexpectedly… companionable.
“In what direction will we ride tomorrow?”
He thought about not answering, pretending to be asleep, but in the end said, “We’re only a day and a half away from Valle Verde, so we might as well go on.”
She gasped. “But I thought—”
“You were right,” he admitted. “If Molly was in the hands of some villain, nothing would stop me from rescuing her. But if your sister isn’t at Valle Verde, I warn you now, we’re turning around and going straight to England. I won’t go on a wild-goose—”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” She hugged his back.
He stiffened. “Don’t do that!”
“But I was just thanking—”
“Unless you want this to be your wedding night—” He ground out the words. “Stay on your own side of the bed.”
There was a long silence. Finally, Luke thought, she’d settled for the night.
And then her words came out of the darkness, soft and low, but very, very clear. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Ten
The words hung in the stillness of the night. She wouldn’t mind?
Luke’s body reacted before he could think of a thing to say. Well, of course it did; it had been primed all evening.
For a moment or two he battled with himself. Why not? They were married, after all. Why deny himself if she didn’t mind? His body was on fire for her. All he had to do was turn over. There she was, warm, beautiful, and willing, there for the taking.
He repressed a groan. Could he get any harder?
But begin as you mean to go on. His earlier resolutions came back to him.
Her warm, soft body lay a breath away. He could smell the enticing, intoxicating scent of her, in the room, in the bed.
She wouldn’t mind.
He closed his eyes, trying to block out her gentle siren call.
He would not fall in thrall to a woman again.
“No.” He ground out the word. “Go to sleep.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. And then, after a moment, “Good night then.” Did she sound… disappointed? The bedclothes shifted as she turned on her side, away from him.
He didn’t move. He couldn’t move. “Good night.” Aware of how curt he sounded, compunction pricked him, even as the part of his brain that strove for control applauded.
From the outside, marriage had seemed so simple.
He closed his eyes again and tried to sleep. Beside him Isabella shifted and wriggled. And shifted again.
They were so far apart in the bed they weren’t even touching, but Luke was achingly aware of every movement.
She made little noises in her throat and thrashed her feet around. What the hell… ?
After a minute or two, he’d had enough. “Go to sleep,” he ordered.
“I’m trying.”
“It might help if you stopped wriggling around.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I think… Ouch! Something’s biting me. Biting my legs.”
Bedbugs? But nothing had bitten him. It was a ploy, he thought. Some feminine ploy to get his attention, to punish him, to torture him further. Though it was his own fault he was feeling tortured, he had to admit.
He got out of bed and turned up the lantern. “Let me see.” He flipped back the bedclothes and bent over her legs. Sure enough, he could see half a dozen little red marks. And a black spot that jumped.
“Fleas!” he exclaimed. “Dammit, there are fleas in this bed!”
“I told you something was biting me.” Isabella jumped out of the bed and peered over Luke’s shoulder at the sheets. “What’ll we do?”
“Get the blasted landlord to change the blasted bed!” Luke strode to the door, flung it open, and shouted for the landlord. Isabella grabbed his greatcoat, shrugged it on, and waited on the mat beside the stove.
In a moment the landlord came hurrying up dressed in trousers pulled hastily on over a striped nightshirt. He was followed by the improbable redhead, dressed in a bright pink flannel nightgown and shawl. Short, plump, and with her crimson hair pinned up haphazardly, she folded her arms and regarded Luke with disapproval. “Señor?”
He glared at her husband. “There are fleas in this bed, dammit!”
The woman sniffed. “Never! Not in my inn!”
“Sí, señor, this is a very clean inn—” the landlord assured him.
“The cleanest inn in all of Aragon!” his wife said, her black eyes snapping with anger.
“No fleas, no bedbugs,” the landlord finished.
“Rubbish!” Luke was outraged. “They’ve bitten my wife and I saw one for myself. Look!” He grabbed the landlord by the arm, dragged him across to the bed, and pointed. “Fleas!”
Then he turned to the wife. “And you, look at my wife’s feet!”
The woman sniffed again and marched crossly over to where Isabella stood, disbelief radiating in every inch of her small person. She bent down, made an exclamation, and bent lower.
“Fleas, Carlos!” she said in an outraged voice. “Fleas, in my inn!” She jumped, pressed a finger to her own ankle, then squished the trapped flea between her thumbnails. She peered at Isabella’s bare feet, and then at
her own slippered ones, and then at the rag rug. “They’re in this rug!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Carlos, come and see.”
“Carlos, open the window,” Luke snapped.
The landlord, caught between his wife and Luke, chose to obey Luke.
In an instant Luke rolled the flea-ridden rag rug up and hurled it out the window into the street below.
Isabella clapped and danced restlessly on her toes, hopping from foot to foot.
The fierce little lady turned on her husband. “I told you not to let that man bring his dogs inside the other night, but oh no, you were impressed by a title, bowing and scraping and accepting his bribes—and look where it’s got you! Fleas in my inn! Look at the lady’s poor feet!”
The man bent to look and she biffed him over the head. “Modesty!” she hissed. “You don’t stare at a lady’s bare feet! Don’t you know anything? Bitten to pieces she is, poor lady, and what must she think of this place?”
Luke suddenly realized why his wife was moving about so oddly. She was still being bitten, dammit. Luke picked her up and held her against his chest.
“What are you doing?”
“You were hopping around. I assumed you were still being attacked.”
She smiled. “My feet were cold, that’s all.”
“Oh.” But he made no move to put her down. The floor was still cold, after all. And she couldn’t wait in a flea-ridden bed.
“Aren’t I too heavy?”
He snorted. She was a featherweight.
“I want another room,” he informed the landlord. “With clean sheets and fresh bedding. And no rugs. Now!”
The man’s wife spoke for him. “A thousand apologies, señor, but this is a small inn and there is no other private bedchamber, only the public room, which is not suitable for a gentleman and lady such as yourselves. But I will put this right, be assured.”
She went to the doorway, put two fingers in her mouth, and emitted an earsplitting whistle. In seconds servants came running.
“Get rid of this mattress and bedding,” she ordered. “To the stables with it. You, fetch the gentleman a fresh mattress. You, clean sheets, the ones off the line this morning, and fresh bedding. And you—” She stabbed a finger at a sleepy-looking maidservant. “Mop the floor. Boiling water, steep in it a handful of sage, two of lavender, and one of mint, leave for five minutes, then strain and use it to mop the floor with.”
While they scrambled to do her bidding, she turned to Luke and Isabella. “My deepest apologies for the inconvenience, señor, señora, but last week my idiot of a husband allowed a gentleman to bring his hounds inside.” She darted an evil look at her husband. “Against all my rules. This is what happens when I go to visit my sister!”
“He assured me they had no fleas—” the big man almost tearfully protested.
“Pfft! Have you ever seen a dog without a flea?” she said scornfully and turned back to Luke. “The dogs must have slept on that rug, and the fleas have bred in the warmth. Never mind, it will be all clean and good again in a few minutes and Carlos will bring you some of the best brandy, señor, and maybe some hot chocolate for your lady.”
Carlos disappeared, and the servants removed the old mattress and bedding and carried in a fresh one.
“Wool stuffing,” the landlady told Luke and Isabella. “New washed and dried in the sun. And the same with the sheets and blankets.” She gave Isabella a smile. “Now then, my lady, you let your good man take care of you while I fetch some salve to take away the itch.”
“Perhaps I could wait on the chair,” Isabella suggested.
Luke stood her on the chair. There could still be fleas on the floor.
She sat, drawing her knees up to her chin, and waited wrapped in his greatcoat. She looked like a little street urchin in his too-big coat, with her bare, bitten toes poking out.
The maid arrived with a mop and steaming bucket. Under her mistress’s supervision she thoroughly mopped the floor while the other servants shook out the clean sheets and bedding.
In minutes the bed was made up, the floor gleamed, and the room smelled of lavender and mint. The landlady handed Isabella a small jar of ointment, saying, “This will help with the itching. Sleep well, my lady. Once again, my apologies, señor. Now, out, out the rest of you, the gentleman and lady wish to sleep.” She swept everyone from the room. As the door closed behind her, they heard, “And Carlos, you can explain to me why I should not make you sleep in the stable on that flea-ridden mattress?”
Isabella giggled. “Poor Carlos, do you think she’ll carry out her threat?”
“Serves him right if she does,” Luke growled.
Isabella unstoppered the jar and cautiously sniffed the contents. “Not bad.” She began to apply the ointment to her bites.
She twisted awkwardly to reach the back of her thighs. “Do you want a hand with that?” Luke asked her.
“Yes, please.”
She gave him the jar, turned her back, and raised the hem of her nightgown, revealing slender, creamy limbs that caused his mouth to dry.
“Behind my knee,” she said, and he dipped a finger in the mix and dabbed it on the small red mark at the back of her knee. Her flesh was silky and tender there, and he stroked it under the guise of applying the ointment.
“Can you see any more?” she asked and lifted the nightgown higher, almost to her bottom.
He wanted to run his hands up her legs, caress her softness, but he’d made a resolution and was determined to stick to it.
“That’s it,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse. He replaced the stopper and set the jar down on the washstand. “Now, perhaps we can finally get some sleep.”
But he knew before she even turned around on the chair to face him, before she said, “Thank you,” in that soft voice, that he’d lost the battle.
She turned and swayed toward him. Or did he sway toward her? He didn’t know. All he knew was that his arms wrapped around her almost of their own accord, as if separate from his will.
For a long moment he held her, pressing his face against her stomach, breathing in the scent of her through the cotton nightgown. He felt her fingers in his hair, caressing him, and he carried her to the bed and laid her down on the sweet-smelling sheets. Her hair spread out over the pillow, a tangle of twisted darkness, like the feelings seething inside him.
He kissed her then, a gossamer touching of lips at first, barely a taste—she was an innocent, he had to remember to go slowly—but she made a little humming noise deep in her throat, twined her arms around his neck, and drew him closer.
Heat surged through him. He speared his fingers through the glorious mass of her hair and ravished her mouth with slow, soft kisses, while she returned kiss for kiss, enthusiastic little baby bird pecks.
The sweet clumsiness of those kisses forced a bridle on his rampant desire. No virgin, his bride, but an innocent nonetheless. She knew nothing about lovemaking.
He teased her lips apart, and as their tongues tangled, she grabbed his shoulders and shivered against him. He deepened the kiss. The taste of her flickered like flame along his veins.
She returned caress for caress, an eager, giving pupil.
He sucked on her full lower lip, and she writhed and clutched his arms with urgent fingers. Her nipples, under the cotton fabric, were hard little points. He brushed lightly across them, and she arched and made a sound deep in her throat. He brushed again, and again, rubbing his knuckles over them, and she shuddered and gasped.
He kissed and nibbled his way past the fragrant hollow in the base of her throat, to the shadowed valley between her breasts. Further progress was barred by a series of fine ribbons tied in dainty knots. His fingers were clumsy. She helped him undo them.
He reached for the hem of her nightgown, and with a complete absence of maidenly bashfulness she helped him pull it up and over her head, and she was bared wholly to his gaze.
The sight of her, naked, a slender ivory flame against the rumpled white sheets, took
his breath away. Her eyes were wide, dark, and aroused, burnished gold in the candlelight, watching him looking at her. He must have stared too long, too hard, because she looked a little anxious and a slow flush rose to darken her skin. Her hands came up to shield her nakedness.
“No, don’t,” he whispered, preventing her. “You’re beautiful.”
For a second it looked as if she’d weep, then she turned her head away and her eyes fluttered closed. She looked so beautiful he had to kiss her again. And again.
The small moment of stiffness dissolved as she melted in his embrace again, responding with an honesty and wholeheartedness that pierced his heart. There was no guile in her—well, there was plenty; she was as full of tricks as a bag of monkeys, but not in this, not here, not now. Whatever she felt, she showed.
He ran his palms over her warm, silken skin, brushing the dark triangle of curls at the base of her belly, over her stomach, tracing the lines of her ribs—she was thin, so thin he ached for the deprivation that made her so. She quivered beneath his touch. So warm, so responsive.
He cupped the sweet, small breasts and teased the nipples with his thumb. She gasped, and then he lowered his mouth to one breast, caressing it with lips and tongue, and sucked, biting very gently. She jerked and gave a small high scream and then fell back, panting, her eyes dark and sleepy-looking with desire.
He unfastened his drawers and kicked them off. She reached for his undershirt. “No,” he said and stopped her questing hands by capturing them and pressing them back above her head on the pillow, holding them one-handed. Before she could query him, he covered her mouth with his, plundering her, devouring her.
He nudged her legs apart with his free hand and stroked the satiny skin of her inner thighs, running his hand up to the warm center of her, barely touching her and then moving away… teasing, enticing.
He stroked her between the legs and found her hot and slick and ready. He inserted a finger. With each pull of his mouth on her breast, he felt the answering pulse deep within her. He found the tiny slick nubbin in the folds of her sex and stroked. She gave a jagged gasp and her eyes flared in shock. Her trembling limbs opened in wordless demand.