Then Comes Seduction

15

THEY stopped for the night at the Crown Inn, the best hotel in Reading, and took the best apartments there. Katherine could not fault either the private dining and sitting room or the spacious bedchamber adjoining it, with its wide, canopied bed.

They ate dinner-she even forced down some food-and talked at great length about the weather. At least, he did. She did not do much talking herself, but she did a great deal of laughing, despite herself, while he regarded her with those lazy, half-closed eyes of his and pursed lips.

He could be utterly absurd and vastly amusing. But she had always known that. It had always been a part of his appeal. Those facts did not make him into the man to whom she would have wished to find herself married, though. She had pictured someone altogether more serious, more romantic, more… loving.

She was afraid for the future and tried not to think of it. The future would come soon enough.

She was alone now in the bedchamber. He had told her that he was about to make an ingenious excuse to go downstairs for a while so that she might have some privacy in which to prepare for bed. Then he had proceeded to do just that-he thought he had detected a spot of fluff on the rump of one of the horses during the journey and would not be able to settle for the night until he had gone down to the stables to check and to remove the fluff if it turned out that he was correct. And off he had gone, the absurd man, after she had laughed at him again.

But she was not laughing now. She had undressed and washed and donned the silk and lace nightgown that was one of her new bride clothes, purchased during the past month-Stephen had insisted and had even threatened to take her shopping himself if she refused to go with Meg and Nessie. She felt half naked-which was silly really when the nightgown was no more revealing than either of the two dresses she had worn today. It was just that it was a nightgown, she supposed.

She was terribly aware of the large bed that was occupying much of the room, its blankets and sheets neatly turned down for the night. And of the relative quietness of the inn-even the distant sounds of voices calling and glasses and silverware clinking only served to emphasize the silence of the room. And of the darkness beyond the wide window. Their rooms were at the back of the inn and therefore away from all the light and bustle of the yard.

She sat down in an armchair beside the window. She should, she supposed, go to bed. Or she could get a book out of her valise. But she would be quite unable to concentrate upon it, and she would look a little silly when he came to join her. He would know that she was not, in fact, reading.

Oh, she hated this. She hated it.

A wedding night should be something magical, something shared, something… romantic.

The trouble was that she was strongly attracted to him, that part of her really was aching with the anticipation of what was going to happen here when he returned. But part of her despised her own need, which was entirely physical. A woman ought to despise any attraction to a man that did not involve her heart. She did not love him-she could never love a man who lived life so carelessly and aimlessly to say the least. And he certainly did not love her. She doubted he was capable of loving anyone with a steady and enduring devotion.

But they were married. Surely any feeling, even just a physical attraction, was better than nothing. Was not that what he had said a month ago to console her for the forced marriage?

She rested her head against the back of the chair and relived the day in her mind-getting dressed this morning, hugging her family, arriving at the church with Stephen, walking along the central aisle with him, and seeing Lord Montford waiting there for her, his eyes fixed on her and then slowly smiling, the exchanging of vows, the shiny new wedding ring sliding onto her finger, the…

“Hey.”

The voice was soft and low, and Katherine opened her eyes to find herself looking up at her husband. He had a hand on each of the arms of her chair and was leaning over her, his face only inches from her own.

Had she been sleeping?

He had removed his boots, she could see, and his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth. He was still wearing his shirt and pantaloons.

She lifted one hand without thinking and brushed back the lock of dark hair that was forever falling across the right side of his forehead. It fell back again as soon as she took her hand away, and he smiled and kissed her.

Very lightly and very briefly on the lips.

All her insides turned to jelly.

“I was mistaken,” he said. “No fluff. Now I can rest in peace.”

She had not heard him coming back into their apartments.

“I just closed my eyes for a moment,” she said. “It has been a long day.”

“You are not going to plead exhaustion, Katherine, are you?” he asked. “On our wedding night?”

“No, of course not,” she said.

“And is it,” he asked her, “desire or duty that prompts that reply?”

She opened her mouth to give him an answer and closed it again.

His eyes bored into hers. He was still looming over her, waiting for a reply.

“Duty,” she said. “You will not find me undutiful, my-Jasper.”

“Ah, will I not?” He straightened up and held out a hand, palm up.

She set her own in it and got to her feet.

It was not just duty. It ought to be, but it was not.

He tugged slightly on her hand and she came against his full length, her hands splayed against his chest. She could feel him instantly, hard and male, from her shoulders to her knees. She could feel the bulge of his manhood pressed to her stomach.

His hands slid hard down her back. One remained against her waist. The other spread across her buttocks and pulled her even closer.

She tipped back her head.

“It will be desire, Katherine,” he said, and it seemed to her that his voice and expression were fierce, with none of the usual lazy humor. “Before I lay you on that bed and mount you, it will be desire more than duty.”

She had offended him, perhaps even hurt him. Hurt his pride. He prided himself on his seductive powers, on his sexual prowess. Perhaps he thought, foolish man, that in those things alone lay all his claim to manliness.

“You had better see to it, then,” she said, “that actions match words, Jasper. I do not want to be disappointed-again.”

The fierce look was gone instantly. The humor was back in his eyes, and he laughed aloud.

“You minx,” he said. “You saucy minx, Katherine.”

And his mouth was on hers again, open and demanding this time, not subtle at all. She opened her mouth against the onslaught, and his tongue pressed deep inside her mouth so that for a moment she gasped for air.

And then one hand came up to the back of her head and tipped it to one side, and his tongue ravished her mouth slowly, pulsing in and out, curling to stroke the roof of her mouth with exquisitely light strokes until she moaned and one hand gripped his shoulder while the fingers of the other twined in his hair.

She could feel with her stomach that he was hard and big.

His hands were stroking over her then, his palms firm, his fingers gentle and sensitive, rousing every nerve ending as they went-over her shoulders, down her arms to her elbows to her hands, over her breasts, lifting them in the cleft between his thumbs and forefingers, circling her nipples with his thumbs and then pressing lightly on them through the fabric of her nightgown until they were hard and aching, down over her waist and hips, in to her stomach, down to cup her between her legs, down the outsides of her thighs, up behind to circle and caress her buttocks, lifting her slightly so that he could rub his hardness between her thighs.

His mouth had followed his hands-down over her chin, along her throat, down to the cleft between her breasts.

And her own hands had not been idle-or her body. She explored the magnificent hard, muscled length of him, pressing her palms to him, teasing him, caressing him with her fingertips, rubbing her breasts against his chest, her stomach against his.

After just a few minutes they were both hot and clammy. They were both breathing raggedly and audibly.

He had caught hold of the sides of her nightgown just above the knees, she realized suddenly, and was sliding it upward over her body. She raised her arms and he lifted it all the way off and dropped it to the floor beside them.

She was naked then, and the candles still burned on the dressing table. She did not care. She moved back against him and wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed his lips.

But he moved his head after a minute or so and kissed a hot, moist path down to her breasts again. He feathered kisses around one nipple while he circled the other with the tip of one finger, and then he licked it, inhaling through his mouth so that she felt a rush of cool air. She gasped, and he sucked the nipple into his mouth and suckled her while he rubbed a thumb over the other nipple.

She was so raw with desire that she could only lean into him for balance and throw back her head almost in agony and clutch his hair with both hands.

Her legs were weak. Up inside, where no man had ever been, she pulsed and throbbed with a need so intense it was indistinguishable from pain.

She let out a long breath on a ragged sigh. It sounded almost like a sob.

He lifted his head and kissed her softly on the mouth. One of his hands had gone down to cup over the throbbing place. And memory returned on a rush of sensation, the memory of his doing that once before and then… Stopping.

Not this time. Please, not this time.

“Please,” she murmured against his lips. “Please.”

He was looking down at her then with his lovely heavy-lidded eyes.

“Tell me you want me,” he whispered, rubbing his nose lightly across hers. “Tell me, Katherine.”

And for a split second she considered pulling away, breaking the spell, putting an end to this as he had done that other time. For he had promised she would desire him before he took her to bed, and he had fulfilled his promise-with the greatest ease. Just as he could have won his wager at Vauxhall if he himself had not decided to put an end to it.

Was this all a charade to him? Another easy conquest?

And did it matter?

She was his wife. This was their wedding night. She owed him surrender even if this were indeed no more than duty. But she wanted him. Oh, yes, she did. She did not care about anything else. She would think again in the morning.

Only a split second had passed-a jumble of thoughts that did not even have time to articulate themselves verbally in her mind.

“I want you,” she whispered back.

Please don’t stop. Not like that other time. Please don’t stop. He backed her the couple of feet to the side of the bed. She sat down on it, and then lay down and gazed up at him. But he had bent over her and kissed her openmouthed as he pulled his shirt free of the band of his pantaloons. He broke the kiss for the moment it took to pull the shirt off over his head, and then resumed it while he undid the buttons at his waist and removed his pantaloons and drawers.

He came onto the bed with her, looming over her, his hands braced on either side of her head, his knees straddling her legs.

He was gazing down into her eyes and it occurred to her that he had not thought of blowing out the candles. Or perhaps he had. Perhaps he had left them burning deliberately. She did not care.

She lifted both hands and cupped his face with them. She touched her thumbs to his lips, moving them outward lightly from the center to the corners.

“I want you,” she whispered again.

He kissed her, and his weight bore down on her, and his legs came between her own and pressed them wide until by sheer instinct she bent them at the knees and lifted them to twine about his, and she felt him position himself hard and hot against the most sensitive part of herself, and then…

Ah, then.

He came slowly in and in until there seemed nowhere else to come, and she clutched his back in fear of pain. And the pain came, sharp and terrifying-and was gone almost before she had felt it. And he came in and in until she was stretched and filled and aching with need from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

“The consummation, then, my wife,” he murmured against her lips.

Her mind did not quite grasp the words.

He had moved his head to the pillow beside her, and he was withdrawing slowly from her, and then-before she could protest-pressing in again.

It amazed her that she could be twenty-three years old, that she could have grown up in the country surrounded by animals both wild and domestic, that she had known the basic facts of life for as far back as she could remember, and yet that she had never really known…

Ah, she had never known.

It went on for what seemed a very long time, the wonderful riding rhythm, the firm thrust and withdrawal, the hot wetness that she could even hear, the aching, the need, the pleasure, the pain, the… But, there were no words.

There were no words.

And then his face was above hers again and some of his weight had been lifted off her. He had braced himself on his forearms to look down at her.

And the rhythm changed. It was slower and deeper. His face glistened with sweat. She bit her lower lip and then frowned slightly.

Pleasure had become pain pure and simple.

And then the rhythm quickened until it became… unbearable.

She closed her eyes very tightly and pressed her head back into the pillow. She untwined her legs from about his, braced her feet against the mattress, and lifted, strained into the pain.

And…

Oh, and.

It shattered into a million pieces and revealed itself to be what it had been all along. Peace. Beauty.

Pure, beautiful peace.

She was aware that his weight had come down on her again, that he was pumping hard into her, that after a few moments he held still, straining into her until she felt a lovely gush of liquid heat at her core.

But it was all peace. All beauty.

Until, after a couple of minutes, he disengaged his body from hers and moved off her to lie beside her and pulled the bedcovers up over them.

She was suddenly damp, cold, uncomfortable, bereft.

Bewildered.

Herself again. Though not quite that. Not yet.

She turned over onto her side, facing away from him. She needed to get herself back. She needed…

She was aware of him turning onto his side too-away from her.

Why had peace given place so soon to turmoil? To two separate solitudes?

Because peace had been without thought? Without… integrity?

How could she have felt like that without love?

Was love essential?

Did it even exist-the love she had dreamed of all her life?

If it did, it was too late now for her to find it.

Must she make do with this instead, then?

Only this?

Pleasure without love?

Despite the troubled turmoil of her thoughts, she finally fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.

Jasper did not sleep. He lay staring at the door leading into their private sitting room. It stood slightly ajar.

The candles were still burning. He did not bother to get up to extinguish them.

He had known that she lied-duty rather than desire, indeed! He did not know why he had even asked the question. Just to see if she would be honest with him, he supposed.

And then she had challenged him with just the sort of defiant spirit she had shown at Vauxhall. She had challenged him to make her desire him.

He half smiled despite the fact that he was feeling very far from amusement.

It was something he was good at, something he excelled at-making women desire him, that was. He ought to excel at it-he had had enough practice, by God.

And so he had made her desire him until she was mindless with need. He had not had to use all his skills, either, or even nearly all. Which was just as well-they would simply have shocked her and killed her desire. But he had used enough. He might even say that he had gone coldly about arousing her, except that it had not been cold at all. He had aroused himself too. Or, to be more fair, she had aroused him.

He had worked on her until she had admitted that she wanted him, until she had begged.

Please…

And then he had taken her slowly and thoroughly-all the way to completion. He had surprised even himself over that. He had never before had a virgin. He had heard that it was impossible to bring a virgin to the ultimate completion her first time.

He had done it with Katherine.

And he had proved a point. He had vanquished her just as he might have done at Vauxhall if he had chosen. Despite all her scruples and misgivings about him and her marriage to him, she was like clay to mold in his hands when it came to sex.

Which made him one devil of a fine fellow.

His peers would clap him on the shoulder, slap him on the back, roar with mirth and appreciation if he could only tell them.

Monty, the ultimate Lothario.

He stared relentlessly and sightlessly at the door.

But Katherine Finley, Baroness Montford, had a mind of her own and a morality of her own-and dreams of her own even if he could make her temporarily forget all three with his lovemaking.

He had felt her withdrawal as soon as he drew free of her body. And she had turned onto her side to face away from him just as he had been about to slide his arm beneath her head, amuse her a little with some nonsense to make her chuckle, and tease her into admitting that her wedding night had been the most enjoyable night of her life.

As soon as he was sure she slept-it was a dashed long time-he folded back the covers on his side of the bed and eased himself out so as not to wake her. He went to stand naked at the window.

If he was at Cedarhurst now, he would have gone out for a brisk gallop on his horse, darkness be damned. But he was not there, and it would be considered more than a trifle odd if he were to abandon his bride to go cantering off into the night-he stayed here often enough that the innkeeper had realized that she was his bride.

He would not expose her to the ridicule that was bound to follow such a move. Not to mention the fact that he would be the laughingstock.

Damnation! And devil take it! He would not forgive Clarence for this even if they both fried in hell for a thousand years and the only way out was through forgiveness.

And then he stood very still.

Either she had not been deeply enough asleep when he got up or he had made more noise than he realized getting out of bed. She had made no discernible sound or movement, but there was a quality to the silence that made him realize suddenly that she was awake, and sure enough, when he turned his head to look, he could see that her eyes were open.

“The candles are still burning,” she said. “You must make a pretty sight for anyone who is out there looking up.”

There were a dozen answers he might have made. Instead he made none but reached up and jerked the curtains closed. He made no move to cover himself. And she made no move to look away.

“I suppose,” he said, “you believe there ought to be more than lust.”

It came out as a bad-tempered accusation.

“And you do not,” she said, neatly turning the tables on him. “It is a fundamental difference between us, my-Jasper. It is a difference we must learn to live with.”

It irritated him no end that his name did not come naturally to her lips, that even after marriage this morning and sex tonight she still had to stop herself from addressing him as my lord.

“Or not,” he said.

She gazed at him.

“Is there an option?” she asked him.

“If I cannot bed you without feeling the necessity of loving you first and wooing your love,” he said, “and if you cannot enjoy the aftermath of a bedding when it has been simply lust, then pretty soon we are going to be sleeping in very separate beds, Katherine. Probably in different houses since my appetites tend to be healthy ones. Though probably in your vocabulary that would be unhealthy ones. I enjoy sex.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do not doubt it.”

He sat down on the chair where she had been sitting asleep when he came into the room earlier. It was unlike him to be bad-tempered with a woman. To accuse and complain. This was a fine way to start a marriage.

He tried again.

“I find that I like you,” he said, “that I enjoy your company and your wit, that I admire your beauty and desire your body. I am even prepared to attempt affection and fidelity. But I cannot offer what you call love because I really do not know what the word means in the context of a relationship between a man and a woman. And I certainly cannot expect you to love me or even to like me particularly well. Not after what you have been forced into and with whom. This whole marriage business is looking to be impossible, in fact.”

Not a great attempt. Worse than before, except that his voice sounded less like a petulant grumble.

“I have just realized something about you,” she said. “It is something I had not even suspected until tonight, and it is a complete surprise. You do not really love yourself, do you? You do not even like yourself particularly well.”

Good Lord! He stared at her transfixed, his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair.

“What poppycock are you speaking now?” he asked her, and irritability was back in a heartbeat.

“And I never expected to hear the word impossible on your lips,” she said. “A workable marriage is impossible? Love is impossible-on both our parts? I thought, Jasper, that it was a matter of supreme pride with you to win a wager.”

“It is kind of you to remind me of the only one I lost,” he said.

“You did not lose it,” she said. “You chose a more courageous and honorable outcome-which you, of course, interpreted as a humiliation. But it is not of that wager I speak.”

He laughed softly.

“The one I made at Lady Parmeter’s ball?” he said. “That was no wager, was it? A wager of one with no takers, no prize for a win, no forfeit for a loss, no time limit?”

“Those facts did not deter you before we were embroiled in scandal,” she said. “You were quite determined to make me fall in love with you. It is why you pursued me so relentlessly after that waltz. And you do have a taker-me. And there is a prize-me. And a forfeit too-the loss of me. And a time limit-the end of the house party.”

He gazed at her, speechless for once. But he felt good humor clawing its way back into his being. Trust Katherine not simply to be tragic.

“I will wager against you,” she said. “I say it cannot be done, that you can never persuade me to love you, that it is indeed impossible. That it would be a waste of your time to try. But you are the man to whom all things are possible, especially those things that seem quite out of reach. Well, I am out of reach. Totally. Make me love you, then.”

Tempting. But there was a problem.

“I would have nothing to offer in return,” he said. “Not anything that would be of value to you, anyway. I am not a romantic, Katherine, and if I ever pretended to be I would simply make an ass of myself.”

“That,” she said, “is something for you to work out for yourself.”

They stared at each other for a long time. The candles began to flicker. They had almost burned themselves out.

He felt a smile nudge at his eyes and tug at his lips. He could never persuade her to love him, could he? It would be a waste of his time to try, would it?

“But one thing,” she said. “If the wager is to become a real one, then we will raise the stakes.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“No love,” she said, “no sex.”

“Forever?” he asked.

“Until after the end of the wager,” she said. “And then we will see.”

A month of celibacy? And a new bride only once tasted? That was raising the stakes sky-high.

But the smile took possession of him. Impossible, was it?

An impossible wager.

They would see about that!

He got to his feet and moved toward her, his right hand extended.

“Agreed,” he said.

And she set her hand in his and they shook on it.

“The couch in the sitting room had better be as comfortable as it looks,” he said.

“Take a pillow,” she advised.

He did so and then turned and walked out of the bedchamber.

The candles flickered one more time and died just as he was closing the door behind him.

The couch had been very comfortable to sit on. But it was too narrow and too short for a bed. He lay wedged against the back, his feet elevated over one arm, his head propped over the other.

It was not a position conducive to sleep even if the wheels of his mind had not been turning at breakneck speed-mostly with the same unwelcome thought.

He was, by God, going to have to offer something in return for her love, which he would, of course, win. And he very much feared that only one thing would do. Devil take it, but he was going to have to fall in love with her. And he might as well tell himself quite firmly now that it was impossible or he would never feel challenged enough to do it.

It was impossible.

There!

Now it would be done. He would fall in love.

Lord, how the devil could he ever have thought this couch comfortable?

… heart of my heart, soul of my soul…

He grimaced.

Devil take it! Were there bricks in this pillow?

He was going to fall in love with her.

His own private wager with himself.

Impossible?

Of course.

But doable?

Of course!

And then he had an inspired idea. He moved off the couch, lay down on the floor with the pillow beneath his head and his coat over his arms, and addressed himself to sleep.

Comfort at last.

His legs were cold.