Perhaps it was time to find out how much she enjoyed it.
“It could feel better if we went to bed,” he said. “But it would have to be somewhat different from what we have been doing there since our wedding, Chloe.”
She gazed at him.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would prefer to get back to your embroidery.”
“That can wait,” she told him.
He stood back and offered her his arm very formally.
Very formally, she took it.
He could not, it seemed, hold back change. But he had learned that lesson long ago. How foolish of him to have forgotten when he had come to marriage terms with her.
14
He took her to his own bed again, that vast monstrosity on its high pedestal that was nevertheless more comfortable than any other bed Chloe had ever encountered. He did not allow her to go to her own room first to change into her nightgown. When she protested, he informed her that she would not need it. And he proved his point as soon as the door was firmly shut behind them by unclothing her one garment at a time, including her stays and her shift and her garters and stockings, until she was standing naked before him, bathed in the light of what seemed like a million candles. He had a good look too while he was playing lady’s maid, and he made no effort to stop his hands from brushing against her skin. Indeed, he was probably making an effort to see that they did touch her.
What surprised Chloe most was the fact that she hardly felt embarrassed at all. It would have been a bit silly to do so, of course, since she had been his wife for longer than a week and had already lost an exact count of the number of times he had had relations with her. But even so, standing naked before a fully clothed man with all her imperfections ought to have been more disconcerting than it was. Except that he did not look disappointed and her body was humming with what she could only guess was desire.
It occurred to her that perhaps she ought to unclothe him since he had done it for her, but she could not bring herself to be quite that bold. And he seemed to be doing well enough on his own. She noticed after his waistcoat and then his neckcloth had followed his evening coat to the floor that he really looked very attractive indeed in his shirt and tight pantaloons, but he was not wearing the former much longer. He peeled it off over his head and dropped it. His valet was going to be very cross with him in the morning. It was a good thing she had no maid yet to be cross with her.
He undid the buttons at his waist and opened the fall of his pantaloons, and in no time at all he was as naked as she. The difference was, of course, that she had seen him before. There were other scars in addition to the one about his shoulder and the one that slashed across the left side of his face. None of them—even the facial scar—marred his beauty. And he was beautiful.
His hands came to her shoulders then—they looked very dark-skinned against the paleness of her own flesh—and down behind to spread over her shoulder blades so that he could draw her against him until her nipples touched his chest, shocking her all the way down to her toes. He was rock solid—except that a rock was not warm and inviting and did not have a heartbeat. Her own hands found his shoulders as he lowered his head and kissed her openmouthed again.
Kisses were such an unexpected delight. And a shock too, for she had never imagined that lips would part, that mouths would open, that tongues would explore and tangle and even simulate the marital act—or that such shocking activities would have a taste and a sound and would send sensations to which she could not put a name sizzling through her whole body until she yearned for the touch of him there.
Oh, she thought—and it was one of her last coherent thoughts for some time to come—she must not fall in love with him. It would be the most naïve and foolish thing she could possibly do.
Sex, he had said. It is just sex, Chloe.
She must, must, must remember that.
But just sex was glorious beyond imagining, she discovered during the hours after he took her up the steps and laid her on the bed. He followed her down onto it without extinguishing any of the candles. She was able to watch everything they did and to see that he watched too until at some time during the night the candles guttered out one at a time and there was darkness. By then, though, they were sated and exhausted.
His hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue had touched every inch of her body on the outside and a good portion of her body on the inside too. And after the first round of . . . sex, her own hands and mouth had grown almost equally bold. He had been on top of her, she had been on top of him, and once he had even been on her but behind her. And none of it had been just the mildly pleasurable experience she had come to look forward to since her wedding night. Instead it had been . . .
But there were no words. Only feelings that built and built, time after time, to some pinnacle of glory, before exploding into something that made glory seem a paltry thing.
Oh, no, really there were no words.
It occurred to her once or twice—particularly when she heard herself cry out for no apparent reason—that perhaps she ought to be ashamed, that perhaps ladies did not behave with such wanton abandon. Undoubtedly ladies did not, in fact. But she always pushed the unwelcome thought aside. If ladies did not experience the wonders of sex, then they were to be pitied. They did not know what they were missing.
By the time the last of the candles wavered and went out he was sleeping, sprawled on his stomach beside her, his head turned toward her, his nose almost touching her shoulder, one of his arms flung heavily across her waist. He smelled of sweat and something else very male. It was surely one of the most enticing smells in the world—which was a very strange thought to be having. The bedcovers were down around their knees.