Page 18 of A Kiss Gone Wylde
As they stepped fully into the entryway, he saw his mother’s buzzing insect of a maid leaving the dining room and heading for the kitchen. That did not bode well. His mother had not bothered to plan, host or participate in the direction of the wedding breakfast, small though it was. She’d decried his choice of bride and his decision to marry at all quite vehemently. Yet she would certainly sit in pride of place in the dining room and demand her due. It was intolerable.
“Give me a moment to make sure all is in readiness. Barrett, please see the Baroness and our guests to the drawing room for the time being,” Payne stated. He was already striding down the hall toward the dining room. Opening the door, he found his mother seated at one end of the long table. “What are you doing?”
“Just waiting for everyone to arrive, dear.”
“That is no longer your seat,” he replied stiffly. “You have taken to your bed, heartsick at the thought of my scandalous marriage, and yet for the celebration of said marriage, you insert yourself into the dining room where it is to take place in the very chair that should—and will— be occupied by my wife.”
“Surely she won’t mind! After all, she’s only been a baroness for a quarter of an hour. She’s likely intimidated by the very thought of heading such a table as this in a house as fine as this one.”
“Mother, get up, go into the drawing room and greet Lady Marguerite and the Misses Wylde. I will formally introduce you to Benny—”
“Benny?” She squawked loudly. “What sort of name is Benny? Sounds more like a stable lad than a baroness! Honestly, Payne, this will have terrible consequences. I just know it.”
“Benedicta,Baroness Davenport, will be escorted into this room by me and will be seated precisely where you are now, mother. You may choose to take another seat and join us or you may retire to your room and I will inform Hampton to begin preparing the dower house for you.” It, despite what his mother might wish to believe, was not an empty threat. He meant every word of it. They had enough things working against them in their marriage—namely that they hardly knew one another—without adding his mother’s childish petulance to the situation.
After a moment of nonverbal challenge, his mother rose and shifted to another seat. “Thank you, mother.”
She didn’t look defeated. She didn’t look gracious. If anything, he could only describe her expression as mutinous. It was going to be a very, very long day.
10
“She detests the very sight of me.”
Payne looked over his shoulder at her. “That isn’t true.”
Benny shook her head as she plopped into a chair before the fireplace. Dejected, disheartened and as many other adjective to describe misery as she could possibly come up with, would not even begin to convey just how terrible it all was. “How could you even think to contradict me on that? She called me by the wrong name at least seven times… and four times she stated, unequivocally, that she couldn’t remember my name as no one had ever bothered to introduce us!”
“My mother is a—well, she’s my mother. I am not at all blind to her faults.”
Benny looked up to see him walking toward her. At some point, he’d shed his coat. And his waistcoat. He was, even as he walked, undoing the intricate knot of his cravat.
“She has them and they are plentiful,” he continued. The cravat dropped to the carpet and he began to work on the stock. “But Benny, we are in our bedchamber on the afternoon of our wedding—newly married.” The stock fell to the floor.
Benny’s mouth went dry. He stood only a few feet from where she was sitting as he shrugged out of his braces.
“I say this with as much kindness and patience as possible… the very last thing I wish to discuss right now is my mother.” He reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging it free of his breeches and then pulling it over his head.
Benny stared at him. She undoubtedly looked like a gaping idiot, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care. He was magnificent. She’d never really been the sort to have her head turned by a man. But then she’d never seen a man without his shirt on either. Certainly, she’d never been this close to a man in such a state of undress. She had absolutely no idea what was about to happen.
“I’m not going to pounce on you.” He offered that reassurance almost as if he’d read her mind. “Give me your hand.”
Nervously, Benny lifted her hand and placed it in his. Immediately, he pulled her to her feet. With the difference in their height, she was left staring directly at his chest. Satiny skin and crisp hair over firm muscles… and she was remembering what it felt like to be kissed by him. To be held firmly against him and to have his hands on her body. Things had not progressed very far last night, but they’d certainly gone far enough that she knew she wanted more. She just wasn’t entirely certain what ‘more’ was.
For the sake of being completely honest with him, she admitted, “Aunt Marguerite said—rather rudely—that she was not my mother and it was my mother’s place to tell me about… well, to tell me. But of course, my mother didn’t have time to get here and so now I have no idea what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” he answered. “Well… there is one thing you have to do.”
She looked up. “What’s that?”
“You have to tell me if I do anything that you do not like. If you are frightened or unsure or if it simply isn’t pleasant for you… just tell me.”
“How do I do that?”
He smiled down at her. Then he reached up and swept a stray lock of hair back from her face, his thumb brushing gently over her cheek and then over the fullness of her lower lip in a sweet caress. “You say, ‘Payne, I don’t like that. I liked it better when you do this thing or that thing or the other thing’. I will not be offended. It will not hurt my vanity. It’s a day for exploration… a day for us both to discover what we like.”
“I think you are starting at an advantage,” she pointed. “You already know what you like.”
“I know that I like your hair down,” he said, and then began to pluck the pins from it. One by one, the hairpins slipped from her hair and disappeared into his large hands. When the last one had been freed and her dark hair fell over her shoulders, he placed the pins on the table.
