Page 35 of Too Wylde To Tame
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“Arewe truly meant to be together?”
The question hit him like a blow. It jolted through him and left him feeling unsteady. After all they had been through, had Kent’s machinations been the final straw? “Of course we are meant to be together. You cannot allow Kent and his schemes to make you doubt that.”
“It isn’t just him,” Charity whispered. “We’ve been beset by obstacles at every turn. Your brother. The fact that he very nearly murdered you! That he tried to abduct me. That it seems half the world is set against us! Now Oliver Kent is doing everything in his power to turn us both into pariahs.”
“And in the process will have succeeded only in doing so to himself,” he offered reassuringly. Closing the distance between them, he took her hands in his, clasping them to his chest. Dipping his head, he placed a kiss on her knuckles, just above the betrothal ring he had placed there more than agonizingly slow week before. “If you don’t wish to marry, then we won’t. We can run away and live scandalously together on some exotic island. We can go north to Scotland and elope. We can run away to America and set their society on its ear. I do not care what we do or where we do it, Charity, so long as we do it together.”
Tears glistened in her eyes as she looked up at him. “You really mean that, don’t you? You’d give up everything for me!”
“I would,” he vowed. “I do think our lives would be significantly more comfortable if I didn’t have to.” The quip had the desired effect and teased a watery laugh from her. “Neither of us is cut out for poverty, I think.”
“We’ll be scandalous. Even if he tells everyone the truth, it will never truly go away.”
He nodded even as he took her into his arms, holding her close. “Then we’ll be scandalous. The fewer invitations we receive the more time we can spend alone together.”
“Let’s get married. Right now. Before anyone or anything else can interfere.”
Frederick laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
EPILOGUE
Three months later…
They had gottenmarried after all. Without further delay, drama or difficulty—the wedding had been concluded successfully and swiftly. Even the poor vicar had wanted to eliminate opportunity for more things to go wrong. They were pronounced man and wife to the assembled guests and then added their names to the register while all the guests were still reeling from everything that had occurred.
Immediately after the wedding breakfast, they’d made for Hamden Court and had not left it since, beyond attending church with enough frequency not to court any further scandal. It was glorious.
“You can redecorate as you like, you know… the house, the gardens. I don’t care a white for any of it, so long as you are happy here.”
Charity was lying on her back on a blanket near the lake, staring up at a blue cloudless sky. She smiled contentedly. They’d spent the afternoon there, enjoying what little breeze could be had in dregs of Summer. But it wasn’t just the heat inside the house they’d escaped from. Every time they disappeared to their chamber in the middle of the afternoon, the maids couldn’t look at either of them without blushing and stammering for days afterward. For the sake of their servants’ maidenly sensibilities, they’d begun finding new and interesting locations for their amorous pursuits. “Why on earth would I wish to redecorate? Hamden Court is perfect as it is.”
He snorted. “It’s drafty. Damp. Dark. Not to mention I think most of the draperies were chosen when my grandparents were newly married.”
Charity shrugged. “I like them. Perhaps they could do with a good cleaning and bit of a refurbishment, but I see no reason to change everything. It’s a bit like being a heroine in one of Cordelia’s gothic novels.”
“Am I your Udolpho then?”
It was Charity’s turn to snort. “Hardly that. You fall too firmly into the heroic category… A fact for which I am very thankful. Some women may find men with ambiguous morals and motives to be attractive, but I like knowing precisely what I’m getting with you.”
“Boredom?” He asked with a self deprecating laugh as he lay down on the blanket beside her, his arms folded behind his head.
Charity turned to face him. “No. Not boredom. A loving husband whom I can rely upon, who treats me as if I am completely precious to him and makes me feel cherished every single day. Any woman who does not envy me that is a fool.”
“I still sound like loyal spaniel.”
Moving with a grace and confidence that was somewhat new to her, Charity tossed her leg over his and came up to a sitting position. She straddled his lean hips as she looked down at him. “Do I look bored, Frederick?”
“You look like a siren sent to lure a man to the depths,” he remarked. Even as he did so, he was tugging her skirts out of the way, removing the barriers between them.
Charity knew precisely what he had in mind and she was more than amenable. Reaching down, she began to free the buttons of his trousers, the fall front parting to reveal his arousal. When he grasped her hips, urging her up onto her knees, she trembled with anticipation. And when she sank down, taking him into her, feeling the exquisite pleasure of his hard flesh moving inside her, she let out a soft moan.
“My god, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice tinged with a bit of awe. “Every day I’m struck anew by it.”
Overwhelmed by sensation as she was, she could not even respond to that sweet sentiment. But then she didn’t have to. Like everything else between them, the heat was instant. The bright burn of passion flared hotly between them… always. And finding themselves alone, with no prying eyes or scandalized servants about, it took only seconds before they were lost in each other. Their bodies moved in an age old rhythm, taking them closer and closer to the peak of pleasure. And then they tumbled over it together.
Charity collapsed against him, her thighs still trembling and the small shocks of pleasure still coursing inside her. “Good heavens. How could you ever think this is boring?”
