Page 58 of Miss Delightful
She gave her teeth what had to be the most thorough scrubbing in the history of teeth, while Alasdhair ran the warmer over the sheets twice. When she emerged from behind the privacy screen, his dressing gown was belted snugly at her waist, and her hair was still in its tidy coiffure.
“You’ll want to climb under the covers while they’re warm,” Alasdhair said, ambling past her to the privacy screen. “I’ll be along in a moment.”
He heard the snick of the bedroom door lock as he tended to his ablutions. The bedcovers rustled, and he had the sense that he was in the very early stages of a long siege. There was no such thing as a good siege. The rank and file had hated sieges, coming as they did at a high cost in human life after a long and brutal struggle to breach the city walls.
Alasdhair hated sieges for more reasons than that. Better by far to win a battle outright with massed armies or, best of all, to prevail by strategy rather than bloodshed.
When he was as well washed and as sweet-smelling as soap and water could make him, he came around the screen and found Dorcas lying on the far side of the bed, covers pulled up to her chin. What strategy could possibly prevail against so much uncertainty and misgiving? Against all of those bad memories and all of that bewilderment?
Alasdhair was debating whether to peel out of his breeches when it occurred to him that he was viewing the whole situation the wrong way ’round.
“You have doubts,” he said, unbuttoning his falls. “About yourself, about your entitlement to marital joy.”
“About myabilityto enjoy certain acts…” Dorcas fell silent as he tossed his breeches on top of her tidy stack on the clothes press.
He was only half aroused, a flannel soaked in frigid water having a calming effect on the humors.
“I have doubts too,” Alasdhair said, making no move to climb under the covers when Dorcas was conducting such a thorough visual inspection of his person. “I have not been with a woman for years. For a long time, I had no desire for such intimacy, then indifference became a habit. With you…”
She ceased her brooding perusal of his parts, her gaze traveling over his belly and chest to fix on his face. “With me?”
“I might be too eager. I might disappoint you. I might think I’ve shown you a fine time only to find a polite farewell note awaiting me on the blotter in the study. I might inadvertently offend you or—God help me—cause you discomfort. I might fail you.”
Alasdhair well knew how to please a woman, and his equipment was in roaringly good working order. Nevertheless, a recitation that had started off as a list of theoretical risks—purelytheoretical risks—had become an admission of honest worries.
“You might failme?” Dorcas asked, folding back the bedcovers. “Explain yourself.”
He joined her on the mattress and snuggled up along her side. “I am haunted too, Dorcas. Not in the same manner you are, but by memories and doubts. I want only to acquit myself well in your eyes, even to impress you, but the possibility exists that I will fall flat, as it were, and earn your pity or contempt instead.”
Dorcas bundled closer, her chemise bunched about her thighs. “It’s complicated?”
“I don’t want it to be. I want us to be two people who are smitten with one another and anticipating their vows, as smitten couples do. No sieges, no regrets, only rejoicing and gratitude. If we don’t precisely blast open heaven’s front door in the next hour, I hope we enjoy the view from the gates and give it another go the next time we’re so inclined.”
A small, tight knot in his gut eased to put that hope into words. Marriage was a long-term undertaking, ideally, and becoming lovers was a joy to be savored.
“Rejoicing and gratitude,” Dorcas said. “I like that. Also kisses. I do enjoy your kisses, Alasdhair.” She pressed her lips to his chest. “You cannot know what glee it brings me that I enjoy your kisses, and I like kissing you too.”
Well, yes, he could know. He of all men could know the wonder of reviving a pleasure that he’d put aside years ago out of moral necessity. The mechanics were the same now—lips, sighs, tastes, tongues—but the objective was not only physical pleasure, but also physicalloving.
He offered Dorcas flowery phrases—in Gaelic—and she nuzzled his ears. The fire burned down, her chemise ended up at the foot of the bed, and she caressed him in places that had gone uncaressed for too long.
“Your touch is special,” he said, mildly disconcerted that the words had come out in English. “You soothe and arouse at the same time.”
Dorcas was wrapped along his side, her fingers brushing through the hair on his chest. “I am not soothed. I am relaxed, but also restless—inside.”
Relaxedwas good.Restless insidewas very good. “Why not climb aboard and see where the restlessness takes us?”
“Climb aboard?” She propped herself up on an elbow. “I thought you did the climbing aboard.”
Alasdhair added a lack of imagination to Mornebeth’s many, many faults.
“If you are astride me, you control the particulars.” Then too, if she was in the saddle, his hands were free to explore other particulars.
“Astride you. Women do this?”
“Dorcas, beloved of my heart, I don’t care if Queen Charlotte is a regular exponent of certain procreative practices or has a confirmed disgust of others. If you and I choose to try a little experiment in this bed, that is nobody’s business but ours. I do believe you like the notion of being in charge.”
She was clearly intrigued and not about to admit it. “One sometimes had difficulty breathing with a grown man collapsed atop one.”
