Page 35 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
“Ooooh!” Wilson was clearly thrilled to her core. “It is just likeThe Lost Little Lord. He is your son, then, my lady, and yours, my lord. The legitimate heir, stolen from his people and labouring in poverty! You can trust me, my lady. I will not say a word until you give me leave. Oh, the dear little boy!”
Dismissed, she floated from the room with a dreamy smile.
Nate chuckled. “I hope you plan for us to speak to Elias soon, my love, before your maid bursts.” He took her back into his arms and bent to kiss her ear and then behind it and down her throat.
Sarah, as she felt her robe slipping to the floor, retained enough sense to answer, “In the morning, Nate. We will go up to the nursery in the morning.”
15
Half an hour later, Sarah lay in Nate’s arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder. His mind, which had stopped working somewhere between their kiss by the door and the moment they tumbled naked into the bed, had begun turning over again, even though most of it was still occupied with vague thoughts best summed up in the Scots word ‘Wow!’
He dropped a kiss onto her hair. “I love you,” he said, again. He had lost count of the number of repetitions this evening alone. But it was worth saying again.
“I love you, too,” she replied, and shifted so that she could meet his eyes. “I do not remember it being so good, Nate. Can we do it again?”
“Soon,” he assured her, and even the question had his masculine equipment stirring with interest. “I was not patient,” he added. “Next time, let me see if I can do better. Seven years is a long time to be celibate.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Were you? All the time? I thought you were a sailor—do they not say a girl in every port?”
A rather clumsy interrogation, but she had the right to know, after all. “I cannot claim an excess of virtue, dearest heart. I thought I had lost you forever, that you had been forced to marry someone else. But my only experience was with you, and that was sublime. I could not bear the thought of lying with any other woman. And the mere idea of being one in a line of men, with a female anxious to get it over, take my coin, and move to the next encounter… It shrivelled me where I stood. But when I refused the services offered from the comfort boats, the other sailors took exception.” He smiled at the memory of his solution.
“So, I took the whore of my choice off to a private corner where we wouldn’t be observed, told her I was wed and didn’t plan to break my vows, and paid her to keep silent about what we did. She took my money and went to sleep.”
She and later co-conspirators must have spoken among their colleagues, because whenever the ship returned to a port they’d been before, the pleasure girls would fight among themselves for the chance to be the one to go off with him. In time he was appointed the doctor’s assistant and also grew tall and broad enough to hold his own in a fight, and he was able to give up the masquerade.
Sarah kissed his chin. “Clever. I would not have... That is, I would have forgiven you if...”
Nate kissed her back, and no nonsense with chins, either. When she surfaced for air, he told her, “I kept my vows, Sarah, my love. I will not say I was not tempted from time to time, for I am only a man. But all my dreams have been of you, and I have never danced the horizontal hornpipe with anyone else.”
The piece of navy slang had her giggling, but she replied, “Nor I. You know I planned to find a husband, but it was for Elias, and every man I put on my list got crossed off again.”
Nate, well into his second wind, was losing interest in the conversation. “In fairness, I should tell you that, when the woman I was with was not tired, we talked about a woman’s pleasure. I know I was ignorant in the beginning, my love. I set out to learn how to bring my future wife—who always had your face, my love—the same joy you gave me, and who better to learn from than a woman whose business is pleasure?”
His hands were between them now, seeking to find what made her gasp; what made her moan, and it was on a moan that she said, “You were a good student, then, beloved.”
* * *
Their conjugal activities in the three days of their marriage had been pleasant, much better than the awkwardness of the first time. Pleasant was a totally inadequate word for what Sarah had experienced the previous night. Twice.
Again, this morning, when they first woke, and nearly a fourth time when they were assisting each other to dress, except that Wilson had knocked on the door with her hot chocolate, and with a choice of beverages for Nate.
As Sarah sat before her mirror while Wilson pinned her hair up into a simple roll, her eyes kept drifting to where Nate leaned against a post of the bed, sipping his morning coffee, composed and handsome in fawn pantaloons and a waistcoat in a rich dark red over his snowy shirt. She had set the silver pin in his cravat, and been rewarded with a kiss that made it necessary to tie the cravat again.
Every time their eyes met, he smiled, and his smile sent a warm thrill right to her core. She had wondered if his casual touches, his burning glances, would have less power after they had been intimate again, but the opposite appeared to be true.
She took a deep breath to compose herself. They had sent a message down to the kitchens and up to the nursery to let them know that two more adults would be joining Elias for breakfast. “Thank you, Wilson. That looks very nice,” she told the maid.
“Beautiful,” Nate agreed. “But you have good material to work with, Wilson.”
The maid blushed and agreed. “Yes, my lord. I’ll just tidy up here, my lady, shall I?”
“Thank you, Wilson,” Sarah said again. She caught up the shawl she had ready. The passages of the great house could be chilly at this time of the year. Nate shrugged into his coat, which closely fitted his broad shoulders and chest, but not so tightly he needed assistance to take it on and off. Though she had helped him with his evening jacket last night, and blushed at the thought.
“What lovely thoughts prompt that delicious colour?” he whispered in her ear, as they left the room arm in arm.
“I suspect I shall spend much of my life blushing at my thoughts,” she retorted. “You are a bad influence on me, Nate.” She leaned into him, bumping his shoulder with hers.
“A lifelong ambition fulfilled,” he teased, making her giggle.
