Page 19 of The Marquess's Final Fling
She spun in his arms, tears tracking down her cheeks. “You will not tell me about your wives.”
He nodded, once, bewildered. Did she not wish to know his past experience? Why he wanted her? Why he had always wanted her? “Very well.”
“I never want to learn. Not one word. Not how you cared for them. They for you. What they did. Or didn’t. I do not want to know who they were. And do you know why?”
He could guess, but he remained silent and let her go on.
She breathed in big gulps of air. “Because I envied them. They were rich and young and—yes—fertile. And yours. They were your partners, your mates, your lovers. And I was not. Could never be. Never. And when I would see them in a shop or read about them in a newspaper or even allow myself to think of them, I was blind with jealousy. They were yours and I wanted to be.”
Without any words to soothe her wounds, he cupped her cheeks and wiped her tears with his thumbs. Her anger and her sorrow over his marriages were a mirror to his own. He would not tell her that. It was not the moment for such confessions. The right moment might not ever come.
Instead he circled his arms around her shaking body and brought it against his own. Stroking her back, he calmed her, then lifted her in his arms and took her back to their bed. There in sweet kisses and a thousand caresses, he attempted to declare his own sorrow for his past mistakes. And as he entered her warm and welcoming body once more, she whispered how she loved him.
“I have,” she said against his lips, “from the first instant I looked at you.”
For tonight, her confession was all he needed to give him encouragement for the morrow.
* * *
She awoke hours later, tangled up in him. His arms. His legs. His heart. She had known erotic fulfillment with one of her husbands, but nothing could ever match the ecstasy of these hours in Theo’s embrace. He was kind, he was careful, he was thorough. He was enchanting merely being himself. Merely being in love with her.
She blinked at the one guttering candle and marked the soft shadows in the room. It was Christmas morning and she’d received the best gift she never thought possible. She had Theo in her bed. What he had known with either of his wives, or what perhaps he’d learned with any other woman he might have coupled with in his youth, had been lavished on her. Without hesitation and filled with delights she’d never known.
She gazed upon him. His head on her pillow, his glorious pale blond hair ruffled against the lace, the sight of him tore her heart. He was so handsome with his firm jaw, the sharp line of his nose and his masculine lips that had touched her in secret places in her core and in her heart. He was that rare man who could declare himself wrong. He could also attempt to correct his error.
But his efforts would be in vain.
In twelve years, not much had changed about her. She was still very much the same person. Older, true. Wiser, some. But still no one by many standards of the society in which she lived. She was the widow of a minor noble. She was still marginally able to support herself. Her widow’s portion from her last husband had been smaller than the previous. She sighed.
Her little house on the edge of Mayfair was big enough for her. Tidy, appropriately furnished, good enough to receive her friends for tea. Three hundred a year was just enough for her to hire a lady’s maid, a cook and a butler who served as a man-of-all-work. Her lady’s maid often lit the fires and cleaned the grates in her house. Her cook also did her own grocer’s shopping and scullery cleaning. Penn was frugal, careful. It was tiring.
These hours with Theo had lifted her spirits up and out of all that. This had been the most fun she’d had in years. Long, dull years.
Yes, she was risqué to make love with him. She was being immoral to take him to her bed, but that she did not care about. She never had breached the rules of God and man before in any way. If He wished to punish her for this respite, then He surely was cruel. She’d argue that point with Him in church the next time she took herself there for consolation.
However, she also understood His largesse. She did believe He had some. And this dalliance with Theo was what she needed, what she would take to her dreary future.
He curled a muscular arm around her and drew her against him. “You look sad. Tell me why.”
She shook off her blue thoughts in favor of smiling at her lover. “It’s cold. I much prefer summertime. Don’t you?”
He sent her a look that said he knew she was prevaricating. But he stroked her arm, lifted her chin and said, “May I make love to you on this Christmas morning?”
“You could give me no finer gift,” she told him truly.
* * *
He had another gift for her. One he’d brought with him from home, hoping, praying she would be here and accept it. But he’d save that for later, after he assured himself of her willingness to marry him.
He knew her, despite years of separation. Knew her well. And he was painfully aware that she held back a portion of herself. Not her heart. Not her body. But some other aspect he could not name. Until he learned it, he would not press her.
For to press her meant she’d run from him.
And that he could not bear.
Not now.
Not after this…this rapture he had shared with her.
