Her thighs spread of their own volition, parting wider for him.
“Please,” she begged, mindless to what she asked for.
However, he knew—answered her plea by thrusting his finger inside her, filling her in agonizing slowness. In and out he penetrated, pausing to caress and tease the little nub before diving back inside her with a deep surge.
At last she surrendered to the building pressure, exploding, crying out as white-hot waves of sensation rushed through her.
Panting, quivering, she collapsed back on the bed, loosening her fists, convinced she would never be the same, never be right. Never want anything but this—him. Every moment of her life.
He shifted, looming over her, his shoulders a vast shadow above her, darker than the murky air surrounding them.
Cool air rolled over her thighs, brushing the exposed flesh he had just ravaged. She squeezed her legs together, shaming heat crawling over her face at the feel of her own wetness, at how totally she surrendered herself—his bride who had demanded distance and time, who had pledged her love and loyalty to a dead man. What a weak fool she must appear.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
His voice rumbled through the near darkness. “Indeed? It seems you did.”
Heat licked her cheeks. She opened her eyes, stared at his shape, wishing she could see his face more clearly and read what thoughts she could in the ice-green of his eyes.
“You tricked me. I was asleep—”
“You knew what was happening. You wanted it.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Then stop denying it . . . and be relieved I don’t finish what we both so clearly want. Despite your maidenly protestations.”
“Finish . . .” She frowned, shaking her head in defiance.
He snatched her hand. Before she realized what he was about, he forced it down between their bodies, pressed her palm over the hard evidence of his desire. She shook, her hand trembling over the hard outline of him against her palm. She quivered at that treacherous, curious part of herself that yearned to move her fingers, to feel him, test the shape and length of him.
“This,” he bit out. He was large and pulsing, straining against his breeches. “Be grateful. You achieved your satisfaction while I’m left wanting.” His voice was harsh, tight, a growl that shivered across her skin. “Unless you care to rectify that?”
She snatched her hand free, rubbing her palm against her bare thigh as though burned. Then, realizing how much flesh she still left exposed, she tugged her nightrail down.
“Of course not,” she hissed. “Perhaps my body responded to you, but I didn’t ask for you to ravish me!”
“No? What do you think happens when you tease a man until his cock grows hard?”
She jerked as though slapped. “I did no such thing!”
He moved suddenly. She tensed, half afraid, half hoping he would touch her again.
The bed lifted as he dropped to the floor in one lithe motion. “Rubbing your sweet little body against me the way you did definitely qualifies as cock-teasing.”
She flinched from his crude language. Bolting to her knees on the bed, she stabbed him in the chest with a finger. “Anything I did was unintentional . . . while I slept,” she snapped. “It didn’t help that we were forced to share the same bed. In the future, we can avoid that. When we return to—”
“Evie, you’re my wife now,” he growled, his voice thick with warning. “And no shrinking virgin.” He held up a hand. “Don’t mistake me. It’s all very affecting. A brilliant act. The coy-maiden-just-wakening-to-desire act certainly arouses me.”
She gasped, the blood rushing to her face. What could she say to that? She could scarcely inform him that it wasn’t an act!
He jerked himself into his clothing, his voice a low snarl as he added, “Perhaps you should simply admit that you’ve an itch that needs appeasing and put an end to these games.”
“Games! I never—”
“Yes,” he snapped. “Pleading for time in one breath because you’re still attached to Ian, then teasing me like any hungry tart in the next.” He drew a ragged breath. “Well, it doesn’t work like that, love. If Ian’s watching, he knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Whether you can face it or not, you want another man—you want me.” His voice took on an edge, sent a shivery twist through her belly. “You crave me deep inside you.”
Outraged, the air painfully tight in her chest, she watched his large shadow move around the room, gathering his boots and jacket. Still on her knees, she hobbled to the end of the bed, closer to where he stood. “Y-you’re a monster!”
“Indeed?” He jabbed a finger through the air at her. “Then next time don’t expect this monster to stop what you started.”
His shadow moved then, coming at her, a fast blur in the room’s dull glow.
He wrapped a hand around her neck and hauled her against him. His lips slammed over hers in a brutal kiss.
With their bodies mashed together, she pounded her fists on his hard shoulders, sputtering hotly against his lips. He took advantage of her open mouth and swept his tongue inside.
With his grip on the back of her neck and his other hand cupping her face, she was a prisoner.
Like a cinder catching fire, the ache between her legs renewed with a vengeance. His mouth singed her lips. The stroke of his tongue against hers robbed the last of her will.
She sagged against him, dead weight, fingers digging into his shoulders, loathing the fine lawn of his shirt, wishing to feel the smooth ripple of his flesh again. Moaning into his mouth, she kissed him back, loving his devouring lips, his hungry tongue.
As quickly as it began, his hands dropped free.
He wrenched away. Panting, she fell back on the bed, fingers flying to her lips, bruised and stinging.
Her eyes burned with furious tears, hating him in that moment. But hating herself even more. Because everything he said was true.
She wanted him. Burned for him.
Spencer’s eyes glittered down at her. “That’s the kiss you denied me earlier. Now we’re man and wife.”
Then he was gone, slamming from the room. The wood door vibrated from the force.
Alone, bereft, she sank down on the bed. Snatching up the pillow, she wrapped both arms around it and clutched it close, wondering if she had not made the biggest mistake of her life.
Lifting her hand, she lightly fingered her mouth and turned her face to gaze blindly out the window, at the snow flurrying past. And she knew.
With heart-stopping intensity, she knew.
If he wanted her in his bed, she lacked the willpower to resist. And then all would be revealed to him. Her inexperience. Her lies. Her growing fascination for him that bordered on obsession.
Her skin shivered. It was only a matter of time.
Spencer stormed into the dark predawn, welcoming the bite of icy wind and the wet fall of snow on his face, hoping it might cool his ardor.
Naked branches creaked and groaned in the wind. He walked, his hard strides crunching over the slushy ground and carrying him from the inn into the empty, shadowed streets of the village. He walked to the edge of the sleeping hamlet, stopping deep within a well of tall trees. Jerking to a stop, he leaned against a moss-frozen trunk.
How many men were forced to walk off unspent ardor the morning following their nuptials?
He cursed. Angry at Evie . . . but even angrier with himself.
Why must he plague her? Why could he not leave her be as she wished him to? Where was his pride?
He never begged. Had never worked to seduce a woman before—had never had to. To what point? There were plenty of women willing to satisfy his needs. Was he simply obsessing over claiming the piece of heaven Ian had found in her arms? Or was it something more?
Was it her?
Shaking his head, he pushed off the tree and continued his walk, not yet ready to return and face her.
br /> Despite her body’s response to him, her head—her heart—still said no. He was beginning to suspect it always would. As much as he wanted her, she would always hold a part of herself distant from him, forever locked away. The part she held for Ian. The belief burned through his veins, fed bile to the back of his throat.
He was not his father or brothers, brutes that acted out every base instinct with no thought to the female in question. She was his wife, Linnie, no matter what he called her now. He owed it to Ian to be more considerate of her than that.
Unfortunately, when it came to Evie, logic and thought did not arise.
Chapter 17
Ashton Grange was ablaze with lights when they arrived. She was grateful for that. Always grateful when light broke the unrelenting dark. It was not until the carriage door opened that she thought to wonder why.
Even as Spencer assisted her down, he trained his eyes on the house. The perplexed expression on his face gave her an uneasy feeling. She glanced from him to the house and back again. “Is something amiss?”
His gaze scanned the house. “It appears we have guests—”
The front door flung open. Mrs. Brooks descended the steps. “Ah, praise the heavens! You’ve returned. I haven’t known what to do! I’ve been beside myself trying to make”—she dropped her voice to a hiss—“that female happy. Nothing pleases her. She arrived shortly after you departed. She and her friends.”
Breathless, she pressed a single hand to her side as if she suffered a stitch. With a quick, furtive glance behind her, she continued at a low whisper, “She pestered me something fierce on your whereabouts.” The housekeeper motioned over her lips as if she were locking her mouth with a key. “Not a word . . . not a word I said on where you be”—she slid her gaze meaningfully to Evie—“or with whom. I informed her that your business is your own and it’s of no—”
Spencer held up a hand and shook his head, as though dizzy. “Mrs. Brooks. Please. I haven’t made sense of a word you’ve uttered. Who is here?”
The housekeeper blinked, as if that much were obvious. “Did I not say? Oh, me! The viscountess.” She flicked Evie an apologetic glance. “The dowager viscountess, that is . . . I’m guessing. Why, your sister-in-law, the Lady Adara.”
Lady Adara? Evie swallowed. He was related to a peer? A viscountess? Her head whirled.
She shot Spencer a quick glance. Why had he not mentioned this before? Thoughts spun through her head. Pieces of a puzzle slowly clicked together, fitting neatly into place.
Lady Adara was his sister-in-law—his late brother’s wife then. The elder brother who left him with everything.
Including a title.
Fury radiated through her. Spencer’s gaze locked with hers. How could he have neglected to tell her this? He was titled. She was titled now. A viscountess. She belonged to a world she had never aspired to enter.
As a Penwich girl, she had never even thought it possible. And later, after Barbados, she never would have wanted entry, would have loathed the scrutiny on her. She would still loathe it.
Betrayal burned hot in her chest. How could he have failed to tell her? It certainly bore mention.
A glance down at her rumpled and horribly unfashionable traveling frock heightened her sense of distress. A fine lady she was not. This Lady Adara would see that in an instant.
Suddenly she wanted to crawl behind one of the large hedges lining the front of the house. How would his family react to their marriage? A woman with no prospects. With only loose ties to a family of questionable means. A woman with claim to a vague first husband of mysterious origins.
A lord could be counted upon to marry an heiress. Or a lady. Or both.
“Adara is here,” Spencer announced grimly, sounding decidedly unsurprised. “Just as well. She can carry the news to Camila and appease her on the matter of my marriage.”
Really, if he’d thought his relations might descend upon them, he ought to have explained who he was to her.
The housekeeper’s lips curled back from her teeth. “She and her friends have been having a high time of it in the drawing room this evening.”
Spencer clasped Evie’s arm and guided her toward the housekeeper. “Take Evie. I’ll see to our . . . guests.”
Relief swelled through Evie. She wouldn’t have to stand witness as he explained his wife to his blue-blooded relation. Cowardly, she supposed, but she was glad to absent herself from the encounter.
They started up the steps, halting as a sudden feminine squeal pealed across the air.
“Spencer!” In the threshold emerged a creature so beautiful that Evie felt like a gorgon, all her flaws magnified—her lack of curves, a narrow face that could only be described as marginally attractive.
Lady Adara was a goddess in a gown of blue silk, her hair gathered in golden ringlets at each side of her head. The dark choker at her neck only drew the eye to her creamy expanse of cleavage.
Others arrived, crowding the threshold. All brightly plumed peacocks. Lady Adara lifted her skirts and hurried forward in a dainty rush of tiny-slippered feet. She tossed herself against Spencer, her arms wrapping around him in warm embrace.
Evie’s face grew tight and itchy as she watched the female hug her husband.
Feeling very much the outsider, she edged closer to the housekeeper. She might be Spencer’s wife, but she clearly didn’t know him. Not as Lady Adara did. She doubted the day would ever arrive when she would fling her arms around her husband in such abandon. A dull ache throbbed beneath her breastbone at this realization.
“Adara,” he greeted, disentangling her from his body. “What are you doing here?”
She slapped lightly at his chest, blinking her thickly lashed eyes. Big, melting brown eyes. “I should ask you that. Why have you not yet come home? Your stepmother and I have been waiting with bated breath. Especially me.”
Evie stiffened. Especially me.
Was it her imagination, or was his sister-in-law a little too affectionate?
Spencer’s voice rumbled, “I assured Bagby—”
“Bagby, pfft! You expected me to take a servant’s accounting that you truly mean to acquire a bride? Spencer, darling, would you even know where to look for an eligible lady? You’ve been at war, for heaven’s sake. Never fear, I’ve a list of only the most exceptional girls from this season’s crop.”
She flattened both palms over Spencer’s chest as though it were the most natural thing to do. “At least you’ve returned with all your parts intact. Young brides can be particular about that sort of thing.” Fingers splayed wide, she skimmed the broad expanse of his chest and giggled. “At least you feel intact, but I might require a closer inspection in private.”
The little witch! Evie had never witnessed a more sordid display. Heat scalded her cheeks. Her fingers curled at her sides in barely checked violence. Incredibly, the urge to seize the woman by her blonde ringlets and toss her to the ground consumed her.
Would it begin then? So soon? Before they even set about making that heir he so desired? Must their marriage already appear the sham it truly was?
She swallowed against the tightening of her throat, horrified at the unwelcome burn in the backs of her eyes. Would he seek out other women with her watching? She blinked fiercely, wondering why she should care so greatly. Could she fault him when she had not obliged him in the marital bed on the very eve of their wedding? Marriage was lifelong. Men did not engage in lifelong abstinence.
Unable to trust herself to not assault the exquisite Lady Adara, she nudged closer to Mrs. Brooks, ready to flee, eager to leave the company of Spencer’s sister-in-law.
“Adara, there is someone I would like you to meet.”
Evie froze. Slowly, she turned.
Spencer stretched a hand toward her.
Adara’s gaze followed, skimming the length of his outstretched arm before lifting up to Evie. Her face registered surprise. Apparently, she had not noticed Evie until now.
“Spencer,” she
murmured, her voice chiding. “Who is this?”
“Adara, this is my wife. Evelyn—”
“Your wife!” Her eyes grew enormous in her face, rendering her almost unattractive. Evie suppressed a smile, secretly wishing she would maintain the expression.
“How can that be?” Adara continued. “Bagby made no mention of a wife when he returned from seeing you, only that you were agreeable to acquiring a bride.” Splotches of red broke out over her face. “Is this some kind of jest, Spencer?” She propped delicate fists on her waist. “Because I assure you, I am not amused. This, this . . . person cannot be your wife. Camila and I had plans, far more suitable candidates than this—”
“No jest, Adara,” he replied, his voice cutting. “You and Camila must suffer your disappointments. I decided to choose my own bride.” His broad palm splayed against the small of Evie’s back. “Won’t you properly greet my bride? She is your successor.”
Evie slid a glance to his stone-carved face, certain he was receiving some sort of twisted pleasure from the entire episode, and sure of the fact that it failed to register with him that he did so at her expense.
After a moment’s hesitation, Adara skirted a curtsey, her brown eyes no longer melting brown but hard chips of obsidian. “Lady Winters, welcome.” Lady Winters? Was that her name then? “We have much to . . .”
Her words faded to a droning buzz in Evie’s head. Lady Winters. She glared at Spencer. At her questioning stare, he gave a single hard shake of the head. A warning. The message in his eyes was clear. Not now.
She bit her lip to keep from demanding an explanation then and there. Only pride kept her in check. She would not have his sister-in-law learn that she did not even know her own name. She would not have her learn she knew close to nothing about the man she’d married. If possible, she would keep that shame to herself.
“Adara, if you will excuse us. It’s been a long journey, and Evie and I would like to rest.”
Adara’s face grew splotchier. “Of course. You’re newlyweds, after all.” Her head cocked, dark eyes snapping malice. “I well remember what that was like.” Her lips curved into a brittle smile. “Your brother and I didn’t surface for days.” Stepping aside, she waved them within.