Barely a Bride

  * * *

  While they recovered, Griffin sat holding Alyssa on his lap.

  She clung to him, looping her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. She burrowed into his warmth, pressing against his chest, unable to get dose enough, unable to express the emotions she felt until she began showing him by placing soft kisses against his neck and the underside of his jaw.

  Griff held her as if she were the most precious thing on earth, rocking her softly, murmuring soothing nonsense phrases and words of apology.

  “Alyssa, my sweet, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant to lose control. I never meant to take you that way.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Good God, I never meant to cause you pain. Alyssa, I’m sorry…”

  “Shhh!” Alyssa lifted her head and placed two fingers against his lips. “No remorse,” she told him. “No regrets. You did what you had to do. I did the same.”

  “But I lost control. I took your virginity with no regard for—”

  She placed a kiss beneath his earlobe. “It only hurt an instant, and then it was more wonderful that I could ever have imagined.”

  “But you cried…” he protested, determined to do penance.

  “So did you,” she said, reaching up to trace the damp tear track on his cheek.

  Griffin shook his head. “Christ! What you must think of me…”

  “I think you are wonderful,” Alyssa answered honestly. “I think I’m very fortunate that you chose me.” She nipped at his earlobe with her teeth. “I think you’ve more lessons to teach. I think I’d like us to do this again—only in a bed instead of a chair.”

  Griffin laughed. “I think I’ve created a monster. An insatiable Lady Cyprian.”

  Alyssa took his face between her palms and met his gaze. “I may only have two days. When they are over, I may never see you again. I want you to leave me with beautiful memories of our wedding night. I want you to carry beautiful memories of our wedding night away with you. I don’t want you to look back and regret what we did or what we didn’t do. For these two days, I am not just your bride but your wife and your Cyprian…I am whatever you want me to be. And you shall be my lo—” She almost said her love, but at the last moment she amended her words. “Lover and my hero.”

  His stomach rumbled, and a knock sounded at the door almost simultaneously.

  “One moment.”

  Griff carefully disengaged himself, rose from the chair, and placed Alyssa on it. “Stay here,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ignoring the droplets of blood on him, Griff buttoned his trousers. He scooped up Alyssa’s clothing as he made his way across the sitting room to the mistress’s bedchamber. He deposited her traveling suit, bonnet, and gloves on the foot of the bed, then rummaged through Alyssa’s garments until he found a dressing gown he liked.

  Griffin carried it back to her and waited until she’d pulled it on before he opened the door and allowed the footman to hand over the supper tray.

  They ate their fill of the supper Mrs. Jernigan had prepared, and then Griffin filled the washbasin with warm water and tenderly bathed his bride and carried her to bed. His bed. Where she slept the sleep of the exhausted.

  He lay beside her. Watching over her as she slept, he wondered, suddenly, how the devil he was ever going to manage to leave her? How was he ever going to force himself to ride away?