“That sounds intriguing.” Daphne gazed up at him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Pierce went rigid, then abruptly checked himself. “No, Mrs. Thornton. When I have you next, it’s going to be in a bed. My bed. Where we can enjoy each other with total and utter abandon. With no carriage seats nor sofa cushions to inhibit our movements or our pleasure. All right?”
“All right.” Daphne was barely able to speak.
“Good.” He glanced impatiently out the carriage window. “I am suddenly very eager to reach Markham.”
The bath water did indeed feel wonderful, Daphne thought gratefully, sinking deeper into the tub. She’d insisted on bathing herself, much to the chagrin of her new lady’s maid, Lily, whom she’d selected from the profusion of female servants she’d met earlier. Lily was of middle years, kind faced and experienced, having served the late Duchess of Markham for a dozen years.
Markham itself was not nearly so stark and intimidating as Daphne had anticipated. Oh, the manor was enormous, with hundreds of rooms on thousands of acres. But there was a seed of potential floating about, almost as if the estate were sleeping and needed the right touch to awaken it.
Daphne smiled at her fanciful notion. Perhaps it was the hot water making her silly, or perhaps it was the lingering elation over the hope she’d spied in her mother’s eyes when Pierce had described his various properties to her, as well as his various contacts, who would ensure her safety day and night. At this moment, Elizabeth was readying herself for her morning trip to Rutland, where Pierce owned a small, picturesque estate of modest acreage and beautiful scenery, an estate Elizabeth was most eager to make her home.
Once again, Pierce had answered a prayer.
“Sleeping, Snow flame?”
Pierce’s deep, resonant voice jarred Daphne from her reverie. She started, her eyes flying open to see her husband crouched down beside her, clad only in trousers and an open shirt.
“Pierce. I thought you were gathering men to safeguard your estate in Rutland.”
“The arrangements have been completed. Missives are in the process of being delivered. Rutland will be well guarded by the time of your mother’s arrival.”
“You’re wonderful.”
He smiled, lowering himself to his knees and rolling up his sleeves. “And you’re beautiful.” He brushed her damp hair aside to kiss her nape. “Did I waken you?”
“I wasn’t asleep. I was daydreaming.”
“About what?” His hands dipped into the water, then glided up and down her bare arms with slow, lazy motions, breaking the surface to caress her shoulders.
“About you,” she managed.
“I’m flattered.” Submerging again, his fingers found her waist, curved about her tingling skin, stroking up and down, pausing on each upward journey, always stopping just shy of her breasts.
Daphne began to tremble violently, everything inside her going liquid. With each whisper-soft caress, her stomach knotted, her nipples tightened into hard buds of need. “Pierce—”
He kissed her nape again, shifting a bit to feather teasing kisses down her neck.
“Pierce.” His name was a plea. She was going to die from the tension.
He claimed her breasts in one fluid motion, cupping their weight in his palms, lazing his thumbs over her nipples.
A muted whimper escaped Daphne’s lips.
“It’s late afternoon, my exquisite wife,” he murmured. “Are you ready for me?”
Wordlessly, she nodded.
“Are you certain?” His hands left her breasts, drifted over her rib cage and hips, then slipped between her thighs.
She bit her lip to silence the harsh cry threatening to erupt.
“Are you, sweetheart?” He touched her, parting her with his fingers, circling with his thumb. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, nearly unraveling from his first intimate caress. “Pierce!”
He was on his feet, taking her with him, sloshing water everywhere and not giving a damn. Their rooms were adjoining. Pierce carried Daphne through her bedchamber and into his, lowering them both to his bed.
“I’m drenching your sheets.” She uttered a token protest, simultaneously tugging at his shirt.
“You are, aren’t you?” Live flames blazed in Pierce’s eyes. “Let’s remedy that.” Lowering his head, he began licking droplets from her throat, the hollow between her breasts. “Better?” he breathed raggedly, brushing her hands away to tear off his shirt, fling it to the floor.
“God.” Daphne’s eyes drifted closed. “Better. And worse.”
“Ah. More droplets of water.” Pierce’s tongue flicked over her nipple once, twice, then, together with his lips, surrounded the velvet peak, drawing it deep into his mouth.
“I’m going to die,” she gasped.
“Only of pleasure.”
“Pierce.”
“I love the sound of my name on your lips.” He moved up to kiss her, opening his mouth hungrily over hers. “You taste like scented rain.” He lowered his torso over hers, crushing her sensitized breasts beneath the hard wall of his chest. “Christ,” he rasped, rubbing his skin against hers. “You feel like heaven.”
Helplessly, Daphne arched against him, feeling the hard ridge of his erection pulse against her tender flesh, impeded only by his trousers. “Now, Pierce. Please, now.” She tugged at the hindering material.
He rose to his knees, his gaze hot and restless, his face hard with desire, and Daphne caught her breath as she waited for him to shed his clothing and come to her.
In one swift motion, he raised her legs over his shoulders, opening her totally to his possession. Before Daphne could protest, he bent his head, sinking his tongue deep, deep into her moist sweetness.
From somewhere in the distance, Daphne heard her own muffled shriek, and then the world spun away until she knew only Pierce’s mouth, Pierce’s tongue, and the forbidden ecstasy he was lavishing on her senses. She couldn’t bear it, struggling for him to stop at the same time as she begged him to continue. Pinpoints of unendurable need melded into one, spiraling endlessly, converging until they exploded into a shattering starburst of sensation that convulsed throughout her body, leaving her limp and barely conscious.
Vaguely, she heard Pierce make a sound of inarticulate wonder, felt the bed give as he vaulted to his feet, dragged his trousers from his body.
“Daphne.” Her name was an endearment, and Daphne’s lashes lifted as her husband came down over her. He nudged her legs apart, then paused, whip-taut, in the cradle of her thighs. “I have to have you.”
She welcomed him, body and soul, reaching up to caress the taut muscles of his forearms, wrapping her legs around his as she gave him the answer he sought. “You do have me, Pierce. You always will.”
With a ragged groan, Pierce thrust into her, one long, inexorable stroke, stretching the tender skin that still reeled from his earlier assault.
Oblivious to the minor twinge of discomfort, Daphne sobbed her pleasure, utterly engulfed in renewed sensation. She arched to meet him, opening herself to take him as totally as her body would allow.
Pierce stiffened as he sensed her body’s resistance. “Snow flame.” He could scarcely breathe, much less speak. “Am I hurting you?”
Fiercely, Daphne shook her head, winding her arms and legs about him. “No. Don’t stop.”
Bracing himself on his forearms, Pierce withdrew slowly, shuddering as he searched his wife’s flushed face. “God help me, I don’t think I can.” Even as he spoke, he was pushing into her again, groaning aloud as her muscles clasped him tightly, lured him deeper into her velvety wetness. “Christ, you strip away all my control.” His hips were moving of their own volition, the friction of her tight passage around his rigid shaft more than he could bear. “Daphne, I can’t go slowly. I’ve got to—”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He swore softly, hooking his arms beneath her knees to bring her up harder, open her m
ore fully to the dark craving that clawed at his soul. “If I hurt you—”
“You won’t.” She threaded her fingers through the damp hair at his nape, as unafraid as she was certain of Pierce’s need and her own. “I love you, Pierce.”
The world exploded at her vow.
His restraint splintering into nothingness, Pierce surrendered to the wildness, his urgency beating, inside him like a relentless wave pounding at the shore, to be assuaged only when its power was spent. His thrusts became savage, incessant, demanding every ounce of passion Daphne could give.
She gave it all.
With a fervor she never knew she possessed, Daphne met her husband’s body thrust for thrust, immersed in his frenzied drive for fulfillment. Drowning in sensation, she dug her nails in his back, whimpering his name with each downward stroke, moaning uninhibited pleas for more that at any other time would make her blush.
“Daphne.” Pierce’s powerful muscles went rigid, his body drenched in sweat. He threw back his head, the tendons in his neck standing out as his body reached a pinnacle of sensation too sharp to withstand, too miraculous to define. “Take me, Snow flame,” he ground out, crushing her loins to his. “Meld your fire with mine.”
His words ended on a groan, and he shuddered, once, twice, his hips moving convulsively, his fingers biting into the tender skin of her thighs.
Daphne felt his first burst of wet heat inside her—a sensation so profoundly beautiful, so excruciatingly erotic that it pushed her over the edge. Absorbing the enormity of his climax, she surrendered to her own, dissolving around him in hard, gripping contractions that made him shudder anew, pour into her with a second climax more powerful than the first.
He collapsed on top of her, the intimacy of his weight as wondrous as the passion that preceded it.
Joyously content, Daphne trailed her fingers along the hard, damp planes of Pierce’s back, feeling the muscles flex against her fingertips, the tremors of reaction still rippling through him.
“Snow flame,” he managed, his lips in her hair. “It’s never been—”
“I know.” She brushed her open mouth against his shoulder, repeating the declaration she’d given him at the height of their passion. “I love you, Pierce.”
She felt, rather than saw, his reaction; a slight tensing of his body against hers.
“Christ, I need you,” he choked out, reluctant and incredulous all at once. “It scares the hell out of me how much.”
“I know both those things as well,” Daphne acknowledged, rubbing her cheek against his skin. “But Pierce?”
He raised his head, gazed down at her.
“Your fear will subside. My love won’t.” A tremulous smile hovered about her lips. “Snow flames bloom forever.”
16
PIERCE LEANED AGAINST THE door frame of the dining room entranceway, smiling tenderly as his beautiful wife, a whirlwind in lilac, dashed about, first to the sideboard to make certain the brandy decanter was full, next to the table to realign the silverware, then on to the draperies to readjust the amount of moonlight infusing the room. Intermittently, she would snatch a tray from a passing servant, chiding him for carrying too heavy a load, and call out to Mrs. Gates that she was working herself and her staff far too hard.
So this was what it meant to have a home.
Overwhelmed by contentment, Pierce reveled in a new sense of belonging, one he’d been denied for thirty years. Now, after only six weeks of marriage to Daphne, he could actually feel the empty spaces of his heart begin to fill, pervaded by the rare, unspoiled wonder that was his wife.
He was one hell of a lucky gambler.
Slowly, he strolled into the room, coming up behind Daphne and, indifferent to their lack of privacy, wrapping his arms about her waist. “Unfurrow that beautiful brow. Everything looks perfect.”
Daphne started. “Pierce. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He kissed her hair. “Obviously not. You were too busy organizing this grand banquet.”
She disengaged herself with a murmur of protest. “Don’t be irreverent. This is our first official dinner party.”
His grin was indulgent. “Sweetheart, it’s only the vicar, not a swarm of strangers.”
“I know.” Unappeased, Daphne looked worriedly about the room. “Nevertheless, he is our first guest since I became your wife. I want everything to be flawless.”
Pierce felt strangely touched by the sentimentality behind his wife’s apprehension. “It will be, Snow flame. With you at the table, how could it be anything less?”
He was rewarded with a brilliant smile.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Gates appeared at Daphne’s elbow. “Forgive me for interrupting, but, as your dinner guest is due any moment, may I please be allowed to resume my duties? I’ve idled about as you insisted for a quarter hour. I assure you, I am quite renewed. And I’d like to make certain Cook has things well in hand.”
“Of course.” Daphne nodded cheerfully, wondering why her housekeeper seemed so flustered by a simple suggestion that she rest. “But call me if you or Cook need any help in the kitchen.”
Mrs. Gates’s mouth opened and closed several times. “Yes, Your Grace.” Still gaping, she returned to her domain.
Laughter rumbled from Pierce’s chest.
“Why are you laughing?” Daphne questioned. “And why is Mrs. Gates behaving so oddly?”
“I imagine she’s wondering much the same about you,” Pierce replied, desperately trying to straighten his face.
“I? What did I do that was odd? I merely offered my assistance—an offer she evidently found less than appealing. Am I really that dreadful a housekeeper?”
“I don’t believe your skills are the issue, sweet. Tell me, who runs the house, or for that matter, the kitchen at Tragmore?”
“Mrs. Frame runs both.” Daphne smiled fondly as she explained. “She’s been at Tragmore since I was a child, and she’s quite indispensable. Why, the entire female staff reports to her for their duties. And with good reason. Oh Pierce, she’s so wonderful. Not only is she an incomparable cook and housekeeper, she’s also a fine, compassionate woman. Why, without her help—” Abruptly, Daphne halted.
As always, Pierce’s gaze probed deep inside his wife, touching a place only he could reach. “Without her, you couldn’t have brought food to the village children,” he finished, noting the flicker of surprise that crossed his wife’s face. “I watched you at the schoolhouse that day. I saw you share yourself with the children. It wasn’t difficult to put the pieces together and guess what you’ve been doing. Besides, I know you, Snow flame. Not only your beautiful body, but your even more beautiful soul. I thought by now you understood that.” Tenderly, he cupped Daphne’s face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. “Mrs. Frame sounds like a remarkable person. Almost as remarkable as the enchanting young woman she aided.” His fingers paused. “Never be afraid to tell me anything, least of all about your gifts to others. The days of being punished for your kindness are over. I’m so bloody proud of you. Your selflessness, especially with those children, means more to me than I can explain.”
“You needn’t explain,” Daphne whispered, reaching up to kiss her husband’s chin. “Because, you see, just as you know me, I know you, as well.”
“So you do.”
An instant of silence hung between them.
“Why did you ask about Mrs. Frame?” Daphne inquired, studying her husband’s veiled expression as if trying to assess its cause. “And what has she to do with Mrs. Gates’s strange behavior?”
Pierce’s brooding look vanished; his grin returned. “I suspect the late Duke and Duchess of Markham conducted themselves in a most conventional manner. Therefore, Mrs. Gates is as unaccustomed as the rest of the servants to our, shall we say informal, overseeing of the staff.”
“Oh.” Daphne ingested that possibility. “You’re saying my offer to help out in the kitchen was improper?”
“I’m saying that the offer was totally improper an
d equally wonderful. Never change, Daphne. Your decency and lack of arrogance are humbling. Even to me.” Pierce’s eyes twinkled. “Moreover, if Mrs. Gates is unsettled by your actions, imagine what Langley and Bedrick are saying about mine. Why, poor Langley still clasps his gloved hands behind his back the instant he sees me approaching, terrified that I might repeat my original attempt to shake his hand in greeting. And Bedrick continues to appear dutifully in my bedchamber each morning, desperately hoping I’ll reconsider and allow him to dress and shave me, although I repeatedly tell him to give it up. I doubt if either of them will ever be quite the same again.”
Daphne laughed, smoothing the ends of Pierce’s cravat. “We are a bit disconcerting, now that you call it to my attention.”
Seeing the glow in his wife’s eyes, feeling her small, delicate hands on his chest, Pierce was seized by a surge of lust, coupled with another, more complex emotion so powerful it nearly brought him to his knees.
“What is it?” Daphne reacted to the tensing of her husband’s muscles.
Pierce stared down at her, feeling off balance in a way he’d never experienced and vulnerable in his inability to conquer it. Fiercely, he caught Daphne’s fingers in his, brought her palms to his mouth, searching for words to explain what he himself couldn’t fathom. “Your touch,” he said hoarsely, responding to the only uncomplicated part of this madness—his lust. “The moment you put your hands on me, I’m on fire. It’s as simple as that.” He kissed the fluttering pulse at her wrist, traced the delicate veins with his tongue. “If the vicar weren’t due here this minute, I’d lock that damned door, lower you to the carpet, and make love to you until you begged me to stop.”
Daphne made a soft sound of pleasure, rising up on tiptoes to brush Pierce’s lips with her own. “If my begging you to stop is the prerequisite to our receiving visitors, then I fear Markham will be sadly lacking in guests.”
With a rough sound, Pierce dragged her into his arms. “You tempt me beyond reason.”
“That’s not temptation,” Daphne demurred, her expression as heated as his. “ ’Tis merely gambling where I’m certain I’ll win.”