It wasn’t possible for James to be any harder, but he managed it just looking at her.
“Are you still hungry?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, not really listening.
“For food,” she clarified.
“No.”
“Good.” She reached over, collected the plates, and put them neatly on her dressing table. She then collected the wine bottle and glasses, the napkins, and the little cakes they hadn’t touched, and added all of it to the pile on the table. “You need to move,” she informed him.
James rolled off the bed, telling himself that he was probably going to spend a good deal of his life being told what to do. And making beds. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t trade one of her commands for a moment of piratical freedom.
“Now we’re going to tidy this sheet,” she announced.
He eyed her. “I think we should go to that island we own and live in a hut with no well, only one stream, and no sheets at all.”
“I think not,” she said. “If you stand on that side, we can get this nice and tidy again.”
He obeyed. “And then?”
“And then we will put the coverlet back as well.”
“And?”
She looked up at him, and the expression in her eyes sent a bolt of heat straight to his groin. “Then we’re going to make love the way respectable married couples do.”
“We will?” His voice came out in a groan and he snapped the coverlet over the bed as if a tornado had entered the room. “What way is that?”
“Under the covers,” Theo told him. “In the dark.”
“Right.” He cared neither where nor how it took place as long as she would consider letting him back inside her delectable body.
A few minutes later he learned that when his wife said “dark,” she really meant it. Theo snuffed the candles and turned the Argand lamp down to a dim glow, and then had to feel her way in the dark back to the bed.
He heard a thump and a “drat” that made him grin. For his part, his eyes adjusted quickly; he was used to stealing aboard ships in the dead of night.
By the time she made her way under the covers, James was shaking all over with less-than-altogether-controlled desire.
But he had one last thing to tell her first.
“I love you.” He whispered it into the darkness, running his hands through her sleek hair. “You’re too elegant for me, and too beautiful, and far too smart, but I still love you, even given those drawbacks.”
She snorted, but then she turned her head and kissed his wrist. He’d take it.
James was sure of one thing. He would keep the sheets over their heads, if that’s what she wanted. He didn’t need light. All he needed was her warm, sweet-smelling body twisting under his hands.
He gloried in the way she arched toward him with a sigh of relief when his lips found hers, and her squeak of pleasure when he ran his fingers up her inside thigh, her moan when those fingers moved on to warmer and wetter areas.
Every time their movements disarranged the sheet, he pulled it back into place. No words were exchanged, until he was kissing his way down her stomach.
“Are you . . . you aren’t going to do that, are you?”
Her voice came with a little pant, it gratified him to notice.
“Yes,” he said, trying to keep his voice mild and detached—and failing. “I am. I must, Daisy. You never said this was distasteful.”
He thought she muttered something, but it wasn’t in a Theo tone of voice, so he took it as a yes. Surely she would be Daisy for him, now and then? Between the sheets?
She tasted like the sweetest nectar a god could wish for. He licked and played and did all the things he spent seven years dreaming of doing. He eased her legs apart to give himself more room and kept exploring until he could feel tension building in her body. When she was strung tight as a wire, her breath escaping in tiny gasps, he slowed down and practiced torment.
And when he could feel that she was on the very edge of breaking, he raised his head and said, from under the tented sheet, “I don’t think we should have babies, Daisy.”
He heard a mumbled expletive, followed by a sharp “Don’t stop!”
“But I have something to say,” he persisted. “As I said, I don’t think we should have babies. I’ve changed my mind.” He blew on her, very gently, and ran his thumb down all that silky skin.
She trembled under his hands and then the sheet was snatched off and tossed to the side, and she cried, “What did you say?”
“No babies,” he said, easing his finger into a passage so tight and wet and hot that he nearly came on the bed, in a way he hadn’t since he was sixteen. He stifled a groan and dropped his hand down to readjust himself.
“Why?” she asked in a husky whisper.
“I’ll never be able to love anyone the way I love you. I don’t think I ever have, in fact. I’m a limited person. I wouldn’t want to make a child feel unloved.” It was a trifle manipulative, but at the same time, it was true. He couldn’t imagine having any love left for a baby.
He slid a second finger inside her. She gave a little shriek.
“Hadn’t you better pull up the sheet?” he asked, raising his head again.
“You!” she said, and the command thrilled him to his bones. “Don’t stop.” He obeyed her command.
When she was sobbing and shaking, he crawled back up her body and whispered, “Would you be more comfortable if I were to lie on my back?”
She didn’t seem to be thinking clearly, so he rolled over, lifted her into the air, and put her gently in position.
“Might I ask you to lower yourself a little?” he asked politely. He kept his hands loose on her arms, though he wanted nothing more than to pull her down and thrust up into her wet warmth.
“Yes, of course,” she said. She sounded a bit odd.
“I won’t last very long,” he said, gasping as she slid lower.
She stopped.
“Daisy?” James’s hands were shaking, so he made himself let go of her arms and grip the sheet instead. He couldn’t frighten her. He couldn’t provoke a disgust for him.
Damn, she was pulling away. He gave a silent groan: this was agonizing.
“I want a lamp,” she said, stumbling away from the bed. A gentleman probably would have risen to help, but James didn’t feel like a gentleman. He felt like a bloodthirsty ex-pirate with blue balls. An ex-pirate who was on the verge of losing every claim to control he had, because it had been too long.
She managed to find the Argand lamp across the room, and turned it all the way up. The light spilled over her body, making her limbs shine like alabaster. When she didn’t immediately return to bed, he sat up, groaning a little; his body did not want to bend in that precise fashion at this moment.
“Aren’t you coming back?” It emerged as a harsh growl.
Theo was standing by the mantelpiece, her hands once more on her hips. “What’s the matter?” he asked, choking back “now.”
“This,” she said, with a wave of her hand. She seemed to be waving toward him. Or possibly the bed. “It’s not the same.” Her eyes pooled in the soft light like darkness itself. Her lips were plump and luscious. “Doesn’t it all seem different to you?”
“Well, you’re much more beautiful than you were as a mere girl,” he said, schooling his impatience. “And I’m more battered.”
She opened her mouth, and then stopped. “Right.” She paused and then said, “No. We must get this right.”
“I’ll do anything,” he said instantly. “I shouldn’t have—or rather, I should have—let you—”
“Don’t!” She shouted it at him.
“What?”
“Don’t be like this!”
James cleared his throat. For the first time, he wasn’t sure he could be the man she needed or wanted. Which meant he wasn’t sure he could stay married to her.
In that moment a stroke of fury lit his entire body, fueled by an hours-long er
ection that was driving him around the bend. In one stride he was beside her, hands on her arms. “You are my wife!” he growled.
She tipped her head back to see his face, baring the long clean line of her neck. He wanted to bite it. He wanted to bite her all over, to sweat on her, and plunge into her, and lick her head to foot. He wanted to use her body. He wanted his own to be used.
“You liked the way we made love. No: you loved it. I can’t become some sort of tame spaniel just so you’ll go to bed with me!” The last declaration came out in a shout worthy of his father.
She didn’t seem to mind. An expression that looked a great deal like relief spread over her face and she looped her arms around his neck and tried to pull his mouth down to her lips.
James didn’t let her. Instead, he picked her up and half threw her onto the bed, then crawled on top of her, acutely conscious of his bulk and muscle looming over her. “I’m tattooed and scarred, and bigger than hell,” he reminded her, when she said nothing.
The smile that curled on her lips was pure greed. He felt a germ of hope. “I see that,” she purred. She gave up trying to pull his head to hers and ran her fingers up his arms instead.
“Are you afraid?”
She laughed, and something in his gut eased, but he had more to say.
“I don’t give a twopenny damn what you wear under your skirts, but if you wear drawers, I might rip them off you in the pantry. I want you so damn much right now that I feel as if I’ve lost my mind. I’ve never really wanted any woman but you.” He took a deep breath. “My mistresses were just signs of how dead I was. Dead to you, dead to the world. Dead to myself.”
Her eyes softened, and she cupped his cheek with her hand. “You’re back now.”
“I am. I’m back. But I didn’t come back a lapdog, Daisy. I can’t pretend to be some sort of lily-livered, bloodless version of myself anymore. I can’t be Trevelyan.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“I need you to come back, too.” He had to be very clear about this. Everything depended on it.
Her brows drew together.
“I need you to find the courage you had when you were my Daisy.” He chose his words as precisely as he could. “I died to myself—and to you—for a few years, but part of you died as well. You won’t allow yourself to feel joy.”
“I feel joy,” she objected. “At times.”
“Life is messy. It’s messy and smelly and embarrassing. And desire is messy and smelly and embarrassing, too. There is nothing about your body that is distasteful to me. And I don’t give a damn what society thinks we should or shouldn’t be doing in our marriage bed.”
Her lips were trembling, and he didn’t know whether that was bad or good, but he kept going. “You can make love to me any way you please, and I will never, ever deny you. For my part, I want to kiss you everywhere. I always did, and it hasn’t gone away. It’s even stronger. We’ll be at dinner with the Regent himself, and I’m going to be looking at you and planning where and how I will kiss you.”
Her eyes shone with tears.
“Here,” he said, running a finger over her lower lip. “Here.” He shifted to the side and wrapped a possessive hand about one of her breasts. It plumped in his hand and a little sound broke from his lips. But he wasn’t finished. “Here.” Holding her gaze, he ran his fingers, fast and rough, over her belly and into the little tuft of amber hair between her legs. She was wet and warm and open.
But he didn’t stop.
“Here,” he said, his fingers sliding back to caress the most private place of all.
She gasped, but he could see a faint shadow of pleasure on her face even as she squirmed away from his touch.
“There is no place on your body that I don’t want to kiss, Daisy. That I don’t lust after. Because this is the most beautiful breast in the world.” He bent his head and gave her nipple a kiss and a warm lick. “And this is the most— ”
He started to head south, but she was laughing through her tears, and she pulled him back up.
But he wasn’t finished, still wasn’t finished. “I’ll kiss you in the Regent’s own dining room if you’ll let me. You’re the only one for me. I came back from the dead for you, Daisy. Twice.”
“I’m so glad you came back for me,” she whispered. A tear like liquid crystal ran down her cheek and disappeared into her hair.
“I never should have left you.”
More tears. He caressed her wet cheek with his thumb, pulling her tight against his chest.
“I love you,” he said, telling her hair because she had buried her face against him. “You haven’t told me the same,” he continued, “so I’ll say it for you. You love me too.” Then, because there are limits to how long even the most self-collected man can wait, and because he had reached his furthest limit, he reared over her, and said, “I shall now have my way with my duchess. Speak now, or hereafter hold your peace.”
He saw a kindling of pleasure in her eyes, which he took as her reply, so he pushed her knees farther apart and thrust.
She arched against him with a gasp, hands clenched on his forearms. “Again, please, James. Please.”
He gave her one more.
“Oh, that feels so good!”
He took a deep breath and fought for control. “I cannot be a proper gentleman all the time,” he growled, needing to make one last point. “I’m not tame like that. I can’t be tamed like that. I felt like an ass trying to be amused all the time, the way Trevelyan is.” His jaw clenched even saying the name.
Theo looked up at her husband and felt as if her heart was going to burst. James wasn’t at all like Geoffrey, but powerful and fierce and domineering. He had a tattoo under one eye, and he would never be at home in a drawing room. He was disorganized and untidy, and he threw newspapers on the floor. He wasn’t much good at making beds. He would always make fun of her Rules, even as he respected her. He meant to kiss her in all the wrong places.
He would not be delicate or, sometimes, even courteous.
Sure enough, at that moment he grabbed her hips and thrust forward deep and hard.
Her scream came from somewhere so hidden within her body that she hadn’t known it existed. His only response was to bend down, his nose to hers, and declare, “I have my cock buried in you, Daisy. That’s a word ladies don’t like, but you like it. Don’t you?”
Theo nodded. And then he flexed his hips, again.
She did. Scream again.
“This is not amorous congress or carnal intercourse,” James told her, his jaw clenched as he fought to regain control (though he never quite did). “This is the Act of Shame. And. We. Are. Not. Ashamed.”
After that the duke proceeded to demonstrate for his duchess almost all of the terms he knew for the sport of Venus. He was a pirate. He knew a lot.
That night, they pounded the bed and danced in the sheets. They boffed and boinked and did the dirty deed. After a while they started making up their own descriptions for the sweaty, messy, joyful games they were playing.
Her Grace proved to have a knack for coming up with phrases all of her own, and they played the blanket hornpipe until they collapsed. The sheet had long ago migrated to the floor, but neither noticed.
They each did each other personal services of one kind or another, taking turns gulping air, crying out, and losing control, utterly. Sometimes they did it at the same moment.
As it turned out, the Duke and Duchess of Ashbrook did not leave that bedchamber for four days. They spent a good deal of their time in the bed. But they also made love in the bathtub, on the little stool, and on the floor.
One morning a chambermaid almost caught her master and mistress making love when she came to light the fire; His Grace threw a sheet over his wife, who was giggling so uncontrollably that the whole bed shook.
At some point the duke decided to make a point about just how beautiful his wife was, and before she could stop him, he tossed a Parisian-designed cape worth a small fortune
out the window, where it fell into the garden and became stuck on a hedge, rosy silk lining shining in the sunshine.
“Just like it was before,” one of the footmen told Maydrop. “Her wedding dress went out that same window seven years ago.” Neither of them could make head nor tail of that.
Maydrop summoned back the staff, and the duke told him—sotto voce—that he could pay off all those extra men he’d bribed to act as journalists.
By the end of the week, the duchess was almost used to being disheveled and imperfectly groomed, at least part of the time. She had resigned herself to the fact that her husband stubbornly considered her to be just as beautiful now as she was at seventeen, as well as to the fact that James would never really understand what clothing did for a woman—or a man. Though he was an expert on the lack of clothing.
She was very, very happy.
She was still married.
A Rather Long Epilogue
The Regent’s Ball
May 1817
As every married couple in the history of married couples has discovered, married life is not always a bed of roses.
It was the afternoon on the day the Regent was to bestow the Order of the Bath on James. Hours earlier, Theo had screamed at him because he’d knocked over a jasperware fish, which had been delicately balanced on its tail in a positive marvel of Ashbrook Ceramics craftsmanship.
James had shouted back that positioning a slender marble column next to the library door was a daft thing to do, because someone might easily enter the room and then move to the side as he had done, with calamitous consequences. “My life was a damn sight easier when the only fish in view had scales!”
“Fine,” Theo had shouted in return. “Feel free to join your fishy friends once again!”
At the sound of raised voices, Maydrop had whisked his staff away from the library door. Experience had taught him that the duke and duchess sometimes required privacy outside the matrimonial bedchambers.
Sure enough, when the duchess had emerged an hour or so later, her hair was tousled rather than sleek, and the clasp of her necklace was hanging over her bosom. She didn’t emerge on her own two feet, either.