Chapter 10
Three days later, in the muted light of their rented rooms, the romantic words they had exchanged that night in the broom cupboard had lost their luster.
“It’s…modest,” Eloise said as she bent to sit on the edge of their bed.
The mattress dipped, sending Eloise sprawling backward. Tuck lurched forward to pull her back up, but the lovely hat she had worn to their wedding ceremony that morning toppled off the side of the bed and disappeared somewhere between the sagging bed and the wardrobe with the broken door that was pushed into the corner.
He held both of her hands as he helped her to sit more securely on the edge of the worn-out mattress. When she finally met his gaze, he expected to see regret there, but then she laughed, the sound light and wholly unfitted to the sad little room.
Liam had offered them residence at his home, but Tuck’s pride wouldn’t allow him to take his bride back there after they were wed, and so he’d found the only rooms his meager funds could afford. They were in Bloomsbury and on just the right side of shabby, but he had paid for the lease himself, and at least for a month, there would be a roof over his wife’s head.
His wife.
He returned her gaze as her laugh faded around them and took a seat next to her on the mattress, pitching his legs to keep from rolling into her.
“Modest is rather a generous word for it.” He looked about the small space that was directly off the kitchen and parlor before looking back at his wife. “I don’t suppose you know how to cook?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said, another laugh escaping her lips. She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh Tuck, what have we done?”
They had been wed by special license, of course. Liam had called in any number of favors to see the license procured, and a dozen more to find a clergyman in time to see the deed through. Lady Stoke Bruerne would have had it happen immediately if only to quell any gossip with the swiftness of the marriage.
Their sudden betrothal had not garnered the animosity Tuck had expected, but then, he wasn’t sure there had been time for it. Eloise had been right that night in the broom cupboard. Her mother, although perfectly pleasant, could be rather formidable when the situation called for it.
It had been much the same with Liam. Tuck shuddered to think of the debt he owed his cousin, the one required from Tuck’s betrayal. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from his cousin when Tuck revealed the truth to him, but it wasn’t what he had gotten.
Liam had been nothing but congratulatory and then left at once to get the license.
It had all happened so fast and so unexpectedly. Tuck wasn’t even sure how they had come to be in this strange place, these little rooms in Bloomsbury. But they had agreed to save Eloise’s dowry. As Tuck’s allowance and earnings from his position at Oxford were so modest, they had felt it best to have some sort of cushion they could rely on in hard times.
But as they sat there, blinking into what little afternoon light made its way between the buildings and through the narrow windows of the room, he wasn’t sure if this wasn’t hard times they found themselves in.
He took Eloise’s hand. “I’m not sure it’s something we’ve done or something that would have happened eventually with or without our doing.” He tried to smile, but it felt forced and too close to lying so he stopped.
She squeezed his hand though. “You might be right, I think. Did you get a chance to speak to Ardley? Was he terribly upset?”
“I’m afraid there wasn’t time. What wasn’t taken up by securing the special license was arguing with him about taking up residence in his home after our wedding.”
It still felt strange to say that. Our wedding. He couldn’t possibly mean his own. Only other people were meant to be married.
But somehow he was sitting there, next to his wife, and his wife was Eloise. He couldn’t quite believe it and wondered if it would ever seem real or if he would always marvel at the idea of it.
“It was much the same with my mother, I’m afraid. She was overwrought at the idea that there would be no time to plan a grand wedding. I never got the chance to speak to her about it really. It was all very…”
“Mechanical,” he supplied, feeling the weight of the word press down on his shoulders.
Eloise laughed, and again, it sounded bizarre in that strange place, but this time not quite as bizarre. The sound seemed to chisel at the melancholy that hung about him, and he smiled, genuinely this time.
She nudged his shoulder with her own. “This will be quite the romantic story we tell our grandchildren.” She held her hands up, indicating the space about them. “It was a whirlwind wedding, and afterward, your grandfather swept me away to a place I’d never been before.” She turned to look at him, and the light in her eyes dispelled the rest of his melancholy. “I suppose we should leave out some of the details, don’t you think?”
He laughed now even when he thought he would never laugh again. He touched his wife’s face, tracing the curve of her cheek.
“I hardly think they should know all of the details. It would be nice to retain at least a little mystery.” He was still smiling when he kissed her, and he was surprised to find the lingering guilt that had plagued him since discovering her true identity was no longer there.
She was just Eloise, his wife, and the press of betrayal was a little further away now.
“Well,” Eloise said when he leaned back, and she pushed to her feet, hands on her knees. “I suppose we must be practical about this.”
She strode over to what was supposed to be the kitchen, which while it was located through a small archway, there wasn’t any true separation of that space from the bedroom area, so he reclined on the bed and watched her, wondering what she might do.
She proceeded to the small cast iron stove and gingerly plucked at one of the plates only to send it clattering back to the stove top when her finger came away smudged with soot.
She turned to him, her nose wrinkled. “We use this for cooking, don’t we?” She eyed the plate that had so recently soiled her finger. “I should think we haven’t much choice in the matter, do we?”
Although he found the spectacle amusing, he decided to give her a break.
“There’s enough in our funds to procure our food from the tearoom across the street. I don’t think between the two of us it will be enough of an expense to send us straight into poverty.”
Her eyebrows climbed nearly to her hairline. “I should hope not. I doubt I would make it in the poor house.” She peered down at herself. “I’m really not cut out for it.”
He gained his feet and went to her, picking up her hands and squeezing them. “Eloise Bounds, I think you’re a great deal stronger than you let on.”
“Eloise Ryan, thank you very much,” she corrected him with a smile. “And do you truly believe that?”
He shrugged. “Well, I must think that. Otherwise come autumn, I must leave you behind, and I like that idea a great deal less.”
She blinked. “Leave me behind?”
“When I go to Spitsbergen. It isn’t a place for a lady.”
She tugged her hands free. “Tucker Ryan, do not even think it. I will not be left here to rot in London while you go off adventuring. I’m coming with you.”
“It’s cold there.”
She raised her chin. “I thrive in cold weather.”
“Food will be rationed, and then it will be a great deal of fish and dried and salted meats.”
One eyebrow went up. “Debutantes are trained on starvation tactics.”
“There are polar bears.”
She shook her head. “You’ve met my mother. A polar bear should be no trouble.”
He gazed at her, trying to picture her in the Arctic. “I don’t know what drew us together that night in the courtyard, but I can’t help but feel it was meant to be.”
She stood on tiptoe then and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against him. “I think it was too.” She shook her head again. “I’ve never gone out into the courtyard at night like that. I just suddenly felt like I needed fresh air, or I would expire.” She combed her fingers through his hair, and he felt it flop back on his forehead. “I found a great deal more than fresh air, however.”
He bent his head and skimmed her lips with his, not quite kissing her. “And are you disappointed in what you found?”
She smiled, and he could feel her eyes flutter shut before she shifted, capturing his lips even as he tried to teasingly pull away. She laughed and wound her arms more tightly about him, deepening the kiss.
He stumbled backward, pulling her with him until they fell upon the bed. He rolled her beneath him, savoring the way her leg slipped so easily between his, coiling her body around him. Her arms went from around his neck to slip beneath his jacket, her fingers curling into his waistcoat as she pulled him atop her.
The kiss went on and on, and he could sense they were both reluctant to end it, but Eloise was right. They must be practical, and after the long day they’d had, they must seek sustenance.
He was forced to wrench his mouth free and even then, he placed a wandering hand along the line of her bodice to keep her from chasing after him.
“We must stop. I must feed my wife before she expires. I don’t care what starvation tactics you learned as a debutante. You must eat.”
Even in the muted light, her face glowed with happiness, and he was not too modest to admit a great deal of arousal. But he hadn’t a clue when the tearoom closed for the day, and it would be best if they were to figure out their new living situation.
He sat up, ready to push them from the bed when something else happened entirely.
She moved so quickly he had no time to prepare. One minute she was flat on her back, and the next she had toppled him over and straddled him. She perched there above him, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
“I am hungry, Mr. Ryan,” she said in a voice he’d never heard from her before, a voice that dripped with sensuality. She placed her hand against his chest just above his waistcoat, and then with two fingers marched a line up to his cravat. With the same fluidity she had shown in besting him, she whipped the cravat from around his neck before bracing her hand still holding the cravat against the bed just beside his head, bringing her so close he could feel her breath against his ear as she whispered, “But it’s not for food,” as her fingers went to work on the buttons of his shirt.
* * *
Two months.
That was how long she’d been denied this.
No, more than that. She’d made herself believe she didn’t want this.
That had been a lie, and the worst kind. The kind one tells oneself.
But she needn’t lie anymore. She needn’t deny herself.
Tuck was hers, all of him and time willing, forever.
The shabbiness of their rented rooms was quickly forgotten. The pain she’d felt for three whole days since their treachery had been discovered was somehow gone, vanished beneath the touch of her husband.
Her husband.
What a beautiful thing that was.
For a second, she felt selfish. All the people they had hurt to get to this point and yet all she could feel just then was pure and simple bliss. But perhaps that was all right. Perhaps it was good even for her to make the best of what had happened. She loved Tuck, and he loved her, and it wasn’t as though they had set out to hurt the people they loved.
It had just…happened.
After everything, after all they had pent up and ignored, she had expected this moment to be, well, more than it was turning out to be. She had expected explosions and fireworks, but it wasn’t that. Had she been thinking about her husband and who he truly was, she would have known better. Because instead of fireworks, he did something far more.
He savored her.
While she tried to remove his waistcoat and shirt, he’d stopped her, catching her hands with one of his as he rolled them. Now he perched atop her, a solitary finger tracing the curve of her cheek as he studied her.
“Do you know what the first thing about you was that I loved?” he whispered.
She shook her head, unable to form words.
His finger rose over the crest of her nose. “Your freckles,” he said, his finger falling to the other side and tracing a path through those very freckles. “You looked as though you had swallowed the universe, and the stars shown through your skin right here.” He tapped her cheek as his eyes lifted to hers. “And I thought only someone as spectacular as you could contain the fathoms of the universe.”
“You’re being romantic again,” she accused, her voice tight with the fire he stoked in her at a single touch.
His smile was slow to come as he continued to study her. “That keeps happening around you. Perhaps it’s not my fault but yours.”
She laughed, the sound so precious as it cut through the strange noises around them, the ones that came with their home that she wasn’t quite used to. But laughter, it held the power to make anything familiar.
They undressed each other then, taking turns by some unspoken agreement. It was as though they were discovering each other, one piece of clothing at a time, and it should have been difficult, awkward, and uncomfortable. But it was none of those things. With each piece he removed from her, she felt more like herself, braver and free, until she gave all of herself to him.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t take because she did. Of course, she did.
In all of their stolen touches, she’d never felt his bare skin, not in this way, and it was like touching flame, and there was no saving herself from the burn of it. She freed him of his waistcoat and shirt first, greedy to feel the muscles of his chest under her fingertips, to explore the planes of his back and shoulders until she knew him better than her own body.
But touching him wasn’t enough. She needed to taste him.
She pressed her lips to his neck as he worked to free her from her corset, and the heat there was shocking, sending electricity clear through her from a single taste. She kept going, along this shoulder, down his chest, tasting the salt of him.
But once her corset was off, he robbed her of her exploration as he undertook his own, pushing each strap of her chemise from her shoulders until the garment fell, clinging to her breasts. She watched his face then, watched his eyes smolder as he studied her, and let the sheer sensuality of the moment overtake her.
“Tuck,” she whispered, daring to touch his face, wanting him to look into her eyes with such passion.
But when he looked up, the passion was gone. It was replaced with something far greater.
Love.
And it traveled directly to her heart, wrapping her in the beauty of it.
“Oh Tuck,” she whispered again, and he kissed her.
There was the passion. It was in his kiss, in his touch as his fingers played with her fallen chemise, as he helped lower it while somehow keeping his fingers from touching her.
She moaned against his mouth, arched into him, and still he escaped her. It wasn’t until the chemise lay pooled at her hips that he finally broke the kiss and sat up. She hadn’t known how much pleasure there would be in watching him watch her, but it was there, stoking the fire inside of her, and she thought she could get lost in the way he looked at her. Looked at her with love and respect and fascination.
Fascination.
No one had ever looked at her like that.
Maybe only Tuck could see her that way because this thing between them had been meant to be all along. For a moment she wondered if they had been wrong to fight it. If they should have admitted their feelings before it had taken the course it had.
She pushed the thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time to think of such things. This was the reality of their situation, and it was fruitless to think on what ifs.
Besides, her husband had lifted her hips and was working her chemise off of her. She watched him, the way he pursued his goal so intently, a true academic at work. And then when it slipped over her feet, the way he flung it carelessly aside.
She giggled, unable to help herself, and he looked at her, a wicked gleam in his eye.
She expected him to pounce on her now that he’d stripped her bare, but he didn’t. Instead he leaned over her, looming above her, and she wondered at just how broad of shoulder he was, blocking out what little light made it through the shabby curtains at the window.
“Mrs. Ryan, do you find me amusing?”
She tried to loop her arms about his neck, pull him close, but he dodged out of her grasp, sitting up enough so she was forced to trail her fingers through the smattering of hair on his chest. His eyes fluttered shut briefly, so she figured it wasn’t so terrible a tradeoff.
“I find much about you amusing, Mr. Ryan, but right now I’m thinking other things about you.”
His eyes opened, and he met her gaze unflinchingly. “And just what are those things?”
“I think?—”
He touched her, just a finger at the edge of her collarbone. He let it dip, sweeping down her chest.
“I think—” she tried again, but then that finger moved between her breasts, barely touching her, skimming her skin so she was forced to chase after it, but that only made him pull his hand back to keep the balance, touching her just enough but not enough at the same time.
She wanted him to cup her breasts, to stroke her nipples. Her body ached for his attention, but he deliberately denied her, his finger moving lazily down her torso, dipping into her belly button, and lower still. Her legs fell away for him, bidding him to touch her, but he didn’t.
Instead, he came above her, blocking out the remaining light as he imprisoned her between his arms, one hand on either side of her head.
“What were you trying to say, Mrs. Ryan?” he whispered, his mouth playing with the lobe of one ear.
“I didn’t say anything.” Was that her whimpering?
“But you meant to say something.” He sucked the lobe of her ear into her mouth, and she came up off the bed, her arms going around his waist, her fingers digging into his back.
“I…I…” But whatever she had been trying to say dissolved into a moan, and perhaps that was what she had meant all along.
Because his lips moved lower, down her neck, over her chest, and?—
“Oh God!” The cry sprang from her lips as he sucked first one nipple into his mouth and then the other. Her hands scrambled against his back, trying to pull herself closer to him, as if she could give him any more of herself.
The tension coiling in her tightened, and her legs moved of their own volition, wrapping around him, lifting her to him.
He chuckled against the underside of her breast where he plied hot, wet kisses. “That’s another thing I love about you, Mrs. Ryan.” He swept up her body so quickly, the breath caught in her throat. “Your eagerness,” he growled and captured her mouth with his.
That was when he touched her.
He touched her right in the place that ached most for him. She didn’t know how he knew, but her body seemed to pulse for him, and he’d placed his finger directly atop it.
“Tuck.” She ripped her lips from his, sucking in a breath. “Tuck, I?—”
His finger moved, circling her nub, and the pleasure bordered on pain. But he didn’t let up. His finger circled and rubbed, and her hips moved, pushing herself against him.
“Tuck, I—” It wasn’t enough, but it was all too much at the same time.
When he entered her, she thought it would hurt. That somehow he wouldn’t fit properly. But her body knew things she did not, and with him came a pleasing pressure that swept through in a warm wave. She exhaled, pleasure leaving her body in a hush as it readied itself for more.
“Eloise.” His lips were pressed to her neck, and she felt the muscles of his back go rigid the moment he’d pushed into her.
He kept circling her nub as he withdrew and pushed into her again, slowly, achingly slowly, and then again. The tension she thought couldn’t get any more tightly wound pressed in on itself to a single point, and she knew something must happen or else…or else…
“Tuck, I need…” But she didn’t know what it was she needed.
He moved faster, sliding in and out of her as his hand worked her most sensitive place. The tension changed, crescendoed, until?—
When she fell apart, it was with a perfectness she could have only found with Tuck. It was with a rightness that had been there from the beginning, and it was no surprise that it would happen now, like this, when they were together in the basest way possible.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and she turned her head, hoping to hide them in the pillow, but he caught her, his hands cupping her face as he rested on his elbows.
“Eloise, I hurt you,” he whispered.
She shook her head furiously. “No, no, it isn’t that. It was just—” She faced him then. “I waited so long for this, and I don’t know why it hurts so much. This love I have for you.”
Relief came into his face as he must have realized he hadn’t hurt her, and he smiled. “It hurts because big feelings need space. You’re just learning how to carry your love. That’s all.” He kissed her softly. “Just give it time.”
She tried to smile back at him, but the ache of her love was so great. It was a moment before she realized he had stopped.
“Are we…finished?” she asked, feeling suddenly shy for the first time in her life.
“Not exactly,” he said, a sheepish grin on his face.
It was then she understood he was still hard inside of her, and heat crept up her cheeks.
“Do you mean…you can do that again? I mean, what you did to me. That can happen…again?”
His smile was wicked now. “Of course, it can.”
And it did happen.
And it happened again and again and again until darkness flooded their little rooms, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms, exhausted.