Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“ C harles…?”
Phoebe stretched her arms out lazily, like a cat basking in the afternoon sun. A small smile traced itself across her lips as she buried her face into the pillow.
She felt tired—deliciously so. The good kind of tired, though.
Her mother had never told her precisely what happened in the marriage bed—or outside of it, as was the case. But then again, she could understand Lady Townsend’s reticence on the matter—the things she did with Charles last night were rather scandalous.
Wonderfully so.
Thinking about his expert fingers on her most intimate flesh still made her toes curl underneath the covers. The memory of his searing kiss had her clutching at the sheets.
Oh, how she wanted him to do it again! Over and over and over again…
“Good morning, milady. I have prepared the things you require for your morning ablution.”
Amelia’s soft voice had the very effect of dispersing the mist of her fantasies like the harsh sun. Phoebe’s eyes flew wide open and she immediately sat up, only to recall that Charles had all but torn through her flimsy nightclothes the night before.
A sudden warmth flooded her cheeks as she grasped at her blanket to cover her chest.
“Is it morning already?” she gasped.
The maid nodded, looking a bit confused, before a knowing smile spread across her face. Amelia immediately ducked her head and turned around, much to Phoebe’s relief and chagrin.
“His Lordship has informed us that you are not to be disturbed,” she told her mistress.
“His Lordship?” Phoebe echoed.
The maid nodded. “He said so at breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Phoebe blinked, and then, her eyes widened. “Breakfast!”
She hastily threw the covers off and grabbed her robe, turning around as she tied the sash around her waist so that Amelia would not see the sorry state it was currently in.
As if she would not see it later , the sly voice in her head taunted her.
After all, it was part of the duties of a lady’s maid to see to the mending of her clothes whenever it was necessary.
Thankfully, it was also part of Amelia’s duties to not speak a word of it to her mistress—or anyone else, for that matter.
Phoebe quickly washed her face and her arms and allowed Amelia to help her into a day dress. She squirmed a little as she sat through the styling of her hair, though, eager to be off to see Charles in the breakfast room.
She fairly bolted out of the room with a hastily muttered “thank you” to Amelia, skipping past the corridor lined with Montgomery ancestors looking down at her in disapproval. She was halfway down the stairs when the first niggling doubt entered her mind.
What do I say to him?
Phoebe nearly toppled over the last three steps when that question sprung up in her thoughts.
Indeed, just what was she going to tell him when she saw him? Was it customary for ladies to thank their husbands for the pleasure they wrought on their untutored bodies? Should she praise him for his excellent skill?
Phoebe frowned at that. Charles had always appeared to be a man in control. Naturally, he should have been very much in control of his faculties during their… encounter .
Or was he?
Somehow, the hunger in his kiss, the urgency with which he pressed his body against hers—those things did not speak of control. Not to Phoebe, anyway.
And if he did lose even just a bit of his mythical control, she would admit to taking a perverse sort of pleasure in that fact.
She steadied herself as she approached the door to the breakfast room. Her knees were fairly knocking into each other as one of the servants opened the door for her.
She took a deep breath before stepping inside—only to find that Charles was not at the head of the table, as he had been for the past few days.
In fact, he was not in the breakfast room at all .
She looked in confusion towards the only other soul in that sunny room with its open curtains and a table spread with every breakfast fare known to man.
“Huxley,” she addressed the butler. “Where is the Marquess?”
It could have just been her imagination, but the butler looked slightly uncomfortable at the question.
“His, ah, Lordship, had something else to attend to,” he managed to eke out.
She nodded slowly as she took her seat. “I see.”
But the fact of the matter was that she did not see.
She did not understand him—not at all. And not knowing or understanding was the worst feeling one could ever inflict on Phoebe Montgomery.
She wordlessly helped herself to the sumptuous fare before her without even tasting anything. How could she when all she could think about was his hardness pressed against her, his lips moving insistently on her own?
Phoebe was not going to stand for this constant back-and-forth, cat-and-mouse game that her husband seemed to be so fond of engaging in.
By hook or by crook, she was going to have a talk with her husband and get to the bottom of his baffling behavior!
The library had been his solace ever since he was a young boy.
His father, the Duke of Cheshire, had been a rather exacting man in his prime, expecting only the best from his only son and heir. Charles had been given the best education that money and power could afford. One could even say that his knowledge was on par with the one who sat on the throne.
And he had used every bit of it in service of the Crown.
But none of it served him—not now when he was plagued by a pair of wide eyes the color of rich caramel, hair the color of spun gold, and lips that could drive a saint to dissolution.
Indeed, he was now in a constant state of arousal, so hard that he had had to pleasure himself several times already with no sign of recourse. All it would take is the mere thought of her and the intense craving would gnaw at him until he feared that it would eventually drive him mad.
When she had walked into the training room last night, he had thought her a vision conjured by his most lustful fantasies, with her hair unbound and her lush figure draped in silk as delicate as a spider’s web.
He had meant to intimidate her. To show her just how dangerous it was to rile a man who was lusting for her for as long as he had, only to find that she would not cower in the face of his passion.
Indeed, she had seemed to embrace it, to delight in it even.
Oh, he had no doubt that she was an innocent, but her response to his advances—dear God in heaven, it had been his undoing!
Scowling, he shut the book in his hand and slid it back into the shelf with a little more force than was necessary. Phoebe had become an unceasing torment in his loins and one that he would not so easily be cured of, it would seem.
“Oh, there you are! I thought I might find you here.”
The sweetness of her voice filtered into his consciousness, stirring the intense longing he had felt for her. Charles could not dare to turn around. Just one look and he knew he would have her up against the bookshelves once more.
Frowning at himself, he finally managed to utter, “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean what am I doing here?” she pursed her lips. “I enjoy reading as much as you do, apparently.”
Yes, he did enjoy reading, but that was not the sole reason why he was in the library.
“I thought you hated dark and drafty places,” he remarked, finally building the courage to face her.
His dear wife did not bother answering that. Rather, she simply tilted her head a little to the side, studying him as a curious little bird might.
“Have you been avoiding me all afternoon, Charles?” she asked him.
He should have expected it—Phoebe was nothing but forthright, and if she ever thought he was hiding from her, he should have known she would call his bluff.
“Do not be so absurd,” he scoffed instead, slotting another book a little too forcefully. There was no point in reading anything now—Phoebe already had him thoroughly distracted from the moment she walked through the door.
“Well, I do think it is a little absurd,” she countered with a flash of a smile. “Who would think that the great Marquess of Wentworth would be hiding from his wife in his own library? Most men would go to a gentlemen’s club or some other place, I suppose.”
When she put it that way, then he was being rather absurd.
She casually shrugged her shoulders and he was once again reminded of the creamy smoothness of that particular part of her body. He had tasted her there and now found himself quite inexplicably insatiable.
He wanted nothing more than to push her against those damned shelves and kiss her senseless as he pulled the pins out of her hair. He would have her naked and moaning his name as he tasted her. Oh, he could teach her so many things, far more than all these books ever could.
He wanted more of her. He wanted all of her.
So, he turned his back on her, fighting to tamp his desires with every fiber of control he still possessed.
He heard a little sigh escape her lips, tinged undeniably in frustration. Perhaps, if he continued to pretend to ignore her, she might go away and leave him to stew in his lust for her…
But Phoebe was persistent.
“Well, seeing as you are in a library, I might as well ask what kind of books you enjoy reading,” she plowed onward, heedless of the kind of turmoil Charles was in as she closed the distance between them.
“I had the best education money could buy,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “I do not have a particular taste—I simply read them all.”
She looked at him in amazement, her eyes sparkling a deep, burnished gold.
“There is a new author that I particularly enjoy,” she told him excitedly. “ Jane Austen . If you have heard of her.”
Ah, yes—that female author who made quite a name for herself. Charles had indeed heard of her. A novelist befitting a lady like Phoebe, he supposed.
“I have, although I have not had the pleasure of reading her work yet,” he admitted.
“Lovely,” Phoebe beamed at him. “As it is, you have all her books in publication right behind you.”
Without warning, she reached in from behind him and picked out a book, but all Charles could focus on was the warmth that radiated from her supple skin, the subtle fragrance that wafted from her hair and teased his senses into madness.
No sooner had she leaned in, that she stepped back with a smile, waving the book before him.
“This is her latest book,” she informed him. “Why do we not read it together?”
Now, that was a very bad idea.
“I do not think—”
“The title is Persuasion ,” she grinned up at him rather mischievously and Charles felt the insane urge to just lean down and kiss her. “And I shall not take no for an answer.”
“Phoebe…”
“Just my favorite part, then,” she pleaded up at him. “Please?”
How could he refuse her? His strength had already wavered at the wheedling in her tone. When she turned those eyes towards him, he was utterly lost.
“Alright, then,” he relented.
Her smile was like the sun breaking out of the horizon at dawn—dazzling and brilliant and more beautiful than Charles could ever imagine the sun ever being.
In all his life, he had never thought he would actually enjoy the works of a romance novelist, but the sheer joy that Phoebe derived from it was contagious. Before he knew it, he had relaxed into the upholstered sofa as she read to him some of her favorite passages in the book.
“Fancy that,” she murmured, mirth shining in her eyes. “His name is even Wentworth.”
“And is your middle name not Anne?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
She laughed as she closed the book and placed it on her lap. His eyes followed as her fingertip delicately traced its spine, evoking an involuntary shudder from him.
“One might say that this book must have been meant for us.”
He nodded. “Indeed.”
“Well, I suppose this should be enough for one sitting,” she eventually smiled at him, as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon.
Again, all Charles could do was nod as he followed her down the rows of books to return Persuasion from where she had retrieved it earlier. In spite of the fact that his wife was taller than most of the women in the ton , she still had to use a ladder to reach just the perfect spot—according to her, while Charles held it steady, irrationally afraid that she might fall.
As she stepped down, he steadied her with his hands on her waist.
“Allow me,” he murmured as he helped her down—a perfect mirror to one of the scenes Phoebe had just read to him, wherein Wentworth helped Anne into the carriage.
Phoebe placed her hands upon his broad shoulders to steady herself. As her body slid down against his, he sucked in a harsh breath.
She looked up at him, but did not remove her hands from his shoulders, even as she stepped solidly onto the carpeted floor. Instead, her fingers curled at the nape of his neck.
At that instance, his infamous control snapped once more and his fingertips dug into her waist as he pulled her in, his mouth slanting over hers in a fiercely demanding kiss.
Phoebe answered him with a soft, joyous moan, meeting his kiss with her own. Her lips moved over his, quickly learning from his example. When her tongue tentatively touched his, Charles could swear his soul leaped out of his body in sheer joy.
Only when his lungs burned for air did he part from her, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
“Charles.”
“Hmm…?”
“I rather prefer you like this,” she admitted with a soft, shy smile. “In the future, please do not avoid me.”
He looked at her in surprise. Her brown eyes were gazing at him in earnest, without a trace of guile in them.
“You,” he rasped. “You are going to be the death of me someday.”
Her smile grew wider. “I very much prefer you alive, dear husband, so you should stay that way. Now, if you do not mind, I would like you to kiss me again. And bear in mind what I just told you—”
This time, Charles did not hesitate as his lips swooped in to claim hers once more.