Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alexander led Lydia back to the house, his heart still thumping and his breeches a mess. What a humbling way of reminding him that it had been such a long time since he had last pleasured a woman! At least her innocence prevented her from thinking less of him for it.
Once they reached the house, he handed her to Mrs. Jones and retired upstairs. A good bath would most certainly set his mind to rights.
But the second the door closed behind him, he thought back to Lydia. Not just of the things they had done—and damn him, he had not meant to take any of her innocence there—but of the fact she had come after him.
Since Helena, he had done such an excellent job of icing out the world; he had effectively cut everyone off. Everyone except for Samuel Godwin.
And now, apparently, his wife.
He half wanted to laugh, the craving in his bones deepening, though now he didn’t know if it was for laudanum or Lydia.
Hell, perhaps it was both.
As the hot water heated, he tugged at his clothes and threw them against the floor.
The chill had infiltrated his bones. And on the other side of the wall, he knew Lydia was changing, probably preparing for her own bath.
He should never have allowed her to stay out there for so long; if she caught a chill now, it would be entirely his fault.
He ought to have been more controlled!
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
A knock came on the door, and he opened it to allow the maids in with their buckets of steaming water. The fire raged in the hearth, and he glanced once more at the closed door separating his bedchamber from hers.
“Do you know if Her Grace is well?” he asked. “She was very cold.”
“I believe so, Your Grace.”
“Is she having a bath of her own made up?”
“She is, Your Grace.”
He nodded, making a decision. “Bring my water to her bath instead.”
The maid paused, looking at him inquiringly. But it was not her place to argue with him or question his will, so she merely nodded. “As you say, Your Grace.”
It was not long before his room emptied, and not long after that that the adjoining door between their bedchambers opened.
Lydia stood there, clothed in a robe and nothing else, her damp hair loose and falling sultrily over her shoulders.
She fixed him with a glare that only made his desire for her stir higher.
She had no idea what she was doing to him in this state of undress.
He almost wanted to shut the door in her face to prevent the servants from seeing them together, as though there was something illicit about a husband seeing his wife.
But there was so much about her he didn’t yet know.
He had felt the creamy softness of her thighs, but he had yet to see them spread without the sodden skirts of her dress getting in the way.
Her stomach, her breasts; the robe did an imperfect job of keeping them hidden from him, although he caught a tantalizing glimpse of skin at her navel that made his mouth go dry.
He was a man, and women’s bodies were not habitually a mystery to him—but Lydia felt as though she had come to him just so he could unwrap him. His cock, previously sated, stirred at the thought.
“Well?” he asked, doing his best to ignore his body’s insistence that he push her back into her bedchamber and take her then and there.
Instead of answering, she brushed past him into his bedchamber. “So this is what it looks like?”
“To what are you referring?”
“Your bedchamber.” She glanced back at him. “And you in a state of undress. Your robe becomes you.”
He glanced down at the finely printed burgundy robe. It had been a present from Godwin, of all people. Apparently, all gentlemen needed to have one for the morning after indulgence.
And, it seemed, for the period just before one’s bath.
“You sent me the water meant for your bath,” she accused.
Confused by her tone, he frowned. “Do you have an objection. You were cold, Lydia.”
“As were you.”
“I,” he said dryly, “am more likely to recover.”
“Because you are a man?”
“Because I have done much the same thing on several occasions in years past.” He raised a brow. “How many times have you ventured into the rain for long periods at a time?”
He saw the truth across her face before she admitted to a thing. “Not… often,” she confessed.
“It is a small kindness,” he smirked, and gestured her back to where her bath would by now be waiting, steaming and ready. “And the least I can do, considering I am the reason you went out there to begin with.”
She came to his side and took his hand. The gesture shocked him enough that he did not protest as she leisurely led him back through to her bedchamber.
This room held many traces of her. A painting she must have procured on the wall—or perhaps it was one she had painted herself of the estate and the land it held.
The fact of it made Alexander’s throat close.
Her books were neatly piled on the bedside table, and she’d even had a tray of tea and cake brought up.
And there, behind the screen, was the bath.
She peeked up at him, eyes hooded and hot. “I have a suggestion. Don’t disregard it out of hand. I want to bathe together.”
His chest tightened. There was pleasure—and the intimacy borne of the act—and there was intimacy in and of itself. Yet, beyond that, the idea was unbelievably erotic. A chance to see her in all her naked glory; a chance to be with her, skin to skin, in the hot water…
He throbbed at the thought.
She glanced down at the tent his cock had produced in his robe. “I am so glad Marie taught me to look for the bulge…” she muttered, and he almost asked her what she meant, but she loosened the tie at her waist, and he forgot what his words might have been.
If he had ever imagined his perfect woman—and he had not done, thinking for so long that Helena was his ideal in every respect—he would undoubtedly have pictured Lydia.
Full, rounded breasts above the soft swell of her belly. Flared hips, and the most perfect thighs. She was dimpled in all the right places, soft everywhere he desperately wanted to touch her…
“Lydia,” he rasped. “You should think about this—”
“Touch yourself. Show me what you like.”
He tilted her chin up. “Then get on your knees and I'll teach you.”
She tugged at the belt of his robe, and the entire thing fell from his shoulders.
The room had by this time fully emptied; there was no witness to them but the crackling fire.
Her gaze traveled across his body, and he wondered what she thought.
This was the first male body she had ever seen, beyond—he presumed—statues.
Did it please her?
He realized now that he desperately wanted to please her. Almost more than anything else. The force of his desire shocked him.
Then again, he had already established he had no self-control when it came to his wife.
“Do all men have this form?” she whispered breathily, laying a hand on his chest just as she had done at the lakehouse. Only this time, her palm came to rest against skin. His pulse pounded beneath her hand. Below, his erection swelled almost viciously, to the point of pain.
“Not… precisely.” He took hold of her wrist, making sure to hold her gently. “If you want this, let me take the lead, Lydia.”
“Do you want this?”
He glanced down at the evidence of his want. “I will let my body confirm that for you,” he said dryly. “But Lydia, I don’t want to—” He released a long, shuddering breath. “You said you had never been with a man before.”
“I have now,” she said, her smile dimpling.
He struggled with composure. “That wasn’t everything.”
“Oh, I know that.” She reached down and boldly took hold of his cock, her small fingers unreasonably pleasurable. He had to fight to keep his hips from bucking, seeking the soft delight of her palm. “I presume the full act involves this…”
Where had she come from? He choked a laugh and stroked her cheek. “It does.”
“Then will you show me?”
“Is this what you want?”
“Where better to lose my innocence than with my husband?” She glanced behind her, the wickedness in her eyes only spurring him on. “There is even a bed.”
From the way she pursed her lips, he suspected she, too, was imagining all the things they could do there. He did not have a surfeit of experience, but he had more than her, and he expected his imagination rather more followed reality—and possibility.
“I liked what you did before,” she whispered. “I would like you to do it again.”
If there had ever been a hope of him holding out, he lost it then. This house was filled with memories of Helena, and he forgot them all in the arms of his warm, gloriously plump, painfully alive wife.