Chapter Twelve
Fletcher had washed as best he could. He’d retrieved some clothing from his chamber upstairs and donned a fresh shirt and breeches.
Tomorrow, he thought, when they had daylight, he would see about finding something for Daphne.
Some of his aunt’s things lingered in wardrobes upstairs.
They would not be the most fashionable of gowns, being a good decade and a half out of date, but with a bit of airing they would be relatively clean at least.
Pausing outside the door, he knocked softly and waited for her to call out for him to enter.
At her soft reply, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Immediately, his eye was drawn to the clothing draped over the back of the chair.
Knowing how little she now wore was having a very predictable effect on him.
Every time he was in her presence, his body responded in an all too obvious fashion.
Turning toward the settee she occupied, the breath left his body as he caught sight of her.
She wore the dressing gown he’d provided, but it was draped softly about her, baring the tops of her shoulders and the upper swells of her breasts.
And from her expression, it was clear that the state of undress was quite intentional.
“What are you about, Daphne?”
“I had rather thought that should be obvious,” she replied with an obviously false bravado. “We were married this morning, after all. But if we do not consummate our marriage, then it leaves us vulnerable to others who might challenge it. And I would not have that. Our circumstances, are… unique.”
“The unique circumstances being that you fled one prospective groom with another… and you presume that your innocence, or the lack thereof, would be a point of contention for Pozenby,” he mused. “An obstacle that we are to overcome?”
“Am I wrong in thinking it might be?”
Fletcher shook his head. “No. You are not wrong. It muddies the waters legally if someone decides to challenge the match. Additionally, it’s quite likely that Pozenby, like most men, would be greatly displeased by your lack of virginity.”
“Why do you not sound pleased at the notion? I was under the impression that… well, men would always be happy of the opportunity to indulge in such things.”
Fletcher considered his next words very carefully before finally speaking. “There is nothing I want more than to make love to you, Daphne. But I’d prefer it be because you want me and not simply because you abhor Pozenby.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Is that what you truly think? Is that what you felt when you kissed me? That I was reluctant to do so? That I did not wish for your touch?”
No. He hadn’t felt any of those things from her.
She’d been warm and responsive. Painfully innocent, but thoroughly unguarded in her enthusiasm—she would not have feigned such a thing.
In truth, she would not have known how or even that she should.
Not when young ladies were reared to believe pleasure was a man’s purview alone.
“Are you certain this is what you want?” he asked.
It wasn’t that he wanted to talk her out of it or persuade her to wait for some intangible and ephemeral moment where their knowledge of one another would render doubts about such intimacies moot.
Their intentions were settled, after all, and in his mind he knew they were wed already.
The commitment they had made to one another was set in stone.
But he needed to be certain that what might well pass between them that night was something that she wanted, not something that she simply thought would aid their cause.
Her answer to that question was wordless and shocking. She rose from the settee and with a shrug, sent the dressing gown sliding to the floor until it puddled at her feet. Beneath it, she wore not a stitch.
After a moment of stunned silence, he simply closed the drawing room door.
The snap of it rang like a shot. But it was more than simply closeting them in the privacy of that room.
It was symbolic of shutting out the world.
There was nothing but the two of them, and nothing outside of them would hold any bearing on what would transpire.
Daphne’s courage had fled. Or perhaps it had simply been used up, as though it were something with a finite supply.
Her allotment had been expended. The act of disrobing entirely had been far more bold than anything she had done in her life.
Even running off to elope or seeking the services of London’s most notorious matchmaker could not compare to the stark terror she had felt at the prospect of being fully nude before him. And yet, she’d done it.
Now, as he walked toward her, it dawned on her that she may well have made a grave error in judgment.
She didn’t know him, after all. Not really.
She knew that he was a better choice than Pozenby, but then who would not be?
She could have picked a bridegroom out of the Fleet and been better off than with Lord Cecil Pozenby.
But even as those doubts crept in, her more rational voice prevailed.
Thus far, he’d proven at every turn to be a man of his word—a man of honor.
And a man who kissed her with such skill and such attention to every detail of her response that it left her senseless.
He walked toward her, slowly. Achingly slowly. And the entire time, his gaze roamed over her. She fought the urge to cover herself, to retrieve the dressing gown and disappear into the voluminous folds of it and pretend the entire exchange had never happened. But then he reached her.
There was no time for doubts or recriminations. There was nothing but the feeling of him wrapping her in his arms and hauling her against him. Then he was kissing her, his mouth moving over hers with that same precision.
In the face of that sensual onslaught, her doubts and fears fled.
There was no room for them. There was no room for thought of any kind.
Only sensation remained. His mouth moving on hers.
The firm press of his chest against hers as his arms wrapped tightly about her.
The way he hauled her against him in a display of strength and possessiveness that stirred her in ways she couldn’t comprehend much less describe.
And all of these things were happening simultaneously, rendering her mind useless.
Kissing him in return was as natural as breathing, as innate.
And yet every kiss they’d shared, that one included, had been so different.
Questioning, hungry, tender, fierce. Each one took on its own properties.
And currently, as he moved them back toward the settee she’d only recently vacated, she understood that their current kiss was something else altogether—purposeful.
Directional. It was leading them to a point of no return, and it might be the first thing she had no doubts about.
Whatever else passed, she wanted this. She wanted him.
And he wanted her. Not just her fortune.
Not just to possess her or own her or claim her.
It felt as if he wanted the whole of her—body and mind.
Heart, if they were lucky—hearts would come later.