Chapter Seventeen
“Johnson said your brother was here,” Laurence said over their dinner of pork chops that evening.
It still felt rather formal between them when they sat like this at opposite ends of the large dining table.
In fact, it always felt formal—until the night, when they were alone.
Then, everything felt rather easy. He struggled to hide his distaste when he mentioned her brother.
What little he had seen of Oliver Carrington before he had met Anastasia had not endeared the man to him, but his behavior that night in Vauxhall Gardens had rather disgusted him.
He had treated his sister with no care whatsoever for her feelings or wishes, and Laurence was not sorry to have missed his visit.
Anastasia’s reaction surprised him, however. Her eyes widened as though she had been caught out, and then she nodded.
“Was there a reason for his visit?” Laurence asked, his curiosity piqued.
Anastasia put a piece of pork in her mouth and spent a very long time chewing it—certainly far longer than the seconds it needed.
Laurence waited somewhat impatiently, feeling as though she were keeping something from him. Had her brother caused a scene? Laurence wasn’t sure what he could have an issue with now, and if there had been some drama, he was sure his staff would have informed him.
“He just…hasn’t seen me since we were wed.”
“So he was checking to see that you were well?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes, that was it.”
Laurence did not feel comfortable enough in their relationship to challenge her, even though he was sure she was lying.
“Did you have a productive day?” she asked, and his mind flickered back to the encounter with Lady Frindley, and the uncomfortable conversation that he would certainly not be repeating to Anastasia.
“Yes, yes, quite productive,” he said, looking down at his newspaper.
*
Anastasia hated how awkward and forced conversation seemed between them in the daylight hours. She knew why she was struggling to fill the silence, tonight, at least—because there was more to her brother’s visit, and she could not disclose it to him.
But why, when asked, did he not elaborate on his day? He disappeared from the house for most of the daylight hours, and yet she had no idea what he was doing.
Was he seeing another woman? Or women, even? She wished she had the guts to ask him, for the thought taunted her whenever she allowed her mind to wander in that direction.
Later, as she lay in his arms—the one moment in the day where everything felt right in the world—she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Unusually, sleep would not come. While she often woke in the early hours to find herself alone and struggled to get back to sleep, falling asleep after they had made love was never normally a problem.
Tonight, however, her thoughts turned to her brother’s demands.
She flexed her wrist, remembering the tight grip he’d had on it, even though there was no mark to show for it.
He couldn’t really hurt her if she did not comply, could he?
They did not even live together anymore. She could simply refuse him entry.
But he was right about one thing: she didn’t want to see her family’s name ruined, even if her name was now Walsham and not Carrington.
And her husband was richer than she could have ever imagined being.
He wouldn’t notice the money…and if Oliver had a clean slate, perhaps he would stop acting so foolishly.
How was she to get the money? If she could not tell Laurence what it was for, then she could not ask him outright for it. She was a terrible liar, and he would surely know if she tried to deceive him.
If there had been something from her own possessions that she could sell, from before they were wed, then she would have done so, but Oliver had sold any family heirlooms of worth long ago, and her dresses would not fetch the sums he required.
Her eyes wandered over to the jewelry box on the dressing table, which she could just see in the glowing embers of the dying fire.
The jewels belonging to the Viscountess Walsham.
That was her, after all. If there was one thing she could sell that would not be noticed, then maybe this whole mess could go away.
Guilt at what she felt she must do gnawed at her stomach, and she almost turned in order to remove the jewelry box from her line of sight, when she remembered that Laurence was still there, his arms wrapped around her, his bare form pressed against her back.
She sighed and leaned back into him, the silence of the room disturbed only by the ticking clock on the mantel.
How long was it until he would leave?
They had been married for a month and had spent every night together, and yet still he left once she was asleep. Without a word. It had not been discussed, and she was not brave enough to broach the topic, and so she did not truly understand why he left—she just knew that he did.
And that she wished he would stay.
Time ticked on, and she tried not to think about her brother, tried to enjoy this time where she felt content in her marriage, in her life.
It wasn’t just the sexual relations, although they were more earth-shattering than she could have ever imagined.
No, it was the closeness, the feeling that there were only the two of them in the world, that he knew her better than anyone else.
Of course, she knew that wasn’t true. In the cold light of day, it was clear that their connection did not extend past the bedchamber. But in the quiet of the night, she could persuade herself that it did.
She felt his body stiffen, and his arm slide away from her. Did he think she was asleep? Or had the time come for him to leave, whether or not she was awake?
She nearly let him go without a word, nearly pretended she was asleep in order to avoid an awkward conversation.
But she didn’t want him to go. And if he was going to, she thought, she at least deserved to know why.
“Do you have to leave?” she asked, her voice ringing out in the still room, surprising herself by her own boldness.
Behind her, his body froze.
“I thought you were asleep,” Laurence said, feeling like he had been caught doing something wrong.
He left every night, and she had never said a word.
He had presumed it was what she wanted, and that had made it easier to keep leaving, even though he had often imagined staying in her embrace, perhaps waking to the sunlight reaching the curtains and making love once more as the day truly began.
“I know. But do you have to leave?”
It was hard to read her emotions without being able to see her face. He did not know how to answer her. Of course, there was no reason why he needed to leave, other than it being the way things were done. The way he had always done it, anyway.
“No… I suppose I don’t need to leave,” he said, frozen somewhere between lying down and sitting up, not sure if she wanted him to stay or if she was merely questioning him.
She nodded her head, and he wished he could see those blue eyes, to try to read what she was really thinking.
“Stay.” It was one word, delivered as both a command and a request.
One word that made it clear what she wanted—in that moment, at least.
And so he lay back down, and pulled her bare body back against his, and allowed himself to close his eyes and sleep in his wife’s bed for the first time.
When he awoke, Laurence thought he was dreaming.
His arousal—which was always present when he woke up these days—was pressed against the soft form of his slumbering wife.
It was a dream he’d had many times before, and yet this morning, it felt different.
He could tell he was not in his own bed, for one, and he did not immediately wake up, as he so annoyingly seemed to do in his dreams just when things were getting good.
He pressed his nose to her hair and inhaled the floral smell that he presumed came from her soap. And then he felt her stiffen in his arms, clearly awakening herself.
This was no dream.
She pressed her soft behind against him and he groaned, unable to control himself. He had lost count now of the number of times they had made love in this bed, but never in the morning, with the sun streaming in through a gap in the curtains.
Anastasia rolled over, and he could not help but beam at the sight of her, red hair loose and splayed across the pillow, her eyes barely awake and yet already full of desire.
She kissed him first but he responded enthusiastically, his tongue meeting hers as his hands slid to her soft hips, pulling her tight against his arousal.
How did he still want her so desperately, after weeks of marriage?
Her hands slid up his chest, and then she swung her leg across him, straddling him as they continued to kiss. His fingers entangled in her hair, pulling her closer, always desperate for more of her.
Was this the high some men got from gambling or drink? He found himself constantly thinking about her, and he never had his fill.
*
Anastasia was sure her cheeks were burning red, but she didn’t care. He had stayed the whole night, and she had awoken in his arms, and now she wanted to take control of the desire for him that coursed through her veins.
She was rather surprised by her own boldness when she wriggled her hips and took him inside of her.
She pulled away from their kiss slightly, wanting to see his face, and it was to her satisfaction that his eyes were wide and his mouth slack.
He groaned, and she moved, her whole body lighting up from that point of connection.
She moved again, chasing the pleasure that had immediately begun to build, and he gripped one of her hips with a broad hand and began to rock his hips in time with hers.
His other hand caressed up her body until he was holding the weight of her breast in his palm.
His thumb brushed across her nipple and she cried out, her whole body tensing as her release washed over her, sudden and explosive.
Moments later, he cried out, and Anastasia lay against him, her breath coming in pants, his chest heaving.
“I could happily wake up like that for the rest of my life,” he murmured into her ear, and she laughed in spite of her breathlessness and luxuriated in the joy of that moment, lying in his arms.