Chapter Twenty #2
There had been… Well, not precisely an argument. An argument required someone to be in the wrong, and Reginald was gentlemanly enough to admit that there had technically been no one in the wrong in this situation.
It had not ended half badly, with him marching off the next morning to find his future wife and remedy the disaster he had created with his rash actions, but that was also not Peter’s fault. Mostly.
“You said that you would explain what had led to all of this—your brother a hero, but you were so sure he was a traitor—in time,” Jessica said quietly, her voice not exactly nervous, but she was clearly uncertain. “Is this the right time?”
Reginald turned to her and marveled that he had ever managed to find a woman who would be so patient with him.
He was not an aggravating man, on the whole. At least, he did not think he was.
But he made mistakes, and when he made them he was not very good at recognizing that. All too often, he would refuse to accept that he could have made a mistake at all, and only when he was neck-deep in trouble did he finally admit that perhaps his chosen direction was not the best.
Having done so in such an obvious way when it came to Peter, and Jessica, and the whole Chance family…
Well. It had rather done a number on his ego, which his brother would undoubtedly say was not a bad thing.
But having Jessica here, here, in his family’s long gallery, knowing she loved him and forgave him and loved that he wanted to right his mistakes—that was more than enough motivation to do better. To be better.
Reginald sighed. “It all started a year ago, when my brother started disappearing off. I knew he was probably doing something for the government. Our father had done something similar. It… It was an awkward time. I had inherited the barony. My brother felt, for a time, as though he should have done so.”
That was the sanitized way of expressing it, anyway.
Jessica nodded as they started to walk slowly down the long gallery. “Legitimacy is a complicated business, but at least my father was not the eldest of his brothers. That would have created—complications, I suppose.”
“Complications is the right word for it. But we managed to get along well—we like each other, and that helps,” said Reginald with a laugh.
“My sisters are much of the same mind.”
“And your brother?”
“You know,” Jessica said seriously, “sometimes I forget I have a brother. That’s terrible, isn’t it?
But he was sent away to school while we were kept home, and he really does keep to himself.
I suppose it would take a great woman to make him her hero.
But you were telling me about your brother. The scandal.”
“The scandal that wasn’t,” Reginald said darkly as they stepped out of the long gallery and into a corridor that led to a wide, sweeping staircase. “To cut a very long story short, I received a letter saying that he had been accused, with plenty of evidence, of treason.”
Just saying the word aloud raised bile to his mouth. Reginald swallowed it down—it was not true, it had not happened—but the pain of that moment, the dread that something so truly awful had happened to his family…it would take a long time to forget.
“I could not tell anyone, I could confide in no one—Society would censure us and my sister did not deserve to bear such a burden,” Reginald continued, his lungs still tight with the memory. “I knew that I had to do something, and the only thing I could think of was—”
“Marrying me.”
When he glanced at her, he saw with relief that Jessica was grinning. “Something like that,” he said wryly. “I needed any Chance I could take to become my wife, then I would be free—free from the censure of Society. At least, that is what I thought. It all seems like a dream now.”
Like a fever dream, Reginald thought privately as they ascended the staircase and meandered along the corridor. Like a sickness got hold of me.
What on earth had he been thinking?
“And I cannot apologize enough for—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Jessica said sternly, halting in her steps.
Reginald blinked. “You are?”
“You have already apologized for that list, which is what I presume you were going to apologize for,” his future wife said sternly. “You have apologized, and I have forgiven you. Why do you apologize again? Is my forgiveness insufficient?”
It was impossible not to wince. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” Jessica looked up at him with brilliantly clear eyes, her focus on him absolute. “Because I-I love you, Reginald. I love you. Forgiveness only has to happen once. You don’t—You don’t have to earn my forgiveness every new day.”
When she phrased it like that…
Reginald had not even noticed that he had slipped into that way of thinking, but that was precisely what had happened.
How, his mind appeared to be asking him on a daily basis, could she have forgiven me?
And so he woke up day after day with this knot of tension in him, unsure precisely how he had managed to trick this wonderful woman into accepting him, and he felt obliged to apologize again and again and—
Jessica kissed him, briefly but passionately, then flushed as she continued to walk along the corridor.
“There. Forgiven, once and for all. Now, you are certain that your brother has been pardoned, or let off, or whatever it is? Papa showed me the article in the paper, but the details. I found, were quite vague.”
Reginald blinked, slightly dazed by the fiery passion they had shared, then caught up with her. “Oh, yes, official writing and a seal and even a signature from the queen.”
“From Victoria?”
“The very one,” he said with a grin. “And that means I can stop worrying about my brother and start worrying about something completely different.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Just how much I am going to love you and take care of you,” Reginald said, fire spreading through his limbs, a flame he never wanted to put out. “Like how I can bring sunshine into every day of your life. Like how I need you to know just how precious you are.”
Somehow—Reginald was not quite sure how—he had managed to pin the woman he adored to the wall.
A recurring issue, being around this woman.
Jessica was smiling. “I thought I was about to receive the full tour.”
Reginald groaned, lowering his head to her neck and pressing a hot kiss under her ear. “I did promise that.”
“And what would a full tour be like without a trip to your…bedchamber?”
Jolting upright and hoping to goodness that she couldn’t see just how delighted that suggestion had made certain parts of him, he tried to say calmly and oh-so-suavely, “Oh, my darling, I think there is plenty of time for that later.”
Instead, he garbled, “Wh—now?”
Jessica grinned, her eyes alight with both mischief and desire—a heady combination—and took his hand. “Is it down here?”
“Any bedchamber will do,” Reginald growled, throwing open a guest bedchamber door and pulling her through it. “Oh, Jessica—”
“No words,” she said with a wicked look, shutting the door and pushing him against it with such force that Reginald could have melted inside.
Dear God, this woman—she knew what she wanted, and it was him. She was wonderful.
Still… “‘No words’?” Reginald rumbled, tugging at her gown and relishing the skin that it revealed.
“Just show me,” Jessica whispered. “Show me how much you love me.”
Reginald did not need any further encouragement. Just keeping his hands away from Jessica had been a constant torment in the carriage, and though they had engaged in slow, muffled amorous congress in the inn last night, just being in her presence was enough to arouse him.
There would be time for slow. There would be time for languid, and soft, and delicate. There would be time for reverential and worshipful.
This was not that time.
Growling under his breath, Reginald pushed himself away from the door and caught at Jessica’s hand before she tipped backward, pulling her to the bed, which was not made.
It did not need to be.
Ardor roaring through his veins, Reginald pushed Jessica onto the bed and she immediately reached up for him, needing his touch. Who was he to deny her?
“Oh, Reginald,” she moaned as he quickly rid himself of his trousers, allowing them to fall around his ankles as he found the hem of her skirts.
His manhood lengthened, thickening with every inch of her legs that he revealed. Christ, it was almost impossible to keep his mind as he swelled at the sight of her.
She was beautiful. Far more beautiful than he deserved, far more beautiful than he could have dreamed. Each time that Reginald uncovered her, he was surprised at how his imagination could not compete with the reality of Jessica’s attractive body, her welcoming curves, her beckoning softness.
When Reginald had covered her body with his own, strength meeting softness, she whimpered and shifted underneath him—but Jessica was not attempting to escape him, only position her secret place closer to his manhood.
The friction caused his hardness to twitch and Reginald distracted himself momentarily by kissing her, his mouth eagerly brushing kisses across Jessica’s lips, down her neck, to her heaving breasts, which were so close to escaping their stays, but he could not wait for that.
He could not wait for anything. The aching need between his legs would no longer brook any delay, and Reginald grinned wickedly as he slid his length into her soft folds.
Jessica moaned. “More—more, I need more—”
Stopping her mouth with another kiss, just in case a servant was meandering down the corridor, Reginald tilted her hips and groaned as he sank deeper into her wet and quivering center.
Was there anything like this? Could anything in the world ever compare?
Jessica fixed her eyes upon him and spoke directly, the directness something she only revealed with him. The knowledge that it was theirs, that only he saw this side of her, almost made Reginald explode. “Take me, Reginald. Now.”
Obedience was its own reward, but Reginald shuddered with heaving pleasure as he almost completely withdrew himself then plunged himself deeper still into the woman he loved, triggering a shaking bliss that overtook his body, just for a moment.
The moments became more frequent, his gentle plunging becoming rapid pounding as Jessica’s moans heightened and the sensations threatened to overwhelm Reginald’s sense.
So close—so close, but he had to make sure first that she—
“Oh, yes—”
Swallowing her screams of ecstasy, Reginald concentrated, head spinning, bliss almost overwhelming, as he thrust her further and further into ecstasy. Only when Jessica’s limbs ceased to shake and she fell back, eyes wide and smile languid, did Reginald permit himself to lose control.
“Jessica,” he groaned as his own climax came, claiming him just as surely as this woman had.
Reginald managed to withdraw before collapsing next to Jessica on the unmade bed.
Their breathing was the only sound, and it was harsh, ragged, proof of the suddenness of their coupling.
Reginald tried to blow out slowly, regain his equilibrium. Dear God. He was going to spend the rest of his life trying to keep up with this woman.
Jessica sat up, leaning over him with a wide grin and pink cheeks. “Right, then. Did you say that your housekeeper will have tea and cake waiting for us?”