Chapter 8
Edmund carried Ann into his apartments, heading to some room off the bedroom. Looking about the chamber for the first time, she was surprised that they didn't immediately go to the enormous four-poster.
“I thought you meant to take me to bed,” said Ann, still wearing only that tapestry from the Forest. Edmund had solicitously wrapped her in the fabric, then whisked her off to his carriage, where he’d barked orders for the coachmen and footmen to turn their backs for his wife’s modesty.
He really could have allowed her time to dress; he’d pulled on just enough clothing to evade arrest, but she was so turned about by his protective actions that she merely clung to his neck and enjoyed the feeling of being in his arms.
“Need to get them off of you,” he mumbled while walking through the vast bedroom into what seemed to be a…bathing chamber? He’d taken his stag mask off, tossing it on the floor of the Forest as they departed, but his voice was still so far away as he growled the few words he got out.
Before them spread the most spectacular bathing chamber she’d ever seen. Ann read magazines and gazettes and had seen the new sanitary inventions that she’d secretly wanted to try simply for the pleasure of splashing around in them.
In pride of place was a hooded shower bath, the front half of the bathing tub enclosed by high walls.
“You have one of the new—”
“Yes, in we go,” grumbled Edmund, not bothering to remove his clothes as he stepped into the bath. He pulled the tapestry from Ann’s body after holding it in place so carefully the entire trip home, finally allowing her bare feet to drop so she could stand.
She stood there as he pressed his chest to her back and turned a knob. Rather than the trickle of cold water she had envisioned when reading those articles and perusing advertisements, a gushing flow of lukewarm water erupted from a pipe and head above.
Edmund pulled her back against him. Their bodies melded together. “It will get hot,” he said, fiddling with the knob.
And so she stood in her husband’s arms, wondering what he was about. At last, he judged the water a suitable temperature and took up soap, lathering it and then placing his hands at her shoulders.
“Edmund?” she asked. Did he judge her hygiene to be displeasing?
“I need to get the smell of the Bucks off you,” he said.
Ann felt instantly hurt, as if she’d done something wrong. But he had been the one to suggest that she go to the Bucks! It was his secret society, all his! She was about to protest vociferously when he raised her arms and began washing below them, then lathered soap over her breasts.
“But you gave me to the Bucks!” she cried, no longer willing to be ignored and dismissed. She didn’t care if she loved him. This was too hurtful and unfair to bear. She’d walk right out of the house in that tapestry if she had to!
Edmund wrapped his arms around her middle and pressed their cheeks together. All the while, he muttered, “You’re mine, Annie. I need to get them off of you and then claim you. Mark you as my own. My wife.”
A sob escaped her lips, unbidden feelings breaking suddenly at his unexpected words.
“Annie, my love, don’t cry over your big, stupid husband,” he said, caressing her belly as his voice betrayed the emotions he was holding in.
“You’re not stupid,” she said. Oh, to be like this always, held in his arms. All the while, warm water fell upon them in that marvelous shower bath.
“But I am. I wish I could say I was young and foolish when we married, but I was older than you now. Older and distraught at what Crispin had done to you.”
Ann turned in her husband’s hold so she could look at him as they talked. Initially, this put her directly under the spray of water, but he pulled her closer to protect her from the drops.
She needed to make some things clear. It might cause him to hate her, but she owed him some details of what had transpired between her and Edmund’s brother.
“But I was not unwilling,” she said, hoping that he would recall that Crispin’s attentions hadn’t been unwelcome.
“You were a girl,” whispered Edmund, taking her head between his enormous hands. After so many years, he finally showed what he’d been staying away to hide: that his brother’s actions anguished him.
His face was tight with pain as he regarded his wife, thought of how young and vulnerable she’d been when Crispin had taken advantage of her innocence and landed them both in a marriage they didn’t want.
He’d seen the look of horror in her eyes on their wedding day and knew that she wasn’t ready to be his wife; would never consent to being his wife in truth, after what Crispin had done.
“I wasn’t unwilling,” she said, placing her hands over his and speaking reassuringly.
“But you were a girl,” Edmund bit out, his jaw held tight.
“And he was a fine lord, a handsome one at that,” she said, studying those pained eyes.
“He shouldn’t have done it.”
Ann dropped a hand to her husband’s chest and traced the path of water over his skin and thatch of hair. Edmund wasn’t wrong. But his assumptions about her seduction had kept them apart for fourteen years. She needed to clear up his misapprehensions so they could be a family at last.
“Crispin should not have seduced me, I agree,” she said.
Edmund grunted.
“But you need to understand that marrying me and leaving me at your estate hurt me far more than Crispin tearing my maidenhead at sixteen,” she said, her hand now a fist settled against that broad chest.
“I did it to protect you,” he said, his eyes looking strangely bright.
He — this towering monument to masculinity — couldn’t be crying, could he?
“You suffered the consequences of the Wake family’s lust, and I wasn’t about to force you through that again.
You were young, Ann. You were all of sixteen, bringing a sad little doll with you into the house where you were to serve as mistress! ”
Their toes met each other in that tub as they inched closer together while solving the longtime problem of their broken marriage. Edmund realized what was happening and used his big toe to stroke his wife’s; he’d reach her heart any way he could, even if it meant traveling all the way up an artery.
“I was young, but that only magnified the confusion I felt at a choice you never consulted me before making,” she said.
“Leaving you ruined in judgmental Shropshire after what Crispin did would have been unthinkable. Especially when there was the risk of a child.”
Ann hung her head, recalling that time. Edmund wasn’t wrong.
“And then I saw how you looked at me in the church,” he said, the full extent of his anguish finally coloring his voice. “You feared me, Annie. I couldn’t force you to live with me.”
Her eyes dropped to his nipples. Even those blasted things were handsome and desirable.
“In that church, I did fear you,” she said.
Edmund nodded, satisfied that he'd read her face correctly and his decision to stay away was for the best.
“But,” she said, pinching one of those nipples that taunted her. “As I reached my majority and understood more about what might happen between…loving people, I craved you.”
Ann let the words sink in, holding his gaze boldly as she dragged her tongue over her husband’s nipple to show how deep her desire for him ran. He seemed at a loss for words, so she continued.
“I imagined you returning to your estate in Shropshire, ordering me to undress, and taking me. I considered each room in the house. Considered all the positions, all while touching myself to the thought of you filling me. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last decade.
How I’ve filled the time while you weren’t filling me. ”
The bathing chamber was silent, save for the sound of the falling water. Perhaps she’d said too much, gone too far. But her desire demanded that she speak in hopes of at last making a marriage out of a legal agreement.
“Our estate,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said ‘your estate.’ As my wife, it is our estate.”
“I believe any court in the land would rule that the estate, in fact, belongs to you.”
“Belongs to the marquessate, not me, not that one, if we must be technical. Or most of our estates.”
“I don’t follow,” she said.
“I don’t want to be technical,” said Edmund, drawing an arm around Ann’s back to press her wet front to his firm chest. “I don’t want a technical marriage. A marriage on paper. I want to share what is mine with you.”
“But you just said the estate is not yours to share with me.”
Edmund brought his lips close to hers, holding them there as he looked down upon the slip of a girl who had grown into being his wife. He was now ready to make her his wife, in truth. But was she ready for him? Could she possibly handle what he had to give her?
“Then let me give you all the things that are mine to give instead,” he said, bringing her hand to his cock.
Ann’s lips parted, and she searched Edmund’s face for signs they wanted the same thing. Looking down, she saw his ruddy cockhead emerge from her grasp. Then she covered it again, causing her husband to moan while he gripped the hood of the bath that prevented water from spraying onto the floor.
“I want this,” she said softly, working him in her hand. “But I want something else more.”
“A baby,” he said with certainty. “I’ll work tirelessly to give you one. Many, if you’ll permit. Happily.”
She waved that aside with her free hand before placing it on his chest. “If you mean to get a baby on me and return to how things were, tell me now. I’ll still have your baby, but I need to know before we take another step whether you’ll ever…
feel things for me. Whether you’ll let me feel things for you. ”
“I said I don’t want a technical marriage,” said Edmund, his voice rising when Ann stroked a spot on the underside of his cock that felt like heaven.
“Yes, you mean to take me to bed?”
“I mean to claim you, body and soul.”