Chapter 19
“What are you doing?” Cecily cried out as his hands entwined with hers, pinning her effectively to the bed.
Sharp waves of excitement pierced her to the core. Surely she ought to panic? Instead, she was drawn in by the midnight blue eyes hovering above her face, and far from wanting to resist the man.
“Shall I make you less confused, Cecily? I would have done it before, if you had not seemed so determined to avoid me. Don’t you think that has gone on long enough?”
“Avoid you?” Cecily gasped, wriggling helplessly and all too conscious that only a sheet lay between her and his too-fascinating naked body. “But it is you who has avoided me! Oh, do let me go!”
For a moment, Nathaniel looked down at her in consternation, and then his face creased in amusement.
“Oh, dear. If you have not been avoiding me since our wedding, and I have certainly not been avoiding you, it seems we have had a comedy of errors,” he chuckled. “I am not a man to take an unwilling bride to my bed.”
“I… I thought you did not want me,” Cecily blurted out, bright red now with self-consciousness and growing arousal. “I thought…”
“You cannot doubt my desire for you now,” he replied, with something more than amusement in his eyes as they gazed down upon her. “You can feel it, can’t you?”
Against her belly, Cecily could indeed feel the firm pressure of something very hard. Only the tangled sheet and her thin summer dress lay between her skin and his, an understanding that made her core tingle and throb unbearably.
“I… I feel you,” she managed to whisper in an unsteady voice that caught in her throat with something close to a moan. “Oh, God.”
“Where do you feel me?” he murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips.
“You know where,” she answered, trembling as his mouth trailed kisses down her neck and throat.
“Here?” he asked, kissing the swell of her breasts above her dress and then the mounds themselves. “Do you feel me in the beat of your heart? Here?”
Releasing her arms, he kissed her midriff through the muslin, and her hands came down to stroke his hair of their own accord.
“Here, in your belly, perhaps?” he murmured seductively.
How was he bringing her to this state of helpless excitement all over again? In a few moments, Cecily knew that she would be ready to do anything he desired.
“Here?” he suggested next, his tone teasing as his mouth settled on the aching spot between her thighs, causing her to jerk and cry out beneath him.
She certainly felt something there, both her desire and excitement stirred by his touch.
She closed her eyes tightly, knowing that if she looked back at him now, she might see him entirely nude as he hovered over her. Part of her longed for that, but she also feared it, feeling already too close to being overwhelmed.
When his gentle hands began to push up her skirts, she could not remain still. Would he take her now?
She whimpered with desire and nervousness, telling herself that it was his right to do so as her husband, while marveling at her own lack of will to resist his advances.
Is it an improper hour for such activities?
“Are you trying to get away from me again? Must I tie you down, Cecily?” he teased her once more as his hands stroked her hips and thighs beneath the dress. “Or will you be obedient this morning? I promise you will not regret it.”
“Oh God, Nathaniel!” Cecily cried out, shocked, excited, and confused all over again by his words and his actions. “What are you—Ooh!”
Her skirts were now rucked up around her waist, and Nathaniel’s head was buried between her thighs. He kissed the outer lips of her sex as he parted her thighs further, before licking into her.
Cecily had never conceived of such an act before, and had certainly not realized the pleasure it could give. The pleasure sparked by his lips and tongue was as strong and even more thrilling than that elicited by her own fingers on the night he had made her touch herself.
But could it be right? It seemed so very improper to have a man’s head buried between her thighs and his tongue stroking her with such expertise.
“Ooh… Oh, it is indecent… Surely, you cannot…” Cecily panted, her head tossing and turning on the pillow as he slid his hands beneath her buttocks and lapped at her faster.
“You are my wife, and this indecency delights you,” he growled, pausing briefly in his ministrations. “You know it does, Cecily. How soft and luscious you are…”
His fingers joined his tongue before two slid into her, making her back arch. She had not known that a man could caress a woman inside as well as out, but she was learning fast.
“Nathaniel!” she cried out as he slowed his ministrations, aching for more.
Despite her inexperience, her husband seemed to know exactly how to arouse and excite her, drawing out the pleasure until she was almost sobbing with it. Only then did he drive her over the edge, flicking his tongue against her swollen bud while his fingers stroked her spasming inner walls.
Cecily came back to herself, panting on the bed, her skirts still around her waist, while Nathaniel stroked her naked belly and thighs as he lay beside her. His tousled head was now level with hers on the pillow, and his face was set with a mix of expectation and restraint.
Her inhibitions temporarily abandoned, Cecily turned to him and kissed him, tasting herself on his lips. Her gaze drifted down his nakedness, and she inhaled sharply when it landed on his shaft, thicker and bigger than she had imagined it.
Nathaniel grinned as he followed her gaze and made no attempt to cover himself.
“Not yet,” he told her, drawing her skirts back down. “You should have time to imagine how I will mount you, Cecily. It will make it all the sweeter. Anyway, you would not want to keep Rogers waiting, would you?”
With a jolt of alarm, Cecily remembered her order for the valet to come upstairs. Sitting bolt upright and then jumping from the bed, she frantically smoothed her dress and despaired at the disorder of her hair.
As if on cue, footsteps sounded down the corridor, and a few seconds later, there was a light rapping on the outer bedroom door.
“Your Grace?” the valet called. “I have brought hot water and the shaving kit, if you are ready to dress.”
“Two minutes, Rogers,” Nathaniel called back, entirely insouciant as he rose from the bed and stretched.
“Oh no! What will Rogers think? What shall I…?”
He laughed quietly and put an arm around Cecily’s waist to guide her back through the connecting door into her rooms.
“You leave me to dress, and then I shall join you,” he told her simply. “Anyway, there is no need for concern about being found in my bedroom by Rogers or anyone else. I am your husband, after all.”
“Yes, but you are… naked!” she whispered, blushing deeply as she gestured to his semi-hard shaft.
“All the more reason to be alone with my wife,” he whispered back playfully, before closing the connecting door after her.
* * *
Suited, booted, and well-groomed, Nathaniel ascended the stairs to the second floor of the east wing, where the nursery was. He felt optimistic about life at the moment and hummed to himself as he walked.
How beautifully his delectable new wife had melted into ecstasy under the attention of his mouth and hands. He had no doubts about her desire for him. Soon enough, he would claim her fully and revel in the passion he was slowly unleashing.
As well as approving of his orderly appearance when he had dismissed Rogers and knocked on the connecting door, his still-blushing wife had given him clear instructions on how to speak to an angry and bewildered seven-year-old.
“Just show Lilian that you care,” he muttered under his breath, repeating the words that Cecily had kept emphasizing.
This advice seemed superfluous. Surely, everything he had done showed that he cared, and Lilian must know it.
A pony every year was not a gift for an unloved child, was it?
Nor was that little carriage built by the same company that built his own carriages.
How many little girls had ice cream or lemonade all year round?
He loved his daughter immensely, and all that was proof.
Ah, well, Cecily’s advice was not bad in itself, and he was willing to humor her in this, and many other things besides. He had not wanted to upset Lilian, and yet somehow he had. Clearly, he had missed something and would not dismiss Cecily’s suggestions out of hand.
“Miss Osborne, is there a problem?”
Turning the corner to the corridor leading to Lilian’s new bedroom, he saw the pale, flustered-looking governess standing outside one of the doors. Two nursemaids stood whispering behind her, several heavy cloth bags lying at their feet.
“Oh, Your Grace,” Miss Osborne gasped with surprise and more than a little concern. “We did not expect to see you up here this morning.”
“Well, I have come to see my daughter,” Nathaniel said shortly, coming to a stop beside the three women and looking at them questioningly. “Is Lilian in there?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the governess answered hesitantly, reminding him more than ever of a wilting daffodil.
“Shall we all go in, then? I wish to speak with her, but that should not keep any of you from your work.”
Confusingly, all three women remained rooted to the spot.
Impatiently, Nathaniel stepped forward and reached for the door handle.
“Lady Lilian has locked herself in,” one of the nursemaids blurted out just as he discovered this fact for himself. “She will not unlock the door.”
“Why has she locked herself in, Miss Osborne?” Nathaniel demanded, rattling the door, more with bafflement than displeasure.
“I cannot say, Your Grace,” the governess replied weakly. “I told Lady Lilian that she might have ten minutes in her bedroom and that we would then go to the schoolroom for lessons. When I went out to fetch Maisie and Ellen to arrange her clothes, she locked the door.”
“Has she fallen asleep?” Nathaniel pressed with a frown.
His question elicited a smothered snort of laughter from one of the maids.