Chapter 4
“And so, I am married.”
Frederick Clare, Duke of FitzOsbern, had taken great care to secure his bride, the license, and the church with all haste. He now had his harpist. In fact, she was installed next door, in the duchess’s chambers. Because she was his duchess.
His exhale contained a shudder. Was he nervous? How would one know that?
“My staff alerted me thirty minutes ago that Miss…Marianne dressed for bed,” he murmured. “Is it too early to knock on our connecting door? If I wait, it might be too late. But I’d hate to burst in and disturb her before she’s ready. She might think me overeager.”
He nearly took a sip of the special vintage port he’d opened for the occasion, only to set the small glass aside.
Perhaps she’d like a taste before they consummated their marriage?
But that had the feeling of drugging an unwilling woman.
He wanted his bride willing and wet — and just as consumed with lust for him as he was for her.
“I suppose things are easier where you live,” he said ruefully to his companion.
On the table, next to his glass of port, rested the stag mask he’d worn as the High Buckthorn, one of the legendary Grand Bucks.
As a happily married man, those days were now over, and that papier-maché mask would join myriad family treasures in the attic.
Someday, someone might come across it and wonder where the rest of the fancy dress costume had been laid, when, in fact, he’d worn the mask while nude.
He had fond memories of his bucking days, but Frederick didn’t regret securing his wife when the opportunity presented itself. She was too dear to escape him.
Frederick swallowed another sip of port. That didn’t sound right, not allowing her to escape him. He loathed overbearing, dominant husbands who kept their wives alternately at arm’s length and in terror. No, he would undertake to be a gentle sort of helpmate to Marianne.
Tell that to his cock. He was hot and hard, thinking of having his bride in any way she’d allow. Frederick turned his stag mask to look away and then parted his dressing gown to survey his southern horn.
He was undeniably stiff, though hopefully not so large as to present a problem. Should he oil himself before going to his wife? He should have asked one of the former Bucks who had attended his wedding. Their wives looked glowing and satisfied; his friends would have known how to ease the way.
Perhaps he should worship between Marianne’s thighs first?
But did young ladies know about such things and look upon them with favor?
While the fact was still unknown to her, he knew she had some knowledge of sex, having played at the Forest and seen glimpses when passions brought tapestry walls down.
When had his hand come to stroke his shaft? His cockhead was leaking copious amounts of fluid, all because he imagined doing something he could experience in the flesh if he simply walked next door.
Frederick rose to his feet. He was a little unsteady at first because of the speed at which he stood; his cock must be requiring too much of his blood right now.
Blood. He considered that virgins sometimes bled as their maidenheads gave way. The idea of Marianne suffering made him shudder. He’d need to be gentle to ensure her comfort.
At first, there was no response to his knock at the door. Then he heard a yelp from the duchess’s apartments and showed himself inside.
On the bed, in a position reminiscent of a hare spread and ready for cleaning, was his bride. She wore a gauzy nightgown — the sort of thing designed to make grooms sweat as though the fires were roaring — and she regarded him with some fear.
His heart sank that she feared him and dreaded the consummation of their marriage.
“Marianne, may I enter?” he asked from the doorway.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
That would never do. The fluttering in his belly only intensified as he walked closer and considered what to say.
“Frederick.”
Her brows winged up in an unspoken question.
“Your husband’s name is Frederick.”
“Oh. Yes. Frederick.”
Aside from their vows, it was the first time he’d heard her say his name. Why did it sound as musical as the notes she played? He had a hand on one bedpost to steady himself.
He took in her prone form and subtly made sure his dressing gown covered his throbbing cock. It wouldn’t do to scare her with the sight of it.
Marianne looked down her body at him. Her head rested on a raft of pillows as if she were Sleeping Beauty lying in state. He jerked involuntarily at the thought.
Just when he realized he should move the consummation along, Marianne shyly lifted the hem of that gauzy nightgown and gave him a peek of her ankle.
It was his first glimpse of it, despite his claim he’d seen it in the ballroom; they both knew that didn’t happen. And so his bride was willingly revealing it for the first time, to his delight.
“Marianne, you’re beautiful,” he breathed.
She pulled the hem further. “Do you really think so?” she asked, vulnerable and trembling as she exposed her shapely calves.
He was going to descend into a rut like an animal at this rate. His sack ached for want of entering her channel and flooding her womb. This was going to kill him.
Frederick climbed onto the bed, desirous of consummating the marriage. Without prompting, his bride spread her legs so he fit right between them.
As he shrugged off his dressing gown, she bent her knees. The nightgown slid up and up, finally revealing a shadowy hint of her slit.
Words failed him as he took in the sight, his mouth dry and cock ready to burst. Frederick brought one finger to his wife’s seam and stroked the hair, as if petting her.
She was still at first, watching him with something approaching aristocratic hauteur. But he kept at his gentle awakening of her pussy and was pleased to find dew on his fingers. Marianne was growing wet for him.
“Does it feel…acceptable?” he asked.
Her breath stuttered on her next inhale.
“Yes, I accept it,” she said, as if assembling words was difficult for her, too, when pleasure descended.
“May I delve deeper into your person?” he asked, fighting the urge to shake his head at how awkwardly he’d phrased the request.
“Please do, Your Grace,” she said, widening her thighs.
He didn’t bother to correct her; his gaze and every thought in his mind centered on the parting of those sweet cunny lips.
There was no doubt that she was glistening for him, slick and hot and ready to receive his cock.
Frederick had to tug at his balls to calm his ardor so he wouldn’t spend untouched, such was the magnitude of his arousal.
“I could do this all day, Marianne,” he breathed, watching as his finger slipped over her spread cunt and stroked over her nub.
Her hips rocked jerkily as if she was rolling on the waves of pleasure for the first time. He wanted to drive her right into the surging wetness and feel the spray on his face.
Frederick shook his head. He was far too worked up, too randy for his wife’s first time. He needed to moderate and control his impulses for fear of losing her!
“May I prepare you?” he asked, his eyes catching on that tiny hole that was supposed to hug his very swollen cock. The idea of pushing into her, feeling her virgin sheath around him, made him jerk.
“I trust you, Frederick,” she said in a small voice, switching to using his given name again without being reminded. He contained a groan.
As the High Buckthorn of the Grand Bucks, he’d had the occasion to pleasure many women, but never a virgin, and certainly not his own wife. Watching his smallest finger press into her untried cunny had him nearly feral with need.
She pulsed and gripped, all while being so wet as to make the slide feel unreal. “What a good girl you are,” he babbled, feeling his brain emptied of more complex sentences.
He traded his pinky finger for the index and dragged his fingertip over a soft and pillowy spot inside, observing as Marianne’s legs shook, but never bringing her fully to climax. He worked himself in and out with increasing speed and let her hole open for him.
“Frederick,” she said, her voice small. “Isn’t there something else you must do?”
He could think of ten thousand. “What’s that, darling?”
“Don’t you need to place yourself within me?” she asked. “At least, that’s what the lady my guardians hired as a chaperone explained to me when our marriage was announced.”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” he said, as if the thought had slipped his mind. He pulled off his dressing gown, and she saw him bare for the first time. Well, the second time, though she didn’t know she’d seen her future husband in the nude, donning only a stag mask, several months before in the Forest.
Frederick stroked his aching cock. “Have you observed one of these before?” he asked, knowing full well she had seen one. His cock.
His duchess didn’t answer, simply reached for it as if transfixed by the sight of a grown man sporting an erection that might just kill him.
Her fingertips, which he’d always imagined would feel cool, were in fact quite warm when they brushed over his cockhead. He jolted at the sensation, and she drew back.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, bringing her hand back to his shaft with utmost gentleness, then fitting her hand around his hard length.
At first, he thought she meant to stroke him, a very welcome turn of events. But then he caught on to the true object: she was pulling him towards her cunt, heaven help him.
He let her guide him, struggling on his hands and knees to get in position between her thighs.
When his tip glanced over her slit as she inexpertly tried to take him, Frederick grasped the bedclothes and begged the libertines gone before him for aid in holding back from an ignominiously premature end to his wedding night.
“You’re very intent on consummating this marriage,” he said with a leer, desperate for some way to break the spell that was cast upon him. The spell that had turned a seasoned rake into a green youth about to disappoint a woman.
She looked stricken, and he realized she might take his statement as if he thought she was trying to sink the final claws into a duke.
He dipped his head and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “As am I,” he said.
Marianne smiled while his lips still touched hers, and she relinquished control of his cock when he took himself in hand and gently inserted his tip at the entrance of her channel.
She was spasming already, as if halfway up the spiraling staircase to orgasm. He grasped the base of his cock and bit his lower lip to contain his lust.
“I’ll push in now?” he asked.
Marianne nodded frantically, as if she, too, was nearing the end of her tether.
At first, he watched her little hole expand and stretch to take him, all the while going as slowly as possible to minimize the pain. Then he regarded her face, those dewy eyes and flushed cheeks, her lovely lips parted as she received her husband for the first time.
And then he heard a moan. And another. More musical and seductive than even the notes of her harp, washing over him and attacking his spine until he could not stem the surge of seed.
Frederick Clare, Duke of FitzOsbern, libertine and former member of the Grand Bucks, had barely gotten his cockhead within his bride before spending like a green lad with his first woman.
Marianne’s eyes were nearly closed as pleasure swept her away. Then they opened, unsure of why her husband had ceased his movements. He winced, then set his thumb on her clitoris and delivered the most apologetic orgasm to happen in London that year. And the next.
When she’d finished quaking — the motions of which squeezed what little of his shaft had made it inside before erupting — Frederick gently pulled his cock out.
The smallest smear of blood mixed with his spend, and he fumbled in his dressing gown for a handkerchief.
He should have been more prepared, he castigated himself.
Should have known he’d react so strongly.
“Well,” he said, wiping them both and tucking her legs back together.
“Yes,” she said, a little too brightly.
And with that, Frederick swept from his wife’s room, fearful he’d never be invited to return.