Chapter Five #3
The merriment renewed with fresh abandon, and after a time, when she thought they were not likely to be missed, Madelina tugged at Garrick’s hand. “I have a gift for you, but it is in my bedchamber.”
His eyes darkened, and a wicked curve slanted his lips. “I imagine I will enjoy any gift presented in your bedchamber.”
“You are a scoundrel, aren’t you? I don’t imagine that will change.”
Her room was plain but her own, the carved panels of the walls an aged verdigris green and the bed hangings and upholstery the yellow of churned butter.
Madelina bit her lip as he opened the velvet pouch with the slender silver watch chain.
There were ribbons attached to hold the watch key, his citrine seal, and a third pendant to hold another small item.
“If we are entering a new time together, I thought you must have your watch about, to mark it,” she said shyly.
“I want a miniature of you to carry,” he said. “Because every moment you are not about, I want you with me.”
“Look how sentimental we are becoming,” she murmured against his lips. This kiss was different, incendiary, fierce. Their passion was a vine that had been fed and thus grew stronger, twining about them both.
“I stopped by the house for your gift, hoping I would have the chance to give it you.” He withdrew a pouch from a pocket inside his coat. “The color reminded me of your eyes.”
Madelina stared at the jewels that had been on display in the bow window. The single drop earrings showcased paired sapphires in a stunning briolette cut, the setting repoussé silver with tiny diamonds, aquamarine, and blue topaz arranged like a sunburst.
“Garrick. I’ve never beheld anything so beautiful.”
“You’ll have whatever you want as my wife, Mad. I promise you that.”
“Whatever I want?” She started unbuttoning his coat. He didn’t stop her, rather helped her shrug the sleeves from his arms, then drape his waistcoat over an upholstered bench. A dark flame burned in his eyes.
“You lost our bet, I’ll have you know.” She tugged his shirt free from his breeches and pulled it over his head.
“I didn’t lose.”
Her breath halted in her throat as she stared at him. He was a magnificent creature. He was molded like the figures on the Greek vases in the British Museum with his broad chest, firm arms, the lines and curve of muscle defining his torso.
“You love me,” he reminded her, his smile smug at seeing how the sight of his bare form struck her breathless.
The line of his male member straining in arousal against his breeches made her mouth go dry. She pushed him into a seated position on the bed and knelt to tug off his boots.
“You did not make me fall in love with you by Twelfth Night,” she said crisply. “I loved you well before this. Long, long before—so long we won’t speak of it.” She rose. “My point is, you lost.”
“I did not.”
He rose and tugged her against his body, his mouth claiming hers, his hands at her breasts, warm and heavy, leaving trails of fire. His kiss left her staggering, breathless.
“I win, so you have to marry me, Mad.” He brought her hands to his brown linen breeches, encouraging her to unbutton the fall.
He wanted her. This marvelous man wanted her. Madelina drew a breath, trying to still her whirling head. Her body was a reed humming one high, wild note, the call of her desire to possess him completely. And to be possessed.
“I win,” she said, “so you must pay my forfeit.” The breeches fell open, and he tugged them off, then stood before her in only his stockings.
Madelina stared at the full glory of him, all long strong lines and supple masculinity.
His member was as firm and proud as the rest of him, upthrust into the air.
She swallowed hard. She wanted this. All of this. She just hoped his spear didn’t maim her.
“What is your forfeit, my love?”
She darted her gaze up to meet his. My love. An endearment he might use on any woman. Every other woman who’d felt impaled by that spear.
“You must be true to me,” she whispered. “I have your fidelity. You vow to put aside all others and save your pleasure for me.”
“I will.” He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap.
She was still fully dressed, the skirts of her petticoat and gown draped around them.
He slid his hands beneath the fabric to urge her knees to either side of his hips, and his hot palm on the bare skin of her thighs, sliding over her bottom and then below, fed the fire within her to roaring life.
“You must show me how to pleasure you,” she whispered as he claimed her mouth once more.
“And you must teach me how to pleasure you. We will learn together.”
He moved his mouth to her breast, and Mad let her head fall back as need overtook her. She scrambled for thought.
“I don’t wish to be married in St. George’s,” she panted. “I want to be married in St. Mary’s in Woughton on the Green, on St. Valentine’s Day. And no quiet hidden ceremony, either. I want to make a festival of it.”
“Anything if it means I get to take you home that night as my bride.”
His fingers beneath her skirt crept between her legs, sliding over the spot that begged for him. He rubbed her there as he pulled with his mouth at her nipple, and a gush of wetness came down. She moaned, and he chuckled.
“No going off without me to have adventures and travel the world.” She screwed her eyes shut, shuddering as his fingers and mouth fed a building ache that was going to burn all through her. “I want to have adventures with you.”
“And I want you with me. Love me, Mad,” he growled against her skin, his fingers swirling in patterns that summoned magic. “Love me.”
“I do. I do,” she said, nearly sobbing. He cupped her bare bottom and urged her forward atop him. His hard member probed against her entrance as he coaxed into her, bit by bit, spreading her legs to take him in, using his fingers to moisten and ease his way.
She moaned. Garrick was inside of her. She’d wanted nothing but this for the last decade of her life. He chose her.
“I loved you the moment I first saw you,” she whispered. “Climbing the pear tree at the bridge. I wanted one, and you picked it for me.”
He slid further, charming, teasing. Taunting her with a nibble of the pleasure to come. “And you never scolded me for stealing from your family’s property.” His gaze searched her face. “Mad. You climbed trees better than I did. You never needed me to fetch that pear for you.”
“Yes, I did,” she whispered, holding his dark gaze. “I needed a friend, and you gave me that.”
“Mad.” He groaned, and his eyelashes fluttered as he entered her fully, filling her. He was beautiful and so strong, so solid in his honed body, yet so tender when he touched her.
“You beautiful, maddening creature,” he breathed. “Ten days ago you wouldn’t have me. What changed? What did I do?”
She wriggled around him, certain that, as nice as this was, there was something more. “You made me believe in you,” she said.
There were no words for a while, only the language of touch and kisses as he moved inside her.
The intimacy was unbearable and exactly what she craved.
She felt seared and bound by the keen pleasure, by the aching tide that pulled her to him.
He read her every breath and moan and somehow knew the rhythm that drove her to madness, pushing her up the peak, up, and then over.
When she trembled and broke he was there to hold her, swallowing her cry with his own groan as he shuddered and found release.
The heartbeat of ecstasy pulsed through them both, bodies united as their hearts, their souls.
She drifted back to earth and opened her eyes. “I love you.”
“And I you. I am wholly yours, Mad.”
He met her gaze steadily, unblinking, though his eyes were hooded with sated pleasure. He didn’t blink.
He wasn’t lying.
He withdrew from her gently and reached his handkerchief between them, cleaning her. “And now you have to marry me,” he added, “because I spilled inside you. Such talk there will be if my heir arrives eight months after the wedding.”
“Why didn’t you say yes three years ago?” She leaned her head drowsily against his shoulder, listening as his heart slowed to a steady beat. He was warm and safe and hers, now. Everything she wanted in this life. She touched his jaw. “We could have been doing this so much sooner.”
He chuckled and turned his head to kiss her fingers. “I was waiting for me to grow up.” His arms tightened, pulling her closer, and he brushed his lips through her hair. “I’m glad you waited for me, Mad.”
“I am, too.”
He set her on her feet so suddenly she blinked. “Now cease your seductions, you siren, and help me dress so we can return to the party. We cannot rob Tofty of his night to rule us.”
“Tofty rules us every day,” she grumbled, but found and smoothed his shirt. “It is only tonight he has a crown to prove it.”
He was dressed at last, with many kisses and stolen touches, but he stood looking down at her with those dark brows drawn into a slash. She stilled with her hand smoothing a crease on the lapel of his coat. “What?”
“Do you trust me, Mad?” His eyes searched hers. “To make you happy.”
“Garrick.” She felt the corners of her lips rise as if drawn on a string. It was a giddy thing she feared would happen often around him. “You already make me happy. Just by being you.” She patted his chest one last time, then started for the door.
“And giving extravagant gifts?”
She turned and threw him an arch smile. “Well, if you truly wanted to impress me, I believe the song says I am due twelve lords a-leaping—”
“You get one,” he growled, striding toward her.
She laughed and shrieked as he caught her at the top of the stairs, pressing a kiss against her neck as he pretended to devour her.
“Oh, very well. Just the one will do.”
He laughed back at her, and she felt her heart lift like a balloon, as if she were a Christmas wish rising toward heaven. He twined his hand in hers, smiling back, his whole heart on his face and love alight in his eyes as they started down the stairs and into their new life together.