Chapter 12 #2
“Breathe, sweetheart, breathe.” Darius kissed her cheek and held her still, pinning her against the settee with his body. Meredith clutched his bare shoulders, trying to get used to the unexpected pressure and that pinching sensation inside her.
Meredith bit her lip. “It hurts, Darius…”
“I know, sweetheart. You need to breathe.” He kissed her forehead and held himself very still within her.
Breathe? How on earth could she breathe? But after a moment, with him gently encouraging her, she did manage to breathe and slowly the pressure eased away.
“It feels better,” she confessed after a minute.
“Thank God,” he whispered. A second later he moved, pulling his hips back and then gently slid inside her once more. The pressure was still there, but the more he moved, the more it faded.
“How do you feel?” he asked as he began a slow, easy rhythm of thrusts.
“Good.” It was true. An excited pulse was now building in her womb, and she tightened her thighs around his hips.
Meredith lifted her gaze from his chest to his eyes. “Could you kiss me again?”
“Gladly.” Darius leaned in, his mouth meeting hers as his body continued to move over hers, penetrating her deeply.
His hips moved faster now, pressing tight against her in hard thrusts, and she took it all, each second of his possession, knowing at last what it was that tempted people to sneak away and risk ruining themselves.
And as she came apart beneath Darius she knew she was, in fact, ruined for all others.
He cried out her name as his body shuddered above hers.
She held him tenderly as his movements slowed, speaking soft words to him. He gazed down at her, his blue eyes full of storms, with a look of awe that matched what she felt inside.
It was a long while before Darius withdrew from her, retrieving his clothes and hers from the ground.
He used a handkerchief to clean her and himself and while she was a little embarrassed she was touched at his tenderness towards her.
They dressed quickly in the dark, but the rain was still coming down hard.
He told her to stay there and wait for his return.
“I will have my coach brought around. There is a way through the garden gates that will allow us to bypass the house. I shall return for you.” He pulled her once more into his arms, kissing her before he vanished into the night.
Meredith sank back down onto the settee, wincing as her body, newly used, protested with a flash of soreness between her thighs.
She rubbed her arms and stared into the darkness, wondering what tomorrow would bring now that she knew with a frightening certainty she could never love anyone but Darius.
* * *
He had made a mess of things tonight. Now he had to face the consequences.
He had taken Meredith’s virginity. He’d also forgotten to spill his seed elsewhere.
Instead, he had stayed buried inside her, completely under her spell.
There was a chance she could have a child from tonight’s actions.
It was entirely his fault. He was the one that should have known better.
There was no other choice for either of them now but to get married.
He would have to find a way to protect her, to save her from all the gossip, but it would be difficult, if not impossible. Lady Mary Raikes had already chosen Meredith as a target, and Lady Mary had many friends and a vast amount of influence.
This … this was what his fear had always been, but at least Meredith would be his and he would no longer feel mad for wanting her and not being able to have her. But the personal cost to her, what she might suffer just so he could satisfy his desires… that would keep him awake at night.
He exited the gardens and spied Mrs. Petersham at the edge of the balcony doors, standing just out of the reach of the rain. She spotted him just as quickly.
“Your Grace? Where’s Meredith?” Frances asked as he joined her.
“She’s waiting for me We need to bring the coach around to the garden gate and escort her home at once.”
“What? Is she all right? Mr. Burville told me that Meredith overheard some gossip and ran to the gardens, but he said that you went after her.” Frances met his gaze.
“That wretched Lady Mary Raikes has been spewing rumors about Meredith and her unsuitability. I refuse to repeat what I’ve heard, but you should know it is being said. ”
“This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. Now… it seems I have no choice.”
“What do you mean, no choice?” Meredith’s chaperone asked. “No choice for what exactly?”
“I mean that we will have to marry, and soon.”
Frances looked confused, then momentarily excited, but that expression soon faded beneath worry. “What has changed since last we spoke about your intentions?”
Darius didn’t want to tell her, but Frances had a right to know enough of the change in his and Meredith’s circumstances.
“I have compromised her.”
“You don’t mean here?”
“Yes.”
“In the garden?”
“Yes.”
She seemed to consider something. “That certainly didn’t take long.”
Darius raised a brow wondering exactly what kind of comment that was supposed to be, but Frances quickly changed the subject.
“I shall speak to someone about having the coach brought round at once.”
“Thank you. I shall go and collect Meredith.”
Darius retraced his steps to the garden gazebo where Meredith waited.
She was leaning against one of the white pillars, watching him through the rain.
Something gripped his heart as he stared back at the beautiful vision she presented, more real than anything he’d ever seen in his life.
He came up the steps to her and wrapped his arms around her.
She was his now. He no longer had to fight the urge to touch her, to keep her at a distance.
She sighed against his lips as he kissed her. Meredith was cold and wet. Her shiver passed through to him, and he gently rubbed her arms before he retrieved her wet evening gloves from where they lay on the arm of the settee.
“Let’s go home and warm you up,” he said, kissing the crown of her damp hair.
He took her by the hand and they ran through the gardens toward the side gate that led up to the front driveway, where his coach was waiting. Once inside, Frances wrapped her cloak around Meredith shoulders, and Darius told his driver to take them home.
No one spoke the entire way back, and for that Darius was grateful. He needed time to think, or perhaps not to think. It was hard to be sure.
Once they were home, Frances escorted Meredith upstairs where Nell would prepare her a hot bath. Darius went to his study to write his solicitor a letter about his upcoming marriage. He had just finished the letter when Chelsea politely rapped on his door.
“Come in.”
The butler peered inside. “Mr. Burville has just arrived. I assume you wish to see him?”
Warren politely nudged the butler side so he could enter Darius’s study. “Of course he wishes to see me, old boy.” He was also drenched from the rain, which meant he’d ridden straight here following them home from the ball.
“What is it, Warren?” Darius asked.
“You left the ball like the devil himself was on your heels. When I didn’t see Meredith return to the ballroom, I wanted to make sure the young lady was all right.”
“Honestly, I don’t know if she is,” Darius admitted. “She overheard Lady Mary’s unkind words about her and I know she is upset about that.”
Warren tossed his hat on Darius’s desk and sat down in a chair facing him.
“Lady Mary will not let your slight of her tonight go unpunished. Something must be done.”
Darius met Warren’s uncharacteristically worried gaze. “Something will be done, Warren. I can promise you that. In fact, I wish for you to accompany me tomorrow morning to procure a special license.”
Warren laid his palms on his thighs and let out a soft whistle. “You don’t mean…”
“Meredith and I will be married as soon as it can be arranged, hopefully at the end of next week.”
“Well damn, there’s a thousand pounds I won’t be seeing again,” Warren muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Meredith must be overjoyed,” Warren said with a grin.
But Darius’s stomach clenched with nerves. “She does not know as of yet. I will inform her in the morning.”
“Isn’t it fashionable these days for a woman to agree to marriage first?” Warren asked, half-teasing.
“She will agree, I’m certain of it.”
Warren studied him closely, far too astute for Darius’s liking because he knew whatever Warren was thinking was likely not going to be something he’d want to hear.
“Darius, not to draw rain clouds over your pending nuptials, but is this what you desire?”
That certainly wasn’t what he’d expected his friend to say, and it was hard for words to express how much it meant to him right now.
The bonds that had forged when they were young boys had only strengthened over time, and he was glad that his desire to marry Meredith hadn’t threatened his friendship with Warren.
“I have wanted Meredith since the moment I saw her standing at my front door, so brave and yet so lost. But that wanting has softened … deepened into something else. Something I dare not name lest I find myself becoming a fool for it.”
“Then let me say it for you,” Warren replied. “You love her.”
Darius did, but tonight he must face the fact that he was forcing marriage on her because he’d lost his control. He’d taken her virginity and her future, all for his own selfish need to claim her forever as his. He was a fool for letting it happen, but he wasn’t going to let her go now.
“She will not marry you if you force her to,” said Warren. “Even if she returns your love, she won’t allow you to make this match out of necessity for her honor.”
Darius refused to heed his friend’s warning. “She will marry me. She will have no choice. I compromised her tonight, which means there is a possibility of a child.”
“You’re a fool if you tell her that is why you must marry her. Trust me, Darius. Tell her how you truly feel, or you will lose her.”
Darius knew Warren was speaking honestly, but Darius convinced himself that Meredith would be reasonable, that she’d see things from his perspective.
If he started speaking of love and all the softer things she made him feel, she’d wonder why he hadn’t asked her to marry him sooner, and it would circle back to his own bloody fears about her place in his world and whether she could survive.
He didn’t want to have that fight again.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Warren said, collecting his hat. “I shall meet you at nine o’clock to accompany you to the Doctor’s Commons for the license.” He gave Darius a nod and took his leave.
Darius leaned back in his chair, listening to the rain tap softly on the windows.
He wondered how on earth he could find a way to speak of love.
What he felt surpassed any description so simple as the word love.
Kit should have bloody warned him what this felt like.
This gravity and weightlessness, this storm and sunlight, this breath and breathlessness, all happening in one vast infinite beating of his heart.
It was a long while before he decided to go to bed. As he paused by Meredith’s door, his hand touched the wood, and he imagined her sleeping against the backdrop of soothing rain sounds and dreaming.
Please let her dream of me … because I have done nothing but dream of her since she entered my life.
With a sigh that quivered deep within his chest, he returned to his chamber across the hall to sleep and perhaps to dream of all the tomorrows he and Meredith would soon have together.