Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Past
“Do you like it?” he asked.
The question was unnecessary because Evie’s expression was, for once, completely unguarded.
The shadows had left her eyes, and there was just bright, shining joy as she twirled under the sky of glass.
The finishing touches had been put on the greenhouse yesterday, and now it stood like an empty jewel box of glass and iron.
The arched roof was composed of slender, white, wrought-iron ribs that secured the sparkling ceiling panels.
Green and ochre tiles covered the floor in an elegant, geometrical pattern.
Pots and raised beds were empty and awaiting his countess’s whims.
As Evie dashed around the room, talking to herself as she made plans, James was amused and satisfied, like a man who knows he’s given the perfect gift.
Shopping for Evie required skill. During their year together, he’d discovered that frocks, jewels, and other feminine luxuries held little appeal for her.
Yet he had noted her delight and wonder when they’d visited a friend’s conservatory and decided then and there that she ought to have one of her own.
“Oh, James. The greenhouse could not have turned out better. It is perfect.”
Evie’s glowing excitement justified the extravagance.
“We used your ideas for the design,” he reminded her. “Your suggestion to steepen the slope of the ceiling to allow in more light quite impressed the architect. I do believe he wishes to hire you on.”
She giggled. The sound was so carefree, so unlike his wife, that he felt a pang in his chest. As he’d predicted, married life with Evie was never boring.
He enjoyed discovering her quirks and complexities.
He’d learned, in bits and pieces, about her past and knew that she’d weathered difficult times.
She’d lost her papa early on and her mama at age fourteen.
Left in the care of her stepfather, Lord Calvert Wilmington, Evie hadn’t mourned when he died three years later—and James didn’t blame her.
The profligate bounder had gone through her mama’s fortune and her inheritance, leaving her destitute.
To survive, Evie had taken whatever work a seventeen-year-old gentlewoman could find, from sewing to selling arrangements she’d fashioned from dried flowers.
She and Harkness—the battle-axe’s loyalty to her charge was the sole reason James kept her on—had shared a room in a boarding house, pooling their earnings to scrape by.
When Evie had landed the job as Lady Thurston’s companion, she had believed her fortunes were finally improving.
The image of Evie warding off that scoundrel Thaddeus with a pruning knife smoldered in James’s memory even now.
She’d been making her own way in the world from a tender age, and it showed.
She didn’t trust readily. She expected little, and when she received anything, even the smallest boon, her stunned gratitude cut him to the quick.
It made him want to give her more—everything he could.
He was determined to show her the bounty of life and take away her fears…
even if he didn’t know their full extent.
Despite their flourishing bond, she had hidden corners, places she didn’t want him to see.
Well, he was a patient man, and his wife was worth the wait.
He wanted her to willingly yield her secrets.
He wanted everything of her—especially the three words she’d yet to say.
To be fair, he hadn’t said them either. As delightful as their maiden year of marriage had been, the time hadn’t felt right, and he didn’t want to scare her away.
Yet the feeling was there, at least for him.
He was certain of what was in his heart and yearned to know what was in hers.
Evie was affectionate, in her own way, and delightfully sensual. He thanked his lucky stars that his prim and intellectual wife enjoyed making love as much as he did. But did the pleasure they share transcend the physical for her? Did she feel…bound to him? The way he felt bound to her?
“Well, he cannot have me,” she said.
James cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon?”
“The architect,” she said coquettishly. “You may tell him I will be otherwise occupied now that you’ve given me this magnificent greenhouse to conduct my studies in.”
“Will I come to regret giving you this retreat?” Unable to resist her rare playfulness, he tugged on a blonde ringlet by her ear. “Have I built a greenhouse, only to lose my wife?”
“You could never lose me.”
Even as she drew her brows together, looking faintly startled by her words, he felt a jolt of pleasure. Giving in to the impulse, he cupped her cheek.
“Say it, Evie,” he said huskily.
“Say…what?”
“Those three little words. I know you have thought them. And I want to hear you say them aloud.”
Her flush gave her away. He could scent her nerves along with her fresh and subtle perfume.
Leaning down, he murmured against her ear, “They are only words and little ones at that. Give them to me, my sweet.”
A pulse leapt in her throat.
“Thank you?” she said breathlessly.
“That is only two words.”
“Thank you…kindly?”
She jolted when he nipped her tender earlobe.
“Try again, darling.” He ran a thumb over her plump-as-a-peach mouth, his groin heating because he knew how sweet she tasted.
“You’ve come close to telling me. Last night, for instance.
When I was inside you, you looked at me, and I saw your lips move as your pussy clasped me in that special way when you’re on the cusp—”
“James.”
“Have I embarrassed you, Evie?”
Enjoying her blush, he couldn’t resist swooping down for a kiss. The flavor of her—nervous, eager, and needy—went straight to his head. Or both his heads, rather. He was already hard as a rock as he explored his wife’s mouth until she was panting, moaning, melting against him.
“Say it,” he urged.
She gazed at him. He’d dislodged her hairpins, and her cornsilk tresses were tumbling over her shoulders. Through her thick lashes, her whisky eyes were bright with desire and trepidation.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why do I have to say it?”
“Because I want to hear it.”
He took her mouth again, reveling in her hot, lush response. The adage about still waters applied to his Evie utterly. He wanted to plumb her hidden depths…figuratively and literally.
“And because,” he murmured against her plush lips. “I want to say them back.”
“You…you do?”
Her surprise roused a mix of frustration and tenderness.
Whatever had happened in her past had made it difficult for her to trust him.
He thought it was the height of irony. As a fellow for whom most things had come easily in life, he’d failed at that which mattered most to him: protecting his family and winning his wife’s trust.
Pulling back, he gave her a somber look. “Why does this surprise you?”
“I…I don’t know.” She bit her lip.
“Am I failing to demonstrate my regard for you?” he pressed.
“No.” Her vehemence was, at least, reassuring. “You cannot possibly believe that, James. After everything you have given me—”
“I am not referring to things,” he said impatiently, “but how I treat you. Have I done anything to make you doubt my feelings? Is there anything I could improve upon to gain your trust?”
“No.” She sounded desperate now. “I have never doubted you, James. Never. You have given me…you’ve been everything I could hope for in a husband. From the start, I didn’t deserve you. Didn’t deserve your noble offer—”
“Noble?” He drew his brows together. “Are you implying that I offered for you out of honor?”
“You are a gentleman, James,” his wife said earnestly. “The finest gentleman I know. It is your nature to protect and to see justice done. Although it was not your battle to fight, you could not stand by and allow Thaddeus Thurston to ruin me. So you married me.”
“I married you because I wanted you in my bed.”
She blinked.
“By Jove, Evie.” Exasperation took hold, and he was tempted to shake some sense into her. “After a year of marriage, surely you cannot doubt my desire for you.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Her cheeks pink, she mumbled, “But you are, um, a man in your prime and it is your duty to—”
“Devil take duty.”
Words he’d never uttered before. Yet his wife had a way of bringing out his primitive side—the part of him that acted on feeling and impulse rather than logic.
And right now his instinct was telling him that Evelyn Ashewood Harrington needed to have her knotty logic untangled, and talking was not the most expedient way to accomplish that goal.
“You don’t mean that. You are a gentleman of honor—”
“Devil take that too.”
He yanked her toward him, and she gasped.
“What…what are you doing?”
He continued undoing the buttons on the back of her dress. Luckily for him, she preferred practical styles, and there was a minimum of frills and fuss to get in his way. He had her frock pooled around her ankles in no time.
She swatted at him…rather unconvincingly, he thought.
Her surging bosom gave her away. Framed by the neckline of her corset, her décolletage had a delicate flush that heated his loins.
Before Evie, he’d considered himself a general admirer of the female anatomy.
His wife, however, had made him a devout man when it came to worshipping one specific part: bloody hell, Evie’s breasts were magnificent.
The firm, plump mounds strained against their confinement. With each breath, the rounded tops jiggled enticingly. He would wager his fortune that beneath her corset, her nipples were ripe and fully budded, ready for his tongue.
By Jove, the woman has me panting like a dog for a taste of her…and she thinks I bed her out of duty? Because I’m honorable?
The notion was so ludicrous that he might have laughed. Instead, he finished freeing her from her corset. It hit the floor with a clatter, and her rustling petticoats soon followed.
“It is fairly obvious what I am doing,” he said calmly. “I am going to make such thorough, convincing love to my wife that she will no longer be able to spout nonsense about marital obligations.”
Clad in a thin shift and a pair of drawers, Evie crossed her arms over her chest.
“We cannot do that here,” she sputtered, her eyes huge. “What if a servant comes in? It is the middle of the day, and we’re in a public room…one made of glass, for blossom’s sake!”
His lips twitched at her gentle expletive.
Like everything about Evie, it was unique and adorable.
And contrary to her intention, pointing out the naughtiness of what they were about to do only made him harder.
His erection was clearly visible, a thick ridge that marred the smooth placket of his trousers.
“All the better to prove my point,” he said.
“What is your point, pray tell?” She scowled. “That you’re a troglodyte?”
If the shoe fits.
He reached between her crossed arms, grabbing the neckline of her shift. He jerked downward with concentrated force, and the sound of ripping linen was surprisingly satisfying. Perhaps there was a bit of a cave dweller in him, after all.
“James Harrington.”
She sounded genuinely shocked…although not as offended as she was pretending to be.
The bright gold flecks in her eyes and roses in her cheeks betrayed that she was enjoying this new game.
Then there was the way she was covering her exposed décolletage.
Instead of shielding her breasts, she was cupping them like a bloody offering.
When he spotted a plump pink nipple nudging between her slim fingers, his mouth watered.
“I cannot believe you ruined my chemise,” she scolded.
Her raised chin and coy challenge tugged on his cock.
Energy crackled between them, a palpable sense of excitement.
James marveled at what he was discovering about his little minx of a bride…
and about himself. Primal heat sizzled through his blood.
The sense of freedom was exhilarating—like stripping off one’s cravat after a long day.
He yanked her into his arms. “It seems you need convincing that I am more than a gentleman.”
She didn’t push him away. Instead, her arms wound around his neck. Her tits pressed against his chest even as her smile curled against his heart.
“Why don’t you show me?” she whispered.
Devil and damn.
Crushing his mouth to hers, he dragged her down to the tiles.