Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ROWEN
Rowen rested his fork and knife across his plate and tilted his head at his wife.
With her own silverware, Cassandra repeated his actions perfectly.
“Well done, Your Grace,” he murmured, a cheeky grin on his face as she let out a breath of relief.
“Yes, dear girl, well done!” said Aunt Isobel from the opposite end of the long, polished dining table. “And I commend you for not cutting all your food at once, but bite by bite, as one should. You took your time. Well done indeed.”
“Thank you, Aunt,” said Cassandra. “My brother would often chop up all his meat at once when we were children. I can still remember our mother chiding him for it. That and ceaselessly talking with his fork and knife in hand, and his mouth full.” Her smile faded on her lips as she ran her fingers down the shorter silver fork. “This fork is for….”
“Fruit tarts.” Rowen found he didn’t like seeing her the least bit melancholy. He leaned in closer to her. “But I’d use it to prick your luscious arse cheeks.”
Her gaze flashed up at his. She didn’t blush. Only a small smile twitched at her lips. “Would you?”
“I would.”
She brought the fork to her mouth and licked it. “Hmm.”
“Damme, woman.” He fell back in his chair and laughed darkly.
“What are you two going on about now?” Aunt Isobel inquired. “Something indecent, I expect?”
“Aunt? Shocking.” Rowen laughed.
“Let us continue with the spirits,” stated Aunt Isobel.
“Go on, nephew.” She signaled Rowen to pour from the many carafes on the table.
Rowen had dismissed the servants from the dining room so that his wife would not feel the slightest embarrassment.
He filled the glasses, which were lined up in front of his and Cassandra’s place settings.
Cassandra’s shoulders sank a little. She looked positively put out by the forest of crystal before her.
Rowen lifted his wine glass. “Claret, our staple wine with dinner. From Bordeaux. Go on, Zandra, drink.”
She brought the glass slowly to her lips and sipped. “Very smooth.”
His hand went to hers around the bowl of the glass and gently brought her fingers down to the stem. “The glass is held here at the stem,” he murmured, his fingers remaining on hers. Her cheeks flushed pink, and he added, “Or the wine warms before the blood does.”
“Yes, my loves. A lady’s hand is always light—what the books call ‘the touch of air,’” remarked Aunt Isobel.
Rowen and Cassandra remained fixated on each other. “Restraint and delicacy. A kind of elegant control?” whispered Cassandra.
His eyebrows flared. “In all things at table, Your Grace. Dining is always a performance.”
But never between us.
He released her hand. With any other woman as his wife, he knew congress would have been an obligatory performance to beget an heir, but with her, it was not that. It was far from that, and he realised right then that he never wanted it to be that between them.
Clearing his throat, he lifted the shorter, wider glass filled with the darker spirit. “This is Port, for after dinner. We bring it from Portugal.”
Holding the glass from its stem, she raised it slowly and sipped. “This is lovely. It’s stronger and sweeter. Quite rich.” Cassandra took a second sip that was much longer than her first, draining her glass.
“Darling…no,” Aunt Isobel chided her softly as Cassandra licked her lips. “Always sip, and do leave a little in the glass when finished.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt. It shan’t happen again.” Her fingertips went to her wet lips.
“It’s my favourite too.” Rowen winked at her.
“Lucky for us I had a large shipment that recently arrived at Tidesfar. I ordered it when I was in Lisbon on my way home from the Continent.” Rowen raised another, more delicate glass filled with a golden amber spirit.
“And here we have Madeira from the island of the same name.” He swirled the liquor in the glass, inhaled the scent, and sipped.
Cassandra repeated his actions. “Lovely fragrance.” She tasted it. “Oh, it’s quite sweet, even nutty.”
“Well done,” murmured Rowen.
Cassandra turned to Aunt Isobel. “When do we drink Madeira, Aunt?”
“We drink it after a meal, often with an array of cheese and dried fruit, and along with dessert,” Aunt replied, obviously pleased with her pupil’s interest.
“You see how this glass is narrower than the Port’s glass?” said Rowen. “This is to emphasize the Madeira’s aroma rather than its heft. As you remarked, the Port is richer.”
Cassandra set the Madeira glass back down gently, her fingers lingering on the delicate, narrow stem for a moment.
“Well done, Cassandra. Remember, always touch lightly whatever is upon the table, let that guide you.”
“Is that from one of your books, Aunt?” remarked Rowen, a smirk sliding over his lips that could not be helped as he slid back in his chair and enjoyed another swallow of Port.
“It is. ‘The Polite Lady.’”
“Should I read that book, Aunt?” asked Cassandra.
“I shall spare you that joy, my dear. You are blessed with a natural grace. You must only be made aware of the finer points and practice. You, however, nephew…”
Rowen laughed as he straightened his back against the chair. “Chesterfield would have my head for such posture, would he not, Aunt?”
“He would.”
“Chesterfield?”
“Another set of rules that I was raised on by many a tutor.” Standing, Rowen slid a hand down his wife’s back. “Permit me to rescue your posture, wife.”
Cassandra straightened her back, her muscles moving under his touch. “I mustn’t forget such things.”
“One more.” Rowen raised the next glass, narrower than the last. “This is Sherry from Spain.”
“Ah, yes, sherry. My uncles’ favourite. After they would leave the dining room, I would sometimes take—”
“Tsk, tsk, my child,” interrupted Aunt Isobel. “Those memories are best forgotten and never spoken of again.”
“Quite right,” agreed Cassandra, pressing her lips together.
“Try it, Zandra,” Rowen encouraged.
She took a sip, and her eyes widened.
His lips swept into a grin. “I thought as much.” He was sure that her uncles had stocked only the cheapest sherry, nothing to rival what matured in the Oakley cellars. “Better than you remember?”
“So much finer. This is…superlative in every way.” She raised her glass at her husband and put it back on the table.
“Well done,” said Aunt Isobel. “You thought to taste rather than take a full-on swallow.”
“May I drink more of the Port? I like it so very much.”
“Of course you may,” laughed Rowen, snatching up the carafe of Port and filling their glasses. The tip of his tongue lingered in the corner of his mouth as she lifted her glass by the stem. She brought the deep ruby Port to her lips and drank, her gaze never leaving his.
What devilry have I married?
He shifted in his seat, his cock aching with the memory of how she woke him this morning with that wondrous mouth of hers.
His wife was good at a full-on swallow. He drained his glass.
The moment they were alone later this afternoon, he would take his wife right here on the table, crystal, silver, Wedgwood, and Irish linens be damned.
Cassandra put her glass of Port back on the table lightly and turned to his aunt. “Which is your favourite spirit, Aunt?”
She was a conversationalist. Knew when to distract and change the topic. How to express interest and inquire. This was going very well, thought Rowen as he savoured the wine in his mouth.
Aunt Isobel let out a breath. “I’ve always been partial to Madeira, I must say.”
“Madeira for my Aunt.” Rowen immediately filled a glass with Madeira and brought it to Aunt Isobel. “We shall try the brandies and the cordials tomorrow, eh?” He opened the door of the dining room and gestured at a servant. “Bring us a plate of cheese and such, would you? What do you say, Aunt?”
“Splendid idea.” She raised her glass of wine delicately in the air. Cassandra followed suit, and the two ladies drank.
Later, as Cassandra and Uncle Winslow discussed sport and hunting, Rowen and his aunt drank more wine together before the hearth.
“Nephew, I am so very glad that you brought your bride here, and that your uncle and I and Edmund were able to share in your happiness, in your and Cassandra’s beginning.
Thank you for this joy. I shall never forget it. ”
“Aunt, I thank you for showing my wife such warmth and consideration.”
“She is a delight. I bid you always treat her as such. I remember her parents. Her mother possessed a lively spirit and her father was a gentleman of uncommon kindness. You and Cassandra are blessed to have each other. You have challenges ahead of you, taking on the title now, but I know you will do so brilliantly. And with such a woman at your side…”
“Huh.” He stared into the flames. “Unlike my parents?”
“Your parents had an agreement between them, and it worked. There is nothing wrong with that. Marriage for our set is more a business than anything else. But you have chosen another way. A way of affection, as I did.”
“Affection was not something I was schooled in. Chesterton, yes, hunting, history, yes. Affection, decidedly no.” Maybe it was all the spirit warming his blood and loosening his tongue, but he felt able to speak freely with his aunt, and he enjoyed doing so.
“My brother, your father, frowned on such things, as did your grandfather,” she said on a huff. “Boys were meant to be impregnable like stone. Girls were soft and full of sentiment.”
He laughed. “Ah well, they were wrong. For you, dear Aunt, are both and stronger for it.”
“He treated you harshly. He was your father, and he should have been kind in some measure. We should all be kind to each other. It is a simple thing really, and gifts one tenfold. But to a man like my brother, it was an idle generosity in which he had no interest.”
“I would say he was incapable.”
Her hand touched his arm again like before, yet this time, lingered, her fingers tightening. “Dearest Rowen, I am only sorry I was never able to show you something better, something different. But you don’t have to be like him. You can choose to be kind and generous.”
The Duke and Duchess filled their days with long walks, riding, and much congress at all hours and everywhere in the house, even up in the tower. Rowen was endlessly hungry for Zandra’s body, and tutoring his wife extended to teaching her the variety of pleasures to be had.
He deeply enjoyed drawing out her anticipation, drawing out her completion, and the way her pleasure gathered and broke again and again.
Aunt Isobel continued her frequent visits for dance lessons, and also taught Zandra the finer points of managing a house and its budget, deciding on menus, dealing with the silver and the linens, the servants, including the fine art of signaling a servant discreetly during a dinner party.
The young Duchess also learned how to play card games from Uncle Winslow.
“I find card games terribly dull. Must I play?” she’d asked over whist one evening.
“You must,” they all replied at once.
One evening after his aunt and uncle had left the Hall, they sat alone in the parlour before the fire. “Rowen, I find I should like a glass of sherry
.”
“Of course. I will join you.” Rowen went to the silver tray where the carafes stood with glasses. “Are you sure? Sherry, not—”
“I’m sure. You were quite right about the difference in my uncles’ sherry and yours. They are worlds apart in fragrance, and taste, and experience. You have given me that luxury and the ability to discern the difference.”
“You will know the difference in all things from now on.” He brought the full glasses back to the sofa.
She took her glass and sipped. “Thank you for your patience and your instruction.”
His chest filled with an unusual warmth that he found he liked. “It is my great pleasure, Zandra.”
“You and Aunt Isobel are wonderful tutors. Careful, thorough, and kind. Especially you, Your Grace.” Her glass came into contact with his on a ting. “Oh.” She gasped on a soft laugh. “Is that allowed, my lord?”
“It is not. T’would be considered rather vulgar.”
“Like filling one’s mouth and swallowing?”
He shot back his glassful of sherry and choked. “Most definitely.”
She swallowed hers, put the glass on the table with a distinct thud, and slid to her knees on the floor in between his legs. “I wish to swallow you now, my Lord. Would that be vulgar of me?”
“It would, my lady, yet I crave such vulgarity between us, do you not?” His hand cupped the side of her face, and she turned to lick it. He let out a groan.
“I crave it, too. You have tutored me well in what others might find sordid.”
His thumb stroked her full lower lip. “You have not denied me once.”
“I never shall. I enjoy exploring these vulgarities with you.” Laughing softly, she tugged at his trouser buttons, and he raised his hips as she yanked down the garment to his knees.
“Wife, I believe you’ve always enjoyed such licentiousness. It was always in you. You only needed the right hand.”
“Your hand,” she whispered, and he slid his thumb in her mouth. She sucked on it as she stroked his shaft.
She took him in her mouth in one surge and met his gaze as she took him in deeper. He grunted as his tip bumped the back of her throat.
A look of triumph stamped on her features, a look that mirrored the excitement in his blood. A kind of excitement that sharpened every sensation.
The sting of her fingernails digging into his flesh only made his lust more frenzied, and his hips lifted to meet her determined mouth. “Your Grace…here’s to our magnificent vulgar.”