Chapter 23
H etty lay back against the pillows, still catching her breath, her hair tangled and her shift abandoned entirely somewhere upon the floor.
A lady of breeding ought, she supposed, to feel mortified to be lying naked in a man’s bed.
Certainly no maiden of sense would lie flushed pink and undone, as though she had just been – well, as though she had just been what she most assuredly was.
In truth, she could not have named precisely what had overtaken her.
One moment she had been protesting, or at the very least attempting to preserve some small dignity, and the next – sweet heavens – her body had betrayed her with sensations she had neither anticipated nor understood.
Most treacherously, she had liked it – liked it very much indeed.
Worse still, she suspected she liked Theo rather more than was at all prudent.
But what, pray, was to be the consequence of such a discovery, when he would not – nay, could not – return such affections?
He had never sought marriage; he had made no secret of his disdain for that particular institution.
He had tumbled into matrimony through her most dreadful plan for ruin – and a series of absurdities and accidents – and had met their fate with good grace.
Could she truly imagine that such a man – who had laughed away the very notion of fidelity – would now be content with one woman? With her?
It was one thing to know, in the abstract, that Theo was a rake of the first order.
It was quite another to have the rake himself devote all his charm and sensuality upon her person and feel his wicked mouth worship her until she scarcely knew her own name.
If he could unmake her so completely, what havoc must he have wrought elsewhere?
And more terrifying still – what havoc might he yet wreak, once he grew weary of his countess and went seeking fresh amusement elsewhere?
Theo had shifted onto his side, one arm propped lazily beneath his head, the other reaching to draw the rumpled sheet over them both in a gesture at once protective and possessive. The effort did little to disguise the unmistakable ridge that still pressed against the linen.
Hetty, for her part, tried very hard not to look, which meant of course, that she saw it at once.
The notion that she – plain Hetty Tolliver, now Lady Langley – had been the cause of such a state was enough to send another blush racing up her throat.
She shifted against the pillows, affecting nonchalance.
“Well… you might at least refrain from looking so very pleased with yourself.”
“I have just had the exquisite pleasure of watching my wife discover her first climax,” he drawled, “and you would have me scowl?”
Her lips parted, colour rising higher still. “Climax? ”
His grin deepened at her bewilderment. “Oh, yes. That moment when your body forgot itself entirely and you melted in my arms. Pray do not tell me you were unaware?”
“Unaware? I hardly knew what was happening, save that I could not prevent it.”
Theo’s gaze lingered upon her, indulgent and amused. “The French, in their usual fashion, have a term for it… la petite mort. The little death. Not so fatal as it sounds, I assure you. Though judging by the look upon your face, you might think I had murdered you most sweetly.”
“The little death? Trust the French to christen something so indecent with such poetry. And tell me, do you make all your conquests expire so dramatically?”
“Not always,” he returned with a smile of infuriating confidence. “But in your case, I rather think it shall be often, if I have any say in the matter.”
“Well then,” she said, tugging the sheet higher with mock-primness. “One cannot account for such skill without practice. I daresay there were any number of willing ladies eager to assist you in your mastery.”
Theo tilted his head, but the grin faltered; there was, unmistakably, the beginning of a flush rising at his throat. “You know very well I have not lived as a monk, Hetty.”
“Indeed not,” Hetty said airily, though her heart thumped loudly in her ears. “You’d have had half the nuns renouncing their vows before the week was out. Still, I cannot help but wonder… just how many others have benefited from such diligence? ”
“Hetty.” His voice carried both warning and plea, though his eyes softened. He shifted nearer, the sheet sliding rakishly low about his waist. “If you mean to have me count them, I shall disappoint you. I have no catalogue to provide.”
“Of course not. A rake does not keep accounts. But the number must be formidable.”
He bit the inside of his cheek as though stifling a grin. “Are you jealous, Hetty?”
“Do not be absurd.”
“You are,” he said, smiling as he drew closer. His hand slipped beneath the sheet to rest warm upon her hip, his thumb brushing the skin there with lazy possession.
At the touch, a pang twisted in her belly. “Hardly. Though one does wonder if I am merely the latest amusement. The innocent wife – what a novelty for a rake. A charming addition to your collection.”
His expression sobered at once. “You wrong me if you believe I would treat my own wife as sport. Whatever I was before, Hetty, I mean to be different now.”
She tilted her head, trying for levity though her pulse quickened beneath his palm. “Different? I had not thought marriage so great a reforming influence.”
“Nor had I. But you… Hetty, you undo me.”
Her breath caught, though she rallied with a crooked smile. “Undone? By me? Then the world is truly turned upon its head.”
“Utterly undone,” he repeated, his voice roughened with earnestness.
His thumb traced an idle pattern against her hip beneath the sheet.
“You leave me quite bereft of sense, reduced to a fool who can think of naught else. You bewilder me. You command me. You make me wish to be better, if only that you might not repent having married me.”
He drew her closer until her body lay flush against his on their sides, their faces but a breath apart.
“I have been a selfish creature, Hetty – heedless of anything beyond my own whims. I laughed at duty, despised the burdens of the earldom. Parliament, tenants, an heir, a wife – these were obligations I regarded as shackles, and I scorned them all. But now… now I would be a man worthy of you. I would school myself to patience and constancy, to the duties I once mocked. For you alone, Hetty. You shall have a husband who honours you, and no other woman shall tempt me from that vow. Indeed, no other woman could, for none but you has ever stood as my best and dearest friend.”
Her breath tangled in her throat, her wits scattering at the intensity in his eyes. She tried for levity once more, though her voice trembled. “Gracious heavens. One would think you meant to play the gallant knight.”
“Not a knight,” he murmured, brushing his brow to hers. “Merely a man, but yours. Entirely yours.”
—
?—
They had been kissing for what felt like an age, and Hetty had never been more conscious of her own body, nor of Theo’s.
For all her noble attempts at composure, she could hardly deny that she felt him, insistent and unyielding against her thigh.
One need not be a scholar of anatomy to comprehend what such firmness implied.
She tried valiantly to marshal her reason, but reason grew slippery under the assault of his mouth, his hands, and the low rumble of his voice whenever it broke against her ear – which was why, the very moment his mouth lingered at the curve of her neck and her whole body arched towards him, she blurted, in the breathless manner of a woman clutching at the last rope of logic: “I do realise that we have not yet, strictly speaking, conducted the marital act.”
“Indeed not, my wife,” he breathed against her throat.
Hetty clutched at his shoulders, her thoughts in utter disarray. “It is only that… well, you did say – at some point – that it was meant to go… inside me.”
“Did I say that?” he asked lazily, as though the question itself were a caress.
“You most certainly did.”
He lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire. “And do you wish it, Hetty?” His thumb brushed over her hip in a rhythm that made her stomach clench. “Do you want me within you?”
Her heart gave a desperate thud, though there was no mockery in his tone, only raw hunger reined in by tenderness. She wet her lips, rallied and managed, “I cannot imagine anyone desiring such an arrangement… being split in twain like a log for the fire.”
Theo gave a husky laugh, though his gaze never wavered from hers. “Ah, so that is the picture you have conjured? Brutal, bloody carpentry?” His nose brushed hers, his voice sinking to a rasp. “I will be gentle. I shall not hurt you… at least, not more than is strictly necessitated by nature.”
“How very reassuring,” she quipped weakly. “I feel quite at ease now. ”
“Ease is hardly my object, madam. Rapture, yes. Ease, never.”
She smacked his shoulder with the flat of her hand, but her pulse gave her away. “Teddy, be serious.”
“Teddy? That is certainly new, and I cannot say I like it. And I am serious.” His hand at her hip slid lower, curving to the back of her thigh, drawing her nearer until there was scarcely an inch between them.
“I have never been more serious. Tell me, Hetty, do you want this? I will stop this instant if you do not.”
“I…” Her voice faltered. Heaven help her, she could not summon a jest now, not when her heart thundered and her body yearned so. “I do not wish you to stop. I… I want you, Theo.”
A low sound escaped him. “God above, Hetty – say it again.”
“I want you.”
With a groan that was both relief and desire, Theo lowered his mouth to her. “Then I shall make you ready for me.”