Chapter Thirteen
Millie reentered the spare bedchamber she’d left a few hours prior, but she felt as if she were seeing the room anew.
Had the bed Cassie tucked her into last night shrunk?
The mirror was now too close to the footboard, anyway. The brass argand lamps, three in total, burned too bright. Even the non-threatening array of feminine accoutrements she’d arranged on the table were no longer comfortingly present.
Instead, her familiar things had been replaced by plates of simple food, a wine decanter, and crystal glasses. Two glasses. Two.
Ominous.
Millie’s throat closed, heightening the alarm that had first seized her when Neville said that vulgar word.
Well, he’d almost said that word.
Would have, too, if she hadn’t silenced him with a kiss. Quick thinking, that.
Though, if she were being fair-minded, all that last night of licking and stripping and every room should have warned her of impending danger. Still, she hadn’t adequately seen the risk. In Neville’s presence, the talk had been exciting.
Now that the ceremony was over, she wondered if she hadn’t worried enough about “men’s carnal lusts and appetites” which, if one believed the Vicar, men satisfied like “brute beasts.”
Brute. Beasts.
She felt a dry quiver in the back of her mouth.
Neville’s shoulders, once distinctive, were now daunting.
Restlessly, she stood up from the bed, paced to the table, and sat down in one of the two chairs. She stared at the untouched pile of square-cut cheeses and then popped one in her mouth.
Well, that had been a mistake. How could she eat? She couldn’t properly swallow!
Finally, she forced down the cheese, leaving her throat even more thoroughly parched.
Her gaze slid to the decanter of wine. Before pouring herself a glass, she should probably wait for Neville—her husband—to return.
He’d gone into the dressing room to tell his valet his services would not be needed that night. Tonight, she supposed, Neville expected her to be his valet. And he, her lady’s maid. And, quite possibly, he’d expect them both to be unclothed.
Again, she’d had fair warning.
But what did she know of braces and cravats and whatever else men wore in the hidden layers beneath their outer clothes? Heavens, was it possible Neville wore a male corset?
A few months ago, Emily had gossiped that the Prince Regent wore one. No young lady in her right mind would have dreamed of such a horrid image. Millie certainly had not.
She grabbed the decanter, drank directly from the rim. The liquid lingered, rich and earthy on her tongue. She set the wine back down with a thud.
With shaking fingers, she removed her gloves. Then, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Transgression concealed.
She smoothed the gloves across her lap and then folded them into neat squares. Restlessly, she stood up and then moved to place them onto the bedside table.
As the door opened, she glanced back. Neville’s gaze dropped from her face to her hands.
“I had wanted to help with that.”
Removing her gloves? Why? “No trouble.”
He smiled warmly. “No trouble at all.”
She hadn’t thought it possible, but her pulse beat just a little bit harder.
“Is something amiss, beloved?”
“No,” she squeaked. “Nothing.”
He came toward her with outstretched hands. She let the gloves drop and held onto him instead. Surely there was not enough room for a corset under that tightly fitted coat and waistcoat…
“Do you mind overmuch?”
Mind that a brute beast was about to take his satisfaction? “Pardon?”
“Do you mind that we must spend our wedding night here instead of in our own home?”
“As I’ve never been to our own home, I wouldn’t know.”
“You haven’t!” He looked rather stunned. “Of course, you haven’t, have you?”
She forced herself to move her head slowly back and forth. “Will I like it, do you think?”
“Yes. I think. Or, rather, I hope. Millie…” He looked pained as he took her hands into his own. “I can’t imagine how you must feel. My life has been…augmented, while yours has fundamentally changed.”
Huh. Her brows involuntarily stitched together. Just what had he thought marriage meant?
“Everything has happened so fast,” he continued. “There’s so much we’ve, well, skipped.”
Perhaps the deep gulp of wine had helped, or perhaps his warming hands. Or maybe the concern shining from his eyes was the reason the sensation slowly returned to her limbs. Neville was not some brute beast. Neville was her Auggie.
She was perfectly safe.
And she would remain so. She simply had to trust what Eliza had said.
If the way Neville looks at you is any indication of his future efforts, you will find every subsequent joining will get better.
His gaze was, in fact, rather yearning, sweetly tender and fond, with hints of deeper emotion.
Emotion that brought the flutter back to her throat.
“What have we skipped?” she asked lightly.
“Courtship, parties, trousseaus… But I will make what you’ve lost up to you.”
As if she cared for parties and trousseaus. “I don’t know why you’d feel there was a need.”
Although a new habit would be nice. One in a rich, dark red, with militaristic piping and shiny brass buttons that would make all the other ladies move aside. She smiled to herself.
There were advantages to being a married lady.
“Come, take sustenance with me.” She tugged on his hands. “For what it’s worth.”
He assessed the array of food. “Honestly, with most of the kitchen staff on leave, I’m surprised this much was sent up.”
“We have your Gerard to thank, I think. Although Harbury would have provided the wine—” She stopped herself before revealing she’d tasted the vintage here before.
He lifted her hands, kissed both sets of knuckles, and then set to pouring them both a glass.
He handed her the drink. “To my beautiful wife.”
“To my handsome husband,” she shyly toasted back.
“Handsome…” He lifted his brows. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”
She studied him as he drank deep. Did he not know? She’d told him, hadn’t she? About the shoulders? About the heat?
She swallowed another measure of wine.
Half her glass, in fact. She’d become quite suddenly parched. She took another long “sip.”
Well—she glanced in wonder at her empty glass—that had gone down quite quickly.
“Beautiful?” she forced herself to ask.
His chuckle was low and throaty and thrilling.
His gaze traveled over her face before dropping, with a sigh, to her breasts.
Until he’d placed his lips over her nipple last night, she hadn’t seen any use for them at all.
Although when her bodice was tight, young men tended to stutter and, when dancing, tread on her toes.
Which had been the dress’s original purpose—not for male attention, but to keep the men fawning over her off their guard. And the reason she’d worn the dress today.
“Are you mad about the dress?”
“No.” He sent her a half-smile and made a sound that was either warning or groan. “I’m mad for the dress.”
“There’s a frightful number of buttons down the back, I’m afraid.”
He exhaled as he smiled an entirely different kind of smile, one that left her tingling head-to-toe.
“I know.” He put down his glass. “I intend to carefully dislodge them, one by one.”
Carefully? From experience, she knew that would take an excruciatingly long time. “Eliza intimated once that a dress need not come all the way off for—for marital congress.”
“What’s this?” His grin widened. “No longer linguistically brave?”
“Auggie,” she said pleadingly.
“Very well, I will leave the teasing to you…for tonight. But to answer your implied question—no, neither your dress, nor my trousers, need fully come off to, ah, swive.”
Her eyes widened. That word was new.
Bother him. He was having entirely too much fun.
“But clothed coitus is only for when we’re in a rush…” He advanced.
“Oh?” She retreated. Was there an English Synonyms Explained for vulgar words?
“Or when we wish to make the beast with two backs inside a carriage.”
The back of her knees hit the bed side. The brute beast!
“Wait.” She flashed him a warning look. “Before we get to the…the indescribably joined, I need to know something.
He lifted his brows. “Something besides improper words and matters of clothing?”
“Have there…” She laid a hand on his shirt. He wasn’t going to like this, she knew. “Have you done this with others?”
His chest deflated. He closed his eyes.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Must you ask?”
She probably shouldn’t. Decent wives wouldn’t. But she’d never been entirely decent. “I need to know. I don’t know why, but I need to know.”
“I suppose, were our roles reversed, I might wish to know, too.”
He understood what she hadn’t—roles. “Yes, that’s it. I cannot not be a passive vessel.” The recipient of knowledge he acquired heaven only knew where.
“Yes, there have been others.” He sighed. “Please don’t look at me so reproachfully. I’m moral, not a saint.”
“That much, I knew. A saint would not have such an…enriched vocabulary.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he replied. “I knew most of those words far before I understood what they meant.”
Millie frowned. Boys. “How many others?”
“I’ve known two women…in the biblical sense.”
Two. Two was not as daunting a gap of experience as she’d feared. “Courtesans?”
He glanced heavenward and shook his head. “First, my mother speaks blithely of pros—” He caught himself. He cleared his throat. “Of ladies of the night, and now my wife talks freely of courtesans?”
“I could have used a more…disrespectful word,” she reasoned. “I don’t like to think of you with…with…”
His gaze softened. “If you recall, I told you I had never paid for a woman’s company.”
He had, hadn’t he? “Tell me a little about the two.”
“Now?” He turned his head slightly to the side and glanced askance.
“I will feel more easy if we have no secrets.”