A Marquis for Mary (9 page)

Only a madness she very much wanted to surrender to.

“Edward,” she murmured as he broke from her lips and began to gently kiss her neck.

He looked into her eyes and she saw her own need reflected there. Harder, more certain, more experienced, but the same in its power and heat.

“I want to give you pleasure, Mary,” he whispered.

She didn’t really understand when he said those things. She felt so many things whenever he touched her, but this pleasure he spoke of was obviously different.

“H-how?” she asked.

He smiled, but there was hesitation in his eyes now. “By touching you. Intimately.”

Her lips parted. She burned between her legs and the idea of him touching her there, easing that ache, was intoxicating and terrifying all at once.

“We’re wed in just a bit over a week,” he reassured her. “And I wouldn’t claim you fully. As much as I want to, until you are mine I wouldn’t. But won’t you let me give you pleasure, Mary? Won’t you let me make you moan my name?”

She swallowed hard. His voice was so seductive, his words even more so. And she had never wanted anything more than what he now offered, even if she didn’t truly understand his words, his implications.

“I trust you,” she murmured, reaching up to cup his cheek. He leaned into it, his eyes lighting up with such powerful emotion that she sucked in her breath.

“I will never give you a need to not trust me,” he promised. Then his mouth was on hers again and she couldn’t verbally respond. She simply returned his kiss, pouring all her growing feelings into the act.

His hand slid down her body, over her shoulder, until he cupped one breast and she arched despite the strange invasion. No one had ever touched her like that. It was wild and wicked and oh, so very naughty. And she liked it. Liked it even more when he began to stroke his thumb back and forth over the thin fabric, causing friction against her already hard and tingling nipple.

She caught her breath as the sensation crested over her in waves, making her weightless and hot as he continued to stroke her.

“So this is what you meant by pleasure,” she gasped.

He chuckled, a very possessive and male sound. “Oh, no. Not even close yet.”

He continued to stroke her nipple while with his opposite hand he glided down her stomach, her hip, her thigh. He began to bunch her gown up, tugging the fabric up to display her legs.

She blushed as he looked down to observe his handiwork. She had never been bared to a man before, and even though it was Edward and this was his right…or soon would be…she still felt exposed and uncertain.

He smiled at her to reassure her. “You are beautiful,” he whispered. Her dress was now bunched at her waist and he rested his hand on her thigh. “You are certain?”

Her heartbeat was so loud in her own ears that she hardly understood his question. Certain? She was utterly uncertain of everything. Except him. Her faith in him was unshaken.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He let out a low curse, his tone laced with relief. Then he slid his hand up, found the slit in her drawers, and his fingers slipped inside. He brushed the outer lips of her sex and she tensed at the gentle touch.

“You are already wet,” he groaned.

She stared at him. Yes, she felt wet. Very wet. “Is that…is that a good thing?”

He nodded. “Very, very good,” he promised. “It will make it easier when I—”

He broke off as he parted her lips and slipped a finger across her entrance.

“Oh!” she gasped as electric awareness sparked through her. It was strange but not unpleasant to be touched like this.

He smiled and kept moving his fingers over her. It was a slow rhythm he built as he moved over her, smoothing the wetness he had described over her. She began to arch against him out of pure instinct, reaching for something she didn’t understand but now needed as much as she required breath or water or food.

“That’s right,” he encouraged her as his fingers pressed harder. One digit slipped inside of her and she gasped at the breach.

“Edward!” He wiggled the finger gently and she arched harder against him. “What are you doing to me?”

“Making you come,” he explained, then pressed his thumb to a hidden bundle of exquisitely sensitive nerves at the top of her sex. When he touched her there, she jolted. Pleasure so intense it bordered on pain throbbed at the point of contact and she moaned.

“Not too loudly now,” he said with a chuckle. “Or else they’ll come to look for us.”

She bit her lip as he increased his tempo, pumping his finger inside of her, stroking outside in time. She lifted, reached, searched, and finally the moment she had been seeking crashed over her. Pleasure came in waves, powerful crests that stopped her breath and doubled the rate of her heart. He continued to stroke her through the explosion, watching her as she thrashed on the old settee.

Finally, she went limp, her body twitching a few last times. He smiled as he withdrew his hand from her, licked his fingers clean and then smoothed her dress down.

“I don’t know if that makes it easier to wait or harder,” he laughed, almost more to himself than to her.

She struggled to sit up. “Is that what will happen on our wedding night?”

He nodded. “Something like it. But instead of my finger inside of you, it will be this.”

He took her hand and rested it between his legs. She felt the hard ridge of him beneath his trousers and her body shuddered without her meaning for it to.

“It’s bigger,” she whispered.

“Indeed,” he said. “But you will be ready, just as you were today. And it will join us in a way that can never be changed or taken from us. You’ll be mine then, in every sense of the word.”

“And will you be mine?” she asked.

He stared at her for a long moment. “I’ll be yours. Forever.”

She leaned forward and rested her ear against his chest. She could hear the throbbing of his heart, faster than it should be because of what they had just done. She smiled at the sound, smiled at his promises.

“I can’t wait,” she whispered.

He nodded above her, his arms coming around her shoulders. “Neither can I. But we should go back to the ball. I’m certain you will be missed.”

She lifted her head with a sigh and looked up at him. “Back to reality again, then.”

He smiled. “But soon
this
will be our reality, Mary. And then the waiting will be worth it.”

He got to his feet and helped her to hers, smoothing her dress and tucking an errant curl behind her ear. She leaned up and pressed her lips to his as he did it, and she felt his heat and his hunger when he returned her kiss.

When he pulled away, his hands were shaking. “Back you go,” he urged her as he tugged the door open and made certain no one was watching as she slipped out into the buzz of the ballroom.

She smiled at him over her shoulder before she moved to the other side of the screen and back to the party outside. But as he left her sight, her smile only grew wider. Soon the man behind her would be her husband. And for the first time in a very long time, the future was a moment she looked forward to rather than feared.

Mary was still buzzing with pleasure the next day as she took her tea alone in the parlor. Gemma had not been well that morning and so she had left Mary to rest as she took a nap.

“I wonder if she’ll have another baby,” Mary mused out loud.

The words made her smile, not just for her sister and Crispin, but for herself. After all, in another week she would be wed and her own baby could be made any time after that. Her baby with Edward. A fine and happy thought, indeed. One she laughed about as the door opened and Crispin’s butler entered the room.

“You have a note, miss,” he said as he held out a tray with a folded sheet of paper perched on it.

“Thank you, Fletcher,” she said as she took it.

“Would you like anything, miss?” he asked.

She stared at her name, written in a hand she didn’t know, and shook her head in distraction. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

He bowed slightly and left her alone. She broke the seal on the paper and opened it. The same elegant hand that had written her name had written the following ugly words:
If you do not want your fiancé destroyed, you will meet with us today. Alone. At two.

An address followed, on one of the most fashionable streets in London. Mary caught her breath. Was this a joke? The names signed below the short note seemed familiar.
Isadora and Imogen Brookfield
.

Brookfield…why was that name so recognizable? She squeezed her eyes shut and conjured an image of two icy blonde women. Unpleasant yet always invited to activities hosted by the
ton
. Mary had only ever met the two once or twice, at balls. As far as she could recall, they had never had any real interaction.

So why would they write to her and threaten Edward?

Her breath caught. When she had been told about Alice, she had done a little research on the woman who had been Edward’s first wife. Hadn’t her name been Brookfield before she became marchioness?

Were these two women related to the one who had all but destroyed Edward with her schemes?

“If they are, they might truly have a way to hurt him,” Mary murmured.

She looked toward the door. She could take this note to Gemma. Her sister would advise her, she might even know more about the pair, considering Crispin’s involvement with Alice all those years ago.

But Gemma would also certainly forbid her to meet with them. Or insist upon accompanying Mary to see them, which might rile the women and cause Edward even more pain.

Mary paced the room. If she went alone, as was the request, she would not be in physical danger, certainly. She couldn’t picture those perfectly manicured women harming her and causing a scandal. She could find out their intentions and then go to her sister and her fiancé with all the available information.

“Yes,” she whispered to herself, the word making her heartrate increase exponentially. She moved to the door and rang. When Fletcher reappeared, she said, “In about an hour I’ll need the carriage to make a call.”

He nodded. “Certainly, miss.”

“And will you send my maid to my chamber to help me prepare?”

“Of course.” He gave her an odd look and Mary briefly wondered if the color was well and truly gone from her cheeks. She certainly felt drawn out by this strange request and the threat that accompanied it.

But until she met with the Brookfields, there was no way to guess what awaited her. She could only try to control her fear as she readied herself for an encounter that was bound to be anything but pleasant.

The Brookfield house was very large, very intimidating and very cold. As the butler stepped aside to let her in, Mary actually lifted her hands to cover her arms in the hopes of rubbing the gooseflesh away.

“Your maid may accompany me belowstairs,” the servant intoned as he looked Mary up and down with a sniff. “In the meantime,
you
will come with me.”

He shot her maid a look that seemed to freeze the girl in place and then began to take long strides down the hallway. Mary struggled to keep up and followed him into a parlor that was just as unwelcoming as the rest of the house.

The servant said nothing else, nor did he offer her refreshment as he pulled the door shut behind him and left Mary alone to await her…what would she call the two? Summoners?

She paced the room, staring at the beautiful yet utterly uncomfortable furniture, the emotionless family portraits. One caught her eye and she moved closer. The placard read
Alice
.

She drew back in surprise as her eyes darted up to examine the face. Mary worried her lip. Alice had been truly beautiful, with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She had a slender face, an elegant, long neck and high cheekbones. She was classically beautiful, and yet there was a cruelty to her face. A mocking turn to her lips. Did Mary see it there because of what she already knew?

Or was it just that the portrait maker had seen fit to reflect her true self in his painting?

The door behind her clicked and she turned to find two women standing in the room. Twin images of each other and an echo of the woman in the portrait behind her, they smirked first at her and then at each other.