Come Near Me (20 page)

“Do you suppose I’ll become lost in here often?
Should I tie a mile-long string to the bedpost and my waist before
I dare to enter my dressing room, for fear I’ll never find my way
back?”

“I think you should explain to me how you didn’t
stay where you were put and how I had to be pushed into a bumping
carriage with Mr. Victor and dragged across bumpier fields to see
you standing there, grinning like the village idiot and telling me
you were about to be wed, barefoot, to a man without the decency to
wear a proper jacket,” Mary ground out as she flounced around the
room, tipping open baggage until she located Sherry’s old
white-cotton night rail and dressing gown.

“Here,” the sensible old countrywoman said, tossing
both articles in Sherry’s general direction. “You’re shivering in
that towel, Little Missy, and indecent, too, while you’re about it.
Strange woman, that Mrs. Clement, to leave you all but jay-naked
like this while she went to calm some kitchen crisis. It’s a good
thing for you I decided to come to London for a space, that it is.
Did you know that Lord Dagenham can sleep with his eyes wide-open?
He even snored, right in the middle of me telling him how my sister
Joanie’s Maryann’s second son, little Davy, broke his two front
teeth falling out of an apple tree last year.”

“Imagine that,” Sherry said, tongue-in-cheek, then
quickly dressed herself in her old, familiar clothing and gave Mary
yet another hug, for she was truly happy to see her. “And you’ll
really stay for the entire Season, Mary? I’d be most grateful. I’m
rather frightened, you know. This house is so
big.
All of
London is so
big.
And noisy.” She wrinkled her nose,
grinned. “And it really doesn’t smell all that grand, does it?”

“Like your papa’s kennels at high noon in the middle
of summer,” Mary agreed, closing, then arranging the mound of
luggage behind a screen in the corner of the room. “There, that’s
all right and tight for now. We’ll do the rest in the morning,
Little Missy, and don’t think you’ll be finding your way out of
honest work now that you’re a marchioness, or whatever. I didn’t
raise you to be lazy, that I didn’t, or to go off chasing dreams,
like your mama. Never a lick of sense, that woman. Here you are, a
wife, and where is she? Nowhere we know, that’s for certain. And
what am I supposed to do, I ask you? What am I supposed to say to
you? He’ll be strutting in here anytime now, knowing things you
don’t know, saying things you’ve never heard, wanting—”

“Mary, please,” Sherry said, giving the old woman a
quick kiss. She knew what Adam would be “wanting.” She’d grown up
fairly innocent, but she’d grown up in the country. She wasn’t
ignorant of what went on between a man and a woman. “I’m fine.
Truly. Adam’s my husband now, and I love him very much. Very much,
Mary. I trust him, and he would never hurt me. I believe that.”

“Thank you, darling,” Adam said, pushing open the
door she’d already learned connected their two bedchambers and
walking into the room, “I knocked, but I don’t believe you heard
me. Mary, is it? I’ll be taking Her Ladyship to my rooms now, where
a fine dinner awaits us. If I have your permission, that is?”

The old woman dropped into a creaking, clumsy
curtsy. “Yes, my lord,” she said, looking to Sherry, who only
smiled and nodded. “I, um, I suppose I’ll just go off downstairs
now and find that Mrs. Clement. We two should talk, I’m thinking.
Let her know the straight of things.”

“Yes, Mary, you do that,” Adam said, holding out his
hand to Sherry. “Come along, darling. Are you famished? Our chef
has quite outdone himself, and on such short notice. I doubt either
of us has eaten all day.”

Sherry looked down at her dressing gown, which
covered her even more modestly than did her makeshift wedding gown,
shrugged, and allowed herself to be led into her husband’s
bedchamber. Willingly. Almost eagerly.

She totally forgot to say good night to the woman
who had almost single-handedly raised her from an infant, all the
way to the advanced age of just past nineteen, when she had become
a wife....

~ ~ ~

A soft rain that had deigned to wait until evening
fell on the mansion in Grosvenor Square as Adam gently pressed
Sherry back against the pillows of the Daventry marriage bed.

Candles kept any hint of gloom from the large
chamber, throwing its far corners into intimate darkness, so that
the bed became the center of the chamber, the center of their
world.

Her hair lay like a dark halo against the white of
the pillow, her green eyes were wide and alert, and faintly
apprehensive. She’d laughed through dinner, he’d made sure, of
that, but now her smiles were gone, and the mood had turned
intense.

“Are you all right, darling?” Adam asked, easing
himself down beside her, knowing her body was as taut as a
bowstring, barely touching the mattress. “It’s been a long day, all
in all. Would you rather go to sleep?”

“I—I don’t think so,” she said, and he smiled. At
her honesty, at her sweet flush of embarrassment. He wouldn’t ask
her to say more, for he wouldn’t embarrass her more. Because he
knew. He knew she was afraid, yet eager. He felt much the same way
himself.

“You’ve only to ask me to stop, Sherry,” he
whispered against her ear, “That’s all. If I frighten you, if
what’s happening frightens you, just tell me to stop. All
right?”

“I’m not a child, Adam,” she said, then gasped
audibly as he took the lobe of her ear between his teeth, stroked
it, with the tip of his tongue. He ran his tongue down the side of
her throat. “Well, that’s—that’s... nice...”

He smiled against the base of her throat.

“But, I’d really like you to kiss me, Adam, if you
don’t mind.”

He chuckled, low in his throat, then raised himself
up, looked down into her face, her wide green eyes. “Your servant,
madam,” he breathed, then pressed his mouth against hers, slid an
arm across her waist.

So virginal, so bridelike, yet so quick to flower
beneath his carefully controlled, amorous assault. She returned his
kisses in full measure, slid her arms up and around his shoulders,
sighed a time or two, relaxed against the soft mattress.

He kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her most
delectable nose. He kissed her fingers as he held her hand, kissed
her shoulder as he lifted her slightly, slid her arms free of that
ridiculous dressing gown.

He longed to worship her. Wholly. Completely. But
knew he had to go slowly, keep himself under control even as he
longed to go spinning off into an unknown galaxy of familiar and
yet somehow alien sensations.

Her breasts rose and fell with her deep, uneven
breathing as he looked deeply into her eyes, slowly drew open the
ribbon holding her night rail closed, hiding her from his sight,
his touch.

“Stop,” Sherry whispered as he pushed the material
away, cupped her firm breast in his hand.

Adam froze even as his palm burst into flame, looked
at her.

“I like our kisses. Very much. I like that, how
you’re touching me now. I didn’t know you were going to touch me,
but I’d hoped so. And it’s everything I thought it would be,” she
whispered. “How did I know? Why on earth do I want this? Why do I
like it so much?”

He moved his hand on her, skimmed his palm across
her nipple, felt it tighten into a hard bud. He bent his head, took
her nipple into his mouth for a few moments, tasting her, teaching
her, then lifted his head and asked, “How do you feel now,
Sherry?”

“How do I feel?” She closed her eyes, took a deep
breath, released it slowly. “Even better. Light. Liquid. Heavy.
Faintly frustrated, as if there should be more even as I’m enjoying
what I feel. And free. Very, very free. Nice. But I’m not quite
sure why.”

He withdrew his hand, pulled her night rail back
into place, then shifted himself onto his side so that he could
look down at his wife. “Physical love, Sherry,” he said, choosing
his words carefully, “is the most personal expression of love. My
loving you, and you loving me, means that we want to be together.
Be close. With no secrets, no barriers between us, not even
physical ones. As a reward for loving each other, I suppose, Nature
has created pleasure in that personal intimacy. Animals mate by
nature, without understanding, in order to reproduce. Men and
women,” he paused, seeking the right words, knowing that he sounded
stiff, formal. “Men and women mate because of their love for one
another.”

“And to reproduce,” Sherry said matter-of-factly,
brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. “And because they
like it. My papa certainly doesn’t love Maisie, one of our maids at
home, but that doesn’t stop them from... well, you know what I
mean. I just don’t understand why I never felt this way before,
felt this
need
before I met you. How does a person know if
what they feel is love, or just a need to... to mate?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said, touching the tip of his
finger to one corner of her mouth, watching as she smiled at him.
“I suppose that’s the gamble we all take when we tell ourselves
we’re in love.”

“True love lasts a lifetime, and beyond,” Sherry
said with the conviction of innocence, placing her hand over his.
“This—what we’re doing now, are about to do now—is only a part of
that love. A rather nice part,” she ended, smiling again. “And I do
love you, Adam. I’m sure of it. I was afraid this morning. I’m sure
you know that. But I know now. It’s all right. I do love you, very
much.”

“And I’m quite convinced I love you, too,
sweetheart. But is that what’s still troubling you? Are you trying
to separate the two things in your mind? Because they can’t be
separated, Sherry. I can’t love you without wanting to
make
love to you.”

“Make love,” Sherry repeated, sighing. “Making love.
Yes. That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? Taking our bodies, and
making love of them, creating love with them.” She put a hand on
his shoulder, drew him closer. “I’m not afraid anymore, Adam. Not
even a little bit. I want to create love with you. I think we’ll
make love very well, don’t you?”

“I imagine we’ll be extraordinary at it,” Adam
breathed against her mouth even as his hand brushed the night rail
away once more and he cupped her breast, began to rub lightly at
her nipple with his thumb. “Simply extraordinary.”

And she became liquid for him. Melting and
re-forming under his hands; opening to him, flowering, whispering
sweet sighs, touching him tentatively, then with more
assurance.

Her very innocence fired him, intensified his own
reactions. Never had he been so aware of the differences between
man and woman, the subtle as well as the obvious. She gave through
love, and the sensation followed the love, intensified because of
it. She felt for the moment, yes, but gave herself for a lifetime.
His desire was more physically driven, had always been more
ephemeral. A pleasure of the moment, the hour, without a thought to
more than that pleasure.

Except that now he felt Sherry’s love. She gave him
the gift of that love, of her innocence, and considered her own
pleasure to be a natural part of that gift. Not a mountain to
climb, an end to achieve, an explosion of physical desire to be
sought, experienced, enjoyed for the moment.

This was more, so much more.

This was commitment. Total and complete. She didn’t
so much love him as comfort him, shelter him, envelop him within
the haven of her love until he became a part of her. Emotionally,
physically, until he believed himself to be inside her head,
thinking her thoughts, feeling the sensations he was causing.

She cried out, once, more in shock than pain, then
wrapped herself around him, soothing him as he panicked, believing
he’d hurt her. She was all giving, all love, and he felt tears
stinging his eyes as he took what she gave him, knowing he could
never give her enough in return. Not if they both lived another
five hundred years. He would always be in her debt, for this gift
of unconditional love, this gift of innocence.

Afterward, as she snuggled against him beneath the
covers, as the fire died in the grate, as the rain washed away the
last minutes of their wedding day, Adam tried to come to grips with
this new sensation, this feeling of dependence he’d never felt
before.

He was almost angry with her, even as he loved her.
Because he couldn’t live without her now. He’d given her his heart,
his entire being, and she’d accepted it, given him back that love
in equal measure.

They were responsible for each other’s happiness
now. Each held the other’s heart, the other’s future, in their
hands. It was wonderful. A perfect dream of a perfect love.

And yet dangerous...

Before...

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

no sleep till morn, when youth and Pleasure

meet to chase the glowing hours with flying
feet.

—
Lord Byron

T
here could be nothing more
intoxicating than a London Season, unless it was dancing and loving
your way through that Season on the arm of your most wonderful
husband.

That’s what Sherry told herself a dozen times a day,
sometimes even pinching herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming her
happiness.

Adam was at her side day and night. Introducing her.
Protecting her. Laughing with her.

They’d played country-bumpkin tourists, visiting the
Tower and other points of interest Sherry vowed she simply must
see. Adam never flagged, never yawned a single time, never pointed
out that once a person has seen London that person doesn’t
necessarily harbor a burning desire to visit some areas of it
again.

In fact, Sherry quickly learned that most of those
in Society hadn’t even seen the world’s most magnificent metropolis
a single time. They lived in Mayfair, partied in Mayfair, and the
rest of London simply didn’t exist for them.