Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 (13 page)

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Harry admitted. He hadn’t had time to think of much except his wife and her part in the dreadful business. “I will stay in the village for more than one night, in that case.”

“I will come with you,” Virginie said. When Harry opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head. “Don’t try to deter me. I can help. I can sweeten the atmosphere, make any unpleasantness melt away.” One of her gifts.

Harry couldn’t deny that she would be an asset. And he also couldn’t deny he’d miss her, having to leave so soon in their marriage. Having her with him would make his visit far more bearable. For the first time he recognised the true meaning of the word “helpmeet”. Now he wanted to appreciate the full meaning of the word “lover”. He accelerated the discussion.

“I will send word.”

D’Argento nodded. “I’ll send you pigeons.” He laughed at Harry’s incredulous expression. “What, you think I deal with everything personally? The pigeons are very fast. They’re homing pigeons.”

“I guessed,” Harry said dryly. “Very well. I’ll make arrangements for their accommodation and ensure the servants don’t eat them.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Harry moved on. “So in London, you will direct the authorities.”

“Persuade them,” said Susanna, who had the gifts of Suadela, goddess of persuasion. “I can help.”

“So you can,” d’Argento said coolly.

Even Harry couldn’t miss the attraction that briefly sparked between the two. Or hatred. Either way, d’Argento and Susanna did not feel anything casual towards each other. D’Argento didn’t thank Susanna for her offer, even though she was right. She could help.

“I will also make enquiries here in London. The maid who took care of the children the night of the murder said nothing amiss happened. The lady was alone and thanked her for her care. But Rhea could have let someone else in after she left. The unfortunate part of running a club that keeps its doors open late is that a lot of people pass through the doors. I can list them, of course, but they and the lower staff must be suspect. Someone could have entered clandestinely, with Rhea’s collusion.”

Harry had thought of that. What if the real father of her children was in London?

“Whoever did it will be punished,” Ellesmere said. “We will not rest until we discover the culprit.”

For Harry it was more than that. Someone had murdered the child of one of his tenants and had tried to blame his wife for the crime. That made the affair personal, and he would ensure the murderer suffered for his crime. Or her, of course. They could not discount that possibility.

Whoever it was, when he found who did it, they wouldn’t be long for this world.

Chapter Thirteen

Virginie fidgeted. After the necessary discussion of the murder, the guests stayed longer, speaking of other, far less important matters. Why should she care that Kentmere wanted a child? She’d sensed his longing when they heard Stretton’s news, and then he’d mentioned it, and his wife’s expression had tightened. A pretty woman, Portia, but one she had reason to resent, since she had driven a wedge between Virginie and Susanna. And caused Virginie to break a promise. She’d even been inadvertently responsible for the spell that had given Virginie such ecstasy for a few short weeks and agony now.

Even now the yearning remained. Perhaps if she could turn to her husband, expend her passion with him, that would serve to break the increasingly tiresome enchantment. No, not enchantment, not anymore. Addiction. As if she was a bored woman who found that laudanum was worth the headaches. Tedious and far below her. She should be able to break it. Surely her attributes counted for something?

At last Ellesmere declared his wife was tired—more likely he was too—and courteously held her chair. Then more than courteously he tucked her hand between his arm and his body while they wished the company goodnight. Keeping in touch would solve this crime.

D’Argento left, taking the hint at last, and the others followed in short order, after wishing the bridal couple the best of health.

That left her mother. Virginie excused herself, going upstairs to prepare.

Her maid helped her wash and undress, then she arrayed Virginie in a white night rail trimmed with Brussels lace and blue ribbons, and a matching gown. After brushing Virginie’s hair out to a sheet of gleaming silk, Fenton left. She had not once mentioned that Virginie was having her second wedding night or that she would spend this night any different to normal.

Not surprisingly, Virginie found her nerves getting the better of her. She spared a glance for the decanters on the side table, but she didn’t wish for any more than the two glasses of wine she’d consumed with her dinner. The evening was early, but she was ready for bed.

She had instructed the servants to put her husband in the room adjoining hers. She had wondered if he wanted to join her straight away. That was answered when he entered her room, after tapping lightly on the door that linked the chambers.

Rising from her chair, she greeted him, clasping her hands together tightly to still their trembling. Her new wedding ring bit into her finger. She’d removed her old one that morning, and this one felt different, not yet part of her as the old one had become.

He wore a brocade robe, dark colours blended together so she could not make out the pattern. But she watched that rather than his face. After one glance, when she saw passion writ large, his eyes dark with desire, his mouth fuller, a deeper colour than usual.

She sensed sheer power as he crossed the room to her. When he took her hands, separating them so he could take them in his, his touch was gentle.

“Look at me, Virginie.”

Swallowing, she lifted her gaze to his face. His cheekbones stood starkly on the craggy features, and his intent expression hid nothing. “I want you, you know that. But I sense something else about you. You’re nervous. Why? You’re the goddess of love. If your extra experience worries you, don’t let it. Please.”

“You don’t understand,” she blurted, afraid and nervous. How could she tell him? She felt stupid enough as it was.

“I’m your second husband.” He sighed. “Virginie, I have requirements of my own. Faithfulness, you know that. Did your first husband require that of you?”

She shook her head. “Only that I was discreet. But I do not do that, Harry. I don’t wish to. It makes me feel—soiled. My husband wanted me to find lovers so he could watch. He didn’t know of my attributes, only that I was the daughter of a domestic servant. He bought me from her, or so he thought. So I didn’t find a lover. He was kind to me and gave me everything I wanted, including a substantial estate in his will.”

“I don’t like him,” Harry said. “He had no right to expect that of you.” His voice shook slightly.

She smiled sadly. “There are worse things. I used the reverse of my powers to ensure no man approached me.” As well as attracting people sexually, she had the power to repel them. Every god had a positive and negative aspect. “After he died, I considered taking a lover, but the estate kept me busy and I grew used to celibacy. I had no wish to give my husband’s heirs the chance to take the estate from me. It was mine, by deed. It is now yours.”

He shrugged. “That is the least of my concerns.”

“I know.” At least that could make her smile. She should be smiling more. It was her wedding night. “My second lover, you know also. I don’t wish to get into detail.” She didn’t want to traduce Marcus. He was no more in control than she. “Suffice it to say that we were out of our minds, frantic. You’re my third lover. Only my third.”

He stared at her, his face revealing nothing, and then he smiled, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “We will do better. I’m not enchanted, or addicted.” He lifted one of her hands to his lips. She liked it when he did that. The warmth of his soft skin caressed the back of her hand, sending gentle waves of attraction through her body. “We’ll please ourselves tonight. Are you tired?”

She shook her head, her hair touching the back of her neck.

Releasing her hand, he stroked it. “So silky,” he murmured. “Pretty.”

People called Virginie beautiful, perfect, the attributes of her goddess, but “pretty” wasn’t one of them. He’d complimented
her
, Virginie. Did that mean he saw through the goddess to the woman beneath? She’d longed for someone to do that. Had she found him at last? She hugged the secret close. Even now she wouldn’t tell him. That word drove her close to a confidence that would give him access to the person nobody knew, not even her mother.

Unlike some of the newborn gods, Virginie had always known she had attributes of a deity. Both she and her mother had earlier realised who she was. Whose attributes had been implanted in her before her birth, become part of the baby intended as Virginie. Or rather, Virginia Davenport.

“If necessary we will sleep tonight, nothing else save a few kisses.” He drew her close and tucked her head under his chin. “If you wish it. It will kill me, but if you need me to prove that I have control of myself around you, I will do it.”

“No, no, I don’t want that.” She’d made her decision and now she wanted to put as much ground between her doomed affair and her new life as possible. “I want to stop this marriage properly. Put the past behind me.”

“Then do one thing for me,” he said. “Don’t close your eyes.”

She stared up into his craggy face, imprinting his features on her senses. This was the face she would see leaning above her making love to her from now on. Of course, the future was unknowable as far she could tell, she had committed itself to this. To him. “I won’t.”

His face came closer, and he kissed her. She had never kept her eyes opened during intimacy before. Adding another sense made the experience completely different to anything she’d known before. His short, dark hair plastered against his head in small curls, almost like those classical statues, which was appropriate, considering the circumstances.

His lips felt the same as yesterday, firmly pressing hers apart to give him the access he wanted. She gave it readily, eagerly accepting the caress of his tongue and returning it to in full measure.

“Virginie,” he murmured against her mouth, his breath stroking her cheek with soft heat. Her body melted under his caresses, and she moved closer to him, pressing her breasts against his chest. Her nipples tingled, that sensitivity almost unbearable.

He took his time, stroked her through the silk of her robe, and for the first time she marked the stages of her arousal. She’d never had the leisure to do that before. Every time he touched her, the sensitivity roused her slowly, easing her into the act of love. Tingles spread from her nipples and back when he touched every part of her body. And still he didn’t strip her robe from her. She wanted to shed it and like a creature of nature emerge as something completely different. Like the creature she had no idea what would happen next, but she wanted to find out. She had to move forward, or die in the attempt.

As if sensing the way her mind was going, Harry drew back and gazed at her. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, helpless to prevent her mind traveling along paths she didn’t want it to go. “I’ll try harder.”

“Don’t try,” he murmured, stroking back a lock of her hair. “Just feel.”

She forced a smile. “I’ll do my best.” When she tried to pull him back to her for another kiss, he resisted. It was like trying to pull a mountain.

“We will take this as slowly as you need,” he said. He just got to his lips to hers in a gesture so tender. It always brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t need slow, she needed fast and mindless. That might work to make her forget, to push her into her new life.

“Every step of the way you will know that it’s me.” Then he kissed her the way she wanted, hard and penetrating and deep, a precursor of the act to come. He brought his hands to the front of the robe and tugged the ribbons that held it closed. They slid undone and she watched him as he saw her naked body for the first time.

The maids who had seen her naked had called her goddess, divine, all the attributes that Virginie accepted as part of her other self, not the human heart of her.

Not her new husband. He murmured her name and then swallowed. “You undo me,” he said, wonder filling his voice. “You are so lovely.” He touched her with a fingertip that shook, trembling against the nipple.

She covered his hand and pressed firmly. “It’s yours now,” she said.

He shook his head. “It will always be yours.” He paused, his mouth partially open as if he wanted to say something else, but then he closed it and smiled instead. “It’s enough that you share it with me sometimes.”

She could do that, especially when he kissed her with such tender passion. She responded, shyly at first, holding herself back. As he continued to flick his tongue in and out of her mouth, running the tip around the inside of her lips, she flung her arm around his neck and responded with untutored enthusiasm.

She hardly noticed when he firmed his hands around her waist and lifted her. The sense of motion was over soon and she found herself with crisp, cool sheets at her back, lying on the soft pillows of her bed. Now their bed.

He lay next to her, pressing soft kisses to her mouth, touching his lips to the rim of her ear, letting his tongue flick over the tender skin. She had no idea she had so many sensitive areas on her face before he played with them. He nipped her earlobe before moving down the column of her throat, licking and sucking gently. The contact varied so she didn’t know if he was going to kiss her gently or more firmly.

She sighed and stroked his hair, which flicked up, the curls winding around her fingers, not long enough to tangle. She liked a man with hair, rather than the ones who shaved under their wigs, although she’d heard that bald men had their appeal for some.

For want of practical knowledge Virginie had listened avidly to gossip and read books when she could find them, so her book learning exceeded her instincts. That hampered her now. She had a real man under her hands, one she could experiment with, but she didn’t know where to start. Unexpected shyness held her back.

His actions encouraged her to try. His powerful hands moved over her curves so softly she sighed, and then squirmed, wanting firmer, harder contact. Intent on exploration, Harry smiled against her skin and then sucked the pulse point at the base of her throat gently. “Patience, wife.”

“No. Do it now!” How could she be any more aroused than she was already?

“Wait. I’m claiming you. Every part of you is mine, at least for tonight, and I intend to make sure of it.”

He’d rid her of the gown before he’d laid her on the bed, but he still wore his breeches. He must have removed his stockings before he came to her, and he’d kicked off his loose-fitting slippers. But his legs were under the covers, which were only shoved down as far as her thighs.

“I want you naked,” she murmured.

“In good time.” He continued his leisurely progress. Virginie was almost screaming by the time he reached her breasts. He shaped them with his hands and then tasted them, licking her nipples one after the other. “I think the right is sweeter.” He took another experimental taste. “No, the left.”

She’d never laughed in bed before. Her breasts quivered in his hands when she did so, and he growled his approval, deep in his throat, more like an animal purr. “Pretty.”

She liked that word.

Without warning he swooped and sucked a nipple hard. She jerked in reaction, her back bowing. If he hadn’t been so strong she might have bucked him off the bed. But as it was he sucked harder, intensifying the thrills coursing along her veins.

He smoothed his rough palm down her body. Over the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips. Down to her groin where he lingered, testing the soft skin of her belly. His sucks turned to kisses, and he placed a string of little touches around both nipples. Then glanced up at her, smiling. “You must tell me what you particularly like. But I think you like most things, do you not?”

“I—I don’t know.”

He didn’t remark on her surprising lack of knowledge, but merely said, “Then we’ll find out together. Tell me what you don’t like too. And I want you to touch me, Virginie. Wherever you like.”

Her attention flickered to his breeches, then back, and he gave her a knowing smile. “That too.”

Lifting up, he unfastened the fall and pushed down his breeches and underwear, kicking them away to be lost somewhere at the bottom of the bed. And she could see it all. Nearly all, that was, because the covers concealed him from mid-thigh down to his feet. He had a wonderful round backside, and his cock—did they make them that big?

Well, that was a stupid reaction that she kept to herself. Virginie had read enough “French” literature to know that they came in many different sizes. It was just that this one, proudly on display, was thicker than any she’d seen in the flesh before. She doubted she could get her fingers around it, although she had long digits. He was out of reach at the moment, lying, as he was, half way down her body.