Lessons From a Scarlet Lady (35 page)
Her acerbic question reminded him of her pregnancy. His or not, she nurtured a child in her body and he wasn’t an ogre, though he might be acting like one. Colton inclined his head. “If you wish to skip dessert, that is fine with me. But you will stay here while I eat mine.”
He didn’t have the stomach for it either, but some perverse part of him was insisting he make a point.
She looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head and made a helpless gesture with her hand. “I truly do not understand your mood this evening. And it isn’t unique to this meal either. It is as if I’ve done something wrong but I don’t know what it is.”
Colton couldn’t help it. He said in a silky voice, “You’ve done nothing wrong, my dear. Have you?”
“
Have I?
What kind of question is that?” Brianna gazed at her husband in unconcealed consternation.
Have I?
What kind of question is that?” Brianna gazed at her husband in unconcealed consternation.
He was a stranger, the cold-eyed man across the table, calmly sipping wine from his glass but looking at her as if she’d committed some heinous crime. True, Colton was rarely warm and open, but tonight he looked positively
shuttered
.
shuttered
.
Was he happy about her possible pregnancy? Damien had assured her that his older brother would be overjoyed at the news, and she assumed he’d be delighted since he needed an heir, but he hadn’t said a word to her about the subject. Not one blasted word. That he would ask her maid about it and not say a word to her was disturbing. He wanted children, didn’t he?
Maybe he didn’t, she thought with a sinking heart. Maybe he considered her condition indelicate and inconvenient. After all, before long she’d be fat, ungainly, and unable to go about in public without everyone knowing she was enceinte. Some aristocrats never interacted with their offspring, relying on nannies and governesses to raise them, relegating them to nurseries and school-rooms until such a time as they could either be sent away to school or married to some male who would take them off their parents’ hands.
She just hadn’t imagined Colton would react that way. Especially now that her suspicions were confirmed and she knew the pregnancy was real, the notion he wouldn’t share her joy was unsettling in the extreme. And because of his uncertain mood, she hesitated to tell him. It was precisely because of the way he’d acted lately that she’d asked Arabella to arrange to have a physician make a discreet call at her town house rather than summoning their own doctor. If she wasn’t pregnant, why cause more tension between them? But the physician had confirmed her condition and she was going to have to tell her husband soon.
He regarded her with no visible emotion. “I didn’t say you’d done anything wrong. Those are your words, not mine.”
Bewildered, she just looked at him.
Maybe it sounded childish, but Brianna wanted her mother. She may not have done an admirable job in instructing Brianna on the details of what would happen on her wedding night, but her mother adored children and was going to be delighted when she heard the news. Brianna needed that, needed to talk to someone about what things were going to be like until she gave birth, someone who would be equally happy over her condition, someone who would both coddle and counsel her. Both Rebecca and Arabella were wonderful, but they hadn’t had children, and they couldn’t help. Lea had sent her a hurried note to say that one of the children was ill and she expected the whole household would come down with the malady. Lea would send word when the sickness ran its course, but right now Brianna couldn’t even talk to her sister. Devon sounded like heaven, at least until this cloud over her marriage passed by.
Colton had just refused to let her go. Moreover, he’d meant it, too. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him use that particular arrogant tone.
It wasn’t like him at all. He was solicitous and generous, and at all times a gentleman. But there he sat, handsome and urbane in his formal evening wear even for a dinner at home, his thick chestnut hair gilded by the flickering light, his long fingers ceaselessly toying with the stem of his wineglass, looking every inch the dictatorial husband.
She was more confounded than ever.
The convulsive, edgy movement of his elegant fingers told her something. The restless motion wasn’t his normal behavior. Impulsively, she blurted out, “Damien told me I might be going to have a baby. It’s true.”
Her husband’s brows shot up and his eyes grew even colder. Glacial would be appropriate. “What? How the hell would
Damien
know?”
Damien
know?”
This was all wrong, she thought with an inner grimace. Since Colton had just sworn in front of her for the first time ever, he probably agreed. Brianna calmed herself and sought a more reasonable tone. “He guessed after I almost vomited on his shoes the other morning. Please don’t tell me this comes as a complete surprise. I know you’ve questioned my maid.”
Another of what felt like several hundred awkward silences of the evening ensued.
Well done
, she told herself caustically. Saying the word
vomit
at the dinner table surely had to be a blunder of the worst sort.
Well done
, she told herself caustically. Saying the word
vomit
at the dinner table surely had to be a blunder of the worst sort.
Not at all how she’d pictured telling him.
“I have wondered if you might be pregnant.” Colton’s face resembled a granite statue. “So I asked a few questions, yes.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Her humiliating ignorance rankled, and she would much rather her husband had asked her about the possibility of a pregnancy than her brother-in-law.
“I was waiting for
you
to tell
me
.”
you
to tell
me
.”
Something inside her crumbled at his acid tone. Brianna fought the bite of tears. “You aren’t happy about this.”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course, I’m happy.”
He was? A wash of relief went through her, but she still didn’t really believe him. He looked like someone going under the executioner’s axe. “Then what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.”
Could two people have a more vague conversation and yet have it be so loaded with emotion?
She felt like the affronted party, but had the impression he did also.
“Colton, I’ve seen a physician. We are going to have a child. Shouldn’t we celebrate rather than argue?” Her voice was soft and held a betraying tremor she wished she could hide.
For a moment, his face changed and she saw a vulnerable cast to it that wasn’t at all haughty aristocrat, or privileged lord. He was just a man, and an uncertain one at that, and she realized that as unsure as breeding this new life within her made her feel, maybe the weight of this new responsibility was affecting him in the same way. He always seemed so strong, as if he didn’t need guidance, so she assumed he was in control of his emotions at all times.
His fingers stilled on his wineglass and when he spoke his voice was weary. “I think I must apologize to you. My behavior this evening has been boorish.”
Azure eyes looked into hers, making her heart skip a beat. She didn’t think he’d ever, ever looked at her with such poignant entreaty.
He had, actually, been unbearably boorish, and she was still in the dark as to why.
But it didn’t matter. She loved him. She was going to be the mother of his child. “I have missed you so much,” she said softly. “More than you can imagine. I am still not sure why we are arguing, but I do know I cannot bear another lonely night.”
“I quite agree.” His voice was hoarse and he stood, tossing his napkin aside. He held out his hand, the gesture not imperious, but a token of compromise. “Let’s go upstairs.”
He needed her so desperately it frightened him.
His hand at the small of her graceful back, Colton hoped Brianna couldn’t sense his intense hunger as they climbed the stairs, feel the slight tremor of his fingers, hear the increased cadence of his respiration.
“My bedchamber,” he said tersely. It was a possessive decision sparked by his volatile emotions. His bed, his room, his body claiming hers . . .
His beautiful wife,
his
child. It must be.
his
child. It must be.
Brianna merely nodded, her fragrance tantalizing, a promise of warm, smooth skin and silken, perfumed hair. Colton opened the door for her, followed her inside, and had barely shut the door behind them before he caught her in his arms. He swallowed her gasp of surprise as his mouth claimed hers with almost violent possession. There was something primeval in the force of the emotion that gripped him, something beyond his control, and the realization that if he battled it he might just lose was unique in his life. If there was one thing he could do and do well, it was command his emotions.
Not so when he was with Brianna. He was bewitched, beguiled, and utterly baffled by his lovely wife. Just when he thought he understood her, he found he was wrong yet again. This evening was a perfect example. Just moments before he’d been inexcusably autocratic, and yet here she was kissing him back with a fervor that matched his wild need, trembling against him. She should be furious with him. He deserved it.
If she was innocent.
His hands fumbled with her gown, undoing buttons, parting cloth to find bare flesh. Their lips still clung and her hands moved under his jacket to flatten against his chest. One small palm was positioned over his heart and he was sure she could feel the riotous pounding there as he slipped her dress off her shoulders.
“I’ve missed you so,” Brianna murmured against his mouth.
He certainly had missed her, and his rigid cock agreed. The recent self-imposed abstinence had been a tactic to help him work out his doubts—something he didn’t think he could do with impartiality when sharing her bed.
The trouble was, he hadn’t worked out anything except a terrifying conviction that he couldn’t live without her.
Colton stripped off her chemise and knelt to remove her slippers and stockings, making short work of the task, running his fingers lightly up over her calves, the inside of her knee, and skimming her thighs and hips. She looked the same, he thought, wondering when he would notice the swell of the new life that he would claim and give his name. Anything else was out of the question, and there was no doubt that whatever else might be going on, there was a good chance this child was his. He kissed the still-flat plane of her stomach, a gentle, soft pressure of his mouth.
“Oh, Colton,” she whispered, lightly touching his hair.
“Get into bed,” he ordered as he rose swiftly, the sight of her nude body, a becoming pink in the flickering light, making his arousal surge. He added as an afterthought, “Don’t cover yourself. I want to look while I undress.”
She complied, climbing onto the big bed and reclining there, her delectable breasts visibly tight, the nipples pink and erect. They
were
larger, he realized as he examined them with heated deliberate perusal and untied his cravat. The mounded flesh was fuller—though they’d been lusciously shaped before—the thin veining of blue under her translucent skin more prominent. The evidence of change made the pregnancy more real, more immediate.
were
larger, he realized as he examined them with heated deliberate perusal and untied his cravat. The mounded flesh was fuller—though they’d been lusciously shaped before—the thin veining of blue under her translucent skin more prominent. The evidence of change made the pregnancy more real, more immediate.
To regain some semblance of calm, Colton took his time, removing each article of his clothing with deliberation, forcing his mind away from anything except the shimmer of desire in his wife’s eyes and the eager clasp of her arms as he joined her on the big bed.
It was time to tamp down the complex roil of his thoughts and concentrate on purely carnal sensations. She was there with him, she was willing and soft, and so damned beautiful. . . .
“Kiss me,” she said on a breathy exhale. “Make love to me.”
It halted him even as he lowered his head to take her mouth and adjusted his hips between her open thighs.
If he did this, he would be truly making love, Colton realized with a shock. It was no longer about desire, or conjugal relations, or any of the other reasons men and women came together in the oldest of ways.
I love her.
If he didn’t, he might be angry over a possible betrayal, he might be affronted at the slight to his pride, he might even wish retribution, but none of that was particularly significant. Revenge was the last thing on his mind, his pride be damned, and as for anger, it wasn’t the right word to explain how he felt.
He was afraid. Of losing her. Oh, not in a literal sense. He could keep her no matter what—she was his wife, he was a duke and wielded power and influence—but he needed more.
All of her.
She was wet, ready, her body primed for the culmination of their joining. He could feel the slick heat as he positioned his cock, the willing give of her body as he tested his welcome, the grip of her hands on his buttocks as she urged him without words to take her.
The night of his birthday, she’d made sweet, sultry love to him. Soft kisses, subtle movements, suggestive caresses. Colton was determined to do the same, entering her body with exquisite slowness, kissing her temple, the side of her jaw, the tempting arch of her throat. When they were one, he rocked forward, making her give a low cry of pleasure, her pelvis tilting up so he could effectively put pressure in just the right spot.
And she shuddered in response.
He selflessly continued the erotic, measured rhythm, her pleasure his goal. A faint film of sweat sprung out on his brow as he held himself back until Brianna arched frantically beneath him in fevered ecstasy and her cry of release echoed through the bedchamber. He followed, intense, riveted on the rapture, his explosion leaving him both replete and exhausted.
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