Louise Allen Historical Collection (48 page)

‘Are the rooms to your liking?’ He came right in, closing the door behind him with a click that made her jump.

‘Yes, delightful.’ His eyebrows rose and a hint of that wicked smile touched the corner of his mouth. ‘They are very luxurious. Very…pink,’ she said, not adding that she imagined this was what a bordello looked like.

‘Certainly pink,’ he agreed. ‘It is not your colour. Change what you wish.’

It seemed so wasteful to change a suite of rooms simply because pale pink made her look washed-out—as of course he had just noticed. But, Bella reminded herself, this is the setting for his lordship’s pleasure, intended to display the woman who lived in this padded casket of luxury. She must look her best here. Perhaps she could make the sitting room more comfortable, more of a retreat of her own.

‘Thank you.’ Her hands tightened on the bedpost as he came closer, his soft morocco slippers soundless on the deep pile of the carpet. It was all silent, like a dream, except for her heart thudding so hard that she thought he must hear it and the rush of blood that buzzed in her ears.

Elliott stopped, close enough for her to see that he had shaved, close enough to pick up a subtle woody tang of cologne. ‘You look like a maiden tied to a stake waiting to be rescued from the dragon,’ he remarked. ‘An amusing game, perhaps, but not, I think, for tonight.’ His eyes were heavy-lidded, dark with anticipation, and she shivered, caught between fear and something else she did not quite understand. Elliott raised an eyebrow. ‘And perhaps I am the dragon?’

‘No. No, not at all.’ She released her grip on the post and then did not know what to do with her hands. Elliott solved her dilemma by catching them in his and drawing her close. She thought he was going to kiss her lips, but his mouth found the angle of neck and shoulder instead, nuzzling under the soft frills of veiling gauze, his breath hot and his tongue hotter, until her whole body seemed to glow, just from that one contact.

Elliott.
She thought she had spoken, but no sound escaped her parted lips except a whimper that became a sob. He released her hands and her arms went around his neck, to keep herself on her feet or hold him to her, she was not certain which.

‘It is all right,’ he said softly, and she realised she had him in a stranglehold. ‘It is all right, Arabella. There is nothing to be afraid of, we are just going to bed together.’ He might have been murmuring reassurance to a nervous filly, his hands gentling over her. He set her back against the post and untied the ribbons of her négligé, pushing it over her shoulders, then he stepped aside to where the covers had already been turned down and pulled them back further.

‘Is this side all right for you?’

The prosaic question was so unexpected, so far from her lurid imaginings of what was going to happen next that she gaped at him. ‘Oh. Yes, I don’t mind, really.’ The bed was huge compared to what she was used to; she would be adrift in it wherever she slept. Elliott was waiting patiently so she let the négligé drop and climbed into bed. He flipped the covers over her legs and went round to the other side, discarding his robe as he went.

Bella looked fixedly at the opposite side of the room, but out of the corner of her eye she could still see him. And he was wearing a nightshirt, thank goodness. She did not think she could cope with him naked, not yet.

The bed dipped, there was the tug of bedclothes being adjusted, then he remarked, ‘You could lie down, you know.’

Could she? Bella felt as though she was made out of wood. If her back went down, her legs would shoot into the air, like a peg doll whose joints had seized up. She tried, legs tight together, and stared up at the underside of the canopy.

Elliott moved closer, leaned over her, one hand on the pillow beside her head. ‘Just kisses for the moment, Arabella,’ he murmured and leaned in. ‘You know you like kisses. Only kisses until you are ready.’

It was gentle, like last night and, like that kiss on the terrace, she did not mistake the gentleness for a lack of confidence, or experience. He knew what he was doing, he knew what he wanted and how to take it but, mysteriously, he seemed interested in
her
too, not just her breasts or that part between her legs.

Elliott stroked softly into her mouth with his tongue, teasing and tasting; he nibbled along her lips, sucked her top lip into his mouth, bit it gently and released it, only to do the same to her lower lip.

It was as if he found the taste and the texture of her pleasurable—which was very strange. Surely the entire point of what they were doing was for him to penetrate her, which would give him his release?

Every now and again he paused, as if he was waiting for something. Surely not for her to reciprocate? Did he want her to nibble and suck? To slide her tongue into his mouth too? She had done it last night, she remembered, embarrassed. Just the very tip. His mouth had been hot and moist and his tongue almost indecent in the muscular way it had moved against her lips. As if it were another part of him altogether.

She was feeling very strange now. Warm and restless and aching. And she did want to kiss him back, to taste and feel the textures of his skin. As her tongue slid into his mouth he shifted his position with a grunt that sounded like satisfaction, moving down the bed to hold her more closely, the hand that had propped him up coming round to cup her cheek and hold her steady.

Emboldened, Bella pulled back a little, then kissed the corner of Elliott’s mouth. She felt him smile, so she ran her tongue along the join of his lips and kissed the other corner. Definitely a smile now. It was very strange, almost as though he found this
fun
, as though he wanted to play.

He tipped her head and his mouth found her ear, his tongue tracing the whorls, his breath hot. Bella shivered. It should tickle. It was her
ear
, for goodness’ sake. But her breasts were aching and she wanted to rub against him and molten heat was gathering, low in her belly.

Then his lips closed over her ear lobe and he began to suckle it. Bella gasped. It was utterly…indecent. But it was only her ear lobe. He might as well be sucking her elbow! Yet it seemed to swell in his mouth, the insistent tug stimulating the morsel of flesh almost to the point of a discomfort that was perversely pleasant. Now her breasts really were too tight. She moved, restless, and felt her nipples, as hard as if she had splashed them with ice water, fretting against her nightgown.

He tugged and the nightgown came off. Somehow his nightshirt had gone already.

Elliott growled deep in his throat and shifted closer and then she felt it, the hard brutal length against her hip. He had promised only kisses, but then, for men, it was impossible to stop once they started, she understood that. So, it was going to happen now. She tried not to stiffen, to move away from him, but she could not help her body tightening as he moved his weight over her.

‘Arabella?’ She made herself look at him. His eyes were deep, fathomless blue in the candlelight, his lips slightly parted. He was controlling his breathing, she realised. His hand moved over her belly and she felt the chill of the familiar ring, the ring that had been on Rafe’s hand. His fingers probed between her legs where she knew she was shamefully hot and moist.

‘Oh, yes, you are ready.’ He seemed pleased. But Rafe had seemed pleased until… He entered her, firmly and strongly, and her entire body seemed to tighten with the fear.
Too tight, too big. It hurts…I must move. I am supposed to move and to hold him and…
But all she could do was lie there like the wooden doll she had imagined earlier. Lie there under him while the big, hard body surrounded her, crushed her, filled her. Used her.

Don’t think like that. It is your duty, his right.
Bella opened her eyes on to Elliott’s intense blue gaze. He was rapt, lost in sensation, but somewhere, deep, she knew that all was not well, that something was missing.

‘Arabella—’ Then he closed his eyes, his face tensed and he gave a stifled shout as his body convulsed into hers until she thought he would break her apart. After a moment he went limp, his body crushing down on hers. There was heat and the slide of sweaty skin and the roughness of the hair on his chest and legs.

Between her own legs a strange pulse quivered and ached, unsatisfied as her body began to protest at the treatment.

‘Arabella?’ He was looking at her, hair in his eyes, his expression bleak and unguarded. ‘That was not good, was it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bella began, with no more words assembled in her brain to continue.

‘There is nothing to be sorry for,’ Elliott said. But a dry undertone to his voice contradicted his words. She had been right, he was too kind to tell her how disappointed he was in her. He rolled off and tugged until she came against his side, her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Go to sleep now.’

‘But—’

‘We have consummated the marriage, Arabella. That is enough to be going on with.’

Bella looked up so she could see his face. ‘Was… was that how it is supposed to be?’

‘Do you think so?’ He lay watching her, expressionless, not giving her any help at all.

Of course it was not. How disappointed he must be to have been forced into marriage with her. Her shake of the head was so vehement that he laughed. ‘There you are, then. We can work on it. Come back here and sleep, Arabella.’

I amuse him? Is that better than scorn and insults and violence? It has to be.
She lay down, her cheek against man-warmed linen and closed her eyes. Perhaps if he would do it again in the morning, before she was properly awake, that would be better. She would be relaxed, it would be over before she had time to be afraid and for it to hurt and he might find it more enjoyable.

E
lliott woke in the early morning light, every muscle tense with arousal. It took a moment to realise where he was and who was lying, relaxed in slumber, against him. His wife. Arabella was about the only relaxed thing in the bed, he thought grimly. She was just where she had fallen asleep last night, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. In the night she must have moved her arm for it now lay across his body, her hand lightly clasping the erect length that ached for her to tighten the lax grip.

Last night had been…frustrating. He had thought her ready for him, willing, but something had gone wrong. Was she associating love making with Rafe’s betrayal afterwards? Or had he simply misread her, failed to see that nerves were overcoming her sensual responses? The temptation was to simply roll over, rip off his nightshirt and take her again before she had the chance to wake up and remember her nerves.
No.
Elliott tried breathing lightly, controlling the need to move under her palm. No, she had to know what she was doing, be fully involved with it. With him.

It had taken him a long time to get to sleep last night, puzzling over Arabella’s responses to his love-making. She reacted as he would expect a virgin to react, not like a woman who had had an
affaire
with an experienced rake. Perhaps it was the pregnancy. But he was hardly on such terms with any mothers that he could ask them how child-bearing had affected their love lives.

Elliott inched out from under her arm. As he slid out of the bed he saw her face clearly, the track of one dried tear down her cheek. His wife had wept on her wedding night. He had no idea how to comfort her or what to say.
You are safe now? I am not like my brother, even if you probably see him every time you look at me? I won’t abandon you and your baby?
‘I promise I will look after you,’ he murmured. But she knew that by now, surely? It seemed she needed something he did not know how to give her.

Elliott closed the door into his dressing room with care, walked through into his own bedchamber and closed that door too. Only, it was not his bedchamber, it was Rafe’s, just as that was not his woman in the pink boudoir that had been decorated for a whore. She was Rafe’s cast-off mistress and, somehow, they had to forget that.

He was not used to sleeping in a nightshirt. Elliott dragged it over his head, hurled the balled-up linen at a wing chair, missed, swore and threw himself on the bed. From the mirror above his reflection, naked, still half-erect, glared back at him.

He looked like a working man compared with his elegant, sleek brother. Rafe would not have dreamed of joining his farm hands in the fields to help in the last push to bring the crops before rain fell. He would not have sat up with the shepherds in the lambing fields in the small hours or found pleasure heaving roof timbers with the carpenters when there was a building to repair.