Malia Martin (20 page)

Still, it was very hard for her to continue. She was throwing her very happiness away. A happiness she had lived with for only a short while. Oh, she did not want to give it up.

And then there was the captain. Pru felt suddenly horrible as she stared at James’s wide shoulders. He looked so alone standing there. She thought back to their ride in the carriage to Brighton and what he had said about finding his place in the world.

Part of finding his place obviously involved bringing the Wolf to justice, and she was about to yank that opportunity away from him completely. But, of course, she would
never
have allowed such a thing to happen.

James turned around slowly then, and Prudence stood a bit straighter.

“I shall go obtain the special license and return to Harker’s Inn as soon as I can,” he said without so much as blinking. “Let me know where and when you would like to be married, Lady Farnsworth.” He bowed slightly and left the room, his face a mask hiding any emotion he might be experiencing.

Prudence was not sure whether she had won or lost as she watched the man leave. She felt, though, as if she would like to cry either way.

T
hey said their vows three days later in the small garden behind Chesley House with the entire town in attendance. The three days’ wait had given Prudence enough time to get over her cold and also allowed James to obtain the special license.

The day threatened rain many times, but it stayed clear throughout the ceremony, though a chill wind chased them indoors soon after Prudence officially became Mrs. James Ashley.

She had given away her name again.

Her new husband was quiet throughout the ceremony and afterward, though he played with the children and entertained Mrs. Raithespeare.

Pru knew that she would have to tell him the truth at some point, but she rather hoped she could slowly win him over to her way of thinking first. He seemed to enjoy the people of Gravesly; perhaps he would understand when she finally deemed it necessary to tell him all of it.

Leslie had insisted that the servants vacate the house so that Prudence and James could spend their first night as husband and wife in complete privacy. Clifton, of course, had been downright irritable about such a thing, but Leslie had managed to cart him away.

Prudence said her last good-byes and closed the door with the knowledge that she was finally completely alone with Captain James Ashley. And it was now completely honorable for the man to ravish her most thoroughly. And though there was much that she would worry about on the morrow, that lovely thought had her gliding up the staircase with a huge smile on her face.

She managed a pirouette as she danced into her room and closed the door. Prudence stopped for a moment and listened. James was in his room adjacent to hers, but she could not hear him at all. With a shrug she peeled out of her clothes and readied herself for the lovely night ahead.

She hummed softly as she washed and then actually began to sing as she brushed her hair. She started to braid the long mass, but then decided to leave it down. Finally, she sat on the edge of her bed and waited for her new husband.

And she waited.

After a while she began to wonder if the man was waiting patiently for her on the other side of the door. With a sigh, she stood and went to the door that joined their rooms. Pru knocked lightly.

Her husband didn’t answer.

She knocked again, and when he said nothing, she pushed through the door. The room on the other side was empty. Prudence stood in the doorway for a moment, then frowned and stepped inside to make very sure that her husband was not in the room.

“James,” she called. But he did not answer. With a sigh, she went out into the hall. First she checked his old room, then she went downstairs. By the time she had scoured the house, Prudence was feeling rather perturbed with her new husband.

And she suddenly wondered if the man had bolted. Holding her nightgown above her ankles, Prudence ran out into the cold night to check the barn for James’s horse. The first fat raindrops splattered at her feet the second she left the confines of the warm house. By the time she reached the barn she was quite on her way to being soaked.

She was also spitting mad, and freezing as well. She would most probably get sick again, and she just might have to kill James Ashley. She rushed into the dark barn and shoved the doors closed behind her against the whipping wind.

Pru stopped just inside the doorway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the murky dimness of the barn.

And then she heard a noise: a faint rustling just to the right. “James?” she called, her voice a bit thin sounding.

“Right here,” he said, and kissed her. She stood for a moment in shock as her husband took her mouth with his. He tasted of dark red wine.

“Are you drunk?” she asked breathlessly against his lips.

He laughed softly. “No.” He nuzzled her neck, trailing kisses along her jaw, then tonguing a sensitive spot behind her ear she had never known existed.

“With Tuck staying in town tonight, I came out to feed the horses and made a rather interesting find,” he said.

Pru was barely listening. She had been angry, hadn’t she? She was nearly drenched, wasn’t she? She wasn’t truly happy to be married, was she? She honestly could not remember, because every nerve ending in her body was tingling with intense desire, and Captain James Ashley had her pressed against him, his lips flirting with her skin, his fingers wreaking havoc with her memory.

“French wine,” he murmured, sucking for a moment at the tender skin just above her collarbone.

“Mmmm,” she said.

“So, dearest, I rather think you know more about untaxed goods than you have led me to believe.” He kissed her mouth again.

“MmmHmmm.” And then she stiffened. Oh God, one of the cases of wine must have been left in the barn by mistake.

“It is very good wine.” Her husband slid his hand beneath the edge of her robe and pushed it off her shoulder.

She shivered.

James stepped away from her, and Pru made a small sound of protest. But her husband picked up something from the ground and gave it to her. “Drink, it helps.”

Pru put the glass bottle against her lips and tipped her head back. The dark, fruity wine was like heaven on her tongue. “Oh,” she said on a sigh. She did not often drink the wine, just transported it.

“Yes,” James said.

“It does help.” She giggled.

“Makes you just want to forget all the reasons this is wrong and take advantage of what you can have, doesn’t it?” James’s voice was like the purr of a cat. A big, dark, beautiful cat.

“Oh yes,” she said.

And he kissed her again.

“I have wanted your lips from the first moment I saw you,” he murmured.

“They’re yours.”

“You’re wet,” he murmured against her.

She shivered. “I’m freezing.” Instead of remedying the problem, though, they continued kissing as if that was the only thing keeping them alive.

James ran his hands over Pru’s back, her shoulders, her arms. And she wished he would never stop. He pulled the ties that held her night rail closed at her neck, and she arched her head so that he could kiss her skin. Heaven.

“You’re beautiful.” His hands, those tantalizing hands, pushed her nightgown down to her waist, and then the material dropped to the floor and she was naked.

He stepped away from her, and she wanted to cry. She must have whimpered, because James laughed softly. “Patience,” he said, and shook out one of the horse blankets onto the floor.

He took her down right there, the buttons on his shirt abrading her skin. But it did not hurt. Instead it made her feel utterly wanton and absolutely daring, and she just wanted more.

“You’re fully dressed,” she said, in a mock scold.

“So sorry.” He took her mouth, his tongue touching hers and making her cling to him. “I shall strive to fix the problem at once,” and he undid the button at the top of his shirt.

She just wanted his mouth against hers, she wanted him to keep touching her, and it was taking way too long for him to get all the buttons undone. Pru reached up and yanked her husband’s shirt open. Buttons clattered to the floor, but Pru had already started at her husband’s pants.

“I want you,” she said, splaying her hands in James’s hair. It was soft and thick, and she clenched her fingers in it, holding his head so that she could kiss him and never stop.

“I feel like I’m drowning,” he said. “And it is wonderful.”

“Oh yes, let’s drown together.”

This was amazing, truly. Never had she felt such a dizzying need to let go of all control and just be. Her heart raced as if she had run through the marsh with a heavy barrel in her arms, and her body quivered and trembled and it was all good. All wonderfully, excitingly good.

And the whole world just did not matter.

James was naked, finally, and she pushed against his chest so that she could look at him. “God, you are incredible,” she said, and then knew that she blushed. His entire body was muscled and long.

Pru reached down and wrapped her fingers around her husband’s manhood. It bucked in her hand, and he groaned. “Oh,” she murmured. She had never touched the baron like this. Never wanted to. And now her body wanted to do things she could barely fathom with her mind.

“You are hard and soft and beautiful.”

James groaned, a low rumbling sound she could feel against her chest and stomach. She wanted him inside her. She wanted him to envelop her, hold her, take her.

Pru moved her hands around and cupped her husband’s muscled buttocks, holding him against her. She felt wetness between her legs, and she closed her eyes with the strength of need that pounded at her core.

James kissed her again, lightly this time, his lips trailing from her mouth, to her neck, then lower. Pru arched her back, her nerve endings tingling with need. She wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted her husband to do, but she knew that every touch was like an exquisite torture.

She wanted him inside her, now. But she did not want him to stop touching her, ever.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

Pru opened her eyes. Her husband hovered above her, his mesmerizing eyes dark, nearly black. “Your hair is like a golden waterfall,” he said, reaching up and threading his fingers in its length. He traced his finger down one of her arms and across the flat of her stomach.

“Your body is so strong.”

Her skin tingled at her husband’s touch, and she trembled. She had never felt so fragile before, so womanly, and yet so very powerful. She reached up and pulled James back to her.

He came without resistance. She felt the give of her breasts against his solid chest and let out a small, low moan.

He moved up her body and kissed her again, his mouth gentle but hard and so very good. He traced patterns on her stomach, then went lower, his fingers brushing her most intimate place. She made a funny sound, her breath hitching in her throat. And then he entered her, his finger against a place that made her tremble with a need she did not know she had.

“Come into me,” she said against his mouth.

“Oh yes,” he said, touching her as no one had before.

“Please,” she said, arching against his finger.

He knew that he couldn’t, not yet at least. He would be gone the minute he entered her.

James slid his finger inside of his beautiful, strong wife and kissed his way down her neck. He could feel the gooseflesh, and she shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked, pushing back slightly.

She blinked at him and shook her head harshly. “No! Don’t stop, James.”

He chuckled. “You like this, then?” he asked, and pulled his finger out slightly only to slip it inside of her again.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she arched her back.

James watched Pru’s face, gazed at her neck and breasts as he used her own wetness to rub against the nub he knew would help her find her own release.

Her breasts heaved, lovely round globes crested with tiny pink nipples. He touched the top of one breast with his mouth, the skin cool and smooth, so very soft. Pru shuddered beneath him, and he sought out her nipple with his tongue.