The Bargain Bride (15 page)

“But you do not?”

She picked up the shawl and the fan and the flowers, thinking they were a garden by themselves, a field of vibrant color. “I adore them all, but I was going to wear cherry red tonight.”

“Ah,” he said, “then this will match.” He took a jeweler's velvet box out of his pocket.

“You have been so extravagant,” she protested, not taking the gift.

“Remember, I do not have to repay that loan from my father's debt. I am well-to-pass now.” He'd pawned his watch, until he could send a bank draft back from London, but West saw no reason to tell Penny that. Just watching her pleasure in the presents was worth every farthing.

She finally opened the box, to find a thick gold chain, with a heart-shaped ruby pendant. “Oh, West, how did you know? This is perfect!” She jumped up, spilling the music and the book and the bonbons, but she did not care as she rushed into his arms. “This truly is Christmas.” Then she stepped back, embarrassed. “But I have nothing for you. You should have told me.”

“Well, the last gift is more for me, I have to admit. And let me tell you what courage it took for me to enter the shop.”

He held up a negligee so sheer she could see him through it. Penny quickly glanced over to make sure the door was shut.

“They call the color maiden's blush, so I knew you had to have it,” he said, enjoying the sudden pink in her cheeks. “Will you wear it tonight?”

“To the party?”

“Great gods, this is for me, no one else.” Just the thought of anyone else ogling his wife made him say, “Must we go?”

“We have accepted, and we are the guests of honor.”

He sighed.

She sighed.

“How long must we stay?”

“Not long, with the excuse of traveling tomorrow.”

He smiled.

She smiled.

 

They did not stay late at the party.West took one look at Penny in her cherry gown, his ruby heart between magnificent creamy orbs, and almost refused to leave the house. She had a shawl around her shoulders, and he hated the thing for covering one inch of her glowing skin.

Then he wished she'd keep it on—or a horse blanket—so no one else could see her. The baroness had invited all the gentry for miles around to come meet a real London lord, so there were plenty of gentlemen to irritate West. Two baronets and a knight were in attendance, but he was the highest-ranking gentleman. From highest to lowest, every man there was drooling over his wife before dinner was served. West wanted to rage that she was not on the dinner menu. She was his.

Except she was hardly his tonight. They had to go into the dining room separately, after Penny was reminded that she led the way, as the highest-ranking female. They were seated at opposite ends of the long table, he next to his hostess, she next to the baron. Then the ladies withdrew and the gentlemen stayed behind, to West's aggravation. Even the dances were country-style, in rows or squares, with no waltzes where he could have held her. Besides, most of her dances were already spoken for by the time he escaped the clutches of a retired general ready to refight the latest battles. He hovered over her anyway, bringing punch, plying her fan lest she become overheated, glaring at her partners so they knew not to go beyond the line.

Suddenly Penny discovered herself the belle of the ball, popular for the first time in her life, with gentlemen tripping over one another for a chance to lead her onto the dance area, or out the open door. She was used to sitting out most dances, joining the matrons and the mothers of younger girls at the sidelines.

“It must be the title,” she told West, after refusing yet another invitation to stroll through the secluded gardens.

He laughed. “My sweet innocent. Your title has nothing to do with it.” He pulled her through the open doors himself, and into a dark corner of the terrace.

Who needed mistletoe?

After an interval sure to have tongues wagging, Penny tucked back a curl that had come loose from her intricate arrangement and said, “Grandpapa must be getting weary.”

West straightened his neckcloth. “Of course. We must think of the gentleman.” West had, which was why he'd hired another coach, so they could return separately.

“And we still have packing to do.”

“Hmm.” He was nuzzling her ear, dislodging another curl. “And I am tired of sharing your company.”

Now he was kissing where the ruby pendant touched her skin.

Penny was suddenly out of breath.

“We are newly married,” he added, licking at the crease in her décolletage. “No one expects us to stay.”

“They'll all know.” Maybe she did not need to breathe anymore.

“They already know. They're all jealous.”

They left before the gathering had even more to gossip about.

 

The carriage ride was torment. With Penny in his lap, every bump in the road jogged West's desire. Unfortunately, he could not rip off her gown and make love in the coach. Not her first time, he told himself, not with the coachman apt to hear, not to face her grandfather at the door when they arrived home. Still, he could not keep his hands off her.

Penny had the same problem. The elaborate knot in his neckcloth was gone, and so were the top buttons of his shirt and waistcoat, landing on the floor of the carriage. Now Penny could put her hand against his warm flesh, the way he was heating hers.

That was not enough for either of them.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked, almost frantic with need.

“Making you want me. The way I want you.”

“If I wanted you any more, you'd have to carry me into the house.”

He did anyway. West carried her through the entrance, down the hall, up the stairs, and straight to her room. The groom who came for the horses turned his back; the footman at the front door faded into the paneling; her maid disappeared through the dressing room. West was out of breath, but not from the carrying.

He put her down and pointed to the blush-colored negligee on her bed. “Don't bother. I might rip it. With my teeth if I had to.”

Penny was snatching the pearls from her disheveled hair, while he unfastened her gown and corset. Soon his clothes were on the floor. Her clothes were on the floor. West and Penny were almost on the floor.

“No, not here, my sweet.” West lifted her again and carried her to the bed. “Should I douse the lights?”

“No, let me look at you.”

He was splendid. And hers. She held her arms out. “Come, husband. We have waited long enough.”

She was naked, panting, her lips swollen from kisses in the coach. More importantly, she wanted him, not a mere cursory bedding to seal the marriage bargain. He sat beside her on the bed and said, “Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you want me.”

She smiled. “I have no way to say it. You have stolen my breath and my wits. If you do not come to me now, I shall perish.”

“We cannot have that, by heaven.” He did not rush, though. He caressed and stroked and suckled, until she was almost screaming with want, which meant he had to stop her with more kisses, lest her household hear. “Sh, sweetings. I need to know you are ready, so I do not hurt you.”

She was hot and wet and taut as a bowstring. He played a concerto with his fingers and his tongue.

“Oh, oh,
oh,
” came the crescendo, then, “Oh, my. I never knew.”

“Well, the maids in the upper floor know now, too,” West said, but he was grinning with pride and power and her pleasure. “And that is only the start.” He raised himself up, poised above her. He slowly started to enter—as slowly as he could go, considering he was about to burst into a thousand pieces. “Lud, I do not want to hurt you.”

Penny did not think she could feel pain now, in the euphoric afterglow. She pulled him closer, her legs around him. He pressed deeper, his mouth on hers, as if to absorb the discomfort he feared causing. Then he pulled back, ready to thrust fully, ready to find his own release.

But there was a noise.

“What was that?” Penny asked, pulling back, pushing him away.

“Nothing. Just a sound.”

“It was not nothing. I heard it.”

“It was George,” he said, trying to reposition himself.

“George is never in my room.”

“Then it was me, by Jupiter,” he cried in desperation.

“You did that, in my bed?”

“Lud, Penny, it was nothing. Making love is messy and noisy.”

“It was me! Oh my heavens, I know it was!” She shoved him off her altogether and curled into a ball, her head burrowed under the pillow. In muffled moans she lamented what a failure she was, how no true lady made such noises, how she could not do this anymore.

“Not . . . ?” he asked in disbelief.

“I cannot. Go away. Oh, how can I ever look at you again?”

Easily. If she would take the pillow off her head, she would see he was as eager as ever. “Please, sweetings, do not fret about this. Truly. In another two minutes you would not have heard it. You would not have cared.” He practically pleaded for those two minutes.

She shook her head, or the pillow. “No, it is too terrible.”

Terrible? West thought it was glorious. “Come, now, you saw how beautiful lovemaking could be. Let me show you the rest.” He touched her back—all he could reach of the knot she was curled into—but she pulled away, grabbing the bedcovers to pull over her. Next thing he knew, West was looking at a mound in the mattress, his manhood minified, his marriage a muck.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” came a muffled reply. “I am sorry.”

Not as sorry as West, he'd wager. Since he could not force himself upon her, his only option was to leave. So he gathered his clothes and what dignity a man had after such a fiasco, and trudged across the hall to his lonely room. And his roommate, George.

Penny uncurled herself, straightened the covers, and stretched luxuriously.

Revenge was sweet.

—By Arrangement,
a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber

 

 

 

T
he trouble with denying her husband his conjugal rights, Penny realized, was that she was denying herself the pleasure of her husband. Against all her plans for self-preservation, she had enjoyed his lovemaking far more than she'd supposed possible. Now she understood why no one spoke of carnal matters to young, unmarried females: They would be too eager for their own good. Penny certainly was.

Maybe, she worried, only the lower classes enjoyed sex. Surely no wellborn women could act with such abandon; if they did, they never giggled like the maids after the May Day fair, or glowed like the blacksmith's daughter after her wedding trip. Penny worried that she'd acted like a wanton last night, almost ripping West's clothes off in her haste. He already knew she was no lady, neither mild-mannered nor demure. Now he'd think her a trollop, besides a shrew.

If he did not think her a doxy, he'd consider her some priggish female with feelings too rarefied for the earthi ness of sex. Her own thoughts were in chaos. She did not want to like her husband's attentions, but she liked his skin next to hers, the sweet words he whispered, how his hands made her feel cherished and more alive than she had ever felt before. Of course she had never done
that
before. She might never again, from the grim look on West's face in the morning before they left for London. She almost apologized, showing she was ready to try again, but he did not give her the chance.

West ate in a hurry, then busied himself with the carriages and carts, the loading of the luggage, the instructions to the drivers, the comfortable arrangement of the passengers. He chose to ride alongside at first, making sure they stayed together, that the drivers and postilions were competent and careful. Then he rode ahead to check on the roads and the accommodations.

As soon as he was out of sight of the cavalcade, he set his horse to a fast and furious pace. He'd never do anything to hurt a horse, but he was not so sure about his wife if he had to share a carriage with her or watch her staring wistfully out the window.

Now he knew why married men still took mistresses.

Now he knew why they took to wife those doll-like debutantes that mothers were always foisting off on unsuspecting bachelors. The sweet little innocents had no opinions of their own, no will, no spirit. They were used to obeying orders, good soldiers in the fight to win a better place in society, a bigger fortune, a higher title. They were taught from birth that whatever a husband did was right. Their mothers told them to think of England in the marriage bed and endure, without complaint.

Penny a soldier? Hah! Half the time the female acted like a general at least, all confident and courageous— and wrongheaded, besides having no idea what the ordinary infantryman wanted or needed. Other times she was like a raw recruit, not knowing how to march or whom to salute.

The problem was, if West had to have a wife, he wanted one with a mind of her own. He never enjoyed a clinging female who needed coddling and cajoling. He also wanted a passionate partner, not a biddable bride, in his bed. Penny could have been ideal, but, lud, for a mature, independent woman, she did have an odd kick to her gallop. Or two.

Now he knew why so many married men drank.

The trip took longer than anyone expected. Mr. Littleton got a cough; Penny got her courses; George the pug got carriage sick. West grew restless and took side trips to a horse fair and a breeder he'd heard of, making purchases to be sent on to Westfield. Penny grew resentful that he could meander around, while she was confined to the carriage. Once again he was ignoring her existence. Apologize for being finicky? Never. Invite him to share her bedroom? When hell froze over.