Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 30

Bree blinked as they walked out of the bright sunshine of a crisp October morning into the gloom of the church porch. Then the verger threw open the doors and she and Piers stepped into the light streaming down from the clerestory windows, reflecting off the old white stone, catching the glossy leaves and petals of sheaf after sheaf of flowers arranged at the ends of the carved pews.

Beside her Piers looked impossibly grown-up in his new swallow-tailed coat. She tightened her grip on his arm and searched for Max. He looked so far away down the long aisle, between the massed guests.

‘Off we go,’ Piers whispered and they began to walk, Bree darting quick glances from the shelter of her veil. There was Lady Lucas, her husband beside her, there was James, torn between pride at the match and horror at the choice of location for the wedding. There was Max’s redoubtable grandmother, whom she had come to like over the past few days—as she saw Bree her autocratic face was transformed by a wide smile.

Almost there now. Uncle George, well again, beaming at her—and then there was nothing and no one in the world but Max, white-faced as she had never seen him.

Bree gave her flowers to Rosa, turned and placed her hand in Max’s. The Vicar stepped forward, lifted the prayer book and began.

‘Dearly beloved …’

Bree had expected the service to pass like a dream, yet every moment slowed until it had its own significance and she knew she would never forget a second of it. The moment when Max spoke his vows and she heard his voice break, the moment she said hers and his hand tightened warm and secure around her cold fingers, the feeling as the ring slid on to her finger and the sight of his face as he put back her veil and stood looking down at her.

‘You may kiss the bride,’ the vicar intoned.

‘My wife,’ Max said softly. ‘My beautiful wife.’

The kiss was long, intense, full of words neither of them had to say. Bree was blushing and laughing when Max finally released her, all the colour was back in his face and the guests were beaming.

Walking back down the aisle, stopping and exchanging words with old friends and new, Bree knew this wedding in the quiet country church, miles from fashionable London, was perfect. Nothing could make the day any better.

‘Had you noticed,’ Max observed as they emerged from the porch, ‘I have not given you a wedding present yet?’

‘I rather thought you were it,’ Bree said daringly, making him chuckle.

‘No. I have something rather larger for you. It will be here in a moment.’

The bells were peeling out overhead, the guests came crowding behind them, spilling out into the churchyard to throw rice, wave and call for Bree to throw her bouquet. They reached the lichgate. ‘Where is my present?’ Bree teased. ‘I can’t see anything larger than you.’

Then there was the familiar blast of a coach horn and across the green a stagecoach came at full tilt pulled by four grey horses. ‘Max! A stagecoach, what on earth is it doing here?’

It was in Challenge Coach Company livery, she realised. Bill Huggins, a vast nosegay in his buttonhole, was on the box, but it was bigger, shinier, infinitely better than anything they had in the yard. Bill brought the team to a snorting halt in front of the gate and Bree saw the lettering on the door. ‘The Countess of Penrith,’ she read. ‘Max! You’ve bought me a stagecoach!’

‘I wanted to show you that I am proud of my wife, proud of the company and proud to be part it.’ Max staggered back as Bree launched herself at him in an enthusiastic hug. ‘Shall I drive you to the wedding breakfast? Will you come up on the box with me?’

Laughing, trying to protect her blue silk skirts as she clambered up, Bree let herself be boosted on to the box. Max climbed up beside her and steadied the team. Looking down, Bree saw Piers assisting the Dowager Countess into the coach, followed by a faintly protesting James.

‘Here.’ Max offered her the reins. ‘It is your coach.’

‘No.’ Bree shook her head. ‘Ours.’ And she slid her hand into his, and drove with him, just as they had that night when they had first met.

‘I wish we could have driven to Norfolk in my new stagecoach,’ Bree said wistfully. ‘I don’t think any bride has ever had such a wonderful present.’

‘It was worth it just for the look on your brother James’s face when he realised he was expected to get into it to drive to the breakfast.’ Max chuckled. She smiled back, then fell silent, suddenly shy.

She was conscious of his eyes on her face, of the closeness of his long body, the strong, elegant hands, the power in his relaxed frame. He was, finally, her husband. That had implications of intimacy that she had never really considered before. Sexual intimacy, of course. Bree swallowed, realising that she had never seen Max naked, nor he, her. And that was just the start of it.

And then there were all the other intimacies: shared dreams and hopes, things to disagree about and argue over, fears kept private until now, little faults and big failings. How would it feel to share all those things with someone who loved you, someone you were coming to realise you hardly knew?

Except I know the important things. I know he is honest and brave. I know he admits his faults. I know he is loyal to his friends, drives like an angel and kisses like all the temptations of sin. I know I love him, and I believe he loves me.

‘You are very serious.’ He looked serious too, and a little anxious about her solemn face. ‘Regrets?’

‘No, never those. I was just thinking about how intimate marriage must be—all those thoughts kept private until now, all our own odd habits, preferences, dislikes. Do you think it will take long to become used to each other?’

‘I am not sure I want to become used to you.’ Max studied her face, his eyes warm beneath lids that seemed heavy with smouldering desire. ‘I want to be constantly surprised.’

She smiled back, reassured, then glanced out of the window. ‘Where on earth are we going? The postilions must be lost. This isn’t the way to Norfolk—in fact, I think we are going west.’

‘We are, and we are nearly there. I couldn’t face the journey, not having to stop at some inn on our wedding night. I have borrowed Lansdowne’s hunting lodge in the Vale of Aylesbury. He is the only one who knows, the servants have all been firmly instructed to be neither heard, nor seen, and we can stay a week if we like.’

‘Oh.’ Nearly there. Bree ran her tongue over lips that were suddenly dry. She had thought she had hours to prepare herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Max to make love to her, it was just that she didn’t feel very ready for it.

He was watching her face. ‘Not a good idea?’

‘A very good one.’ she said firmly. ‘How kind of Lord Lansdowne.’

Max merely smiled, leaving Bree with the clear impression he knew just what she was thinking. It was hopeless, one couldn’t keep blushing, surely?

She did not have long to brood. The carriage swung between a pair of modest brick gateposts, past a lodge and into a small park. The house was a neat Queen Anne, perfect in its miniature detail.

‘It is a doll’s house,’ Bree exclaimed, charmed. Max helped her down and escorted her up the steps to the front door which stood wide open. ‘There’s no one here.’

‘No one visible,’ Max corrected, taking her by surprise by sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her over the threshold.

‘But …’

He pressed on up the stairs, blithely disregarding her halfhearted struggles. It was quite extraordinarily disconcerting to be carried so easily. Another door stood open on the landing, Max strode through it, set her on her feet and closed it, turning the key in the lock.

Bree looked around. Here was a table set with a cold collation, a bottle in an ice bucket and two chairs. There was a fire crackling in the wide hearth, heavy golden drapes at the windows and around the bed. The very big, very prominent, very obvious bed.

‘Are you hungry?’

‘No.’ Where her stomach should be there was a hollow space filled with a mass of butterflies.

‘Shall we go to bed, then?’

‘At—’ she cast a wild glance at the mantel clock ‘—five in the afternoon?’

‘Sounds a reasonable plan to me.’ Max reached for her bonnet ribbons and began to untie them slowly. He tossed the bonnet on to a chair and reached for the top button of her pelisse.

Suddenly emboldened, Bree held up her hand. ‘No. We take turns. I have no intention of blushing here on the hearthrug while you stay safely clothed.’ She reached up and removed his tall hat.

‘Hmm. One item at a time?’

‘Exactly. Pairs of things count as one,’ she conceded. ‘And no … no lovemaking until we have finished.’

‘Right.’ He resumed unbuttoning her pelisse.

‘That would be easier if you took your gloves off first,’ Bree observed.

‘You don’t trick me into throwing away an entire garment like that, my lady.’ He persevered while Bree struggled with the reality of being my lady. A countess. Me.

The thought was so distracting that Max was slipping the pelisse off her shoulders before she could concentrate on the tactics of this new game. It would be amusing to have him struggle with corset strings in gloves. On the other hand, she had to admit that she could not wait to have those long, clever fingers on her skin.

‘Gloves next.’ Slowly, one finger at a time, she began to ease off the pigskin gloves. She let her fingertips brush against the sensitive skin inside Max’s wrists. He drew in a hissing breath. As she pulled off the first glove she let her thumbnail score lightly down his palm, then repeated it with the second.

‘Witch.’ Max reached for her own hands. The buttons at the wrists were tight and he took his time, teasing the fine skin over the pulse with the pads of his fingers until she closed her eyes in mute supplication.

He changed to start working at each finger, easing back the thin kid. ‘I could have dragged Latymer out of his curricle and broken his jaw for him that day in the park,’ he remarked, startling her so that she opened her eyes and blinked at him. ‘I was trying not to become attached to you. I was trying, with very little success, to tell myself that you did not belong to me.’

‘Even then?’

‘From the first moment I saw you, that glimpse of your furious face as Nevill took the drag past your stage outside Hounslow. Mine. I knew it.’

Both gloves were crumpled in his hand. They stood, barely a foot apart, swaying together so their breath mingled. She saw his pupils widen.

‘My turn.’ Bree reached up and pushed Max’s coat off his shoulders.

Max growled deep in his throat and dropped to one knee beside her. ‘Shoes.’

Removing shoes, it seemed, was just as exciting as gloves. Bree balanced, one hand on his shoulder, looking down at Max’s dark, ruffled hair and wondering if he was simply very good at the preliminaries to lovemaking, or whether all men spent this much time reducing their wives to a mass of quivering anticipation.

And not just their wives, she realised, for under her hand she could feel the tension in his shoulder. She could see the pulse thudding in his neck and the warm colour of his nape.

Both shoes off, she stood in her stockinged feet, regarding her husband, making up her mind. ‘Your Hessians,’ she pronounced. Until those were off, his trousers could not be removed, although she was not at all sure she wished to go that far yet.

Obligingly, Max sat down and offered a foot. ‘You’ll need to turn round and straddle my leg,’ he offered helpfully with a straight face and the air of a man hugely enjoying himself.

Bree narrowed her eyes at him, but did as he said, gripping his knee between her thighs, her skirts tumbling on either side. It felt positively indecent. And exciting. She gritted her teeth, grabbed the heel again and hauled. The boot slid off smoothly. Bree stepped over his other leg and repeated the process.

She expected Max to attack her stockings next, but he walked around her and began to work on the row of tiny pearl buttons down the back of her gown. Was the man capable of doing anything fast? It seemed every button required infinitely detailed attention, and the necessity to caress the exposed line of her upper vertebrae with his thumb before moving on to the next one.

At last, just as Bree was on the point of spinning round, seizing him by the ears and kissing him until he suffocated, Max reached the bottom of the buttons and untied the sash.

‘Does this slip down or lift over?’ He was easing it off her as he spoke, his palms caressing down over each shoulder.

‘Li … lift off,’ Bree managed to whisper.

‘Sweetheart,’ he murmured in her ear, pulling her back until she was flat against him. ‘Aren’t you enjoying this?’

‘Yes, yes I am. Only I feel so …’

‘Tense?’

‘Yes.’ That was definitely the word. It was like the other times he had made love to her, but all they were doing now was undressing each other. How could it make her feel as if he was running his hands over her naked body, as though his mouth was … ‘Yes. Tense.’

‘Poor darling.’ His mouth was very close to her ear. ‘We will have to do something about that.’

‘Make me less tense?’

‘Oh, no, quite the contrary.’ He chuckled and bent to lift the hem of her gown. Enveloped in silk and satin in lush folds, Bree emerged to find Max regarding her wickedly over an overspilling armful of fabric. Somehow it managed to make him look even more outrageously masculine.

Right. ‘What of yours would you like me to take off next?’ she enquired sweetly.

‘Stockings,’ Max said instantly. ‘There are few things more ridiculous than a naked man in nothing but his stockings.’

‘I see.’ Bree nodded and reached for his neckcloth.

‘You baggage.’

‘I was only teasing,’ she said demurely. ‘Put your hand on my shoulder.’

It had never occurred to her that feet could be attractive, or that they might upset her equilibrium. But the sight of Max’s lean, bare feet, their long tendons flexing as his toes burrowed into the carpet, made her feel slightly breathless.

‘What next?’ he asked.

‘Garters?’

‘So you are counting garters and stockings as two items, are you?’ Max leaned forward and ran one finger under the thin strap holding up the petticoat. ‘I’ll leave those for the present. Just as a man wearing only stockings looks ridiculous, a woman wearing nothing else looks very, very exciting.’

Bree suppressed a squeak of alarm at the purr in his voice. Somehow she had imagined the last garment coming off being followed by a rapid retreat under the bedclothes. It did not sound as though Max had that in mind at all.

The thin lawn slid down to pool around her feet. Bree told herself that she was still very decently clad, although a corset over a shift that reached only to her knees felt precarious covering.

She reached up and untied his neckcloth, standing on tiptoe to unwrap it from around his neck. It brought her close against his chest and Max closed his arms around her. The corset pushed up her breasts and the points of her nipples, covered only in the fine fabric of her chemise, peaked, brushing against the firm fabric of his waistcoat. ‘Max!’

‘I am just steadying you,’ he said earnestly.

‘You are not, you are moving against my … against my chest.’

‘Heavy breathing.’

She pulled the last turn of muslin free and tossed the cloth to one side. ‘Then let me go. You will feel much better.’

‘I doubt it. Turn around so I can reach your corset strings.’

Bree turned, resting her hands on her hips and breathing in as she did when Lucy laced or unlaced her. ‘However do you breathe?’ Max asked. ‘I’m going to have to take the scissors to these.’

‘Cheating.’

‘Well, prepare for a long conversation, then! I have confessed to falling for you at first sight. Are you going to tell me when you first began to feel the same way?’

‘In the chaise, after the highwaymen, and you were wounded and we took off your shirt. I found I was becoming very flustered.’ She felt herself blush just talking about it. ‘That stud—it made me think about what you meant by saying they were considered erotic. And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered.’

Max’s fingers tightened on the laces of their own accord, pulling Bree in so the warmth of his breath fanned the flushed skin of her nape. ‘I knew all that pain had to be worth it eventually,’ he murmured. It had not seemed that his body could be any tighter, the ache in his groin any more acute, but Bree’s flustered frankness was having a devastating effect.

‘I didn’t realise I was falling in love with you until you came with me to see Uncle,’ she confessed, hurrying on to slightly safer ground.

‘So your concern for my poor, wounded shoulder had nothing to do with you offering me a bed for the night?’

‘Yes, of course. It was so kind of you to have come with me.’

‘I have a confession to make—’ He broke off, muttering under his breath with frustration at the tight knot. ‘Ah, that’s got it. There was nothing hurting at all. The wound was healed up, I was feeling perfectly fine, but I wanted to go with you, so I did my best to look as though I was bravely suffering in silence.’

Bree spun round, the corset strings pulled out of his hands and the stiffened fabric slid to her hips. ‘You fraud!’ She took a hasty step forwards and it slid further, effectively hobbling her. ‘Oh, get this beastly thing off me so I can hit you!’

Max grinned and tugged the corset up over her head. ‘I had the best of intentions.’

‘You can take your own waistcoat off,’ Bree said, trying to look affronted. Max stripped off the moiré silk, its deep blue shimmering as it caught the light, making him think of her eyes.

Bree did a rapid calculation. ‘Shirt, pantaloons, drawers. This is very unfair—you have more clothes on than I do.’

‘You should have added up first, and made me start,’ Max drawled, then yielded a point. ‘I’ll unpin your hair and count that as one.’ It was no concession; he was having trouble controlling his breathing at the thought of that wheaten mass sliding free over her shoulders. Any minute it now it would be slipping over her naked body.

He made a deliberately slow business of it until it slid over his fingers like cool live flame. He caught up the weight of it, then let it go. ‘Lady Godiva,’ he teased, trying to cover up his own emotion before he lost control.

Bree’s eyes were wide on his. This was ceasing to become a game, yet she was not frightened, he could tell. Apprehensive, yes. And aroused. He could see the hard peaks of her nipples, the flushed skin of her throat and bosom.

She took hold his shirt and began to pull it free from the waistband of his trousers, then set to work on the buttons. He wondered just how much more of this he could stand. ‘There.’ She pushed the linen back off his shoulders. Max put up his hands, caught hers and pulled them down, flattening them against his pectorals, feeling the pressure of her soft palms on the tight, aching knots of his nipples.

‘Max.’ It was a whisper that fluttered against his skin like the brush of a feather.

He released her and took hold of her chemise, pulling it gently over her head, never taking his eyes off her as he tossed it aside. Then all he could do was look.

Bree’s hands fluttered to her sides and she stared back at him, seeming hardly to breathe.

His eyes drank her in. The delicate slope of her shoulders, the firm, uplifted breasts with their puckered, rose-pink aureoles, the sweet curve of waist and hip, the feminine roundness, the mass of curls, darker than her head hair, the shadowed triangle of delights, the provocative pink garters and the shimmer of silk over her calves.

His hands went to the fastenings of his pantaloons, fumbled, freed them and he dragged them off, his thumbs hooked into his drawers so both came together, leaving him naked in front of her. Bree’s eyes widened, she touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. ‘Touch me,’ he said softly. ‘Put your hands on me.’

But he is beautiful. His shoulders were broad, his chest ribbed with muscle, narrowing down to a slim waist, tight hips. Her gaze froze and she ran her tongue around lips suddenly dry.

She had held him, caressed him, in the drag. But she had not seen. Max, powerful, aroused, naked, was taking her breath away.

‘Touch me. Put your hands on me.’

Bree took a step forward, then another. She laid one hand on his chest, over the breastbone, feeling the thud of his heart. She raised her lips for his kiss and curled her other hand around the hard, hot, velvety masculinity that pulsed between them.

‘I love you.’ They were not playing now. The tone of his voice was as sincere as when he had made his vow in church. His lips on hers were a claiming as much as the placing of the ring on her finger. She slid both her arms around his neck, letting him pull her tight against him, branding the heat of him on her belly.

‘I love you too. Show me how to make love to you,’ she whispered.

He lifted her, carried her to the bed and settled her on the expanse of golden brocade. ‘I should go slowly for you,’ he whispered, settling himself beside her, his hand gliding down over the curve of her breasts, the swell of her belly, into the curls that seemed the only protection her modesty and virginity had left.

‘Max.’ She did not know how to say it, how to tell him that she ached for him, that she was wet for him, that tiny quivering darts of pleasure were shaking her. ‘Max, I need you now.’ Daring, desperate, she touched him again, taking him firmly as he had shown her, caressing up the length to the crown, then down again.

‘Sweetheart … stop, or I will lose what very little control I have left.’ His finger moved into the hot, wet, aching folds and she pressed against him, knowing the pleasure that would give. But he avoided the aching bud and instead slipped inside. Bree felt her muscles closing around him, trying to hold on to him, then a second finger joined the first and she arched up, pressing against his palm, whimpering with delight.

Max shifted over her, nudging her legs apart, and she moved to cradle him, feeling the tip of his erection at the very spot she so yearned for him. ‘I love you,’ he said again, and surged into her.

Bree gasped, shocked by the stab of soreness, then shaken to her core by the sensation of his body within hers, of the movement that was driving the pain away, building that tension that was racking her to the point where she arched hard against him, desperate for it to sweep her away.

‘Open your eyes. Look at me.’ Barely able to focus now, as his body drove hers into a tighter and tighter spiral of sensation, Bree dragged open her eyes and looked up into his face. His eyes were wide, dark, intent. His jaw was locked hard, the tendons in his throat taut with effort as he took them both higher, harder, further.

‘Max—’ His name was dragged from her lips as the dam burst, the tension splintered into pleasure that racked her from head to toe. She was conscious of his body surging against hers, of his shout, of his body driving impossibly deep into hers, and then the world went dark.

She came to herself to find Max’s weight still on her, his forehead resting on hers, their panting breath mingling.

‘Max?’ He rolled off her with a sigh, but gathered her against him as though fearful of letting her go. ‘Max, is it always like that?’

He pushed himself up on one elbow. There was sweat on his forehead, his hair was in his eyes, his mouth looked bruised. I did that?

‘Not in my experience,’ he admitted. ‘Never before.’

‘Will it always be like that?’

‘Slower,’ he said. ‘Sometimes slower.’

‘Oh. Slower would be good. Sometimes. We’ll try that next, shall we?’

‘Shall we have a glass of wine first?’ Max slid off the bed, clutched the bedpost for support and grinned at her. ‘You have unmanned me.’

Bree sat up against the pillows. Her muscles seemed to have been turned into jelly. ‘Then pour the wine and come back to bed,’ she said softly. ‘And teach me how to show you just how much I love you.’

‘If it is as much as I love you,’ Max said, pressing a cool glass into her hand, ‘we may need to stay here for ever.’

The glasses clinked together, they sipped, then he put them both down beside the bed and took her in his arms again.

Outside, the autumn dusk fell like dark velvet. Inside the fire crackled, flared up, catching sparks of light off the crystal on the table, and two voices, merging and blending, whispered, ‘I love you.’

Not Quite a Lady