D
id she dare ask Dash directly what worried him?
Beneath lowered lashes, Maryanne gave a sidelong glance at her husband.
He leaned against the carriage window and looked out, a pistol at his side—a weapon that had meant she could no longer cuddle up against him. Though his arm stretched invitingly across the back of the blue velvet seat, she felt as if a wall stood between them. His great coat had fallen open, revealing powerful leg muscles tensing beneath his trousers. His jaw was set, teeth held so tightly together she could hear them grind.
He was waiting to fight—to fight for his life.
Bad drivers were common enough on the road, why was he so obviously balanced on a knife’s edge, waiting attack?
She hated this, sitting with her hands in her lap. Her neck ached with tension; her throat was so dry it hurt to swallow.
“We’re here. Home.” His voice held a note of humor on the word
home
.
Dash leaned away from the window, and she caught a glimpse of light. Grooms carrying lamps had rushed out to meet the carriage. She craned forward, dazzled by a blaze of light. “Goodness, is every window in your home alight?”
A fond smile touched his handsome mouth. “Quite likely. They haven’t had a bride arrive for thirty years.”
“D—do you have servants who have been with you that long?” She wished she didn’t find herself stuttering so much with him. With other gentlemen, during her Season, she hadn’t stuttered, though she had repeated aspects of her conversation, since she’d been often too bored to pay attention. Why did he make it so difficult to find words?
“Several. Henshaw, the butler, and Mrs. Long, the housekeeper, have overseen all since my father’s day.”
“So they have known you since you were a boy—”
“And if you think either would reveal an unsavory story about my young years, you are wrong, my love.”
But she loved to see him smile now, his eyes brilliant instead of shadowed. And those dimples in his cheeks made her heart pang. “I have heard some of your unsavory stories. I wouldn’t have the courage to ask a butler about them.”
“I suspect you have the courage to do almost anything, Maryanne.”
She flushed at that, astonished. The carriage stopped then, and she gazed through the water-spotted glass at his magnificent house. Swansley stood in somber symmetry, dozens of windows as bright as brilliant stars, the wings curving around like embracing arms.
Her mother had lived in a lavish home like this. She had visited once as a girl, when it was open for tours. She had gazed at—but had been forbidden to touch—the pianoforte her mother had played, the chaise her mother had curled upon with a book, the bed on which her mother had slept. She had even hoped for a glimpse of her grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Warren. But they had been in town, and she, Venetia, and Grace had merely stared up at their portraits.
Would she feel as much an awkward guest in this house?
At her mother’s home, she had been so tense with nerves, she almost knocked over a priceless figurine. She had better not do the same here. She must fight her nerves. Women were supposed to follow husbands; it was their duty to leave for a new household, a new life.
But most women she’d known in Maidenswode had married within the village, or at least to men who lived close by, and they already knew the homes they would live in, the lives they would lead.
She knew nothing about what her life was to be in this enormous house.
“It’s lovely—” Her uninspired words of praise for Swansley died in her throat.
Dash’s smile had vanished, and he looked at his home as if monsters lurked inside.
A soft knock sounded at her bedchamber door, and the door opened to reveal Dash lounging there, lips kicked up in a smile that stole her breath.
Maryanne gave him a nervous twitch of her lips in return. She’d sent away her maid to meet the others downstairs, to give her time alone, to take in the amazing fact that this was now her room in her home.
But practicality now reigned—she must change her traveling dress for her first dinner. With her husband, the man who looked dogged by devils one moment and smiled like Lucifer the next. “Do you want help with your dress, my love?”
Gulping hard, she pirouetted to present her back to Dash. “Yes, thank you.”
She quivered at the touch of his hands on her shoulders. Standing in the center of this enormous, foreign room, she felt a pang of loss of her family and her home—and a fear of being adrift.
But Dash’s warm breath whispered over the nape of her neck and heated her skin. He deftly opened her dress. As his hands moved over her, her pulse throbbed in her ears.
Why didn’t he say something?
As her dress sagged, she drew it down. A roaring fire warded off winter chill. Velvet draperies of crimson were tied to gilt bedposts, promising a cocoon of heat and pleasure in her bed. She drank in the rich scent of the fire, the bewitching sandalwood scent of Dash’s skin.
“Do you like it, your home?”
And what choice do I have if I don’t?
But she bit back those bold words. She dropped into her usual role of quiet peacemaker. “It is the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen.”
His lips caught her earlobe, causing a girlish giggle to escape her lips. And she flushed at that. She’d met his staff—Henshaw, the aging butler; Mrs. Long, the reed-thin housekeeper who crackled with efficiency; and Mr. Kerrick, the secretary with a Scottish burr and a startlingly youthful face. There had been the steward, maids of every station, footmen—a staff she was supposed to command. Domestic concerns were a woman’s domain, and the housekeeper and secretary had tended to those concerns in Dash’s bachelor household.
A shiver of apprehension raced over her bare arms. She had lived in Marcus’s world for only a year. How did she go about ordering servants? Settling disputes and squabbles and dealing with troubles?
Dash’s tongue stroked the rim of her ear. Maryanne arched back. Who cared about duties?
His skillful fingers undid the bow in her corset ties, and he began loosening them. Each tug sent a shiver of pleasure rippling down her back.
She took refuge in sighs and moans, and he kissed down her neck, gently bit and licked. Easing her corset down, he helped her step out of it, and he whisked off her shift, over her head. Winking in the warm firelight, her pins fell out and dropped to the carpet.
“Oh—I didn’t need to remove my undergarments.”
“An indulgent treat.” He pressed close, his erection pressing against her ass. He shifted so her naked cheeks framed the thick, impressive length of his cock.
“I’m not wearing a stitch—in your home in late afternoon. Isn’t this wicked?”
Hands on her shoulders, he turned her. A slow grin curved his lips—it was like watching dawn slowly touch the sky. “More wicked than making love in a hot-air balloon?”
“Yes,” she claimed, because it was.
“This is exactly why I adore you, wife.”
Maryanne gazed up at his dark, twinkling eyes. “How can you? We are almost strangers.”
Dash stepped back to admire his wife’s perfect peach-and-ivory breasts and curvaceous hips limned by golden firelight. She was lovely, and she appeared to be blushing everywhere.
One hand shyly covered her pubic curls, the other moved so her arm covered her breasts. He shook his head, mystified once again by how this shy woman could be the same wanton who had soared in a balloon. The woman who fearlessly directed him to give her an orgasm.
She intrigued him. He wanted to unravel her secrets.
“Intimate strangers,” he reminded her.
Strangers.
The word hammered into his head. He’d brought into his home a woman he knew nothing about. A woman who admitted her life story was a fabrication.
Why trust her? Why even believe her child was his? She was Trent’s sister-in-law, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t being paid, or coerced, by his uncle to kill him.
Since arriving here, to his home, he’d felt that cold, crippling doubt he always did. It was as though he breathed it in from the walls.
Christ Jesus, he must be going mad. How could he even conjecture that Trent would allow his sister-in-law to become pregnant as part of a plot to kill him?
He was twisting himself in knots. And he’d come to his wife’s room prepared—with a few toys and lengths of black silk tucked into his pockets. Pulling one out, he dangled the strip of silk.
Her hands still covered her most intimate parts. “What do you wish to do with that? Blindfold me?”
She looked so fetchingly innocent he had to be a madman to have doubts that she was anything but an untutored maiden who had gotten herself in trouble.
But then there were times he was certain he had gone mad.
He eased her arm from her breasts and caressed her pretty pink nipples with the silk. Her nipples hardened at once, thicker and darker than he remembered.
“You didn’t seem too frightened by the accident on the road.” An accident that wasn’t an accident—he was sure of that.
She brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek, the gesture beguiling and sweet. “It was such a shock, I didn’t have time to even think.”
“A complete surprise?”
Her brows drew together. “Yes. I didn’t even understand what was happening.”
Teasing her right nipple with silk, he lowered to take the other in his mouth. He cupped her full breast, lifted it so he could feast, and he felt the fast beat of her heart as he sucked.
She tugged at the silk. “I could blindfold you.”
Releasing her nipple, he grinned. “No, sweet. It is time to teach my wife obedience.”
Her brows flew up. “Obedience?” Her voice trembled—at first he thought it was with spirited anger, but she swallowed hard. Hell, his wife thought he really was planning to whip her into submission. What in blazes had she heard about him? Apparently quite a bloody lot.
“I meant to tease, love,” he reassured. “And play. I want to wipe away your worries.”
“Worries?” she parroted.
“About what happened on the road.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. It was just a madman at the reins, wasn’t it? I’ve seen many gentlemen drive at a neck-or-nothing pace in the country.”
He nuzzled the dewy valley between her breasts. Murmured against them, “I’m sure it was. A madman at the reins.”
“I saw you were furious,” she whispered. “More than furious. You looked—”
“We could have been seriously hurt,” he interrupted, not wanting to hear what she’d seen on his face. Haunting memories had caught him raw. “I’ve had two carriage accidents in my past.”
Her jaw dropped in surprise, her eyes wide.
Those two carriage accidents from his past were now stark in his mind. Both had been engineered by his uncle.
“How did they happen?”
“A madman at the reins—and some would say the madman was me.” But his skill with the reins had saved him. Though it had shaken him to his soul to almost die in the same way his parents had died.
He dropped to his knees and pulled Maryanne’s slick, fragrant slit to his face.
She gripped his head as he suckled her clit. A glance up told him she was watching them both in the cheval mirror. Shy Maryanne watching with frank interest.
Clasping her ankle, he coaxed her to lift her leg, and he settled her foot on his shoulder. This opened her cunny even more to him. He could feel the stickiness of her juices on his lips and chin. Above him, her plump breasts jiggled with her frantic breaths.
Hell, you want to believe in her.
The thought stopped him cold, his tongue poised to plunge deep into her hot, creamy quim.
“Oh, but you can’t stop—!”
“A change of position.” He scooped her lithe, naked body into his arms.
“But I liked that one.”
“Trust me.”
With black silk cloths trailing, he carried her to her bed. As she sprawled there, she gazed at him, sighing in delight.
Was she an innocent or a pawn in a game to destroy him?
She caught hold of the silk he held and tugged at them. She wanted to pull him on top of her. Grinning, he tugged back and kneeled between her outstretched thighs.
“You’ve had quite a day, haven’t you, sweeting? Marriage with me, a man you know mainly by black reputation. Then leaving your family behind at my command. The accident on the road. And arrival here at Swansley.”
Wide-eyed, she nodded. “I didn’t realize you—yes, it has been a strange day.” She smiled. Against the deep crimson counterpane, his wife looked like a confection of cream and marzipan, a temptation waiting for him to take a bite.
“I saw your shock when you stepped into the foyer.”
“It was enormous, and I didn’t expect a domed skylight.”
“Installed by my father at ridiculous expense. And I have to admit I was unnerved to see the entire staff standing in a solemn line. Bloody strange ritual—it looked as if someone had died.” And Maryanne had looked like she wanted to cower in the corner, not review her household troops.
“You did seem to be in a hurry to get through it.”
“I think they hired people from the village to pretend to be staff—I had no idea I employed an under-boot boy.”
“There wasn’t an under-boot boy!” She giggled.
“And I was rushing you through it, wanting to get you up to bed. I fantasized about it—sweeping you up the stairs, pausing on the landing to lift your skirts and slide my cock deep….”
She moaned. “But you didn’t…you wouldn’t, not in front of your staff.”
He waggled his brows, as though to imply he just might, and her cheeks flushed brilliant pink.
“And now here you are,” he murmured. “Lying on your bed, awaiting pleasure.” He caught his breath. Her dainty hand skimmed down her milk-white tummy and stroked her nether curls. “No, you’re too impatient to wait for me, aren’t you, love?”
Her only response was a shy giggle. She could play with her cunny in front of him but couldn’t speak of it. What a complex lady she was.
The hell with questioning her.
As though attempting one-handed applause, his cock lurched in his trousers.