The Regency Season: Shameful Secrets. Louise Allen

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      ‘My bedchamber? But, why?’

      ‘Why?’ One dark brow rose and his smile became sensual. That look had been in Jonathan’s eyes that night in the inn. Her pulse spiked. ‘I am your husband,’ Will pointed out.

      ‘But our marriage was only a sham, a device. You cannot expect to...to come to my bed just like that, without any discussion, without giving me any time—I hardly know you!’

      ‘Then I suggest we make up for lost time.’ His expression softened. ‘I find you very attractive, Julia. Do I...frighten you? Is that it?’

      He was so close she could see the individual stubble of his night-beard, see the crisp curl of hair in the vee of his robe. He is naked under it, just as I am beneath mine. He was a virile, attractive man. Head and heart and body seemed to be at war in her. Her feminine reactions to him were primal, she could not help them, she knew that. Even before, when he had been so ill, she had felt that flicker of heat, that attraction. And it was her duty to lie with him, she had taken everything he offered her and been grateful for it.

      ‘No,’ she admitted and saw the tension leave him.

      But... She swallowed as he came closer still. She only had to close her eyes and she thought of Jonathan, his hands impatient, the painful thrusting into her body, his sneers, the betrayal. And he had left her with child.

      Will reached out and pulled her against him and then there was nothing but those amber eyes holding hers as he lowered his head and kissed her. One hand slid up to hold her head and his fingers sifted into the mass of hair, loosened from its night-time plait. With the other arm he encircled her shoulders. She felt herself become stiff, unyielding, as reactions and instincts warred within her.

      Will was overwhelming. Overwhelmingly big, overwhelmingly male. His mouth, as it crushed down on hers, was unlike anything she had experienced or imagined.

      His tongue slid along the tight seam of her lips, seeking entrance, and she tasted him, felt his heat. This is not Jonathan. Suddenly her body was fluid, curving against his, only thin muslin and thick silk separating their bare flesh.

      Jonathan had not seemed to want to kiss her much. There had been romantic, respectful kisses when he was courting her. Fleeting caresses that she now knew to be hypocritical ploys. When he had taken her to his bed she had ached for kisses, had wanted their reassurance, but he had been urgent, focused on sheathing himself in her body and, she realised now, reaching his own satisfaction.

      She tensed at the memory, transferring those feelings to Will, wanting to reject him, but her body was sending her clamouring messages of need, of surrender. Of desire. He felt so strong against her. The thrust of his erection pressed against her belly. His skin smelt of musk and, faintly, of last evening’s shaving soap. His morning beard was rough against her cheeks.

      Her body wanted to be seduced. Her common sense, squeaking faintly to be heard against the clamour of emotion, told her that he was her husband, that she should simply allow herself to be swept off to his bed.

      No. Will’s tongue probed along her lips, seeking entrance. Some instinct that she did not dare to quite trust murmured that he would not force her. But he will make my body force me, she argued back. He thinks he holds every card, the arrogant devil.

      Then take control, don’t let him dominate you so. As she thought it she felt her body melting, answering him, demanding with as much urgency as his was. He used his strength and she could not match it, but she could use it against him as a wrestler uses his opponent’s weight to overbalance him.

      Damn you, Will Hadfield, Julia thought as she opened her lips, felt the triumphant surge of his tongue. You will be my husband, not my master. Rather than yield she would give as good as she got. Her own tongue met his, boldly, and then she lost track of time, of coherent thought and, certainly, of speech.

      Will kissed as though this meeting of mouths was the sex act in itself: hot, demanding, intimate. She had no idea what she was doing as her tongue tangled and duelled with his, as the taste of him filled her and her ears were deafened by the sound of his breathing and her thundering heart.

      His robe was too thick. Touch him. Julia pushed it back and found naked skin, hot and smooth over shifting, hard muscle. She wanted to bite, to kiss...

      His hands came down, over her back, down to her waist and he pulled her against him and she felt the hard ridge of arousal pressed against her stomach and the memory of the pain came back, sweeping away the passion in a cold flood.

      Will released her, stepped back his expression rueful. ‘I have frightened you. For a moment I forgot you were a virgin, Julia. It will be all right, I promise you.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ From somewhere she found a smile.

      ‘Those few days we were together before we married—we are still those people. I have not changed so very much and I doubt you have either. We trusted each other. There was liking, I think. We can build on that. And attraction as we have just proved.’

      Attraction, yes. She nodded, it was impossible to pretend otherwise. Trust. But I lied to you. You married a woman who killed a man. I was a fugitive. And now I have to tell you I bore, and lost, that man’s child and I have to beg you to acknowledge it as yours. If I let you lie with me then the marriage is consummated and I will have trapped you.

      ‘I’ll let you get dressed,’ Will said. ‘We’ll meet at breakfast and talk afterwards. You can move into the chamber next to mine and this will all be all right, you’ll see, Julia.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Her smile was slipping, but it was only a few steps to her chamber. Julia closed the door behind her with care. She was shaking, but she made herself walk to the armchair at the window, not collapse on the bed. She would be in control, she would not panic.

      Before she slept with him she had to tell him the truth. Not all of it, not that she was responsible for Jonathan’s death, but about the elopement and about the baby. She owed it to him to be honest about that before he made love to her.

      He would be angry, and shaken, but she had to hope he would understand and forgive her the deception because there was only so much weight her conscience could bear.

      Once she had thought that the guilt and fear over Jonathan’s death would lessen, that she could forget. But it did not go away. It was always there and so was the pain and loss of her child, the two things twisting and tangling into a mesh of emotions that were always there waiting to trip her, snare her, when she was least expecting it. And now Will was home there was the added guilt of keeping her crime from him. But it was not a personal shame like her elopement or the pregnancy. This was a matter of law and she could not ask him to conceal what she had done.

      The sensitive skin of her upper arms where Will had held her still prickled with the awareness of his touch. Her mouth was swollen and sensitive and the ache between her thighs was humiliatingly insistent.

      He was her husband. She owed him as much truth as she could give him and, unfair though it might be, she wanted something in return. I want a real marriage.

      Papa had taught her to negotiate. Know what your basic demands are, the point you will not shift beyond, he had told her. Know what you can afford to yield, what you can give to get what you want. He had been talking about buying land and selling wheat, but the principles were surely the same.

      Julia lay back in the chair, closed her eyes against СКАЧАТЬ