Wedding the Widow Read online

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she breathed, straining toward his heat.

  With one smooth thrust, thick and hard, he flowed into her, filling her emptiness with life once more. She wanted to savor that fullness, that connection to another she had missed so much, but as a starving man cannot settle for a mere taste, she couldn’t stay her need to push quickly for the glorious end.

  Maddeningly, he began long, slow thrusts that should have satisfied but didn’t.

  Impatient, she raised her hips to meet each thrust, urging him to quicken his pace.

  “Slow and steady, love. Let us enjoy this together.”

  Yes, enjoy. Enjoy the pleasure as long as they could. She relaxed back on the mattress, and he buried his face in her neck. His hot breath sounded ragged in her ear as he moaned with each lunge.

  The slow, deliberate strokes kindled a beginning blaze, like a single flame licking deep within her. Heat sizzled down her arms and legs, radiating from her core, where he stoked her fire to a white-hot intensity she’d never experienced before. The spark must have leaped to him, for he abruptly abandoned his leisured pace, thrusting harder, with a frenzied power that left her breathless. Harder, deeper, faster he plunged into her as if trying to touch her very soul, until with a great cry he exploded within her, hot seed scorching her womb.

  She clasped him deep within, shuddering around him, shattering into a thousand pieces as she cried out, “Dickon, Dickon! Oh, yes, yes, my love.”

  Chapter 3

  In the deathly silence following her outcry, Elizabeth held her breath, hoping against hope she’d awakened from an incredibly intense dream of Dickon. It had happened before, though never quite so vividly.

  The man breathing heavily above her, however, was no dream. A sticky sheen of sweat covered them both, and her body ached in places long unused.

  Oh, God, what had she done?

  With a grunt, Lord Brack withdrew from her and flopped onto the bed next to her, flinging his arm over his face.

  “I’m so sorry.” What else could she say? If she could die this minute, she would do so and be thankful. Unfortunately, that option seemed unavailable at the moment. At least in the semidarkness he couldn’t see her face, burning hotter than a blacksmith’s forge.

  “It’s all right, Elizabeth.” He sighed and turned on his side to face her. “Please don’t fret about it. You’d said earlier you’d been missing your husband.”

  The kind understanding in his voice, hushed in the darkness, filled her with even more humiliation. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” Words failed as tears choked her throat.

  “Shhh.” He kissed her bare shoulder, a fiery brand that seared her soul. “Please don’t distress yourself, my dear.” Taking her cold hand, he laced their fingers together. “One often loses oneself in the throes of passion.” His warm lips brushed their entwined hands. “You are a very passionate woman, Elizabeth.” His husky voice sent shivers down her body.

  “My lord—”

  “Please, call me Jemmy.” A chuckle underlay the words. “After this evening, I don’t believe we need stand on ceremony any longer, do you?” He rose up on his elbow to peer into her face. A boyish grin showed in the faint firelight.

  Beyond words, Elizabeth shook her head slowly. How would she ever be able to face him in the light without this feeling of mortification surging through her? Much less calling him by his Christian name. The idea of meeting him out in society made her chest tighten, as though a hand squeezed it. Not only had she taken a strange man into her bed, but at the most intimate moment possible, she’d called him by her dead husband’s name. By Dickon’s name.

  “Lord Br—”

  The glint in his eyes stopped her cold.

  “Jemmy.” She forced the name out. So odd to say it aloud, though she’d heard Georgie call him that since the summer. “I think it might be best if you go before you are discovered here.” Perhaps if he left, she could think what to do about this ghastly mess. His warm presence in her bed was too disconcerting, too distracting. Any thought she might have had flew right out again with his slightest movement.

  “Ah, but it’s scarcely midnight. We have the whole night before us.” He kissed her nipple.

  She gasped, a bolt of desire streaking down to her core. What was wrong with her? She’d never been so insatiable, not even with—No! She couldn’t think of Dickon. Not when another man was fondling her breasts, making her want to moan with pleasure she’d not felt in over a year. Tears spilled down her cheeks. It was wrong to feel this way.

  “Elizabeth? Did I hurt you?” The concern in his low, insistent voice sent the tears streaming faster.

  Yes! she wanted to scream. He had hurt her grievously. For he had made her betray not only him, but her love for Dickon. She’d clung to that with every morsel of strength she possessed for the past year and a half. But she couldn’t confess that to him. So she shook her head and whispered, “I’m just terribly embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be, love.” With a long finger, he followed the track of a tear as it hurried down her cheek, catching it on his thumb. “I’m certain when we enjoy one another again, everything will be forgotten.” He kissed her lips, then swung a leg over her body, straddling her legs once more. His shaft, magically hard again, lay snug on her stomach.

  His readiness surprised her. Dickon had never been able again so quickly. And she just . . . couldn’t. What if she called him Dickon again? Her stomach clenched at the thought. “Jemmy, please. I don’t think I can . . . I don’t think this is right.” She turned her face from him. “I truly think you should go.”

  A frown immediately shadowed his face. “You wish me to leave?”

  The hurt in his voice sent a pang of guilt through her, but she ignored it and nodded. “I simply can’t.” Tears flooded her eyes. “We shouldn’t have done this at all. I’m not done . . .” She took a ragged breath, angry at its pathetic mewling sound. “I still love my husband, so I’m sorry, but I can’t have you in my bed.”

  He tensed, then vanished from above her, leaving her exposed and cold. “I understand, Elizabeth.”

  She raised up on her elbow, pulling up the covers and peering into the dim room.

  He pulled on his breeches, fastening his fall with lightning speed, his short jerky movements punctuating his anger.

  Sorry as she might be, she couldn’t help that. He needed to leave, so she could cry alone. A sudden chill made her shiver and draw the covers more tightly around her neck.

  After pulling on his boots, he stomped his feet, too loud in the accusing silence. When he turned toward her again, his shirt was tucked, his cravat in place around his neck, but not tied. A stray shaft of light lit his face—it reminded her of the statuary in her father’s garden at home, frozen in harsh, stony lines.

  Guilt flooded her again. He looked angry and miserable, like an eager puppy that had been shoved aside. “Jemmy—”

  “No, my dear. I am simply very sorry for misunderstanding you.”

  “Please, Jemmy, I am truly sorry.” She couldn’t bear the hurt on his face. He had been a boon companion this past summer as well as this weekend. Kind, friendly, attentive, and so handsome. He should be the perfect man to help lead her out of her grief for her husband. If only it were the proper time. If only she hadn’t ruined everything. He could never really forgive her calling him by another man’s name. And having done so once, she would not risk lying with him a second time, even to try and dispel the lapse.

  He watched her, his eyes still hungry. “I take my leave of you, Mrs. Easton.”

  The formality cut like a knife to her heart.

  Before she could say a word, he swept her a bow and strode to the door. Opening it a crack, he first listened to the corridor, then eased it open enough to look up and down the hall. He slipped out without a backward glance. The door clicked shut, leaving her alone at last.

  Hand flung over her eyes, Elizabeth lay completely still, unable to keep from seeing images of her and Jemmy ent
wined in her bed. She rolled over, staring into the dying embers of the fire, willing herself to sleep. The tick tick of the clock on the mantle told her time continued to pass, still she felt frozen, reliving in her mind that one horrifying moment when she’d called Jemmy “Dickon.” She curled up as her stomach threatened to cast up its contents. She could never look Jemmy—no, Lord Brack, much better to think of him as that once more—in the face again, knowing that.

  Flopping onto her back, Elizabeth stared at the frilly white canopy overhead, still unable to sleep, despite her exhaustion. Marital relations with Dickon had always left them both panting and sated, ready to talk quietly as they lay in each other’s arms, drowsing off to sleep.

  The very same activity with Jemmy—no, Lord Brack—seemed to have the opposite effect. She was wide awake and might be until the sun came up. She should have slept like the dead after such a strenuous—

  Her whole face flushed with heat at the image of him over top of her, thrusting vigorously into her over and over.

  By God, but she had enjoyed it.

  “I did not.” Speaking the words aloud, she sat up in the darkened room, ready to deny it to anyone except herself. “I did not enjoy it like I did with Dickon.” But she had enjoyed it nonetheless.

  It was different, of course. Jemmy was quite a bit younger than her late husband, more her own age. That youth had shown in his vigor and stamina, and the forceful way he’d swept her off her feet, literally, and into the bed.

  Her husband had been slow and steady. Nothing wrong with that during their almost seven years together. But—

  How could she lie here and compare them? She sat up and punched her pillow. It was indecent. No nice woman would dream of doing such a thing. Of course, most women didn’t have the experience to make a comparison between two men. Two very different men, yet each called to her.

  Dickon had been a gallant soldier, yet tender and kind when they closed off the rest of the world in the bedchamber they always shared.

  Tonight had been all wild passion, as if another Elizabeth had taken over her body and allowed a secret part of her to be free. It must have been that dreadful scene at the festival. So pagan it had stirred her blood to a fever pitch. Lord Brack’s as well.

  “Jemmy.”

  The name on her tongue set her body to throbbing, especially her core at the apex of her thighs. What was wrong with her? Was she truly so wanton a woman she already thought of bedroom pleasures a second time in one night? After almost a year and a half without such urges, to now crave such intimacies said little for her delicacy or her loyalty. She should still be mourning her husband, not taking a new lover between her sheets.

  Still, the memory of Jemmy’s hard body over her, in her, driving her to the heights of ecstasy would not be denied. Even now, her body tingled with the anticipation of his touch. She wanted to experience it again and again. She strained upward with longing for him, but it could never be. Not with Jemmy.

  Despite his words, he could scarcely overlook such a breach of propriety as she had committed, much less forgive it. If she’d rather die than look him in the face again, how was she to be intimate with him? Blow out the candles? As if he’d expose himself to the possibility of such a thing happening again.

  Not that she’d make a habit of falling into bed with a man to whom she wasn’t married. If she married Jemmy, oh my, but the nights would never be cold or lonely. Hot, passionate, tender. Yes, that would be a life to live to the fullest. Jemmy would be the perfect man to warm her bed.

  Impossible. She flopped over on her other side. Not that he’d likely make an offer after tonight’s wretched performance. No. Better to remain true to the memory of her dead husband. A cold bed was a small price to pay for the appearance of loyalty.

  The final ember in the fireplace broke apart, and the darkness closed around her. As she began to sink into sleep at last, another disconcerting question raised itself. Was she more disturbed that she had shown disloyalty to Dickon, or that she had so easily abandoned herself to passion in Jemmy’s arms?

  * * *

  Jemmy snicked the door closed, alert for any sound that might indicate someone else lurked in the corridor. He moved away from Elizabeth’s door with a brisk step that quickly took him toward the landing. He crossed it, noting no activity downstairs. Good. He’d have time to make himself presentable before appearing later.

  He hurried to his chamber before someone saw him so disheveled and started asking questions—he’d thrown on his clothes so quickly he’d slipped his shirt on backward and he’d missed a few buttonholes in his breeches. This dishabille could indicate a dalliance on his part, though he was close enough to his own room now that no one would necessarily suspect a particular person. Clawing at his neck, he stopped at his door. He’d simply wound his cravat around his throat, where it currently threatened to choke him. At the moment, death was far less alarming than his anger at Elizabeth Easton.

  “Fellowes,” he bellowed as soon as he’d shut his chamber door. His valet would put him to rights in good time with no questions asked.

  “My lord?” The short, thin man with graying hair bounded out of his dressing room.

  “I require some attention.”

  Fellowes took in his master’s rumpled appearance and, with a long-suffering sigh, replied, “Of course, my lord.” The valet began to strip him methodically, if somewhat distastefully. Fellowes took inordinate pride in turning Jemmy out impeccably every time he set foot outside his room. Jemmy’s current state would have set a blot on his valet’s internal copybook had he been seen by anyone.

  Relaxing in Fellowes capable hands, Jemmy gave himself over to calm, cool inner reflection.

  What the deuce had happened tonight between him and Elizabeth? He forced himself to relax and groaned with the effort as the valet continued his adjustments. The sheer power of the Harvest Festival’s ritual crowning had affected them both more than he’d ever expected. The claiming of the Corn Maiden, Wrotham had called it. Fertility rite indeed. The utter sexual frenzy that had come upon him as he watched the Harvest Lord kiss the Corn Maiden had shaken him to his soul. Truth to tell, he’d had to restrain himself from laying Elizabeth down on the newly spaded earth and taking her within yards of the festival revelers.

  Fellowes began his efficient removal of Jemmy’s linen shirt.

  Elizabeth had felt the power as well. Her passionate response to his kiss had told him that. His cock had ached all the way back to Lyttlefield, much as he tried to hide it. And he would swear on a Bible, as he stood on his mother’s grave, that Elizabeth had wanted him as deeply as he had wanted her.

  If he’d had doubts about the appetite that burned beneath the cool, dignified veneer that was the world’s view of Elizabeth Easton, they’d been put forever to rest in the last hour. Actually, Jemmy’d had few doubts about Mrs. Easton’s true nature even before the festival. From the moment he’d met her, he’d sensed that although she might appear prim and proper, deep within her burned an impassioned soul. That, as much as her comely face, had drawn him to her last summer. How satisfying to have been proved right.

  He groaned quietly, trying to hold still as Fellowes straightened his trousers. His unruly flesh strained embarrassingly as the memory of his recent satisfaction in Elizabeth’s bed fanned the flames of hunger and lust yet again. Not even the sound of her rich, husky voice crying out her husband’s name had been able to stifle his desire for her. He’d been shocked by that slip of course, but understood it better than Elizabeth likely gave him credit for.

  Georgie had told him early on of the deep love and regard Elizabeth had had for her husband, and of her terrible grief over his death at the Battle of Waterloo. His sister had professed a similar love and grief for her own husband, Isaac Kirkpatrick. So he understood that such a profound and abiding attachment could not be overcome even after a year of mourning. He could not fault Elizabeth for being carried away during the moment of completion, calling out the name of the only
man who had excited such pleasure in her before. What he did regret was that her inability to move past her natural embarrassment had prevented him from making love to her once more, from the chance to bring his own name to her lips at that sweet ultimate surrender of herself.

  Handing Jemmy a fresh shirt, Fellowes assisted him in dropping it over his head, the correct way this time.

  Would she ever allow him to become close to her again? He feared she’d allow that one lapse to keep them from another intimate encounter. She said she still grieved for her husband, which he suspected was true. However, he’d wager she now intended to keep him at arm’s length because of her embarrassment, not her grief.

  Finally, the valet draped a new cravat around his neck almost lovingly.

  As a matter of habit, Jemmy raised his hands to begin tying the knot, then paused, shooting a frantic look at the little man still fussing with his clothing. “Was it in a Napoleon tie earlier, or a Ball Room, Fellowes?”

  “I believe a Napoleon, my lord; however—”

  “Be certain, for God’s sake. If it was in a Napoleon, then it must be tied in a Napoleon once again. I must not look as though I have changed clothes.” Jemmy began adjusting the length of the long silk cloth, trying to remember which way he had tied it earlier.

  “But gentlemen are not looked down upon for changing such things, my lord.” Fellowes brushed at the shoulder and back of his jacket. The valet’s pride in his master’s looks was usually an endearing quality, but this was not the time.

  “Tonight, Fellowes, I wish to give the impression that I have not changed since the company dined and returned to the festival. Let us say it is a point of honor—a lady’s honor, mind you—that I appear so.” Adjusting the dents in the cravat, Jemmy finished tying it and looked at his appearance critically in the mirror.

  “Ah, I see, my lord.” Fellowes nodded so quickly his head bobbed. “Indeed, I do. May I suggest you adjust the cloth slightly? If you loosen it somewhat, it will suggest that it has been worn for some hours, and assist with your deception.”