Mary Balogh - Gentle conquest

She was in love with Ralph, deeply, headlong, passionately, head over heels in love. And she felt that the fact must show on her face. She could not feel as she did and show no outer sign, surely. She tried not to look or behave differently from usual. She went about her day-to-day activities as if nothing had changed in her life. But she was convinced that one day Ralph must look at her and know the truth.

The wonderful thing was that she had fallen in love with him in his two persons. She was in love with the lover who came to her and bedded her twice each week. She was equally in love with the husband who showed no physical sign of attachment, but whose behavior toward her suggested a growing affection.

She had not expected that physical love could become a craving for her. She had looked forward to marriage as a means of being independent of her parents and becoming someone of consequence in society. She had thought of the physical side of it with some misgiving, as something she must get used to, since men appeared to need it and it was necessary anyway for the begetting of children. She had been prepared to endure.

But Ralph could rouse her body to unimagined delights. She did not know how he did it. He had no more experience than she. Less, in fact. He had never even kissed before his marriage. His skill must be instinctive, a part of his natural gentleness of manner probably. He could do things to her with his hands and his mouth that reduced her to raw sensation. And his driving presence inside her body could lift her beyond feeling, over the edge into blissful nothingness. And he was always there afterward with warm arms and body to cradle her back into this world and back into her body.

It was not always like that with him. Sometimes he took her without first using his hands to excite her. But she found that she enjoyed these encounters equally. Perhaps even more. When she was aroused she forgot everything except her body's need. She forgot Ralph and even herself. On the other occasions she could remain fully aware of what was happening and could enjoy thoroughly the knowledge that it was her husband embracing her, occupying her body, moving in her, making those low sounds of pleasure that he always made against her hair as he climaxed. One did not need an earth-shattering experience to enjoy the marriage act, she found.

She almost lived for those nights. And she willed time to slowness when they were together. With the exception of the first time he had come to her, he always took her twice. And she found herself loving more than anything the time between, when she could cuddle against his body, warm and relaxed, knowing that soon, but not too soon, he would turn her onto her back again or lift her astride his body and they would be one again. She always smiled into the darkness when he apologized for needing her more than once. If he just knew! Just for the luxury of spending a whole night with him she would have let him take her ten times!

It had been an agony to her to have to tell him one night hat she would be unable to keep their next regular appommient. A whole week had passed with no more ilian a chance touch of his hand at home. But she might have avoided the frustration. Nothing had happened in its regular monthly pattern, and nothing had happened in the more than three weeks since.

Her newness to sexual activity must have upset her system, Georgiana decided. She could not be with child. It could not happen that quickly or that easily, surely. Besides, would she not know if she were pregnant? Surely one could not have one's husband's child on one's womb without feeling it there. And did not women vomit and have the vapors all over the place when they were in such a delicate situation? No, she was not with child.

She hoped she was not! As it was, she was beginning to realize that she had trapped herself into one of her hopeless tangles, except that this one was worse than any of the others had ever been. Life was wonderful at the moment. But sooner or later she was going to have to reveal the truth to Ralph. And how would he feel about it? He would feel a fool, probably, to discover that he had been sneaking away at night to make love to the wife who slept nightly a few feet away from him. And she could not afford to make Ralph feel foolish. He had very little self-confidence as it was.

Soon now she was going to have to find a tactful way to tell him. She certainly did not need to be pressured by the presence of a baby pushing her out of shape. How quickly did one develop a bulge, anyway?

But it would be wonderful to have a baby with Ralph, she thought despite herself. As soon as he knew the truth and their marriage had become a normal one, she would ask him if she might have one. Though she supposed that she need not ask. Once he was making love to her nightly in her own bed, it would happen in its own good time, she rather suspected. Oh dear, she was so inexperienced, so woefully ignorant. She, who had thought just a few short months ago that she knew everything there was to know!

But her love for Ralph was developing not only through their clandestine meetings. She was getting to know him in an everyday setting and growing to love the person he was. She could not imagine why she felt as she did. He was not at all the sort of man she had always admired and associated with. She had always liked men who were strong and confident and physically very active. She had liked daring men, ones who were willing to take a risk and accept a wager for the sheer fun of doing something out of the ordinary. Warren Haines had once wagered a great deal of money on his ability to outdrink a notorious heavy drinker. He had won the bet and spent three days in bed violently ill. And Georgiana had admired him tremendously.

She had not liked Ralph at first because he was not a "manly" man. Whatever that description meant. Whatever was manly about being able to outdrink a fellow fool and half-killing oneself into the bargain?

Ralph was incredibly gentle. Somehow he managed to keep the peace at home, even though the atmosphere between her and her mother-in-law was frequently tense. She had noticed that he somehow succeeded in making both women feel as if they had his support. And she could not be offended at his not turning against his mother. She could see that he genuinely loved the dowager, whom she found it extremely difficult even to tolerate. She had heard about his plans to give his mother the dower house at Chartleigh for a Christmas present. And she marveled at the way he had made his mother enthusiastic for a move that should have upset her dreadfully.

They had been driving to the lending library one afternoon when Ralph drew the phaeton to a sharp halt and handed her the ribbons. He vaulted down into a crowded street and reappeared with a scruffy little dog in his arms. She had half-noticed the dog being beaten with a stick as they approached but had thought very little of it. Such sights were quite common. Ralph deposited the mutt in her lap before climbing to his seat again, and she gave a little shriek as she noticed the grime of its fur and the blood on one side that immediately stained her pelisse.

Ralph apologized and moved to take the dog into his own arms again. But first he took a linen handkerchief from his pocket and laid it gently against the creature's Mimed side. And she felt ashamed of her concern for her own appearance and tender toward the man who had noticed the suffering even of a small animal in the crowded streets of London. The mutt, now clean and healed of its wound, spent its days in the kitchen, where the cook constantly threatened to do away with it for being always under her feet and just as constantly fed it the choicest scraps of food from her store.

And Ralph was educating her, though she thought he would be surprised if he realized that she put the matter that way to herself. She was learning to enjoy reading when he was in the same room. One of the greatest pleasures of her days came when they sat together and shared a book, discussing some poem. She talked and gave her views, but she loved to listen to him interpret a passage that had seemed to her to have a very obvious meaning. He could see depths of thought that had completely passed over her head. And yet there was no intellectual conceit in him. She doubted that he even realized that his ideas were of such greater value than her own. He always listened to her attentively.