Deborah Hale - Married - The Virgin Widow

His question sent a clammy chill through Laura. Five years of loveless marriage to a domineering husband had been more than enough to last her a lifetime. But an even more urgent fear seized her by the throat and squeezed.

“An heir?” she whispered. Hard as she strove to keep her composure, her lower lip trembled.

“Naturally.” Ford’s predatory gaze fixed on her lips. “What our marriage may lack in the warmth of love, I trust it will make up in the heat of physical desire.”

He leaned toward her, as he had in the drawing room on the day of his return. This time Laura tried to retreat, only to stumble over a tree root. As she fell backward, Ford seized her, pulling her toward him. His lips bore down on hers and took possession of them, igniting a volatile brew of passion and panic within her.

How many nights of her marriage had begun with a kiss only to end in curses and blows? Those memories haunted her, as she feared they always would whenever a man tried to kiss or touch her. And yet, Ford’s overwhelming desire kindled an unwelcome spark of arousal within her. Pulses of wicked heat coursed through her flesh, searing fiercest in her breasts and loins. Her husband’s attentions had never provoked such sensations. If they had, perhaps her marriage would not have been such a wretched failure.

What dismayed Laura even more was that she’d never had such a wanton reaction to the tender kisses she’d shared with Ford during their long-ago betrothal. How could her traitorous body now burn for a man who so contemptuously proclaimed he cared nothing for her?

Ford’s body sizzled with raw lust.

He hadn’t meant to claim a kiss from Laura before she accepted his proposal. But when she’d backed away, he could no more resist the temptation to follow her than a questing hound could ignore the scent of a vixen.

He could tell his mention of an heir had shaken her poised detachment. Her tremulous whisper when she’d echoed his words, the ripe color that had flamed in her cheeks and the provocative parting of her lips had aroused him beyond prudence and far beyond propriety. When he caught her in his arms to keep her from falling, primal urges overwhelmed his reason.

The dewy fullness of her lips yielded beneath his fervid kiss. His tongue sought to plunder her soft mouth of all its sweet secrets. There had been an element of desire in the feelings he’d had for Laura once upon a time, but nothing so hot and reckless as the hunger that now possessed him.

The sound of approaching footsteps and voices jolted him back to his senses. He released his hold on Laura, but not soon enough. A gasp and a giggle told him her sisters had seen them.

“Don’t stop on our account!” Susannah sounded delighted to catch her sister in such a compromising situation. “I was just telling Binny how much more interesting life has become at Hawkesbourne since Ford got home.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sukie.” Belinda’s quavering voice belied her words. “Ford and Laura must have come to pick a nosegay of bluebells for Mama.”

Ford bit back a burst of derisive laughter. So Belinda meant to protect her sister’s reputation by pretending not to have seen them kissing? He was not about to let Laura off so easily. “As admirable an endeavour as that would be, I must own I had more selfish intentions in bringing your sister here. I have just asked her to marry me.”

He ventured a glance at Laura to find her glaring at him. Was it the kiss she resented or the fact that he’d informed her sisters of his proposal? Both, perhaps. And yet, he was certain she’d responded to his kiss.

He had no time to ponder that riddle for Laura’s sisters let out piercing squeals of joy and flew toward them.

“Proposed?” Belinda threw her arms around Laura’s shoulders. “How romantic!”

“Congratulations!” Susannah seized Ford’s hand and shook it vigorously. “No wonder you made such a success in the Indies. You don’t waste any time going after what you want. I so admire a decisive man.”

“Save your congratulations.” Laura’s voice slashed through her sisters’hearty good wishes. “His lordship may have proposed, but I have not yet given him my answer.”

Susannah refused to be cowed by her sister’s stern tone. “Not in words, perhaps. But I saw what you were doing just now, even if Binny pretends to be blind. Are widows permitted to accept passionate kisses from gentlemen they don’t mean to wed, without losing their reputations?”

The audacity of her sister’s charge seemed to strike Laura dumb. Her lips parted in the very way that had compelled Ford to take liberties with her a few moments before. They were even more tempting now—infused with deeper color and slightly swollen from the intensity of his kiss. If her sisters had not been present, Ford might have seized her in his arms again to take up where he’d left off.

“Of course Laura means to accept him!” Belinda grabbed her sister by the hand and pulled her back down the path. “But you mustn’t spoil it by speaking for her.” She called to Ford and Laura, “Forgive us for interrupting. We didn’t mean to, truly.”

As Ford spun about to confront Laura, she rushed past him after her sisters.

Caught off guard, he barely had wit enough to seize her wrist. “Hold on a moment. You did not answer my question. Will you marry me?”

It was a far cry from his first proposal to her, all those years ago. He’s held her hands gently in his then, and looked deep into her eyes, sealing their pledge with a soft kiss once she accepted. How could he ever have been so blindly trusting and hopeful?

“You gave me no opportunity to answer.” Laura tried to wrench her arm away, but Ford held fast. “Your proposal was quite unexpected. I need time to think it over.”

Time to seek dear Crawford ’s advice, hoping he might make her a better matrimonial bargain?

“I will give you one day to weigh the advantages of my offer,” said Ford. “Now that I have returned to England, I am anxious to settle my affairs and get on with my life.”

“Very well then.” She shook off his hand and retreated out of reach. “Tomorrow you shall have my answer.”

One day to weigh the advantages of his offer? Laura spun away from Ford and fled down the wooded path after her sisters. That would not take one hour .

By marrying him, she would secure a home for her family. Her mother would be well cared for in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Belinda could remain near Sidney Crawford, giving him time to work up the nerve to court her. Susannah would be able to go about in local society and mix with gentlemen of good family.

But how long would her mother live? A year, perhaps two. And her sisters? Laura doubted it would take much longer for them to be happily settled. Meanwhile she would face many more years of unhappy wedlock to pay for their temporary comfort.

The girls looked surprised when Laura caught up with them.

Susannah broke into an impish grin. “You made quick work of accepting Ford. And you were so certain proposing would be the last thing on his mind. I knew better, though.”

“I haven’t accepted.” Laura gasped for breath. “I only asked for time to decide. Until then, I want neither of you breathing a word of this to Mama.”

“Why wait if you mean to say yes?” demanded Susannah, who seldom gave her own actions much fore-thought. “You’d better not take too long or some other lady may snap him up. I’m sure either of Lord Bramber’s sisters would have him before you could bat an eye.”

Despite all her confused, often hostile, feelings about Ford, a bewildering qualm of distress gripped Laura at the thought of him married to someone else.