Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

Thanks heavens she’d decided to make the best of things, rather than nursing her grievances. What was the point, after all, of dwelling on past mistakes, when he was clearly making such an effort with her now? He’d been an attentive companion during the journey, apologised profusely for the state of the house and even carried her over the threshold—a romantic gesture that had taken her completely by surprise. Not that she was going to read too much into it.

She didn’t care that circumstances were far from ideal. They were making a much better job of being married than her parents ever had, with each blaming the other for everything that went wrong and neither of them lifting a finger to do anything about it.

She put her hand to her lips, which were still tingling from his last kiss, a great surge of hope rising up in her heart.

‘How are you getting on?’ said Lord Havelock as he came back to the room with one of her cases and one of his.

She opened her mouth to thank him for being so even-handed, rather than just bringing up his own cases first. But the moment he’d opened the door a cloud of smoke came billowing into the room instead of going up the chimney, making her cough and wipe at her streaming eyes.

‘Now I can see,’ he said, shutting the door hastily, ‘why this room was never occupied by the family, in spite of the view. It looks as though it has one of those fires that sends more smoke into the room than up the chimney.’

‘It doesn’t seem to be drawing very well,’ she said. ‘I just thought the chimney was probably a bit damp.’

‘No. I’ve just remembered something. I never understood it before, but it was so odd, that it stuck in my mind,’ he said, striding to the window. ‘Nobody ever lit the fire in here without shutting that door and opening this window first.’

He turned the handle and pushed at the casement. It didn’t budge.

‘Stuck,’ he said gloomily. ‘Frame is probably warped with damp. Will probably need to get a lot of the frames shaved,’ he said, giving it another, harder shove, ‘or replaced.’

Suddenly, the window gave. Only not just the casement, but the hinges, too. His entire top half disappeared through the opening for a moment while a gust of wind whooshed in.

The smoke curled in on itself and got sucked up the chimney while flames finally started dancing across the sluggish kindling.

Lord Havelock hauled himself upright and staggered away from the window. He was sopping wet. And swearing fluently at the segment of window frame he was still clutching in his hand.

‘You...you...’ She pressed her hand to her mouth. But it was no use. She couldn’t suppress the torrent of giggles fizzing up inside.

‘You are quite...’ she managed shakily. ‘Quite right, the fire d-does draw better with the window...the window...’ Finally rendered speechless with laughter, she pointed at the frame dangling from his hand.

‘You think this is funny?’

She nodded, completely unable to frame any words for the laughter bubbling over.

With a low growl, he spun away from her, wedged the window frame back in place and thumped it home with several strategic blows from his large, powerful fists.

Strange, but she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the demonstration of raw masculine frustration. If that had been her father, now, she would have been crouching lower, keeping her eyes down, her head bowed. Anything and everything to render herself small and invisible.

But Lord Havelock wasn’t cast from the same mould as her father. He might be hot-tempered, but he wasn’t bad-tempered. And that made all the difference.

As if to prove the point, the second he’d mended the window as well as he could, he strode across the room, dropped to his knees beside her and draped one arm about her shoulders.

‘You’re a good sport,’ he said brusquely, before planting a kiss on her temple. ‘I know I’ve said it before, but you must be the only woman alive who would see the funny side, rather than ripping up at me.’

He took the poker from the set of fire irons and started pushing the coals into more strategic positions.

‘So far today you’ve had to skivvy like a kitchen maid and now you’re going to have to sleep in conditions that are tantamount to camping out.’

Whatever must the women in his past have been like, to carp over such trifles as that? No wonder he’d been so reluctant to get married, if that was his expectation of female behaviour.

‘All I really asked of you was a room of my own, in whichever of your properties I happened to be,’ she countered. ‘We never specified it should have fully f-functioning, w-windows...’ And suddenly she couldn’t quite stifle another bout of giggles as she recalled the look on his face when the whole thing had come away in his hands. ‘Or f-furniture of any kind, come to that.’

‘Like I said, a good sport,’ he said, smiling at her with approval.

‘What would be the point of ripping up at you, over something as silly as this? You didn’t mean me any harm. It’s just...’ She reached up and cupped his cheek.

‘Oh—you are so cold. You must get out of those wet things at once.’

His smile turned a shade wicked.

‘Now that’s what a man likes to hear from his bride. An invitation to get out of his clothing and into—’ He stopped short. ‘Only, hang it, we haven’t actually got a bed to get into.’

‘It won’t take long,’ she said, a touch breathlessly, ‘to make one up.’

He tossed the poker aside and gave her a look that made her heart leap behind her breastbone.

‘In fact, all we need to do...’

‘Yes?’

‘Is to bring the mattress over here and unroll it in front of the fire.’

‘Brilliant notion,’ he said, dropping a swift kiss on her cheek.

As she went to open their cases, he ripped off his damp jacket and shirt and tossed them into a corner. Her mouth dried at the sight of his naked torso. Though she was supposed to be selecting the items of clothing most suited to form bedding, she just grabbed handfuls at random, unable to keep her eyes straying from the sight of him wrestling the mattress into submission. In the end, it happened to be a couple of his shirts and her spare petticoat that she spread over the mattress, and heaven alone knew what she had wadded up into makeshift pillows.

They fell to the mattress together, lips meeting and locking in a heated kiss.

She ran her hands up and down the smooth, sleek muscles of his back as he rolled her beneath him. And moaned with pleasure when he grabbed a handful of her skirts and pushed them up out of the way.

‘Lord,’ he groaned, ‘we should slow this down, somehow. You are so new at this.’

No! He couldn’t stop now. Not when she needed him so badly.

‘We can go slow next time, if you like. But please...’ She shifted her hips impatiently.

‘Next time, she says,’ he growled into her neck. ‘Do you know what it does to a man, hearing the woman he’s taking, promising him there will be a next time?’

‘No....’

‘Of course you don’t, my little innocent. That’s what makes you so adorable.’

Adorable? He thought she was adorable? Well, she thought he was adorable, too. She hugged him hard, on a wave of tenderness.

‘And I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to, believe me,’ he assured her.

‘Good.’ She half sighed, half moaned, as he slid his hand, and with it her skirts, all the way up to her waist.

‘Oh, God,’ he moaned, exploring her with his fingers. ‘You are so ready for me. I can’t believe it. I don’t deserve you.’ He raised himself up to claw open the fall of his breeches. ‘I don’t deserve,’ he said, thrusting home, ‘this.’