Raven McAllan - The Scandalous Proposal Of Lord Bennett

‘Clary, in all seriousness, I’m sorry. I overimbibed,’ he said seriously. ‘It’s to my shame I recollect very little of our wedding night.’ Now came the sticky question. ‘Did we not consummate our marriage?’

She slid out of the bed and took the sheet with her. One slim ankle showed briefly as she twisted the sheet round her like a toga inscribed on the friezes he’d seen in Egypt. He looked down at the tent in the remainder of the covers and grinned. Whatever she thought, his log was here to stay, until her body or his hands decreed otherwise. Sadly he thought it would be his hands.

‘Sir, my name is Clarissa, and I’m thankful to say we did not.’ She gave him a glare that would have felled a lesser man – and splintered his log into kindling – curtseyed, stumbled on the edge of the fine linen shrouding her, and righted herself. ‘Thunderheads.’ She swept out and into the bathing chamber like a galleon in full sail.

It was a pity she spoiled her exit by tripping again on the cloth and staggering into the other room.

Ben fell back on the pillows and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Life was looking up.

****

Clarissa, Lady Bennett, née Lady Clarissa Macpherson, sat on the lid of the commode and held her head in her hands. Life was cruel. She kicked the linen sheet with her toes and cursed as once again it clung on as if its – and her own – life depended on it. Maybe it did. What on earth had she landed herself in? And why goad him? Retribution, and an imp of mischief that wanted to pay him back for the worry he’d put her through? More than likely. Plus, if she were honest, she had looked forward to her wedding night with excitement as well as trepidation, and felt let down. She’d wondered if she was to taste his kisses now as a young woman, not a girl.

Now she knew. No, she was not.

Clarissa sighed as she used the commode and then washed in the lukewarm water that had been left on the washstand, heaven knows when. What a mess.

It had been hours before she’d fallen asleep the night before. Her nerves had been as tight as the strings of a violin, and she’d gathered all her courage to decide to face the perils and pitfalls of the unknown facets of the marriage night. Surely he would be gentle? Explain everything and make her a woman in the full sense of the word, as considerately and kindly as could be? As time ticked by, Clarissa had become more and more wound up. When the bedroom door opened and he had made his way with exaggerated care across the bedchamber floor, she had shivered, although whether in fear or excitement she didn’t examine. Then he’d pulled his banyan off and stared at her owlishly.

She’d stared back. His naked body shone in the soft candlelight, and reminded her of the sculpture of a Greek god she’d seen. Every angle, plane and – she gulped at the thought – his masculinity were highlighted in perfect detail. Her mouth went dry. The sculpture had been anatomically correct, something she had seriously doubted, even after she had equated that hard rod he’d pressed against her all those years ago with that part of the drawing that angled out proudly from the top of his legs. Until that moment she had still distrusted those pamphlets stowed safely in the secret drawer of her escritoire. Now, however …

Her pulse jumped and her mouth was dry. Was this it?

‘Hello? What have I here?’ The words were slurred and ran into each other.

Before she had a chance to reply, he’d hiccoughed, pitched forward, grabbed her nightrail, and torn it on his downward slide. Then he’d collapsed into a semi-drunken stupor onto the bed and proceeded to snore and snort for the hours of darkness.

She’d wriggled out of the remains of her nightwear, and put it to one side. Sitting on rough edges and torn threads was less than comfortable. Clarissa pondered dark thoughts of retribution. That nightrail was – or had been – beautiful, and even if it was intended, so her godmama said, to be taken off, she was sure Godmama hadn’t meant quite in the manner it had happened.

The watch had called six o’clock before she fell into an uneasy sleep. It hadn’t been many hours later before she was wakened by his groping arm and his … his … She shuddered. His thing. If she hadn’t been quite so worried what he intended, she could have sniggered over the list of names suggested for it. Staff, rod, cock … When her hand touched it, it wriggled, and reared up like an excited horse. Almost as if it had a mind of its own. It was one thing admiring it from afar, but close at hand – and hand was the operative word – it was something else.

Sniggering over caricatures and lithographs of a naked man and his appendages was not the same as seeing and feeling them unexpectedly. Last evening she’d been ready to become his wife and to touch and play as he directed. Now, in the cold light of day, and after his behaviour of the night before, she was less enthusiastic.

Clarissa sighed and hunted for her hairbrush. Really, this marriage business was a nuisance. Her maid had been told to leave them until she was called, as had Ben’s valet. So now Clarissa had to hook herself into her dress and try to do something with mahogany-coloured corkscrew curls that had a mind of their own. And the dratted fringe. Whatever she did it looked like a twig brush. It wouldn’t grow out tidily, and she had learned to live with it. However, she’d seen the looks gentlemen had given it, and Ben had been no different. Astonished and amused summed their expressions up perfectly. After a cursory tug and brush she ignored it. It would do as it preferred whatever she did. Eventually, she tied her hair back in a loose chignon, and pulled on a plain day gown with laces down the front. With a glance and a grimace in the mirror, she left the room and returned to the bedchamber. Thence to stop suddenly. Ben was sprawled across the bed on his back, naked as the day he was born. He’d kicked the covers down to his ankles and not one part of his front was hidden from view.

Oh, what a view.

Clarissa gulped and stared at the thick staff that stood proudly up from his body, and waved hello. Now she was able to study it carefully, and unobserved, she was both fascinated and, in a strange way, repelled. That was supposed to fit into her? Oh, it had felt large when she’d grasped it earlier, but not that size, and in the moonlight she had decided her vision emphasised the size rather than diminished it. Now she realised her mistake. There was no chance that could be accommodated inside a woman. Someone surely had their facts wrong?

‘Do you like what you see?’ Her husband was awake and watching her through hooded eyes. ‘Shall I show you more?’

Her hands went to her warm cheeks. Now was a time she could have done with a fan, and not for coy or flirtatious purposes either. His eyes, although still cloudy, had a look in them, which her governess would have called devilry, and Clarissa decided was studied wickedness. If she didn’t stand up to him now, she never would.

‘Why?’ She feigned nonchalance, and thought she may well have succeeded. ‘You have shown me nothing so far to make me wish to see more.’

His eyes cleared and dark lights of fire flashed. Then his mouth firmed in a straight line. ‘Really? I must be slacking.’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps fine wines and brandy have that effect on you, my lord. Make you slack. You sampled enough to discover whether my words are true or not.’ Clarissa ignored his snort of outrage and his muttered oath and swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She wanted no more than to reach for the glass of water next to the bed. However, she knew enough about men to know Ben would see it as a sign of weakness, and pounce on it like a cat with a mouse.