Christine Merrill - Regency Surrender - Wicked Deception - The Truth About Lady Felkirk / A Ring from a Marquess

He rather hoped she had. His dreams had been deliciously lurid, opium-drenched fantasies of some Turkish paradise where he reclined on a pillow while a nubile woman ministered to his every need.

He grinned. What he had thought of as a dream was very close to what had actually happened. She had seemed so prim when she came to him in her plain gown and cap. Then she had kissed him soundly and taken him to heaven with a single hand. After, she’d stripped naked at his bedside and stretched like a satisfied cat.

Was it any wonder that he had dreamed of paradise? When he closed his eyes he could still see her high, full breasts bobbing above a narrow waist and hips that made a man long to hold on to them. What had he been thinking, to invite her to bed so that they might simply talk? She had pleasured him to the point where it had not mattered in the slightest who she was or where she’d come from. His only concern had been that she continue until she had finished.

* * *

When he came down to breakfast, she was already there. He should not have been surprised. He thought himself an early riser, but she seemed to pride herself on being ahead of him. The post had come and she had kept a single letter for herself and arranged the rest at his place. Then she made sure that his plate and cup were prepared just as he would like it.

Today, instead of greeting her with a curt nod, he went to her side and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He glanced down at the paper in front of her.

He frowned. Despite what had happened between them, she still seemed to stiffen at the touch of his lips and shift nervously away as though fearing a blow. Her movement obscured the note, which had all but disappeared beneath her plate. Then she relaxed into the passive doll he had come to expect. ‘Good morning, William,’ she said dutifully.

‘And good morning to you, my dear.’ And where have you gone? It was not as if he expected her to arrive at the table like a slave in a harem, attired in nothing but scarves. But when he looked at her, he’d expected to find some sign of the change between them.

She glanced down at the paper peeping out from beneath her breakfast plate. ‘If you are wondering about the letter, it is a note from a friend of my parents, congratulating me upon our marriage. I will answer it after breakfast.’

‘Of course,’ he said. It was not so unusual that she had friends, nor that they would correspond with her. But since she had not mentioned them before, he had flattered himself that he was her entire world. It did him no credit that he felt jealous of the person who wrote to her and the time she would spend on them. ‘And you will write to your sister as we discussed?’

Her expression, which had been pensive, changed to a brief, radiant smile. Then it faded to the more sedate half-smile she usually wore. ‘If you still wish me to, I would like that.’

It was as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud only to disappear again. He grinned at her, hoping to remind her of the previous night. ‘Of course I still wish it. And if there is anything else that will make you smile as you have just done, you must ask immediately. On such a fine morning as this, I could deny you nothing.’

She glanced at the window, as though expecting to see a change in the weather. ‘I thought it rather chill, when I was walking.’ She looked back at him, giving no indication that she understood the reason for his happiness could be traced back to last night. She held out his cup, ‘Coffee?’

He took his usual seat and accepted the cup. ‘Thank you.’ Perhaps it was an ordinary thing for her, or had been so before the accident. If that was true, then damn him for forgetting so much. He leaned closer to her, catching her eye and smiling. ‘And thank you for last night as well.’

The delightful pink of her cheeks clashed with the reds in her hair. ‘You are welcome.’ She glanced down at the table. Toast?’ She pushed the toast rack closer to his plate, as though appeasing one appetite would make him forget the other.

He ignored her offer of bread and continued on his original topic. ‘I enjoyed what you did for me, very much,’ he said, thinking the words oddly polite. But they seemed a match for her reserved response.

‘I am glad,’ she said, sending the marmalade pot after the toast with a nudge of her finger.

He ignored that as well. ‘Did you enjoy it as well?’

To this, she gave him an odd look, as though it had not occurred to her to have an opinion about it. ‘It makes me happy when you are happy.’ Then the placid smile returned.

‘That is not what I asked,’ he said. ‘I want to know if you enjoyed touching me.’

She glanced around her, as if to remind him that they were in the breakfast room, not the bedroom. She looked down at her plate as though trying to decide if it might be possible to pretend she had not heard. She took up her knife and fork and began slicing the sausage on it into ever smaller bites. Then, as if she’d noticed what she had done to the rather significantly shaped meat, she set down her utensils with a clatter and said, in a rush of words, ‘Enjoyed it? Of course. Why should I not? You are my husband, after all, and it is my goal...’

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