Bets,’ she got out. Far better than she was going to confess.
Bets snorted. ‘That’s as may be, Miss Maddy. I know you’d know what goes where. Thing is, it might hurt a bit at first.’
‘Oh.’ Her cheeks were probably going to ignite. ‘I see.’
Bets brushed harder. ‘Yes. But only the first time, usually.’ A very womanly smile softened the old lips. ‘And ’specially with a man like his lordship. You can see he’s the gentle sort, for all his strength.’
‘Only the first time?’ asked Maddy, trying to ignore the ache in her breasts at the thought of just how gentle Ash could be.
‘Aye. After that—’ Bets laid down the brush and cleared her throat. ‘Well, you’ll see soon enough, judging by the way his lordship can’t take his eyes off you.’
Maddy realised in disbelief that Bets was blushing. Their eyes met in the mirror.
‘It ain’t every man who can set a girl’s knees wobbling and toss her wits out the window with one kiss under the mistletoe!’ Bets set her hands on Maddy’s shoulders. Gave them a squeeze. ‘Well. That’s that. I’ll be off to me bed.’
Maddy blinked and flapped a hand at her hair. ‘You aren’t going to braid it?’
Bets shook her head. ‘Waste of time.’ She twitched the neckline of the nightgown just so. ‘Mind you, so’s this.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘But at least he’ll have the fun of taking it off.’
Maddy’s jaw dropped. Naked? They were going to do what they’d done in the carriage naked?
* * *
When she heard his knock on the door, Maddy was behind the screen, washing her face and hands. ‘Come in!’ She set the ewer down with trembling hands.
The door opened. Closed.
‘Maddy?’
She hauled in a breath. ‘Here. Behind the screen.’
‘Ah.’
She leaned against the washstand, breathing carefully, shocked to realise that she was trembling. Nerves, she told herself. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to do it again? A very faint hope. Most bulls and rams after a suitable rest, say half an hour or so, were more than happy to perform their duty again.
She stiffened her spine. She couldn’t hide here all night, even if she had made a fool of herself. With a deep breath, she walked out from behind the screen to face her husband.
Her mouth dried at the sight. Oh, Lord! He had already dispensed with coat and waistcoat, and the lacings of his shirt hung loose, revealing the merest glimpse of a powerfully muscled chest. She swallowed, watching helplessly as he prepared to pull it off over his head, feeling again that dizziness, the aching emptiness that he had caused—and filled—in the carriage.
His gaze caught hers and he stopped.
‘Would you rather I undressed somewhere else, sweetheart?’ he asked. ‘Behind that screen?’
The idiotish, cowardly part of her shrieked, Yes! Then she could dive into the bed and shut her eyes. ‘No. Unless...unless you would rather?’ Perhaps he thought it was immodest for her to be here? To watch.
He shook his head, a very wicked smile curving his lips. ‘Not at all. I’m more than happy to strip for your pleasure.’ The smile became even more wicked. ‘Perhaps tomorrow night you’ll return the favour.’
She was conscious of the heat, the wetness between her legs. Knew what it meant. Did he mean that he would find it arousing, watching her undress? Her knees shook at the thought, and prudently she backed up to lean against the high, old-fashioned bed.
‘I...um...’ He was unlacing his shirt fully, one hole at a time. ‘I have to apologise.’
He looked at her. ‘For what?’
‘For...for the things I said. In the carriage.’ She swallowed. ‘I know that you trusted me. There’s no excuse for what I said about you marrying me for Haydon because that was exactly what I offered you. I’m sorry.’
‘And will you accept my apology?’ he asked quietly. ‘Not just for thinking you might not have told me everything, but for rushing you in the carriage? My excuse is pathetic—I wanted you too much.’
‘You wanted me?’
‘Oh, yes.’ His gaze caressed her as he finished unlacing his shirt. Stole her breath. ‘And I want you now.’
‘Oh.’ Her voice failed her. So they were going to...
Thought failed as well, but his smile told her he knew exactly what she would have thought if her mind hadn’t melted. Still wearing the smile, he hauled his shirt off over his head and dropped it.
She had seen statues of the nude male body. Of course she had. Secretly she had doubted that the real thing could be quite as godlike as the sculptors seemed to suggest.... The sculptors, she realised, had indeed not got it quite right. For one thing they had not the advantage of working with living flesh and gleaming supple skin. With swells of muscle that bunched as a man bent to remove stockings and shoes. With firelight that shadowed every angle and danced lovingly on every hard plane. And nor could blind marble eyes possibly blaze with heat as his did as she gazed, riveted, while he unbuttoned the fall of his breeches....
Her eyes widened as he slid off the breeches and his drawers. Apparently the sculptors had got something else wrong, too. No statue she had ever seen had looked remotely like that. There wasn’t a fig leaf in the world big enough.
He had gone very still. ‘It won’t hurt again, Maddy,’ he said quietly. ‘My word on it.’
Was the man a mind reader? ‘It wasn’t that,’ she lied. Or not entirely that.
‘No? What, then?’
Oh, Lord! ‘Well, I haven’t seen a real one before,’ she said, desperately. ‘Only statues.’ She thought about it. Not quite true. ‘At least, not a man’s pizzle,’ she said, feeling her cheeks heat.
They heated even more as his eyes widened and an unholy amusement curved his mouth.
‘Pizzle?’ he repeated in a very neutral voice, and she knew, just knew, she’d said the wrong thing.
Gritting her teeth, she said, ‘I take it you don’t call it that?’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, in the sort of voice that suggested he was trying very hard not to laugh. ‘That’s a little...agricultural.’
‘Well, what is it called, then?’ she demanded.
He grinned outright. ‘We’ll get to that. Right now—’ his gaze heated ‘—I’m much more interested in making love again. And this time we’re going to do it properly.’
Properly? ‘Didn’t we do it properly before?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I didn’t know what—’
‘You did it properly,’ he assured her. ‘I didn’t.’
She blinked. She’d brought enough bulls, rams and the occasional horse to tup to know that it was perfectly possible she was already carrying his child. Surely that constituted doing it properly?
‘But—’
‘Properly, Maddy.’
His voice was a promise. Or a threat, depending on how you viewed the blaze in his eyes.
‘Or perhaps,’ he murmured, coming towards her, ‘I should say we’re going to do it improperly. Extremely improperly.’
Definitely a threat. Her breath lodged in her throat as he set his fingers to the buttons of her nightgown and began to undo them. Button by button, he undid the nightgown, undid