A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (16 page)

He moved the hand at her back to
encircle her waist, pulling her up against his side. “You are
unwell.” His other hand felt her forehead and cheeks. “No fever.
Aurora, you must lie down. Mrs. Gaffee, the remainder of the tour
will wait. Please show us to Lady Quinton’s chamber.”

Aurora took a step to follow behind
the cheerful but squat woman, only to be lifted off her
feet.

Which was probably for the best. Her
head felt like it would splinter into a thousand pieces at any
moment. She wasn’t entirely certain she was capable of traversing a
flight of stairs right at that moment.

Just before reaching the stairs, Lord
Quinton carried her past a massive picture window. The draperies
were pulled back, allowing sunlight to pour in unhindered. The pain
in her head became blinding, all-consuming.

Aurora might have whimpered; she
couldn’t be certain. But Lord Quinton shifted her in his arms,
turning her head further in to his shoulder, effectively blocking
out the offending sun.

Blissful darkness enveloped the main
hall of the second floor. He turned a corner and passed through a
doorway. More light, not as harsh as before, pulsed against
Aurora’s pinched eyelids.

“
Draw the curtains,” Lord
Quinton commanded in a soft tone. He sat on the edge of the bed
with Aurora still tucked neatly in his arms. Once again, the
pulsing light left, leaving her with only the intense throb at her
temples.

She felt weak—too weak to lift her
head, to open her eyes, to speak. Strong fingers went to work
removing her bonnet from her head, soon accompanied by a more
delicate hand.

“
My lord, allow me to see
to her ladyship.” Rose’s voice. “Mrs. Gaffee and I can make her
more comfortable if you will allow us”

“
Leave us,” he ordered. His
voice was quiet, but firm. It brooked no argument.

The whispering swish and sway of their
dresses moving across the room to the door seemed more like a long,
deafening clap of thunder in Aurora’s present state.

Lord Quinton laid her on the bed. She
instantaneously felt bare, once she was bereft of the warm cocoon
created by his arms. This time, she did whimper, though it sounded
to her ears more like a scream.

“
Hush, love,” he said,
removing her shoes from her feet. Though his hands were large and
cumbersome, he performed the action with a deft skill Aurora often
could not manage. Then, just as smoothly and gently, he slid off
her stockings.

Oh, dear good Lord. He
could not be doing this. Not now. Not when she was more wretched
and in more pain than she had ever been in her entire life. He
could not expect to take his marital rights
now
.

She would die. She would kill
him.

Either way, someone would
die.

At least, someone would die once she
could convince her body to function again.

When he rolled her to her
side and worked at the buttons lining her back, Aurora let out a
muffled whimper into the pillow. He was really doing it. And she
was absolutely powerless to stop him, even if she felt she could.
It
was
his right.
She’d married the bastard and said ‘I do’, hadn’t she?

How on earth had she gotten herself
into such a mess?

But when he pulled her gown free of
her body and she was left in only her shift and drawers, Lord
Quinton lifted Aurora off the bed and pulled back the counterpane.
He settled her back into place and tucked the sheets in all around
her.

“
Rest, now,” he said,
placing a tiny, chaste kiss on her forehead. Then his weight lifted
from the side of the bed and he stepped across the room, gently
clicking the door closed behind him.

Dark stillness overcame her. Sleep won
out in mere moments.

Chapter Ten

3 April, 1811

Weddings, when one is one
of the two primary participants, can truthfully be rather dismal
affairs. It is lucky indeed that most people only go through them
once in their life. Somewhere between listening to the vicar drone
on about
obeying
and
sickness
, and standing up there with no one to look at but the vicar
and Lord Quinton, I found my mind wandering. Shocking, I know,
since my mind has
never
been prone to such fits of wanderlust. Pun
intended.

~From the journal
of
Miss Aurora Hyatt
Lady Quinton

Where was she? Aurora sat up in
bed—not her familiar bed—and looked about in the dark. A few rays
of sun tried peeked around the edges of heavy drapes. Sitting up
sent her head to spinning for a moment. A muted ache remained as a
reminder of the intense headache that landed her in bed in the
first place. She walked over and pulled the draperies back,
allowing enough sun to fill the room.

In the center of the room stood a
large four-poster bed, covered in a Pomona green counterpane that
matched the draperies. Very simple, quite elegant. An armchair sat
near the fireplace, a vanity near one of the three
doors.

If only she had been able to pay
attention when Lord Quinton carried her in. Then she might know
which of those doors would lead to her dressing room. She couldn’t
very well go out into the main house clad only in her
shift—particularly not with any number of unfamiliar servants out
and about. Not to mention a husband.

But a glance around the room didn’t
reveal a bell pull, so she would have to take a chance. Common
sense would place the vanity next to the dressing room. She tried
that door first.

Aurora had guessed wrong.
Blast.

Lord Quinton sat in a rosewood
armchair with striped silk-satin cushions near a large picture
window, reading a newspaper and facing her. An empty glass and a
decanter of brandy lined the table beside him. As soon as the door
opened, he stood.

How was it possible for the man to
look so enticing after the way he’d trapped her into this marriage?
She should loathe him, or at least be repulsed by him.

But he’d removed his greatcoat and
waistcoat and cravat, and his shirt hung loose from his pantaloons
and gaped open at the top, much like it had done when they first
met. And kissed. Aurora flushed again with the memory. His Hessians
gleamed in the bright sunlight.

“
Do you feel better after
your rest?” he asked.

The words drew Aurora’s eye to his
lips, his strong, square jaw. The ever-present growth of stubble
was back. She thought, unless her memory was more muddled than she
realized, that he had been clean-shaven that morning when they
married. She preferred this—the roughness of it, the wildness of
it.

She could get lost staring at his jaw
line.

“
Yes, my lord. Thank you
for asking,” she finally managed to respond.

His eyes darkened at her response. Oh,
dear good Lord. What had she done now?

“
You are my wife, now,” he
said. “We need not be quite so formal.”

Which only served to remind her of how
very little she knew this man. “What, then, should I call you?”
Surely the vicar must have said his name during their wedding, but
she hadn’t the slightest memory of it. Nor did she recall what he
might have signed upon the register.

For that matter, she didn’t know what
her new name was. Aurora what, precisely? Lady Quinton she knew.
But the rest? It was all a blur. An overwrought, bitter
blur.

He half smiled, half grimaced, though
it fell short of reaching his eyes. “My friends call me
Quin.”

“
I will call you that if
you’d like.” Though she had the distinct impression he would prefer
to be called something else.

“
You may call me anything
you please, Aurora.” The way he said it sent shivers of
anticipation coursing along her spine. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“You must be, with only your shift on.”

Oh. Oh, my. How had she forgotten such
an embarrassing detail as that? She tried to cover herself with her
arms, but they could only cover so much. Blast, he could see her
through the thin material. But she most certainly was not cold. Far
from it, in fact. Aurora could be no less cold if she were standing
on the sun.

Quin picked up a blanket that had been
draped over another armchair. When he stood before her with it, she
trembled. But not from cold. Nor from embarrassment. No, she
trembled from the intensity of his gaze as he wrapped the blanket
around her. The tips of his fingers brushed against hers as he
pulled it closed in front of her, tickling and burning, all at
once.

Aurora needed to pull herself together
like the silly blanket. Easier said than done, of course, with this
man—her husband—standing so close before her that she felt she’d
melt in his heat.

He raked a hand through his long hair.
Her fingers itched to do the same. What on earth was coming over
her?

She had to regain her wits. Speak. She
should speak. “What is your name?” she blurted out. Now she truly
sounded like a dolt. He would think he’d married an imbecile. He
had, after all, just requested she call him Quin.

He smiled then, and not in a manner
that appeared like laughter. “My given name? Niles. Niles
Thornton.”

“
Niles.” Aurora smiled.
There was something pleasing about saying his name aloud, about the
way it rolled off her tongue.

There was something infinitely more
pleasing about the manner in which he slid his thumb along her lips
just then, tracing the lower lip first, and then the upper lip, and
then moving back to the lower. Not to mention the almost inhuman
growl sounding deep in his throat. He settled his thumb in the
center of her lip and pulled it down, just a touch, until his thumb
slipped through and touched her teeth.

Gads, her body did inexplicable things
in his presence. Just from that minuscule contact, her breath came
in short, heavy bursts like she’d just swum the length of the
Thames and her heart pounded so loudly he must hear it.

Her mouth felt like a desert. She
licked her lips and tasted his essence—salty and heady and
masculine.

Almost as soon as her
tongue returned to her mouth,
his
tongue followed it inside. He tasted of brandy and
sin.

He left her mouth and nibbled along
her jaw and ears and throat. Every little bite elicited a sigh or a
moan. His coarse whiskers scraped against her tender flesh until
Aurora thought she would fall straight to the floor from
shock.

She let loose the blanket, wrapping
her arms about his neck and allowing her fingers to roam through
his hair. When the blanket pooled at her feet, his hands were
instantly upon her, kneading her derrière and pulling her close. So
close. Too close.

That wonderfully fascinating length
throbbed and pulsed against her belly, then lower, against the core
of her womanhood, when he lifted her by her thighs and pulled her
legs apart, wrapping them around his hips. Her shift and drawers
were made of such a sheer material, there might as well have been
nothing between them save his breeches.

Oh, dear good Lord, this body part
fascinated her, with the way it pushed against his breeches as
though fighting to be set free. She moved slightly, rolling her
hips, and could have sworn she felt it grow.

She wanted to touch it. To see it. Her
curiosity knew no bounds under ordinary circumstances, and this
entire situation was far from ordinary at least in terms of her
life. “Will you teach me now?” she asked, though she knew not how
she’d found her voice. She’d simply die if he wouldn’t.

Quin didn’t answer her.

For that matter, Aurora doubted him
capable of formulating an answer. He was too busy with lifting her
up and tossing her over his shoulder and practically darting from
the sitting room into another chamber.

His chamber.

Quin tossed her on the bed on her back
and peeled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it aside without
a care. Those hairs she had seen peeking out over the top trailed
down the center of his bare chest, darker than the hair on his
head, curling and crawling their way to disappear in a thin line
below the top of his breeches.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to
feel the power of his arms beneath her fingertips, those same arms
that lifted her with seemingly no effort at all. She wanted to
trail her fingers along the path of hair, following them beyond
where her eyes could see. She wanted to spread her hands over the
wide expanse of his shoulders and marvel at the fact that her
entire body could fit over just one of them.

Just from looking at him, a strange
tautness came over the tips of her breasts as though they were
pulling closer to him. Her womanhood—that same part of her that had
rubbed against him only moments before—heated to the point of
melting. What else could explain the sudden, embarrassing wetness
accumulating between her thighs?