Wallflower Gone Wild (24 page)

And then she did. The climax came hard and fast. Olivia cried out as she felt wave after wave of a pleasure she’d never imagined.

“Olivia,” Phinn murmured, pressing more kisses against her neck.

“Mmm,” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around him.

“There’s more,” he whispered. Or did he mean less? Her gown was thrown to the floor. His attire swiftly followed.

Olivia’s eyes widened as she took in Phinn’s broad shoulders, muscled chest. Her gaze lingered on his large arousal, jutting out. Then she looked away, back up to his darkened eyes.

“Olivia?” It was a question. There was only one answer. She smiled coyly and stretched her palms across his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin. His breath caught as her fingertips brushed over his nipples.

“Yes,” she whispered. She wanted to feel that feeling again. She wanted to know him, too. He lowered himself above her, and for a second she tensed, feeling trapped. Then he kissed her and she was reminded of the pleasure to come. His embrace was warm. She discovered she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

He claimed her mouth for another deep, passionate kiss—the kind that sent her wits fleeing and made her want more. She was aware of his arousal pressing against her. And as she drew her legs apart, she was aware of how much she wanted him.

Slowly, Phinn entered her. She was warm and wet for
him.
In spite of everything she’d done to get rid of him, there was no denying that she wanted him now. He pushed in; she gasped. He began to move with deep and slow thrusts. She wrapped her arms around him. Deeper. More. She caught his mouth for a kiss. Harder. Her hips moved with his. Then there was nothing but him and her, moving as one. Then there was nothing but pleasure as he hit his climax with a shout. Then there was nothing but the thudding of his heart and Olivia in his arms. It was everything.

Chapter 22

There is hope for Lord and Lady Radcliffe after all! Lady Olivia was merely injured and will most certainly live, though she might not see her husband for a while. The Mad Baron will be busy attempting to rebuild the Difference Engine before the Great Exhibition, which is getting closer each day.

—
THE
L
ONDON
W
EEKLY

Olivia’s bedchamber

Specifically, her bed

Still . . .

W
hen Olivia woke the following morning, everything had changed profoundly. They were now married in truth and there was no way out of it—save for an act of Parliament, which were as rare as acts of God. If she wanted love, romance, and happiness, she would have to make it happen—and make it happen with Phinn.

She woke up beside him. Safe. Adored. Some of her fears had been assuaged.

After breakfast he asked, “What would you like to do today?”

“I’d like to stroll in the park, visit the shops on Bond Street, dance a reel or run through a field while singing,” Olivia said. Then, with a sigh, she added, “But I suppose I’ll lie here instead.”

“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” he said, wincing. He felt guilty about her leg—as if it were his fault, when really it was her own. She oughtn’t have tried to operate machinery she didn’t understand.

She smiled and said, “You must stop apologizing, and make it up to me instead.”

“Shall I bring your embroidery?”

“No, I finished my sampler,” Olivia said. “And that might be all the embroidery I need to do for the rest of my life.”

“Perhaps you’d like to paint?”

Or perhaps not, Olivia thought. She’d sworn off portraits of flowers and arrangements of decorative household items. But then her gaze settled on Phinn.

He sat in a chair beside her bed, wearing his breeches and a shirt that was unbuttoned, exposing the wide expanse of his muscled chest. His hair was a tussled mess—not because he’d been pushing his fingers through it in a state of frustration, but because she’d messed it up as she ran her fingers through it while they made love. Olivia smiled, wanting to capture this image of him forever and knowing that she could.

“Painting, Olivia?”

She grinned wickedly. “Yes. Though I may need your help with the subject of my painting.”

“Anything,” he said, obviously having no inkling what she was about to ask him.

H
e had promised her anything, which is how he came to be the subject of her portrait. Never mind that they had only a few days to rebuild the engine before the Great Exhibition. He was going to sit in this chair wearing naught but breeches and an open shirt and let his wife paint him.

Though not a religious man, he was also going to pray this watercolor of hers was never made public. It would be for her eyes only.

“I feel ridiculous,” he remarked as she happily glanced from him to her painting, occasionally dabbling the brush in her paints and jar of water.

“But you look . . .” Olivia eyed him in a way that he found incredibly arousing. “You do not look ridiculous.” She had a shy smile and faint blush. She couldn’t quite say it, but she liked what she saw.

Phinn caught himself drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair, and she scowled at him. He thought of the engine . . . all those identical parts that had to be reassembled precisely and fit together perfectly. He exhaled sharply. The workers had assembled it once; they could manage to work without his overbearing supervision for an hour or two. Besides, he was busy. Sitting on a chair. Hardly clothed.

To distract himself from worrying about his work, he concentrated on watching Olivia as she painted. She bit her pink lower lip. She furrowed her brow as she stared at him, then looked down at her painting. He admired her hair, long, soft golden ringlets that tumbled around her face—subsequently pushed aside with paint-stained fingertips. He smiled when he noticed a smudge of red in her hair and a dab of white on her cheek.

Keeping her gaze fixed on the painting before her, she asked, “How did you get your scar, Phinn?”

“Why do you ask?” He resisted the urge to touch the damned mark. It was a stark reminder of one of the worst nights of his life—there were two, and he could never decide which one was worse, though one led to the other.

“Because I am curious about it as I paint it,” she replied. She stole a quick, hesitant glance at him.

“You could leave it off.”

“Yes, but I want to do a portrait of
you
.” He tensed. Aye, he was the man with the mysterious scar and the man known as the Mad Baron. He didn’t like these things. But they were who he was, and he wanted Olivia to love him as he was.

“I was in a fight,” he said finally.

“With whom?”

Phinn hesitated. He couldn’t say “my wife” because Olivia was his wife now. He didn’t want to say “my late wife,” as that didn’t exactly initiate the most romantic conversations. He could say her name, Nadia. But something held him back, as if the moment he spoke her name aloud she would become a third person in
this
marriage.

He shifted slightly in the chair before answering, “A woman.”

“Over what?”

“Honestly, I can’t even remember anymore.”

Olivia glanced up at him, caught his eye. He knew all the questions running through her head. Which woman? Your first wife?

He didn’t want to think about Nadia now. Nor did he want to think about his brother, the fight, and how everything had gone wrong—not when it was finally starting to go right.

“How much longer?”

“You must keep still,” she admonished.

“I think I should see what you’ve done so far.” Really, though, he wanted to make love again. If he was going to be delayed getting to the engine this morning, then he might as well indulge and make it completely worth it.

“Not until it’s finished,” she said in a kind but firm manner that gave him a glimpse of what she’d be like as a mother. He eagerly awaited the day. “Why,” she asked. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

Phinn thought of the engine, the workers, the time required to rebuild the machine before the Great Exhibition, which would be happening soon. There was no room for mistakes now. He should be there, supervising and assisting.

This was why he had wanted a nice, docile wife who didn’t make demands of him. But then he looked at Olivia, reclining on the bed, with paint on her cheek and her hair a tussled mess. She was beautiful and he wanted her more than anything else. She wore a pale blue silk robe and a dressing gown, both items that could be easily removed if he were so inclined.

He was so inclined.

“No,” he said with a grin. “There’s nowhere else for me to be. However, I think I shouldn’t be the only one undressed.”

“You’re not,” Olivia corrected. “I’m in my dressing gown. That hardly qualifies as dressed.”

Phinn took off the shirt and dropped it on the floor.

“I’m not finished!” she protested.

He grinned again. “You’re right. You have more clothing to remove.”

She smiled coyly, tugging at the tie of the waist of her dressing gown.

Soon those lovely silk things were just a pile on the floor. Phinn took a moment to gaze upon her in the gentle morning light. Her breasts were round and full with stiff pink peaks that seemed to beg for his attentions. Olivia’s soft curls tumbled down around her shoulders; he wanted to push them aside so he could admire the delicate arch of her neck and curve of her shoulders. Then he wanted to kiss his way down, across the gentle curve of her belly and lower. He wanted to show her another way he could bring her pleasure. And then he wanted to lose himself inside her.

Then he did all of these things, accompanied by the delicate sighs and moans of his wife. And then they did it again.

Olivia’s bedchamber

Still on her bed!

Later that afternoon

Olivia had just enough time between when Phinn left and her friends arrived to have a bath and dress in a fresh gown. She was about to read the newspapers when Emma and Prudence burst in and immediately made themselves at home by ringing for tea and pulling chairs close to the bed.

“We came earlier but were told you were indisposed,” Prudence said with a wicked smile.

“I suppose we needn’t ask
why
you were indisposed,” Emma added.

“Young ladies do not discuss marital relations,” Olivia said, trying to sound prim.

“Don’t tell me we are back to following all the rules of propriety,” Prudence said dejectedly.

“Not at all,” Olivia said, smiling. “All I shall say is that I have finally become better acquainted with Phinn.” The warmth of her blushing cheeks should have been all her friends needed to see for them to know.

“Phinn?” Emma inquired curiously. “Not the Mad Baron?”

“Better acquainted?” Prudence echoed.

“Do you not mean intimately acquainted?” Prudence asked.

“Or acquainted in the biblical sense?” Emma added.

“I think she might mean exactly that,” Prudence said, picking up Olivia’s painting book and holding up the painting she’d done of Phinn, sprawled comfortably in the chair wearing naught but fitted breeches and a shirt carelessly thrown open. Olivia had spent a while staring at the broad expanse of his chest, considering how best to portray the contours of his muscles. She had labored over his expression, too, wanting to capture the desire in his green eyes.

She was more proud of this painting than she was of the still life of a basket of kittens that won her first prize at Lady Penelope’s.

“See, I told you both you would be happily married before Lady Penelope’s Ball,” Emma said, smiling broadly.

Olivia and Prudence exchanged a glance and returned uneasy smiles. There was but a month before the anniversary ball and Prudence still had nary a suitor. And while Olivia was married and falling for her husband, there was still much she didn’t know about him. He’d been vague when she asked about the scar, which was terrible because she imagined the worst. Then, they hadn’t addressed how the Mad Baron rumors began. Or the fact that he’d been married before. When he touched her, she almost forgot. And when he kept touching her, he drove all thoughts from her head. But the questions always returned.

“I still don’t know what happened in his past,” she said. “I feel I still don’t know him.”

“Well, did you ask?” Prudence asked.

“I have tried. I think he was about to tell me that day in the gazebo,” Olivia replied. “Before I succumbed to the effects of the poison. Or wine. Whichever.”

“Just ask,” Emma said. “What could possibly be holding you back at this point?”

It certainly wasn’t some notion of keeping quiet or respecting the private matters of others.

“What if I don’t like the answer?” Olivia said, anguished. “I am bound to him forever now. What if I have given myself to a murderer?”

“Then don’t ask,” Prudence said with a shrug.

“Instead, read
The Mad Baron: The Gruesome Story of an Innocent Maiden’s Tragic Love and Untimely Death. A True Story
,” Emma said. “I have brought a copy along with these other books from the circulating library.”

“If he truly is a murderer, you could probably obtain a divorce,” Prudence pointed out.

It was unrealistic, that. Olivia also noted the immediate
No
her heart issued.

“Or come live with Blake and me,” Emma offered.

She could do that, she thought. Or she might live with Prudence in a cottage by the sea. Except for one maddening, confounding detail. She sighed and thought of Phinn making love to her and letting her paint him in a state of undress and asked, “But what if I don’t want to?”

Emma and Prudence exchanged looks.

“Have you fallen in love with the Mad Baron?” Emma asked.

“I might have,” Olivia muttered. How else to explain that she was inescapably drawn to him, even though she didn’t completely know him? She was starting to trust him, even though there was still a chance that she shouldn’t.

“Oooh, Olivia! I am so happy for you,” Emma exclaimed, smiling broadly.

“Perhaps soon you shall have another full-fledged member in the nauseating newlywed club,” Olivia replied. “I’m not quite there yet.”

“Where is he now?” Prudence asked.

“Working on the engine,” Olivia explained with a sigh. “He does that, a lot. Sometimes I catch him woolgathering and he is thinking of the engine.”

“It’ll be done soon,” Emma explained. “They are scheduled to debut it at the Great Exhibition on the day after Lady Penelope’s Ball, as a matter of fact.”

Olivia pursed her lips. Was it wrong to be miffed that she was learning this critical information from her friend instead of her husband? See—he kept things from her, whether about the future or his past.

“As long as he makes it to the ball,” Olivia said with only the slightest sulkiness. After all, half the reason she desperately needed a husband was to hold her hand at this torturous event.

“I am going to Bath,” Prudence declared, apropos of nothing.

“That sounds lovely,” said the bedridden Olivia. “When will you go?”

“Tomorrow,” Prudence declared. Both Olivia and Emma’s jaws dropped.

“What?” Olivia asked, shocked.

“Why?” Emma asked, equally shocked.

“This town is finished for me,” Prudence said dramatically. “You are both married now. I have made the acquaintance of or am aware of every eligible man in London. They look at me and see Prude Prudence and nothing else. I have no prospects here.”

“But . . . Bath?” Olivia asked.

“Lady Dare would like to take the waters,” Prudence said, speaking of her aunt and guardian who often acted upon her every whim. “I shall accompany her. Perhaps I may meet someone in Bath.”

“What if you must move there upon your marriage?” Emma asked, brow furrowing as she faced the possibility that her two friends might be whisked away to far off counties.

“It’s closer than Yorkshire,” Olivia said. She still did not wish to inhabit a vast, remote estate in Yorkshire.