When the Marquess Met His Match (25 page)

She stirred on the grass, uncomfortable. She hated talking about herself. “What do you want to know?”

“Where you grew up. Your parents. School.”

“I was born in Ohio. Like yours, my mother died when I was very young. My father is still alive. For school, I had a governess.”

“You didn’t go to away to school?”

“No, but then, many girls don’t.”

“True. What’s your father like?”

“A ne’er-do-well.”

“And where is he now?”

“Nevada somewhere. Silver-mine concessions. I don’t really know where.”

He waited, but when she said nothing more, he sat up, looking at her as if quite aggrieved. “Belinda, really! This is like pulling secrets from the Sphinx.”

“I don’t talk about myself much.” She took a deep breath. “The truth is I’m quite shy. I told you so . . . last night.”

“Yes, I remember, but many women are shy when their clothes come off.”

She wondered how many women gave him reason to know. She didn’t ask, but she knew there were probably quite a few.

“Still,” he went on, forcing her to put aside petty speculations about the other women he’d bedded. “I would never have thought you shy in conversation.”

“I’ve learned to hide it. I had to after I married Charles. A countess is expected to entertain, to be the hostess of house parties, to supervise servants. I had to learn to cope.” She gave a little laugh. “It was rather in the manner of sink or swim. Charles wasn’t . . . much help. He—”

She stopped. Perhaps she shouldn’t talk about her husband.

“What about him?” Nicholas asked when she didn’t go on.

“I loved him. He knew that. I mean, I said it once before we married, but he didn’t say it back. He didn’t say anything. He just smiled and changed the subject. I thought he was like me.”

“Shy? Featherstone?”

“Not, shy, no, but like me in the sense that perhaps he found it hard to say how he felt when it was important. I’m like that. The important things always make me the most tongue-tied.”

“Everyone’s like that to some extent. My shields of choice are to be witty and careless and pretend I don’t care. Yours are silence and propriety.”

“Charles’s was indifference. I mean, he was charming to me before we married, but afterward . . .” She stopped and swallowed hard. “I told him again that I loved him the morning after we were married, after he . . . after we . . . he said—” She stopped again. “This is difficult,” she said after a moment.

Nicholas reached over to cup her face, make her look at him. “What did he say?”

Belinda made herself tell him. “He said, ‘Let’s not pretend, shall we? We both know love isn’t the reason I married you. We’ll have a much easier time of it if you don’t insist upon declarations of affection or demand of me feelings which I don’t possess.’ ”

“Good God.” He blinked, staring at her in disbelief.

“You’re shocked.”

“Shocked? I’m nauseated.” He moved to sit beside her and took her in his arms, held her close, kissed her mouth. “My darling. I can’t begin to imagine how that must have hurt.”

“Can’t you?” She lifted her head from his shoulder, turned her head to look up at him. “What about the girl you loved? The one your father bribed to go away? Didn’t that hurt?”

“Well, yes, but Kathleen was just weak. She wasn’t deliberately cruel. Hell, she was an angel compared to your husband.” He pressed a kiss to hair. “And I had no idea. I never saw a cruel streak in him. I mean, I didn’t know him well, of course, but whenever he came to see Jack, he always seemed an amiable sort of man to me.”

“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “Very amiable. He was always quite amiable to me, too . . . in public. In private, he didn’t bother. In fact, he seldom spoke to me at all. I think he often forgot I was even there. But then, he was almost never home. And I was already so insecure, all that made me more so.”

“You must have felt unbelievably lonely.”

“I was. Nancy was who really helped me. Lady Montcrieffe. We became friends, and she taught me ways to overcome my shyness with others. She used the same trick her governesses used on her. When we were both in town or together at some house party, we’d go for long walks. At every corner or every ten arborvitaes, or something along that line, I’d have to ask her a question.”

“Ah. Forcing you to make conversation.”

“Yes. If I couldn’t think of anything to ask, I had to recite, ‘I am a thistle sifter,’ to the next person we met, no matter who it was, be it shopgirl, housemaid, or chimney sweep. Once, I had to say it to a duchess.”

He laughed at that. “They all probably thought you mad.”

“Exactly so. It was so awful a prospect, that I soon had an entire repertoire of questions I could fall back on, so no one ever had to endure my long silences at dinner. And I began to realize that if I got other people to talk about themselves, I wouldn’t have to talk about myself. And I have a knack for observation—so many years of sitting in a corner watching and listening to others, I suppose.”

“All of which helps you be a matchmaker, I should imagine.”

“Yes. It’s much easier for me to talk to people nowadays, and I’m more self-assured than I was as a girl. But underneath it all, I’m still shy. I have to be in the grip of very powerful forces, I think, before I can reveal my true feelings.”

That made him a laugh a little. “Then I obviously spark very strong forces in you because you’ve never held back speaking your mind to me.”

She smiled at that. “That’s true. But that’s the thing. I have a tendency to hold things in, and hold them in, and hold them in; and then the dam breaks, and my true feelings just come spilling out, usually at the wrong time, or to the wrong person.”

“Like that night at the ball, when you first told me about Featherstone. And that night in the maze.”

“Yes. When I’ve been angry with you, it was usually because I thought you were like him.”

“God, you don’t still think that, do you?”

“No. You were right to say you’re nothing like him. You’re not, and I know that now. Underneath all his surface charm, Charles was a cold man, and you’re not . . . you’re charming, but you’re not . . . cold. You don’t have any idea how much difference that makes to me.”

“Then I don’t see why you should be shy about answering my questions. People have surely asked you to talk about yourself before.”

“Yes, but I can usually deflect people from asking about me. It’s harder with you, though, now that I can’t put you in the same category of man as Charles. And, of course, now that we . . .” Her voice trailed off.

He caught her chin with one finger, gently forcing her to look at him again. “Now that we’re lovers?”

She could feel the blush in her face deepening. “Yes. I . . . I care about you now, you see. I care what you think, and it makes me self-conscious.”

“You care what I think?” He grinned.

“You seem terribly pleased by that.”

“So I am! Six weeks ago, you shredded me to bits, and now you care about my opinion. That’s progress.”

“Progress?”

He met her gaze, and something in his eyes was so steady, so resolved, she caught her breath. Her heart seemed to stop. “I told you I want your respect, Belinda, and if you care what I think, that means I’m making progress.”

He sat back, and she watched him as he began to gather up the picnic things, and she thought again of him kneeling in front of her, and the declaration that had come from his lips. She desperately wanted to hear it again, when she knew it wasn’t in the passion of lovemaking.

When he moved as if to stand up, she blurted it out. “Did you mean it? What you said last night?”

He went still. He didn’t ask what she was referring to. His eyes stared into hers, unblinking, as if he was considering it very carefully before he spoke, and it seemed an eternity before he finally replied. “I love you,” he said at last, and not only the words, but the quiet sureness of them made her heart sing. Joy was suddenly like a tangible thing, for it opened around her, enfolded her, sank into her bones.

He leaned closer. “I meant it when I said it. I mean it now.” He kissed her. “I’ll always mean it.”

Abruptly, he pulled back. “C’mon,” he said, and grabbed her hand.

“Where are we going?”

He grabbed the picnic basket in his free hand and stood up, pulling her with him. “I want to show you the hops fields before we go back. And we don’t have much time if we’re to make our train.”

She sighed, looking around as he led her back through the tall grass and daisies to the hops fields beyond. “It’s beautiful here. I wish we could stay longer.”

“So do I, but someone—and it was not me—insisted on procrastinating and keeping us both in suspense for weeks—”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted, making a face at him. “But still, can’t we go back to London tomorrow? Or the next day?”

“No. I’m trying to be a responsible fellow these days, and I have work to do in London. But,” he added, and stopped at the edge of the meadow. His free arm slid around her waist and he pulled her close. “I have to come back in a few weeks, and you can come with me then.”

“I’d like that,” she admitted. “But it’s a risk for both of us.”

His lashes, gilt-tipped, glinted in the sun as he lowered them to her mouth. “Then we’ll have to be sure no one catches us.”

He brushed her lips and turned away, leading her between two rows of lushly growing hops, and as she followed, trailing stems brushed her shoulders. “Where on earth are you taking me?” she asked as they plunged deeper and deeper into the thickness of the hops alley.

“I want to show you something.” He didn’t say anything more, and he didn’t stop until they were in what seemed the center of the field.

“There,” he said, stopping and turning to face her, forcing her to a stop as well. “I think we’re in about the right place.”

“For what?” She glanced around. “What is it you want to show me? The hops? We could have seen them just as easily from the edge of the field—”

“No,” he cut her off. “That’s not it.”

“What, then?”

The picnic basket dropped to the ground. “I want to show you that there’s no reason you’ll ever have to be shy with me.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered even though she was afraid she did.

“I want you,” he said and kissed her. “Right here. Right now. And as we go along, I want you to tell me what you want and how you feel.”

She shook her head, desperate, and tried to laugh. “And if I don’t? Are you going to force me to say ‘I am a thistle sifter’?”

That made him grin. “I have other much more delightful punishments than that.” He put a hand on her waist and immediately gave a groan. “A corset? Belinda, I told you not to wear one today.”

She licked her dry lips. “I didn’t think you were serious!”

“Making love with you is serious, my darling.” He kissed her again, but deeper this time, longer, hotter. As he did, his fingertips caressed her cheeks, her jaw, and her throat. By the time he pulled away, she was quivering inside.

“You didn’t really care about showing me the hops fields,” she accused, as his hands slid to her hips and grasped folds of her skirt. “You had this in mind all along.”

“No, actually, I had the meadow in mind, but I decided the hops would be better cover for us.” He nipped at her lips. “Because you’re shy.”

“We can’t,” she whispered, as he began lifting her skirts. But even as she said it, desire was rising inside her, desire and apprehension in equal measure. “Someone will see us.”

“Who?” He nuzzled her ear, working one hand under skirts and petticoats as his other hand unbuttoned his trousers. “We’re in the middle of a hops field.”

“Someone could walk by the rows.”

“It’s Sunday afternoon. No one comes out to the hops fields on a Sunday afternoon.” His hands curved over her hips, and he turned her around.

“Oh, Nicholas, no,” she groaned softly over her shoulder, as he began unbuttoning the back flap of her drawers. “Oh, no.”

He ignored that, probably because she sounded as firm as a custard. The flap of her drawers came undone, and he slid his hand beneath her bare buttocks and between her thighs as his other hand spread across her stomach.

She was wet for him already, she knew that, and he made a sound of appreciation against her ear. “You’re so soft,” he murmured as he began to stroke her. “Do you want me to do this? Touch you here?”

Her excitement rose with each word he spoke. It pressed against her chest and clenched all her muscles, and she couldn’t answer.

“Belinda, you have to tell me what you want. If you want me to stop, say stop. If you want me to touch you, say, ‘touch me.’ It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

As he spoke, his excitement was rising, too. She could hear it in his voice. She could feel it in his shaft, a hot, hard ridge against her hip. “I want you,” he said, his fingers touching her so softly, she almost couldn’t stand it. “I want to touch you, and make you come and be inside you.”

She ought to say “stop,” but she couldn’t. His naughty words inflamed her desire even as she felt overwhelmed by embarrassment, and the conflict of the two was an exquisite torment, unbelievably erotic.

“See how easy this is?” He kissed her ear. “You try it. Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “N—no,” she managed.

“ ‘Don’t stop, Nicholas.’ Say it, Belinda.”

His fingertip slid around and around the nub where all her pleasure centered, spreading her moisture. The very tenderness of it was relentless, so much so that it forced the words out of her. “Don’t stop, Nicholas.” She moaned again, and buried her hot face against her arm to stifle the sounds of pleasure he was tearing from her. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

Her own words seemed even more erotic than his had been, and lust blazed through her body like fire. Her hips were moving in rhythm with the slide of his finger.

“Do you want me?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, and her silence only seemed to make him more determined. “Lean forward.”

She complied, grasping the hops poles on either side of her to keep her balance, and as she did, the tip of his shaft nudged her opening, ready to enter her the moment she gave him what he wanted.