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The meeting having been set for six o’clock tomorrow morning, Ripley had arranged for the post chaise to take him and Pershore to the dueling ground. He’d contacted his medical man, who’d meet them there. Everything was in order.
Nothing remained but to write what might or might not be the only letter he ever wrote to his . . .
Wife.
He shook his head, to shake off the feelings threatening to overpower him.
He dipped the pen in the inkwell.
My dearest girl, he began.
In great London houses, the rooms on the ground and first floors were magnificent, made for show. Those on the upper stories tended to be far less so, since few but the family and servants saw them.
This wasn’t the case at Ripley House. Occupying nearly a full wing overlooking the extensive garden, the duchess’s apartments were as spacious and sumptuously furnished as the public rooms. Though the furnishings weren’t modern—some were ancient and valuable—all were in perfect order, clean and lovingly cared for.
Olympia had bathed and changed in comfort. Her maid, Jenkins, who’d come with her from Gonerby House, was in such a state of ecstasy that she came dangerously close to smiling.
Naturally Jenkins had assumed, as anybody would, that Olympia’s running away from her wedding would turn her into a social outcast. This would have left the lady’s maid to choose between remaining loyal to her mistress or looking out for her own future and finding another employer. If the family was in a scandal, so were the staff. Even the most loyal servants might find such a situation intolerable.
And that was one more in the long list of consequences Olympia hadn’t considered when she fled her first wedding.
Yet if she hadn’t fled, she wouldn’t be here in Ripley House, sitting at her dressing table, wondering what her husband had in store for her this night, and Jenkins wouldn’t be so happily fussing about her mistress’s hair and the precise arrangement of her dressing gown’s falling collar.
A deep masculine voice dispersed all thoughts of hair and bedtime attire.
“That will do, Jenkins,” Ripley said.
Face red, Jenkins set down the hairbrush and hurried out of the room.
The reason for the red face became apparent as Olympia turned away from the dressing table toward the door. Ripley wore a dressing gown with, by the looks of it, nothing underneath. His strong neck was bare, and the narrow V of the robe’s opening revealed golden skin bearing a fine dusting of dark hair. Her gaze slid down over the dressing gown. Embroidered dark green satin with a purple lining, it was as opulent as the rest of the house.
Her husband, clearly, liked his creature comforts. He would have fit in nicely with the pashas of the Turkish Empire. As he’d said, self-denial was not his favorite thing.
This was a man who loved luxury and self-indulgence and not playing by the rules.
She wondered which rules he planned to break this night.
A tremor went through her, but whether it was nervousness or anticipation she couldn’t say.
“I came in the nick of time,” he said. “Jenkins had nearly tamed your hair, and I like it untidy. The way it was when I dismantled your wedding veil. The first one, I mean.”
“Oh, Ripley.” She started to get up. She wanted to throw herself in his arms. She didn’t know why she felt so desperate to do it, but she did.
“No, stay a moment,” he said. “I want to spoil your hair a little . . . and then despoil other parts.”
She sat again, and stared into the looking glass on the dressing table. She was still Olympia, the same unremarkable-looking lady she’d been a few days ago when she’d gazed into a mirror at her bridal splendor. But she wasn’t the same inside. She’d lived a lifetime in a few days. A lifetime with one man, she realized. Hours and hours, in the course of which she seemed to have fallen irretrievably in love.
He came to her, and untied the neat braid Jenkins had made. Then his long fingers went through her hair, loosening the plaits. She was aware of his hands in a way she hadn’t been aware of her maid’s. She was aware of his nearness and the warmth of his powerful body.
She wanted to turn away from the dressing table and make him pull her up into his arms.
She said, “It’s dawned on me that you and I have spent more time together than most couples do before they’re wed. And so we must know each other rather better than most.”
“I know you rather better than I ought to, on our wedding night,” he said. “But that’s my fault, for being so impatient. You ought to have had a proper introduction. I’ll give it to you belatedly.”
“We aren’t proper people,” she said. “Why should our wedding night be like other couples’? And since when do you care about oughts?”
“Since you.” He moved to kneel beside her.
He took her left hand and looked at it for a moment, where her wedding ring seemed to glow on her finger. He kissed the back of her hand. “Your wedding night ought to be special. Perfect.”
“That is exceedingly kind and thoughtful of you,” she said. “But bear in mind, if it isn’t perfect, you can try again. And again. Practice, you know.”
He laughed, but she caught an odd note in his laughter that made her look up quickly, into his eyes. They were shuttered. All she saw was the sleepy wolf.
He bent his head over her hand again and kissed her knuckles and her fingertips. He turned her hand over and kissed the palm of her hand and her wrist. He took her other hand and did the same. This time, when he kissed the palm of her hand, she moved it to curl her knuckles under his chin. She lifted his chin and looked at him but all she saw was affection . . . and wicked promise, yes.
He smiled and took her hand away and kissed her chin, her cheek, and the top of her cheekbone. Then his mouth covered hers and the light caress went deep in an instant. It was gentle and it wasn’t. It was like the summer storm they’d shared, but this time it didn’t feel so much like a war. This time, it was a claiming of each other and a joining of two wild spirits.
She hadn’t realized how wild hers was until she ran away with him, and she’d felt herself come alive without realizing what the feeling was. She hadn’t realized how hemmed-in and pent-up she’d been until he told her she was a bad girl.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d stifled herself, though now she saw so clearly why. She couldn’t behave as her nature inclined her to do. Young ladies couldn’t misbehave as young gentlemen did. Young ladies couldn’t sow their wild oats. If they did, they’d be ruined, and bring shame on their families. Young ladies had to follow the rules.
With him, those rules no longer applied.
Free, finally, she came alive now, drinking in his kiss like a healing potion. Her body warmed, and the warmth entered and soothed her heart, too. Her too-busy mind quieted and softened.
It was like drinking too much brandy, but better, so much better.
Still kissing her, he lifted her up from the chair and carried her out of the dressing room and into the bedroom to the side of the bed, where he set her on her feet.
“I want to see you,” he said. “All of you. And worship you with my body, as I promised to do in church.”
“I want to see you, too,” she said. “Whenever you appeared at an event, I watched you. It was easy to do without attracting notice, because everybody watched the three of you, to see what outrage you’d commit next.” The words spilled out of her, indiscreet, but they needed to be let out. “The whole time, though, I was watching you—the way you moved, the way you danced. I wanted to be the dashing lady you danced with. I didn’t even realize I was watching in that way or thinking those things or why. Or, if I did know, I refused to admit it to myself.”
“I watched you, too,” he said. “And I thought it was a bloody shame you were respectable.”
“But I’m not,” she said.
“I know that now,” he said. “It only took—what was it—six, seven years since you made your debut? How thick can a fellow
be?”
“Fortunately, I still have some good years left,” she said.
“True.” He slid his fingers through her hair, so gently that she trembled.
He kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose. He unhooked her spectacles and set them on the bedside table.
“I won’t be able to see you properly,” she said.
“I’ll stay close,” he said.
Her robe de chambre had no buttons or hooks. A tasseled cord at the waist was all that closed it. He untied the cord and the robe fell open. Underneath she wore a white, embroidered muslin nightdress. He brought his hands to her face and caressed her cheeks and her neck. He slid his hands to her shoulders. He bent and kissed her neck, her shoulders, and the hollow of her throat. Her skin vibrated with pleasure but she ached, too, with the sweetness of it, of being touched by him, kissed by him.
He untied the ribbon at the neckline and slipped the nightdress down past her shoulders. She was acutely aware of the night air on her skin.
He slid his fingers down from her neck to her breasts, pushing the neckline lower as he went, until her breasts were fully exposed to him. But she was a bad girl, and didn’t feel shy or modest at all. Besides, he’d seen her already, in the fishing house. She wanted him to look at her the way he’d done then, as though she were the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
His face changed and she saw the look she remembered. She caught a glimpse of something else as well, something unexpected. Pain?
But he bent his head, then his mouth was on her, his lips trailing over her breast, the lightest of caresses. Light as it was, she felt it deep within her, tugging at her heart and lower down, yes, and now she recognized the feeling, the wanting.
