Page 93 of Scandal’s Daughter

“I should think so,” he replied, shaking his head at her and then frowning at the dress as he turned her and discovered the thirty-three tiny pearl buttons that ran down her back. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “What manner of sadist went and put all those blasted buttons on the wretched thing!”

“Sebastian!” Georgiana exclaimed, smothering her laughter with a trembling hand.

“Well, damn it, love. I’ll be here all night!”

Shaking with silent mirth, Georgiana waited as Sebastian undid one fiddly button at a time, all the while complaining and cursing bitterly about confounded dressmakers.

Finally reaching the end of the buttons and his patience, she heard an audible exhale as the heavy satin slithered to the ground.

Shivering with anticipation, she stepped out of the gown and kept her back to him as she removed the final items of her underclothes.

She cast her stays and chemise aside, with rather less nonchalance than he’d managed with his waistcoat and turned to look at him wearing just her stockings and garters.

For a moment she struggled to look at him, feeling her skin hot with mingled embarrassment and anticipation. But on meeting his gaze all qualms were cast aside more easily than any garment on seeing the love and desire blazing in his dark eyes.

Without further hesitation he swept her into an embrace, his mouth claiming hers with an impatient urgency she was only too happy to imitate. He stopped suddenly and took a deep and rather shaky breath as he turned his attention to removing the pins from her hair.

“I’ve been desperate to see this all loose about your shoulders,” he said, his voice low as his fingers slid through the thick copper of her hair. He watched with obvious fascination as the shiny locks glinted against his large palm and fell against her pale skin. “So very lovely,” he said, his voice reverent and husky with need.

She watched with interest as his face grew a little guarded and his brow furrowed.

“Love, I know we ...” He cleared his throat and looked strangely ill at ease before he continued. “Er ... dallied a little, together in Cornwall but ...” Another pause in which he frowned a little harder. “Do you ... do you know what to expect? I mean ...”

Georgiana gave a little gurgle of laughter, delighted to discover that her husband was just as nervous as she was. His reputation for being a shocking flirt and a ladies’ man notwithstanding.

“Oh, yes, darling. After all I am a country girl. One does see things in the country you know, and after that Céleste filled in the bits I was missing.”

“Oh, thank God,” he said, with obvious relief. He smiled down at her, so much tenderness in his expression that her heart seemed to squeeze in her chest. “So, you’re not nervous then.”

“Only a very little,” she said, returning his smile. “I know you’ll take care of me.” She bit her lip and then added with rather more daring than she was truly feeling, “I’m really just terribly impatient. Do get on with it, darling.”

“Why you little wretch!” he exclaimed wrathfully, sweeping her up and throwing her on the bed, where she bounced a little and tipped her head back laughing as he prowled over her. “Get on with it!” he repeated, mirth glittering in his dark eyes. “Of all the unmaidenly, improper, wicked things to say to me!”

He grabbed hold of her hands and pinned them to the bed above her shoulders as he insinuated his large body between her legs. She gasped, surprised again at the weight and size of him, relishing the feel of his much heavier frame against her own.

Sebastian leaned down and nipped at her earlobe, trailing his tongue over the very edge of her ear, nuzzling the tender flesh beneath and painting kisses along her jaw and neck. Georgiana sighed and squirmed, arching against his body. He allowed her to press against him for a moment, his eyes darkening as she gasped and flushed with mounting desire.

He chuckled, the sound low and intimate as he moved away from her.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, sitting up on her elbows.

He sat back and undid his cravat with obvious and painstaking care, a smug grin hovering over his mouth. With a huff she laid back, glaring at him as he carefully folded the long length of pristine white silk and returned to his buttons. Each one was undone with great care and growing amusement on his part as Georgiana narrowed her eyes at him.

“You are a very unkind, husband,” she said, with a sniff, but was quite unable to tear her fascinated gaze away as he removed his shirt to reveal a hard, muscular frame.

The more of his finely tailored and sophisticated clothes that were removed, the more she was struck by the contrast of the virile masculinity that had been hidden beneath it.

He seemed all at once a great deal less civilised and far more rugged. The thought made her heart thud harder. She continued to watch, knowing he was aware of her scrutiny as her eyes took in a broad chest, lightly dusted with dark hair that led in a tantalising trail beneath the band of his trousers.

She caught her breath, and the sound at least had the result of making him hurry. Putting all pretence at a studied nonchalance aside, Sebastian cast his boots into the far corners of the room and removed the remaining items of clothing as fast as he was able.

She blinked as he prowled back to the bed once again, more than slightly daunted as Céleste’s encouraging words returned to her and were put in the light of the impressive figure of her husband.

“What, nothing to say, love?” he teased, his mouth slightly quirked as one hand slid up the back of her leg and tugged at her garter. She watched, her mouth dry as he drew first one silk stocking and then the other from her legs as his hands continued to stroke and caress her.

“Good Lord, don’t tell me I’ve finally rendered you speechless?”

“O-only ... momentarily,” she gasped as his naked form finally pressed down upon her. The feeling of his hot skin so close to hers was enough for any further thought at proving him wrong to be banished from her mind.