Page 78 of Broken

Frustrated, Lilly turned her back. But Giles captured her in his arms and kissed her neck. She gasped and forgot all about dressing and marriage in favor of feeling pleasure again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Giles tapped the paper beside Lilly’s plate and she picked it up. Her eyes widened as she reached the end of the long document. “You never signed. Why?”

“Shocking lapse on my part, isn’t it?” He shrugged off her question. He didn’t remember why he hadn’t but given Lilly wasn’t expected to survive her fall he supposed at the time it hardly seemed important. “It suits our purposes today very well.

Footsteps thundered down the hall toward them, then Giles’ bedchamber door burst open.

“Damn you, Daventry.” Lord Winter rushed inside and appeared to be frothing at the mouth.

Despite having the best intentions of marrying Lilly, Giles stepped back from him. “Now, sir, there is no need to get into a lather. Would you care for some breakfast?”

Winter appeared to shake himself and glanced at the unmade bed that was clearly well used. His jaw tightened, and his hand curled into a fist.

He and Lilly were both fully dressed and, aside from the unmade bed, looked at first glance to be perfectly respectable. Except for the fact that neither of them were married to the other. Yet.

Giles had used seduction to get Lilly to agree to marry him. He’d pinned her against the wardrobe doors and withheld her release for so long that she’d screamed out her acceptance. He’d enjoyed tormenting her like that. Hearing her sob his name when she came had made his remaining irritation with her resistance disappear altogether.

What could be wrong with being married to him? He was attentive in bed, not to mention very restrained. This morning he could have taken her virginity easily, and had considered it repeatedly, but something held him back. To his considerable shock, he found he wanted to wait until they were respectably married.

All his adult life, Giles had lived his life on the edge of respectability, but there appeared to be one thing he held sacred. He would not risk creating a life in Lilly’s body without a ring on her finger, and a permanent change to her name.

“What gives you the right, sir, to take advantage of my daughter in such a way? She’s no mean trollop to swagger after like a jaded lothario! She deserved better treatment than this, and she will have it before the week is through. We are not without means, you degenerate scoundrel. You may be above me in rank, but we are not without friends. Did you think to dabble with her and then discard her for greener fields? Guess again, Daventry! I will see that the deed is done properly.”

“The deed has already been done,” Giles assured him, then ducked a blow. He had not meant his words to be taken quite that way. He trapped the older man’s swinging hands, pinned his arms behind his back, and turned him to face his daughter.

“Lilly, if you please, the paper. Show your father what I was referring to.”

Lilly looked white with fright and she shakily held the document up to her father’s gaze.

When Lord Winter sagged, Giles carefully released him, prepared for the next swinging fist. He had certainly made an impression on his future father-in-law. Oh well, at least he would not be expected to call him Papa.

“You never signed to end the agreement.” Winter took the paper and it shook in his grip. “You are still betrothed to Lilly?”

Giles glanced at Lilly and winked. “So it would seem.”

On the whole, Giles was actually happy that he would marry Lilly. Since the chemistry between them in bed was thrilling, and he did like her out of it too, he thought they had a chance to be happy.

He was not used to feeling this good. Three trysts this morning had not sated his ardor for her touches. Good God, the woman had taken him into her mouth with such hunger and generosity that his cock stirred a little even now.

The next time he had her would be after they were married, and he could finally enter that sweet, frail body that belied such a fierce passion for life. He doubted he would ever tire of her. He knew she did not believe him capable of monogamy, but the depths of their combined passions were barely tapped. He felt closer to her than any other. He couldn’t imagine wishing to stray.

Lilly was passionate, uninhibited, and the most giving woman he had ever taken to bed. He hoped he did not pass out when they did make love.

There it was again, he chided himself. He’d called it making love. He could not abide to use the word fuck when thinking about Lilly. Winter was right. She did deserve better treatment.

He walked around Winter and pulled Lilly up from her chair and into his arms. She was shaking badly from the violence her father had exhibited, completely unprepared for such raw emotional displays. He kissed the top of her head and settled her into the window seat, pouring her another cup of tea just the way she liked. She took it and when Giles turned back, he found Winter gazing at him in astonishment.

“I thought you barely knew each other.”

Giles shrugged off the question, grabbed another chair for Lord Winter, then sat to finish his breakfast. When the stunned man joined him at the table, Giles looked him in the eye and let some of his own anger show.

“You left her with only the mean attentions of an incompetent nurse who drugged and deserted her the first night. What would you have had me do? Ignore her? Allow her to suffer needlessly? She’s endured more than her fair share of misery, but fortunately has recovered and now is mostly pain free. I followed your instructions and contacted no one. Not even you, since I did not have your direction, if you remember.”

“What do you mean, mostly pain free? I thought you said she was cured,” Winter asserted.

“Nothing of the sort was spoken in this house. If you can bear to consider the matter, you can see when she is in pain. Like the stubborn Winter she is, she does her best to keep that knowledge wedged firmly behind clenched teeth,” Giles informed him, disgusted at explaining such an integral part of Lilly’s character to her own father. Did the man truly not know her?