Page 47 of Wedding the Widow

The crushing weight of loss slid from Elizabeth’s shoulder with an almost audible thud. Tears pricked her eyes. “That will be quite enough for me, my love.”

“Then let us celebrate our coming union.” He grinned, and his eyes flashed black with sudden desire. Pulling her by the hand, he led her, step by step, toward the tall poster bed.

“Jemmy! In your father’s house?” Scandalized and excited, Elizabeth trembled with a wave of longing to be with him once more.

“What better place to affirm our love? I admit I’d rather have you in my bed, but I don’t want to subject you to that passageway. It is a bit dusty and small. I can’t have the mother of my child crawling through the walls of her future home.” He seized her lips as he deftly drew off her wrapper. When the kiss ended, she stood naked before him; both wrapper and nightgown lay in a puddle at her feet. Eyes large as black almonds, he beheld her, and his breathing became a ragged panting. “Oh, Elizabeth. You are even lovelier than I remember.”

Desire rushed through her from her very core, radiating outward through her body. Under that hot gaze, she might burst into flame. Her own breath came short and sharp, her need to feel him inside her rising to a painful peak.

A deep shrug of his shoulders and his dark silk banyan slid to the floor, revealing his perfect, naked body in the soft candlelight. As though a Greek sculptor had made him just for her. Hard muscles in his torso, arms, and chest rippled with his labored breathing as he stepped toward her. His jutting member, long and thick and hard, could also be a piece of ancient art, though it was scalding hot as it pressed the cool flesh of her stomach.

He cupped her buttocks and lifted her onto the bed, laying her down on the crisp sheets. Running his hands along her body, trailing his fingers over her breasts, stomach, through the thicket that covered her sex, he ignited a fire in her soul.

She moaned with need as he slid them into her, panting aloud at the exquisite feeling of him stroking her heat, building an inferno that threatened to incinerate her before he could join with her. “Jemmy,” she cried, tugging at his head. “Now, please, all of you now.”

His fingers vanished, leaving her wanting until the hot flesh of his cock pressed against her, seeking entrance. He leaned over her, pinning her shoulders to the bed with fierce possession. “I am yours, Elizabeth,” he said, kissing her neck, making her squirm and moan anew, totally conscious of him poised at her opening.

The musky male scent of him filled her head, increased the ache between her thighs. She strained toward that heat, longing for it inside her.

“I am yours,” he repeated, his voice urgent. “Are you mine?”

“Yes, Jemmy, yes. I am yours, my love.” She almost wept with the joy of the confession. She belonged to him in every way.

With her admission, he smiled and thrust forward, filling her completely, seating himself deeply within and making them as one. “Do you trust me that we will be together as man and wife?” He rocked slightly back and forth, a tantalizing promise of more to come.

“I do,” she panted, wild with the joy of having him in her. “I do believe it, Jemmy. Yes, yes, my love.” She thrust her hips toward him as he slowly drove in and out, bringing her to the brink of that incredible pleasure she’d been longing for. Wrapping her legs around his buttocks, she encouraged him to move further within her, to go faster to reach the heaven that hovered just out of reach.

He leaned in to kiss her, fierce and hard as their bodies rocked together. When he raised his head, he stared into her eyes. “You are mine, Elizabeth. Mine forever. I pity the man who tries to keep us apart.”

“Ahh, Jemmy! Jemmy!” she cried as the rapture took her, and she flew apart, gripping him inside her over and over again.

“Mine!” he shouted as his hot seed spurted deep into her.

She sagged into the mattress, his weight pleasantly heavy on top of her. Completion was very sweet, and never so much as now, with him. With Jemmy.

Too quickly, he rolled off of her and lay beside her, his panting harsh and wonderful in her ear. Her own blood was calming, though her heart still raced. Her bones had gone on holiday. It was more than enough simply to contemplate the dark ceiling, his presence large and warm and comforting.

She snuggled against him, her buttocks pressed against his member, limp at the moment, but showing faint signs of life already. For tonight, to be here together was more than enough.

Chapter 18

Disgruntled, but trying not to show it, Jemmy joined Elizabeth in the front hall next morning as the carriage was brought around for their departure.

“I missed you at breakfast,” she murmured as Quick assisted her with her dark blue spencer.

“An early audience with Father. I’m truly sorry to have missed your company.” He adjusted his hat and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

The journey back to Kent, while pleasant because of his nearness to Elizabeth, seemed too quiet as the day wore on, as if a pall had been cast over them. They talked of mundane pleasantries, rather than the fear most pressing to them. How were they to marry—and they must marry soon if Elizabeth was to escape ruin—without Father’s consent?

His scheme to enlist his maternal grandfather was their best course; however, it was far from certain. Jemmy and his brother and sisters had had little contact with their mother’s family all their lives. To go begging now might secure the funds they needed, but it might very well not. He hadn’t mentioned that to Elizabeth, nor would he until forced to by necessity, if it came to pass.

So he had approached his father early this morning, and the conversation turned quickly into argument. He might as well have saved himself the aggravation and breakfasted with Elizabeth. The time would have been better spent. Father simply refused to budge on his decision. And now he demanded that Jemmy escort Georgie back into the old man’s web as well. He stared out the window at the cold dead countryside, his own outlook as grim.

Elizabeth seemed to sense his mood, and they lapsed into silence, though they held hands the whole way, parting only when they stopped to change horses.

They pulled up before the columned façade of Lyttlefield Park as the afternoon shadows had just begun to lengthen across the pale marble steps of the portico.

“I will call for my carriage to be readied,” Elizabeth said, smoothing the folds of her rumpled dress. “I think I should leave immediately for London. If I can talk to my parents, they may be able to tell me what is behind your father’s refusal of our marriage.” Her lips trembled, cutting his heart to the quick. “The more information we have, the better our chances to overcome your father’s objections.”