Page 91

WHITHER THOU GOEST

Joshua looked down at his wife-to-be, her untidy braid standing out against the white sheet, lips curved in a mischievous smile, cheeks flushed with desire. His entire body longed to make her his, but his conscience was nagging at him.

He may have thrown aside the rules of gentlemanly behavior in refusing to marry Regina, but he didn’t want to take advantage of the woman he loved, either. “Are you quite certain, darling?”

Livie answered with a smile, but he waited until she wound her arms around his neck and whispered, “You’re mine, Joshua. So yes, make love to me now, and when we’re married, and when we’re eighty.”

“Before we say our vows?” he said, wanting her to be absolutely certain.

“I will never regret making love to you, be it outside the bounds of matrimony or even in a wardrobe,” Livie told him. “You and I, Joshua, are not bound by the rules society dictates for men and women,”

Joshua winced. “To be honest, I’m traditional at the heart, Livie. I want you to be mine. My wife.”

Livie brushed her lips over his. “I feel the same.”

Joshua eased down on his side next to her, one hand freeing the last twists of her braid and sinking into her unruly curls. “Will you accompany me when I am dispatched abroad?” he asked, his voice uncertain even to his own ears, his heart thumping in his chest. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to join the campaign. I have a friend whose wife travels with him—not into danger, of course,” he added quickly.

Livie came up on one elbow and leaned toward him. “Whither thou goest,” she whispered, echoing the age-old vow, “I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my—” She spoke the last word into his mouth, because Joshua rolled forward and sank into a kiss so loving and profound that he would remember it for the rest of his life.

One of his hands clasped her rounded hip, and for long minutes they merely kissed. She tasted like honey and love—like the most intoxicating liqueur he’d ever sipped—yet he reined himself in, kissing her over and over until she pulled back.

“What’s next?” Livie breathed, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight, cheeks flushed.

Joshua choked back a laugh. “May I touch you?”

“As you did in our wardrobe?”

“Is it our wardrobe?”

She nodded. “No one else has shared such pleasure in that wardrobe. I’m certain of it.”

Joshua swallowed Livie’s giggle, letting her joy fill him as his hand slid from her waist to her breast, turning the silken fabric of her nightgown into a caress. She gasped when his hand ran over her nipple, so he rubbed his palm in circles over that little nub until a throaty plea broke from her lips.

Thus far she had kept her arms around his neck, but now her hands began flying across his chest as if she were measuring him for a new suit of clothing. She nipped his lip and kissed his chin, raining kisses down his neck.

Joshua relaxed into her gentle push, rolling to his back, giving his body up to her exploration, allowing her to tug off his coat and unbutton his waistcoat. Between them, they pulled the clothing from his upper body, until his unfashionably burly chest was bared to her view. She didn’t seem to mind his muscles. In fact, she sprawled over him, kissing and licking until his heart was pumping ferociously, and air sawed in his lungs. Finally, he swung his legs over the bed, stood up, and stripped off his remaining garments, baring the scars hidden beneath his waistband.

Livie didn’t notice them at first. Her eyes widened as she looked from the arrow of hair on his chest, past his rigid tool, down his thick legs. He was built for a battlefield, not for a ballroom, his battered body no match to the silken, slender elegance of her limbs.

When her eyes returned to his waist, she instantly came to her knees and put her arms around his hips, tenderly kissing the proof of his injuries, with no sign of the repulsion he had imagined fine ladies exhibiting.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked, brushing her fingers over his scars in a caress.

Joshua shook his head. He couldn’t stop looking at her curves, so much more lush than they appeared in docile white muslin. Her hair fell almost to her nipped-in waist, curling in wild abandon over her bare breasts. His blood raged like wildfire in his veins, desire burning in his every fiber, passion racketing down his legs.

Everything he knew of virgins—precious little—suggested that they would be fearful of intimacy. Yet Joshua abruptly decided that very little would frighten his wife-to-be—not uncouth muscles, not scars, and certainly not intimacy. Perhaps Livie had developed fortitude to weather Captain Sir Tyron’s constant reproaches. Year after year, she had faced the worst—daily condemnation from the man who should value her most—and survived, nay, thrived.

A lesser girl would have cowered at the captain’s hectoring letters, not to mention the venomous lectures that he likely delivered in person. That lady would have been forced into a pale imitation of a woman, trembling at the mere idea of breaking social rules, terrified to do more than lisp in the presence of a man.

But Livie had survived years of parental loathing with courage, so much so that she went to a disreputable party—where she told Clod Tyrwhitt to jump, tripped him up, and shouted at him. Livie would sail away to a foreign country at Joshua’s side. When he went into battle, she would wait for his return with fear in her heart, but her back would be straight and her eyes brave.

“Joshua,” she said now, lifting her arms. “Come to me.” Her smile was the sensual smile of a woman who knows the man before her is hers, body and soul.

He came, because he would always come to her. It was his turn to rain kisses down her neck, although he didn’t stop there. He unbuttoned her nightgown, lips following fingers as he unfastened each in sequence, leaving a trail of kisses like footprints in fresh snow. He drew his tongue over the slope of her pale breast and finally closed his lips around her nipple, making her squeak and then sigh with delight.

Soon after, her nightgown was tossed to the floor, and their hands ran over each other’s bodies like water. They kissed wildly, tumbling over one another, taking turns on top or sinking back, weak with longing.

Joshua felt his caresses shifting from tender to rough; with a choked sound he pulled away from Livie just enough to run his hands to her knees and ease her legs apart.