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‘Was there a child?’ Ashe struggled to understand, to read the messages her voice, her rigid body, were sending him. He tried to take her hands, but she batted his away.
> ‘No, thank God.’
And then he realised. ‘Phyllida. Were you unwilling? Mere jaan.’ My darling. He caught her in his arms, held on to her despite her attempts to twist free, cradled her against his chest until she stilled and let her head rest against his breast. ‘Sahji, jaani.’ He murmured the love-words as he stroked her hair. ‘Tell me who it is and I will bring you his heart and his manhood on a platter.’
‘It was a long time ago. When I was seventeen,’ she said, her voice so low he could hardly make out the words.
Worse and worse, if anything could make it so. So young, so innocent.
Phyllida straightened. ‘Let me go, please. I…’ He opened his arms and she sat down again, her hands tightly clasped. ‘You sit down too, Ashe. I told you because you had a right to know and because I do not think I can make love, not without it all coming back, not without panicking. I am sorry I let you believe that was what I asked you here for tonight.’
He sought for the words to say this right. ‘When I kiss you, you respond, Phyllida. In the carriage, when I caressed your breast, that was not feigned, the fire I felt in you. When that man attacked you, hurt you, it would have been nothing like making love with someone who cares for you.’
‘I don’t… I cannot marry you, not knowing if I can bear that part of it. I should have told you at once, when you proposed this marriage.’
‘You did not know me very well. Now, I think, you trust me rather more.’ It was not a question, but she nodded. ‘You know I would never force you, Phyllida.’ That time he did want a response and steeled himself for her hesitation. He had been a rogue, to put it at its lowest. He had done his best to persuade her into his bed, despite her reluctance. Then it had almost been a game, now he was not certain he could forgive himself.
‘Of course I know.’ She seemed startled that he had to ask and, as she looked at him, her unhappy face softened into a smile of such tenderness that his heart melted. ‘But it might come to that, or not have children.’
Ashe got up and walked to the window, needing to move while he absorbed that realisation. An heir. The son to whom he would hand the estate that would be saved from decline, the title he would one day hold. The daughters, the other sons. He had never given them any thought, except in the abstract. Suddenly they were tangible, ghost children who might never become real.
‘Then I will abandon persuasion for seduction,’ he said. ‘We know I can kiss you, hold you, even caress you a little and you are not afraid. It was a terrible wound, but it was not fatal—you will heal with the right medicine. We will take all the time it needs and you will be in control.’ He knew he sounded confident. Inside he was unsure, but determined. He had committed himself to this woman and he was not going to abandon her now. Ashe walked back and hunkered down in front of her, took her hands. ‘Will you think about it?’
‘I will not marry you unless…’ She took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘I have never been with any other man, you understand, so I do not know if I would be able to make love. I might be creating a problem that does not exist.’
‘No one would be unaffected by such cruelty,’ Ashe said. ‘But if you learn that making love has nothing to do with what happened, then I believe you will be able to separate the two.’
She nodded. ‘I did not expect you to be so understanding. I did not know how to tell you, although I knew I had to.’
This was what had been behind the ambiguity he had sensed in her agreement to marry him. She had not decided if she could tell him of this and, being a woman of honour, would not marry him unless she did.
Phyllida leaned forwards and linked her hands behind his neck. ‘Shall we try? Make love to me, Ashe.’
He did not answer, simply letting her pull him closer until he could caress her mouth with his, gently, deeply, increasing the demands of his tongue as she began to melt against him. He pushed just a little ahead of her tentative responses until he felt her relax entirely, begin to tease him a little with nips and sucks and the wandering caresses of her fingers at his nape.
Ashe eased back and unbuttoned his coat, let it fall to the ground, then took her in his arms again and kissed her while his fingers dealt with the fastenings at the front of her tight jacket. She did not resist when he slid it from her shoulders to reveal the swell of her bosom above the constriction of the choli, so he kissed across the creamy skin while his fingers caressed her bare midriff.
If she would relax a little he could ease her back on to the daybed, but there was still a tension in her that warned him that might be a step too far. How could he reassure her?
He lay down himself, on his back, and smiled up at her. After a moment she gave a little nod, as though she understood, and bent to kiss him. She was endearingly clumsy, he thought, then realised with a shock when she changed the angle of her mouth and her position on the bed that his reaction was, to put it mildly, patronising. She was thinking too hard, but she was working out what pleased her and, he realised as he fisted his hands in the covers to stop himself grabbing her, she was working out what pleased him at the same time.
Her hand brushed his right nipple, almost certainly by accident, but he was so tense that the sensation shook a groan out of him.
‘Ashe?’ Phyllida’s eyes were wide and dark in the candlelight. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No,’ he lied. This was exquisite torture.
‘Don’t you want to get on top of me?’ she worried.
Yes. ‘No,’ he lied again. He could hear the fear threading through her voice. That bastard would have thrown her down, crushed her with his weight, trapped her. Somehow he had to let her feel in control, as if she could escape at any moment.
‘Do you like it when I do this?’ He cupped her breasts boldly, let his thumbs find the nipples tight under the silk.
‘Oh, yes.’ Her lids drooped, her lips parted in a sensual sigh that had his already-hard body almost arching off the bed. He found the ties at the waist of her skirt and loosened them until he could slip his fingers down over the curve of her belly. The delicate skin shivered and twitched to his touch, but she did not fight him. ‘Ashe, I… ache.’
‘Good.’ He tugged gently to bring her down to lie beside him and buried his face in the angle of her neck, filled his senses with jasmine and the betraying scent of her arousal. Slowly, he told himself. So slowly. ‘Will you let me pleasure you?’
‘How?’ She stiffened, curled away from him. ‘You won’t—’
