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Considering the rather full day she'd had it was no surprise that almost as soon as Irene closed her eyes, sleep sucked her under.
Rather bemused at the intensity of their love-making and Irene's reaction to it, Hugh lay stroking his new wife's hair as she slept. She felt so small and sweet next to him and her hidden passion was everything he could have hoped for and more. From talk in the clubs he knew that a wedding night was not always a great experience, not just for the lady but for the gentleman as well. He was relieved not to have had to suffer through pleas, tears or any kind of resistance. Indeed, Irene had rather melted into his arms and now she was curled so trustingly within them that it made his heart ache. He smiled happily, secure in the knowledge that he'd married a woman more like his mother than his sister.
Yes, he could quite easily fall in love with his new wife.
*******
When Irene woke in the middle of the night it took her a moment to orient herself. She was almost frightened for a moment, realizing immediately that she wasn’t in her own bed, before she remembered that she was in Hugh's - their - bedroom. Because she was a wife. A woman.
As evidenced by the slight dampness that remained between her legs and the soreness of her muscles as she moved. Muscles that she hadn't even known existed until now.
But it had felt wonderful, she thought with a touch of awe, turning onto her side and cuddling a pillow to her chest. Hugh was not in bed with her and she dimly remembered him kissing her forehead and telling her to keep sleeping. A little smile wreathed her face at the memory of his affection although she wistfully thought that she might have preferred him to stay in bed with her.
How strange to know that yesterday she had been a bride and today she was a wife.
A sudden chill shot through her spine.
Not just a wife. Hugh's wife. She was Viscountess Petersham, not Lady Brooke as she'd always dreamed of being. For a moment she felt completely disoriented, as if she'd stepped into a dream world that had completely turned her world on its head.
Horrified, she realized that last night she had not only forgotten her determination to learn about the marriage act in order to please Alex, she had forgotten about Alex himself. Not once had she thought about him once she'd entered the room and faced Hugh. Not once had he appeared in her thoughts.
Perhaps that was only right as she shouldn't be thinking of another man while making love with her husband... but she didn't actually love her husband. How could she have forgotten that last night? How could she have found such pleasure in the act with him, rather than the pain and indignities that her mother had spoken of, when she was in love with another man?
And she'd woken up so happy, without a thought of Alex in her mind at all.
Sitting straight up in the bed, Irene stared down at her body as though it belonged to someone else, her heart thudding wildly in complete confusion.
What had Hugh done to her?
The soft noise beside her reminded her that she wasn’t alone. There wasn’t enough light in the room for her to see Hugh, although when she tried to look at him she had a dim impression of golden hair and the outline of his profile. Biting her lip, she reached out and touched him. His skin was hot. Soft. It reminded her of how it had felt to have him on top of her, their skin rubbing against each other.
Sighing she laid back down on her back and tried to sort through her conflicting emotions. Hugh shifted and cuddled her closer, murmuring nonsensical nothings in his sleep as he curled around her. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long for her to nestle into him, her nose rubbing up aga
inst his chest hair, and fall asleep.
Chapter 6
Waking up next to his wife was even better than Hugh had ever expected. Irene was soft and sweet in his arms, snuggled up with her bottom pressing against his groin, the filmy material of her nightgown bunched up around her waist, strands of her red hair tickling his face. Her response to him on their wedding night had been innocently passionate, something that he had found incredibly arousing.
Indeed, he was already lustfully hard, his cock wedged between the ample mounds of her buttocks, hard and aching to be firmly planted inside of her. He congratulated himself on securing her agreement to a single bedchamber. It was not the norm within the ton, but he'd always enjoyed having a woman beside him when he awoke in the morning, and to him having a wife just meant that he would always enjoy that benefit.
And what a wonderful woman he'd chosen to wake beside every morning.
Rocking his hips slightly, Hugh moaned a little as he slid his hand up her smooth stomach to cup a breast. He'd been so amused by her insistence that she keep her nightrail on last night; it had been another token of her innocence, as well as adding a kind of illicit thrill to the proceedings. One which was returning as he fondled her in her sleep, feeling her stir against him, her breath stuttering out as he squeezed her soft flesh.
With a grin on his face, Hugh decided to awaken his bride.
******
When Irene had fallen asleep after waking for the first time she had been rather troubled, unsure of what to do as Hugh had curled beside her, taking her into his arms. In many ways she felt as if her body had betrayed her - not just her body but her mind. She couldn't help but feel a certain tenderness towards Hugh, although she told herself that was only natural now that they were man and wife.
The relentless turmoil of her thoughts had kept her up far past the time when Hugh had fallen asleep beside her. It was strange to sleep in the same bad as another person, especially a man and she had found herself almost wishing that there was light enough to see him by so that she might examine him more closely. Curiosity had always been one of her besetting sins. She had to wonder, would Alex look the same? Would he touch her in the same way? Bring her to the same kind of pleasure? And of course she was still rather confused about the marital act - making love - itself. It was so unlike what her mother had described.
Eventually she had fallen into a troubled sleep that had become quite deep by the time that Hugh awoke. She was completely unaware of her nightrail being pulled up to expose her breasts, of her husband's low groan at the unobscured sight of her strawberry nipples, although her body felt and responded to his mouth as he sucked one hardening bud between his lips. The dream she had been having about wandering through a maze abruptly shifted as a nameless man was suddenly fondling her intimately, bearing her down to the grassy floor of the maze.
Alex, she tried to say, thinking that it must be him.
Her body caught on fire in a way that she had never associated with him before and she gasped in shock as her legs were pressed apart. Lips suckled at her breast, fingers plucking at her free nipple as she moaned and writhed, eager for the explosive climax that she had only recently discovered.
