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He raised up, balancing himself on one massive arm, reached down with his free hand, and—oh. Oh, oh—he touched the place again where she was most sensitive, and a rush of feeling came over her, warm and shivery and yearning; as his fingers played, she reached for she knew not what, her entire body was restless and wanting and she didn’t know, she didn’t know what to do—
Had she said that aloud? For he had left off reciting a series of foreign-sounding names and said, “Let me, let it, here, I can—” and then did something with two fingers and his thumb, and she keened and lifted her hips and wound her legs around his hips. He paused in his stroking, and someone growled,shegrowled and pushed herself into his hand. He groaned and moved within her with greater force; her fingers wound themselves in his hair, and his whole hand engaged in stroking her, and then, and then—
A moment, a pause; Beatrice looked into his eyes, his brown eyes full of purpose and pleading, and her back bowed, and she shuddered and gasped and pulled his hair. Osborn growled and thrust with force, once, twice, and an unexpected heat blossomed within. She gasped and clung and buried her face in his neck even as he clutched her close to his chest like she was precious, like he could not bear to let go.
***
Arthur wanted to hold her tight. He wanted to slide down her body and rest his head on her bosom, a significant portion of her anatomy he had not even addressed. He wanted to roll over onto his back and cradle her to his chest and stroke her as she came down from her release. He wanted to kiss her so very much; he was parched, and her mouth was an oasis in the desert.
Instead, she stiffened beneath him, and he rose. She turned away when he pulled the covers over her and sought out the pitcher and soap. He gave himself a cursory wash and returned with a cloth to find she had not budged. “Madam, I would inquire as to your state of being.”
“I am well.” She pulled a pillow over her face.
He nudged her shoulder with the cloth. She squeaked and took it, reached beneath the covers, and in due course reluctantly handed it back. She drew the covers over her head and thus missed his grin. Tossing the cloth in the direction of the hearthstone, he insinuated himself back under the covers.
“Is this necessary?” Madam muttered and rolled to her side.
“Oh, it is.” Or so he had decided at that moment. “No child will come if the bed does not contain its father and mother.”
She pulled the cover down and glared at him over her shoulder. He shrugged as if it was outside his power to deem otherwise. Her back fully presented to him, she wrestled with the blanket until settling. Her hair streamed over the pillow, a wild tangle of gold he’d only seen in Renaissance paintings or plays. The latter of course were wigs, and Madam’s was assuredly not. He reached out and snagged a finger on a tress. One led to another and… “May I?” She humphed and sighed and nodded; he set to unraveling the rest of her plait.
He drew out one length after the next. “How have you been hiding this in that little bunch on the top of your head? Women’s fashions. I do not know whom they exist to please. Not the males of the species, I can assure you. Though did you go about with this abundance on display you would cause a melee. So it is the fault of males’ inability to behave with decorum that you must hide this in plain sight.” He gently combed his fingers through it, from her scalp to the ends. He did it again. And again. “Were youverispellis, I would think you a lion. Although that would mark you as male, so therefore, no. There is one in residence at—which is not for me to say. Only see how you make me forget myself, Madam.”
He nuzzled the crown of her head. “I hope you do not suffer any discomfort at this moment?” She shook her head and shrugged; he tucked himself closer to her side. “Here, here, allow me,” and he stroked a hand from the back of her neck to a shoulder, then around to the other, back and forth, and slipped his fingers underneath the top of her night rail. “Gods, your skin. Had you not had this on during…during, I would have disported myself like a green lad. I shudder to think your reaction had I done so. I suppose I would have earned rather a set-down. But you have been setting me down from the start, have you not, Madam? From the moment you sat in my carriage, beribboned and combative, like a salty little cake. I refer to you as such when I am cross with you. Salty little cake. Sometimes with claws.”
Arthur ran his palm down her arm and took her hand. “How rough your palms are becoming. I fear this will result in further demerits to my account. The maids will have some concoction or other, or Ben, as to that. Have I told you the story of what my father did when he discovered his second son was little better than an apothecary? Do not say I have not, as I know I have told you little.” He yawned. “Our father did nothing. And by that I mean he did nothing to shame my brother nor to belittle his skills or talents. He merely asked him to devise a stronger tea, as he preferred his brew to be more robust than what was then on offer.” Arthur rubbed his eyes. From tiredness, not tears, no.
“I do not imagine myself as a father, but should you give me a child, I would seek to be even half the one he was and call it good.” He rubbed his face into the pillow for no other reason than to fend off the possibility of a future itch. “My father, had he the opportunity to lay eyes upon you, Madam, would have taken your guise of Lady Frost as a personal challenge and had you in stitches, likely at my expense, before the clock had turned an hour. And my mother…” Face back in the pillow, a breath. “Mum would have abducted you for a day of who knew what class of feminine mysteries, as she used to do with Charlotte and the other females of the sleuth. Oh, Odin be damned. I am a bear. I am a bear, Madam, and I would not have you fear me.
“I do not believe you have ever been so reticent—ah.” For of course Madam was asleep. Thank Thor, she had not heard a word of his melancholy rambling. Nor had she heard him admit to his essential self. Just as well. This was neither the time nor the place for that revelation. With one last stroke of her arm, one last tug on her hair, he slipped out of the bed, gathered up his clothes, and headed into the night.
Twelve
Beatrice woke, light as air. It was a marked difference to any other waking she had ever experienced in her whole life. She woke, and the first thing on her mind was not her schedule of daily tasks. She woke alone and yet… She lifted the blanket and sniffed it, and it was as if Osborn had embedded himself in the fabric, a scent as brisk as midwinter wind and freshly turned earth and gingery biscuits. Was this what he referred to—was this his personal scent? It filled her up, that wind and earth and spice, like the very air in her lungs.
Was that why she was so light? She felt like one of Mr. Graham’s hot-air balloons. She imagined herself floating over Vauxhall Gardens and giggled. And then felt an utter fool for giggling. They were not young lovers at long last enjoying their wedding night. It had been very strange and not what she’d expected. Osborn had been cautious and gentle and appeared to be overcome toward the end as if it were not perfunctory, that bedding her was not an enormous sacrifice on his part.
She cuddled her face in the pillow imbued with the manly scents he used in his hair and on his body. He had been rather sweet, like the vaunted honey he suggested she employ. Playing with her hair, bringing the cloth…asking permission before each touch as if her preferences were of importance. And his—his member was rather an eye-opener, though she had not looked at it. She felt it, without doubt, and it was much, much larger than her previous experience had led her to expect. He didn’t—he was very—he was both masterful yet gentle with it? Oh dear, as though he was being very careful because she deserved care.
“Do not be ridiculous, Beatrice,” she rebuked herself. “He is a gentleman, no matter his shoddy manners. He does not care. It was without any romantic feeling you may wish to attach to it.” She dragged the sheets and blanket and wrapped them tight around her, as if the evidence of what they had done could be infused into her skin, to keep safe to think upon later.
At the scratch on the door and the sound of the turning knob, she leaped from the mattress to tear the coverings off the bed. If there was any evidence of her innocence, for surely that little pinch of pain was proof she had been untouched in the most crucial way, she would prefer the entire household be none the wiser. She would launder the linen herself, and no one would know they had lain together.
She bundled them as quickly as she could, for what use it was. Glynis’s eyes widened as she shuffled over with the morning’s cup of tepid tea. She set it on the dressing table and reached for the sheets Beatrice clutched to her chest. A slight tussle ensued, and Glynis’s heretofore unproven strength exerted itself as she removed the linens from Beatrice’s grasp with little effort. “There’s fresh sheets in the laundry. I’ll be back in a trice.” She giggled as she left.
Beatrice took refuge behind the screen and cleaned herself as dreamily as a milkmaid who dwelled on the attributes of her lover. Her languid movements stopped.
Osborn was not her lover. He was her husband, and with any luck, thanks to one of those gods he was forever invoking, he would be the father of their child. Her child. The child they made while making—
While doing their marital duties.
They had not made love.
This was a means to an end.
This was not love.
***
