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She smiled at him over her shoulder. “But I have so many questions, my lord.”
“I’ve already bade you call me Nick.” He grasped her hips and pulled her flush against his cock. “Don’t disobey me again.”
She rested her back against his chest, and her rounded bum fit him so perfectly it made his heart gallop and his mouth dry.
“I think I made it quite clear that I wouldn’t be obeying you, Lord Hatherly.”
“You’ll call me Nick tonight,” he whispered, low and hot in her ear. “You’ll moan my name. Again and again.”
He was always in control in the bedchamber. He decided when the bedding would occur. Better to let her imagination run free for now. He wanted her to be as ready as he was to engage in, what had she so quaintly termed it? “The art of sexual congress.”
And so, even though his fingers wanted to slide inside her gaping gown and tease her rosebud nipples until her cheeks flushed a matching pink, he made his escape.
He left swiftly, without a backward glance to see what the inquisitive temptress he’d married was doing now, and he didn’t stop walking until he reached Gertrude’s enclosure, against the far wall of the gardens.
Pigeon, his gardener, was there already, working on repairing the hole.
“How did she escape?” Nick asked.
“Gnawed her way through the wood with those gummy stumps of ’ers. Think she was hungry. I’ll increase her feed portion.”
Wordlessly, Nick fell into rhythm with Pigeon, hoisting boards and nailing them into place.
The sudden squall was completely gone and the day had turned fine. As they worked, Nick shed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“Pretty bride you have there. Caught a glimpse of her as she arrived. Why aren’t you inside, you know...” Pigeon hammered a nail into wood with a suggestive chuckle.
“She’s an innocent, Pigeon. I have to take things slowly. Don’t want to frighten her.”
Innocent, curious Alice required candlelight, rose petals, and French champagne.
She deserved proper wooing.
He didn’t want to think too much about how good it had felt when she thanked him with a wide, delighted smile for preparing her study. Or how patiently she’d listened to the duke’s mumblings.
Nick worked faster, grazing the edge of his thumb with the heavy hammer. The pain cleared some of the haze from his brain.
He couldn’t run about liking his wife. What good would that do him when she left? This was a fascination forged from desire.
Keep everything surface and superficial.
A nice, mutually pleasurable melding of bodies, followed by her father settling all his debts. Adhere to the terms of the agreement, and life would return to normalcy in four short weeks.
Alice sank into a chair, her knees suddenly too wobbly to support her anymore.
“Nick,” she spoke aloud, tasting the short, punchy name on her tongue.
He’d told her she would moan his name tonight. But a nick was what happened when you sliced your finger while peeling potatoes. Her mother had insisted upon Alice learning the rudiments of cookery, in order to ascertain the quality of her cook’s meals.
Alice knew what a nick was.
It was a warning. Stop now... or you might draw blood.
Charlene had warned her of the danger.
He did make Alice breathless; she was woman enough to admit it. But that wouldn’t matter in the slightest when there were oceans between them. They had only a few weeks in the same house, after all. She wouldn’t be foolish enough to let him hurt her.
Alice wriggled out of her wedding gown and kicked it aside.
