Someone to Love (Westcott #1)(82)

*

It was full daylight. Moreover, it was a bright, sunny day, and her bedchamber faced south. Even after he had drawn the curtains across the window the sunlight was not much muted. There were the daytime sounds of birdsong and a dog barking in the distance and the clopping hooves of a single horse coming through the open window. A voice from far down the street called a cheerful greeting, and another voice answered.

Her bridegroom, her husband, stood before her. He was just looking, making no move to touch her or to kiss her. She wondered if she should step into the dressing room to change into a nightgown. But he had locked the door.

“I believe, my duchess,” he said, “you are perfection. But let me unwrap my gift package and see if I am right.”

As well as startling her, his words puzzled her. Perfection? She was not particularly pretty. She had no figure to speak of. She had refused to dress fashionably. She was neither vivacious nor the possessor of any other obvious charms. Her fortune was of no interest to him. Was it just that she was different from every other woman he had known? Was it just novelty? Would today’s toy be discarded for tomorrow’s when the novelty was gone?

He stepped closer, though not right against her, and reached his arms about her to unpin her dress down the back. His fingers were accustomed to the task, she realized. He did not even have to see what he was doing. When it was unpinned to her hips, he drew it off her shoulders, the backs of his fingers skimming her flesh—coolness against warmth. Her instinct was to raise her hands to hold the bodice in place, but she kept her arms at her sides, and he worked the sleeves downward, pulling eventually at the hems to draw them free of her wrists. He was in no hurry. But once her arms no longer held the dress in place, the whole garment slithered down over her shift and stockings to pool about her feet.

It was difficult to continue breathing evenly through her nose. And it took effort not to lower her eyes, even close them, so that she would not see him standing there, looking at her—not into her face but at her body and her remaining garments, his eyelids half drooped as they usually were, his eyes almost dreamy.

He went down on one knee to remove her slippers and then began to roll down her stockings one at a time and work them off her feet. He stood again and removed her stays and her shift until she was left with nothing behind which to hide her modesty. Not even any jewelry except her wedding ring. The sunlight made a mockery of the curtains and cast a pinkish glow over everything.

He gazed at her, every inch of her. His fingers had scarcely touched her while he undressed her, yet she was convinced that every brush of the backs of his fingers, every graze from a thumb, every rub of a knuckle had been deliberate. She felt touched all over. He was still dressed in the immaculate more-formal-than-usual clothes he had worn for their wedding, even down to the Hessian boots.

“I was quite right.” His eyes were keen now and looking into hers. “You are perfection, my Anna.”

Even his words were deliberate. My duchess. My Anna. Let me unwrap my gift package. Claiming her as his own. You are perfection. Only the very best would do, his words implied. She was not in the habit of deprecating herself, but . . . perfection? And it was of her body he spoke. She did not believe he was much interested in her character at the moment.

“I have the figure of a boy,” she said.

Characteristically, he considered her words before answering. “You cannot have seen many boys,” he said. “You are woman, Anna, from the topmost hair on your head to your toenails.”

Her stomach lurched. Woman, he had said—not a woman. Somehow there was a difference.

He touched her then, with his fingertips, with the flats of his fingers, the backs of his fingers, the heels of his palms, his knuckles, his whole hand. Light, feathering touches. Over her shoulders and down her arms, over the backs of her hands. Downward from her shoulders, through the cleft between her breasts, around beneath them, over, through again, down her sides to her waist, over her hips to the tops of her legs. Up behind her, along her spine, around her shoulder blades. Caressing her, learning her, claiming her. Downward with just one hand this time over one breast, past her ribs, over the flat of her stomach and down until the back of his hand rested lightly on the mound of hair at the apex of her thighs.

She wondered if he knew what even such light touches were doing to her and thought that yes, of course he did. Of course he did. She suspected he knew everything there was to know about . . . What was the word? Dalliance? Making love? She could almost hear her heartbeat. She could certainly feel it. There was a strange ache and a heavy throbbing within, just behind where his hand was. It was harder to breathe evenly without panting. She wondered if she should be doing something. But no. He was orchestrating this, and somehow he had issued the unspoken command that she stand still and relax.

He was dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, she thought, this small, slight, golden man.

Her husband.

His eyes had moved above the level of her own and he took his hands off her. “Tell me, Anna,” he said, “was it Bertha’s idea to put such great stress upon the roots of your hair this afternoon, or was it yours? And do not slander your maid. I have fond memories of my one encounter with her.” His eyes were on hers again.

“I . . . almost panicked when I retired to my dressing room after luncheon,” she admitted. “I thought—what have I done? I wanted to hide. I wanted myself back. I—”