To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(72)

At this point in the proceedings, she stiffened. He, being a wiser man than he’d been the day before, stilled his hand immediately. He looked into her eyes and said simply, “Show me.”

“The trick,” she said, as one of her hands slid around his wrist and moved his fingers slightly upward, “is to listen to the lady’s breathing.” Her own breaths came more quickly a moment later as he resumed his movements in this slightly adjusted location. “You have to pay attention to these cues, because most ladies won’t feel comfortable telling you if you’re doing something they dislike. We’ve been taught all our lives that what happens in the bedchamber is something to be tolerated at best, so there’s no expectation among many ladies that they should receive any pleasure from the act.”

His hand stilled for a moment as he processed this information. “But surely the sorts of women I—” He broke off with an embarrassed cough; somehow, he did not think that discussing previous conquests while naked with his hand between a lady’s legs was terribly good form.

Diana, however, in her typical fashion, was undeterred. “Yes, even some of those sorts of women,” she said. “Ones who’ve indulged in their fair share of liaisons—many of them expect to enjoy the proceedings, I’m sure, but some doubtless do it for the power, or the material advantages their lover can grant them; they don’t necessarily count on enjoying the physical aspect of the relationship.”

“Have you been interviewing widows and actresses, then?” he asked, quirking a brow at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be absurd.” There was a flash of impatience across her face, and a slow roll of her hips that he thought might have been unintentional. “Weren’t you in the middle of a task? I do apologize for interrupting you.”

He leaned forward, even as his hand resumed its previous activities.

“What are you doing?” she breathed against his lips, her voice a bit ragged.

“Listening to your breathing, of course,” he said, capturing her mouth in a long, slow kiss—one that she eventually broke with a moan as he brought his previously underutilized thumb into the proceedings.

“Harder,” she said into his ear, locking her arms around his neck. He obliged. “Harder,” she said again, moving her hips restlessly against his hand.

“Truly?” he asked, a bit surprised.

“Do I seem likely to lie to you at this particular moment?” she asked breathlessly, a note of frustration in her voice.

Acknowledging the soundness of her logic, he redoubled his efforts, and after some indeterminate period of time—seconds? Minutes? He’d utterly lost the ability to judge anything with any degree of accuracy—she broke against him with a last, long moan. Her arms were still locked around his neck in a grip that was rapidly becoming uncomfortable; he was still painfully stiff against her hip; and yet the look of contented bliss upon her face was such a revelation that his bodily concerns faded into nothing.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and quirked her mouth in a lopsided smile. “Full marks.”

He grinned back at her helplessly like a lovestruck boy. “I must confess that while I refuse to believe that all of my previous paramours were as dissatisfied as the most recent lady, I don’t know that I’ve ever inspired quite such an enthusiastic reaction before.”

She unwound her arms from his neck and patted him fondly on the shoulder. “You just weren’t paying close enough attention. Now you’ll know.”

That remark had the effect of cold water dumped atop his head.

Now you’ll know. For future lovers, at some future date when he and Diana were no longer anything to one another other than verbal sparring partners at dull balls. The prospect should not have been so unsettling—it was nothing more than what they had agreed to—and yet so distracted was he by it, and so disturbed was he by his reaction to it, that he must have given some outward sign of his thoughts.

“What is it?” Diana asked, drawing back from him slightly. He rolled over onto his back, tucking one arm behind his head while the other lay at his side. Diana—still gloriously, distractingly naked—wormed her way into the cushion of space between that arm and his body like a particularly determined mole, and rested her head on his shoulder. His arm came around her to toy with the loose strands of her shining hair, slightly sweat-dampened from her—his, really—exertions.

“I was just thinking about what you told me before, about your marriage,” he said, which was not entirely true, but he did not at all fancy the idea of confessing his maudlin thoughts to her, when he had no doubt she would laugh them off—or, worse, treat him with pity of all things, as she gently reminded him that he was nothing more than a convenient warm body. However, he was sure that his thoughts would have returned to this subject before too long, so it was not so much of a lie as to make it difficult to pass off as truth.

“What about it?” she asked, a definite note of caution in her voice. He wondered if she regretted telling him already, and the thought that she might was unexpectedly painful.

“What you said about Templeton’s death giving you freedom,” he said, speaking more carefully than he was accustomed to doing. It turned out speaking as oneself, rather than while wearing a hollow mask of revelry, required a bit more thought. “Do you never intend to remarry, then?”