Marquesses at the Masquerade(120)

“If I’m to look ravished,” Lucy said, “hadn’t you ought to look ravished as well?”

“Valid point.” He took Lucy in his arms, and for the few miles they had to travel before breaking their journey, she did her best to kiss, caress, and tease him into a nearly ravished state. When they alighted from the coach in the estate’s forecourt, Tyne’s cravat sported two entire wrinkles, his hair was a trifle mussed, and he was missing one glove.

Nonetheless, he was every inch the polite guest when he addressed the housekeeper.

“Her ladyship and I will take dinner in the library after we change out of our wedding attire. We will ring for assistance if we require it.”

The housekeeper beamed at them, Lucy beamed back. Tyne had prevailed on the Marquess of Boxhaven for use of one of his rural properties to break their journey. The marquess, the same fellow who’d hosted the masquerade ball, had cordially obliged.

“I’m not used to being a ladyship,” she said, taking Tyne’s arm as they ascended a curving staircase. “I’m not used to being a mama, not used to being a wife.”

Tyne knew where he was going, for he’d visited Boxhaven at this property in years past. “We will learn together, my dear. I have been a husband before, but I haven’t been your husband. Nobody would call me a quick study, though I’m diligent and motivated to excel in my new role. I’m also motivated to get all that damned frippery off of you.”

“Language, my lord.”

He bowed her through a doorway to an elegant parlor that adjoined a sizable bedroom. A bed of enormous proportions sat under green velvet hangings, and trays holding tea and sandwiches were on the sideboard.

“Right now,” Tyne said, “I am entirely yours, and not a lord at all. Would you think me very forward if I suggested we put that bed to use in the near future?”

How polite. How aggravatingly self-disciplined. “I’d think you completely backward if you so much as reached for a sandwich, when all I want is to reach for you.”

Tyne came to her, wrapped his arms around her, and all the kissing and teasing in the coach was so much dithering compared to the passion he unleashed on Lucy. His embrace was possessive rather than polite—as was hers. His kisses were plundering, his patience with her clothing nonexistent. He growled—Darien, Lord Tyne—growled—and buttons hit the carpet. Fabric tore, and Lucy tossed his beautiful morning coat in the general direction of a chair.

“We must—” He tried to step back, but Lucy was having none of that. “We must repair to neutral corners.”

Like pugilists. “You must undo my buttons.” Lucy swept her hair off of her nape and gave him her back.

“I have grown to loathe buttons.” Nonetheless, his fingers were swift and competent, and he was equally proficient with her stays. He insisted on removing her shoes, kneeling before her, but Lucy insisted on undressing him too.

She took her time with his sleeve buttons, his cravat, his watch, all the trappings of the lord that covered up the reality of the man: fit, muscular, and endlessly desirable. When she had him down to his breeches, he tugged on her braid to draw her near.

“If you touch me even once more, I will have you on your back on the rug, Lady Tyne.”

She pressed her hand over his heart, loving the slow tattoo beneath her palm. “Do you promise?”

Ah, that smile. The Viking smile that assured her, yes, he promised. He promised to love her thoroughly and often, to make all the waiting worth the wonder to follow.

“I have married a goddess,” he said, scooping her into his arms and striding into the bedroom. “May I be worthy of that honor.”

Oh, to be plundered by a god who knew how to wield his hammer. Tyne gently set Lucy on the bed, stepped out of his breeches, and settled over her without once taking his gaze from her.

She wiggled beneath him, wrapping her legs around him. “My shift?”

“Is the only thing holding my dignity together,” Tyne replied, kissing down the side of Lucy’s face, from her temple, to her cheek, to her neck. “Though that won’t last long. I’ll make it up to you, Lucy. For the next three decades, I’ll make it up to you if you’ll excuse my haste on our wedding day.”

She did not excuse his haste. She abetted it, with slow caresses and long kisses, with wandering hands and well-aimed shifts of her hips. When Tyne had eased inside of her, and Lucy was nearly weeping with frustrated desire, he stilled.

“I have dreamed…” he whispered. “I have longed for this moment with you.”

“For all the moments,” Lucy replied. “To hold you as physically close as I hold your love in my heart.” He’d been right to have the banns cried, right to give her weeks to anticipate this joy, but she’d have to tell him that later, for he’d begun to move.

His loving was relentlessly controlled, his tempo escalating by maddeningly deliberate degrees, no matter how Lucy urged him on. She surrendered to his superior command of strategy—for now—and nigh unbearable pleasure was her reward. When she was drifting down from torrents of marital bliss, Tyne let go of his ferocious self-restraint, and the pleasure cascaded through her again.

They were both panting when he eventually stilled over her. The covers had been kicked halfway off the bed, and Lucy’s shift was hanging from one corner of the cheval mirror.