The Baronet's Bride (Midnight Quill #1.5)(8)

After a moment, Gareth drew back. His hand on her hip didn’t pull her towards him; it pushed her away from him. “I’m sorry, Cecy, this isn’t going to work.”

She glanced down at his lap. His nightshirt still wasn’t tenting.

Gareth caught her glance. He’d been tense before; now he became tenser. Color rose in his face, and there was more than embarrassment in that flush; there was shame.

“It’s all right,” Cecy told him. “I don’t mind. Honestly.”

Gareth’s mouth tightened and his gaze turned away from hers and he patently didn’t believe her. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and he sounded bitter and defeated. “I wanted it to be good for you.”

“It was good,” Cecy assured him hastily. “I like kissing you.”

“Not the kissing. The rest.”

“The rest?”

“You know.” He gestured to his groin. “I wanted you to enjoy it.” The note of bitterness was stronger in his voice and the shame even more evident on his face: that tight mouth, that averted gaze.

“But women don’t enjoy physical congress.”

His gaze jerked to her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Women don’t enjoy physical congress,” Cecy repeated, surprised that he didn’t know this truth. “Only men do.”





Chapter Five





Gareth stared at his wife in disbelief. Not the dreadful, nauseating disbelief of waking up in a sickbed and discovering that he no longer had two arms, but something milder, like an unexpected slap across the face. Mild or not, it left him speechless for several seconds. He found his tongue, and said, “Women don’t enjoy physical congress? Who told you that?”

“No one,” Cecily said. “I learned it for myself.”

“But . . .” Gareth said, and then he closed his mouth and thought back to what she’d said earlier: that she and her first husband had only had sex five times. “How old were you and—” What was his name? “—Frederick when you married?”

“I was sixteen, Frederick was nineteen.”

“That’s . . . young.” Younger than he’d realized. Dear God, the pair of them had been little more than children.

“My great-aunt knew she was dying,” Cecily said, matter-of-factly. “She was worried what would happen to me when she was gone, and Frederick was worried, too. He had very little money—he was only an apprentice—but we agreed that marriage was better than the alternatives, so my great-aunt gave permission and we were married.”

Gareth nodded, and thought about those alternatives—going into service, going into the poorhouse—and was glad that Cecily had had people to worry about her. He felt a twinge of regret for the unknown Frederick, doing his best to protect her, and failing only because he’d died.

He wondered how to phrase his next question. There really was no way of asking tactfully, so he went with bluntness: “Cecy . . . do you know whether Frederick had ever lain with a woman before?”

She shook her head. “He hadn’t. He told me. He was a little nervous about it.”

Nervous? Yes, Gareth could well imagine that Frederick had been nervous. He felt sympathy for the man. Boy, he corrected himself. Frederick had been little more than a boy. Nineteen, and a virgin.

He imagined the pair of them on their wedding night, awkward and inexperienced, fumbling their way through an act that neither of them knew anything about. It could have been magical, marvelous, but clearly it hadn’t been, because Cecily thought that women didn’t enjoy sex.

Gareth grimaced inwardly, but perhaps he didn’t hide it as well as he’d thought, because Cecily tilted her head slightly and a tiny crease formed on her brow. “What?”

Gareth wrinkled his own brow while he considered how to answer that simple question. He decided to go with bluntness again. “Physical congress is often pleasurable for women. In fact, where there’s mutual attraction and a certain level of proficiency, I’d go so far as to say it should always be pleasurable.” Although he’d completely failed to prove that tonight, hadn’t he? “Almost always,” he amended, and then he paused and said, very gently, “If your marriage had lasted longer, if you and Frederick had become more skilled at congress, you probably would have discovered that for yourself.”

Cecily bit her lip. She looked as if she didn’t quite believe him. And if she’d never experienced fulfilling sex, why should she believe him?

In that moment, Gareth realized that it was possible to salvage something from this disaster of a wedding night—and there was no denying that it was a disaster, far worse than anything he’d imagined—but even if he wasn’t able to perform tonight, he could at least give Cecily something she’d never had before.

Determination took hold of him. Not just I can do this, but a fierce I will do this. He was not leaving this bedroom until Cecily had experienced sexual pleasure.

Although, given that he had only one arm, it might take a little creativity.

Gareth sat for a moment amid the litter of pillows and thought, and then he took a deep breath. “Cecy, I’d like to show you something.”

She glanced at his groin, where his cock lay quiescent beneath the nightshirt.