The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(56)
It was Marcus who finally broke the kiss. He spoke huskily into her hair, his hand caressing over her nape exposed by the low-cut gown. ‘Thank heavens you are still of the same mind. I thought you had grown cold towards me this past week. But that, my darling Marissa, was not cold.’
She shivered against him as he bent and began to feather soft kisses down the slope of her shoulder, his progress impeded only by the cap of her sleeve. His right hand slipped from her other shoulder and grazed subtly down the curve of her breast to stroke her peaked nipple through the silk of her gown. Marissa gasped and arched towards him. Encouraged, his fingers explored further under the fabric, both the silk and the fine cambric of her shift beneath.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said against her neck. ‘Ever since that night by the sea I have been haunted by the memory of your perfect white body in the moonlight, of the way you opened to me on the beach.’ His voice was not quite steady, his breathing ragged. ‘I cannot wait until our wedding night, when we can finally find each other.’
Marissa was suddenly chilled by the thought of that wedding night, of the pain and recrimination that would surely follow.
‘Marissa!’ It was Jane’s voice, approaching from the direction of the drawing room. ‘Marissa, my dear, are you out here? You will catch your death of cold.’
Marcus seized her hand and pushed through the door of the gazebo which stood at the end of the terrace, closing it swiftly behind them. They stood entwined in the wood-scented gloom until they saw Jane pass by the cobwebbed window and vanish around the corner of the house.
‘Now, where were we?’ Marcus murmured, bending once more, catching her around the waist and imprisoning her in his embrace.
‘No, Marcus, stop,’ Marissa protested shakily. ‘I must go in. Jane will be worried about me. And we should not be doing this.’
‘Why not?’ he said, his voice muffled as he nibbled delicately at her earlobe. ‘I fully intend doing this – and more – all the time when you are my wife.’
‘Oh, yes… I mean, no, stop it. You make it so difficult,’ she added weakly, pushing him away.
‘You are right. The wooden floor of a gazebo is hardly the right place for the first time – any more than a sandy beach was.’ He opened the door for her to slip through adding, as she turned to run along the terrace, ‘But do not make me wait too long for you, Marissa.’
Those words sounded almost threatening in her ears as she slowed to a sedate walk and re-entered the salon through the long windows which opened down to the ground. Fortunately Nicci had gone up to bed, but Jane was waiting for her.
‘There you are, dear. I have been to look for you. I was worried you might get chilled, the evening air is so treacherous. Did you not hear me call?’
Thinking of the circumstances under which she had heard Jane, Marissa felt herself blush. Jane, after a searching look at her heightened colour and escaping hair, said sharply, ‘Marissa? Have you been alone again with his lordship? Is there anything you wish to say to me?’
‘Er, no.’ Marissa felt like a naughty schoolroom miss caught kissing the music master. ‘I just happened to meet Marcus in the garden. The roses are most delightful. We must pick some for the breakfast table.’
She should have known that Jane had not been a governess for over ten years without being able to detect prevarication when she heard it. ‘Really, Marissa, do you think I was born yesterday?’ she demanded. ‘I am not lecturing you and Heaven knows I am not responsible for your morals. After all, you have been a married woman and are old enough to conduct your own affairs. But do consider the proprieties, please. I will retire and say goodnight now.’
Chapter Nineteen
The thirtieth of May dawned clear and bright and the ladies breakfasted in their rooms to speed the business of getting ready. At ten o’clock Jane, magnificent in bronze twill with an almost jaunty bonnet of moss-green silk and feathers, looked around Marissa’s bedchamber door.
‘Are you almost ready, my dear? Oh, now, that is nice,’ she said approvingly. ‘I knew you were right to choose that simple fern-green jacconet cloth – it sets off the lines of your new pelisse to perfection. Understatement is the very essence of elegance, especially when one has the height and figure to carry it off, as you do.’
Marissa smiled her thanks at the compliment as she took her seat at the dressing table to allow Mary to set the dashing O’Neil hat, with its high crown and curving brim, on her head. She had heeded Marcus’s plea not to have her hair cropped, and the maid had piled up the luxuriant mass on her crown and allowed only the little curls around her hairline to peep out from under the arc of the brim.
‘How very fashionable, dearest!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘When did you buy that?’
‘Last season in Norwich. I could not resist it, even though I knew I could not wear it for some time.’ She bent to give Gyp one last caress and a stern warning not to bother the footmen too much. ‘Is Nicci ready?’
‘She was so excited last night I doubt she has been to bed, so she had better be. Her brother warned her that if she were not down by ten he would leave her behind – and I fear he was not speaking in jest.’
Marissa had pushed thoughts of Marcus firmly to the back of her mind, determined that nothing should spoil her day at the races. She would face up to breaking her betrothal later that week. She pushed to the back of her mind the fact that the evening before she had quite made up her mind on her course of action and it had only taken a second in his arms for her resolution to crumble utterly.