“I’m all right.” He was. Now that he could touch her and hear the steady cadence of her voice.
“Good.” She leaned closer, her silken cheek near his. “Shall we track down Mrs. Noble? She was headed toward the library when dinner let out.”
It was a strange destination, as most of her guests were going to either the smoking room or the grand parlor. “Let us go then. God help me if Oz shows up there as well.”
The pale arc of Poppy’s neck gleamed in the candlelight as she looked back over her shoulder. “He appears to be heading off to the smoking room with the other gentlemen. I believe we are safe from that fiasco.”
He laughed without humor. “ ‘Fiasco’ is an understatement.”
However, when they reached the library, they found it empty. Poppy’s keen gaze caught his. “Now where do you suppose Mrs. Noble has got off to?”
The answer came by way of a footman, who headed toward them. “Sir, Mrs. Noble has retired for the evening,” he murmured. “She would like to receive you tomorrow for tea.” He bowed neatly and left them standing in the hall.
“Botheration,” Poppy muttered. “I do not want to be here for tea tomorrow. This place feels wrong to me.” Around them, ladies and gentlemen wandered to and fro, laughing and pairing off. A quartet softly played Beethoven in the parlor, and the golden light from hundreds of candles gave the house a muted glow. Music, beauty, laughter. It ought to be soothing and yet Poppy was correct; there was something off about the whole thing this night. What once felt like true gaiety now shone false and brittle, as though Winston was watching a play.
Poppy made a furtive gesture. “Blast it, I could almost believe that woman is toying with us.”
Win frowned in the direction of the stairs. “Mmm. As if she is aware that we are ruled by a time limit, perhaps?”
“Could she be under Isley’s control?”
Still watching the stairs, Win clasped Poppy’s hand in his. “Come. Let us see what we can see.”
Poppy’s voluminous silk train rustled and swayed as they made their way to the second floor where Mrs. Noble’s room lay. Flickering lamplight guided their path. Below, Moonlight Sonata began playing in steady, ponderous notes that spoke of amateur piano lessons.
“Someone’s been practicing,” Poppy murmured as they plodded along to the tune. The notes followed them, rising and crashing. It was almost enough to drown out the rhythmic sound coming from the end of the upper hall. But not quite.
Perched at the top of the stairs, Winston and Poppy exchanged looks. Color crept over Poppy’s high cheeks. “You must be joking.”
Win glanced toward the dim corridor where the unmistakable sounds of sexual congress rang out. “I rather wish it were a joke.”
Cautiously, they moved closer and the sound increased, both in tempo and in fervor.
“Well,” Poppy cleared her throat, her nose wrinkling in a charming manner, “surely they cannot go on for long.”
Knowing that one of the participants was likely Mrs. Noble only served to irritate Win. He scowled at the door from which the sound emerged. “I do not know, sweet. But if Ode to Joy begins to play, I am going to be most thoroughly put out.”
With surprising speed, Poppy pressed her face into his neck and burst out laughing. Her warm breath seeped into him, and he wrapped his arms about her to keep her there. He smiled against her temple. He wanted to vent his frustration, but holding her as she laughed made his heart light just the same.
A huff of irritation escaped her, and then Poppy’s muffled voice rose up from the crook of his neck. “Bloody woman, going off to tup. I swear to God, Win, I could kill her.”
His fingers toyed with the loose strand of silken hair at her nape. “That is one way to shut them up.” When she choked out a weak laugh, he leaned back a little until she raised her head and faced him. As expected, she wore her warrior’s expression, one that promised mayhem and retribution, but fear lived there too, so guarded that he might have missed it did he not know her so well. “I could force my way in there, but we won’t get anything from her like that.” Softly, he brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’m afraid we’re done for the night, sweet Boadicea.”
“Damn it, Win. What if she doesn’t know Moira Darling either? What if Isley’s led us astray?”
His hand slid to her neck and clasped it. When he spoke, his voice was far calmer than he felt. “Hear me, wife, we will find Moira Darling, and we will win. On my life, I swear it.” Cold foreboding touched his spine at the vow, for he feared it might come to that.
Chapter Twenty-two
London, 1869—The Wedding Night
Win?”
Sweat slicked and replete, Win had a hard time opening his eyes to focus on his new wife. Wife. Now there was a word he adored. Lying on the bed next to him, she wore nothing more than a gilding of candlelight and a soft, contented smile. He adored that too.
“What is it, sweet?” He threw an arm around her and pulled her closer, loving the feel of her sleek body against his. They’d known each other for such a short time, and it still felt as if he’d waited an eternity to hold her like this. “Stop jostling and let a poor man sleep. You’ve exhausted me completely.”
“Ha. Are you complaining?” That stern gaze did things to his insides. Made him feel illicit.
“Yes.” He smoothed his hand over her pert bottom before smacking it. “Exhaust me some more, will you? There’s a good girl.”
“Ack! Stop, you beast.” She laughed as he rolled over onto her, but her brown eyes were serious. He knew already that Poppy, once on a subject, would never veer off of it until satisfied—quite like him in that manner, actually. Not one to let him down, she put the question to him directly. “Do you have a nightshirt?”
He settled more comfortably, sliding his c**k along her slickness just to tease. “Why, yes.” God, she was wet again. And her neck. It smelled of lemons and sex. He nuzzled it. “I don’t want to put it on if that is what you are asking.” Not now, not ever again. Though this was their wedding night, he planned to repeat their performance every night hereafter.
She wriggled again, making his breath quicken. Her endless legs tangled with his. He was going to lick his way down them later. But first, her br**sts. Those sweet little plums that he’d yet to become thoroughly acquainted with.
“Can I wear it? Ah… ah… when we sleep… oh…”
Curiosity had always been his weakness. He released her nipple with a pop. “Of course, but why?” He’d hazy notions of sleeping skin to skin.
Almost idly, she traced the line of his brow before touching his lower lip. “I don’t like sleeping undressed. I hate the way the skin of my arm sticks to my side.” She kissed his neck and then his jaw. He blinked, nonplussed, and fairly distracted by the way she suckled his earlobe as she talked. “You should probably know, I also like to sleep on the left-hand side of the bed and hate floppy pillows.”
Her scarlet hair, now loose and free, spread out in a starburst on the pillow and ran in silk ribbons over his forearms where he braced himself on either side of her slim shoulders. Only he would see her like this. Only he would know her strange quirks. His heart clenched, and his breath caught. Slowly, he smiled. “You’re going to be difficult to manage, aren’t you?”
Her grin unfurled like a cat in the sun. “Extremely. Afraid, Win?”
He shifted, nudging her thighs farther apart with his own. “Afraid? I can hardly wait.” And with that, he plunged home, making her gasp, before he made her moan.
Just before they finally fell asleep, she slipped out of bed and found the nightshirt.
Chapter Twenty-three
In the quiet confines of the guest room, Poppy stared at the door, knowing that he would soon walk through it. He would lie with her and share their bed for the night. And she wanted him so badly that her teeth ached as she clenched them.
The sounds she had heard coming from Mrs. Noble’s bedroom haunted her. At the time, it was all she could do not to barge in on the woman and pull her out of the bed by the roots of her hair. Now, she could only think of being in bed with Win and losing herself in his arms. She wanted to forget this night, forget what they faced. And she wanted to forget with him. Only him.
It did not matter that their last union had been a disaster. Her body remembered not his ultimate rejection but the feel of him sliding home and the look in his eyes when he took her. Her fingers still shook with need for him. Were other women like this? Did they quiver with want? Did they grow tetchy and achy from imagining stripping their husbands down and servicing them with their mouths before begging to be mounted?
Poppy blushed hotly as though someone might hear her thoughts. No one but Win knew how illicit her desires ran or that she—who was dominant in her work—liked to be dominated in bed because it made her feel feminine, wanted, needed. Oh, but Win knew. He could wind her up so tight that she all but snapped before he gave her release. Even when they were so very young and had no idea what they were doing, he’d made her want with a ferocity that blurred the lines between pleasure and pain. Just from touching him, from being touched by him. And he was going to enter the room at any moment.
Well then, he was to share a room with Poppy. That was easy enough. They had shared one for the past fourteen years. It was rote. Like old friends, they had a pattern, a way of moving in tandem when getting ready for bed. Poppy at the washbasin, brushing her teeth with quintessential vigor. Him following suit as she drifted to the dressing table to apply her face cream and then give her hair its hundred strokes. He’d put away his clothes and tell her an anecdote about the day. Simple. Easy.
He would not think on the times he took the brush from her and stroked the glorious silk of her hair until her neck bent just so in relaxation. Or how he’d quietly set the brush aside and let his hands slide along her cool skin, under her chemise, to cup those firm br**sts, knead them until she bit her bottom lip and whimpered.
Hell.
Win stopped dithering in the corridor and slammed into their shared room with undue force. And found Poppy staring at him in question. He stared back. She’d already gotten ready for bed. A thick, lumpy dressing gown hugged her lithe frame, from just under her chin down to her white and narrow feet. Hardly tempting. He scowled all the same.
“I thought you’d be brushing your teeth or some such preparation.”
She flipped her long, demure braid over her shoulder. “No. You gave me more than ample time. The bathing room is all yours.”
Fine. He was glad of it. Half the time, she left tooth powder all over the sink, and he had to clean up after her.
His ablutions were quick and thankfully peaceful. Just as they’d been these past three months without her. He stopped and stared in the hanging mirror. Butherwell had been correct; the reflection was not pretty. Half a face belonged to a man with a stern countenance, the other half was a monster’s. Two-faced. In every sense.
“You, sir,” he muttered to his reflection, “are a lying nodcock who wants to shag his wife senseless.” He threw down his toothbrush, and it clattered around in the basin. “Only you are not going to ask for that. Are you?” The reflection’s scowl of discontent grew. “No, you are not. You haven’t yet sunk that low.” They’d already gone down that path, and look how well that turned out.
He raked his fingers through his hair, and keeping on his repressive yet extremely necessary smalls, went out to face Poppy. She looked him over in that cool way of hers, and he resisted the urge to shift his feet. Bloody woman always saw more than she ought to.
“Were you talking to yourself in the mirror?”
His lips pressed together. “If you have to ask, you must have heard me.” Christ, please say she did not hear the specifics. “So I’m going to assume the question is rhetorical.”
She rolled her eyes and began to unbutton her dressing gown. “Fine. I won’t ask you what you were muttering about.”
You could. It might be interesting. Say, Pop, fancy a quick shag for old time’s sake?
“I simply was trying to make conversation to ease this awkwardness,” she said.
“Commendable but futile.” He fluffed a pillow, and then another, punched it actually. “I don’t think there is any good way to ease—” His voice strangled to a halt as she shrugged out of the dressing gown. “You must be jesting.”
Her head lifted. “What?” She tossed the gown upon a chair back and frowned at him from across the bed. “Good lord, Win, don’t look at me like that. I’m perfectly respectable.”
“Respectable,” he repeated as if every muscle in his body weren’t quivering. As if right this moment his c**k wasn’t rising. Shit. He sat at the edge of the bed before he betrayed the proof of his interest. Damn her eyes, but she was wearing his nightshirt. The very one she’d stolen from him so many years before.
For a moment, all he could see was Poppy, na**d and wriggling against him in bed on their wedding night. Win took a bracing breath. That damned nightshirt. She’d worn it almost every night of their marriage. But he didn’t think she’d be so heartless as to wear it now. It was his shirt.
“That thing is so old and worn it has holes in it,” he said through his teeth. Inconvenient holes that showed glimpses of things he could not have.
Her hands went to her hips. “It’s comfortable.”
“It’s a rag.” A nearly transparent one at that. Sweet mother of… What was a negligee compared to seeing one’s wife draped in one’s own, very thin and very revealing, nightshirt? Hells bells, it would almost be better if she were naked. He fisted the sheet. Maybe he ought to ask for a comparison just to be sure.