Silk and Secrets(28)

The ceremony had taken place in Scotland, at the village kirk on the estate of Juliet's uncle. Then the young couple had driven to a nearby hunting box owned by a friend of the Duke of Windermere. Finally they were alone, for the servants knew better than to intrude on a couple that had just wed.

After they had eaten a light supper, Ross had given Juliet time alone to wash and change and ready herself. To her intense embarrassment, she developed a last-minute case of nerves even though she had longed for this night for weeks.

When her new husband came into the bedroom, she was not waiting in the massive four-poster bed. Instead, she was huddled on the window seat, arms wrapped tightly around her drawn-up knees, shivering a little in her sheer white nightgown.

Ross had come to her side at the window. Looking out at the crescent moon floating in a black velvet sky, he had circled her shoulders with his arm and asked, "Cold?"

She shook her head.

He caressed the back of her neck, his warm hand loosening the tight muscles. "Nervous?"

She had swallowed hard and turned to look up at him. "Everyone said we were too young. Perhaps they were right."

"No," he had said simply.

Then he had bent and scooped her into his arms. Startled, she clutched at him for balance as he turned and settled down on the window seat, then arranged her across his lap.

Ross continued, "They—whoever they may be—are wrong. I love you, and you love me. Age has nothing to do with it." He thought a moment. "Except, perhaps, that the young are more willing to take risks."

In the face of his calm certainty, her own doubts had vanished. She might be young and volatile, but Ross was not. He was strong and steady and wise, everything she was not.

She had relaxed against him like a cat, her face pressed against his neck. He had just bathed and smelled fresh and clean, with a subtle masculine scent that belonged to him alone.

In his soft, low voice he talked idly of the things they would do together, the places they would go, the discoveries they would make. And all the time he caressed her, his touch light and tender and infinitely kind.

Though they had waited for this night with fierce impatience, there was no hurry now that it had finally arrived. She had felt like an instrument played by a virtuoso musician as Ross had explored her body and gently encouraged her to do the same with his. Starting shyly, she had slipped her hand inside his robe and discovered that his warm chest was covered by the delicious texture of hair. She felt his heart beat under her palm and was moved and awed as the rate increased at her touch.

By the time he carried her to the wide bed, all her nervousness had melted away. Her mother had told her that it would hurt the first time, and Juliet was braced for that, but when they finally joined, there was no pain. Instead, there was only a moment of discomfort and a fleeting sense of strangeness at the new sensations, and that had been followed immediately by joy.

She would never have believed the power of intimacy without experiencing it. His warmth and scent and pulse had been indistinguishable from her own, and she had truly understood why the marriage service spoke of one spirit, one flesh.

It had been a magical night, and she had thought that nothing could ever be lovelier. But the nights that followed had been better yet, for as the months passed, they had become more and more attuned to each other's desires and responses. It had been like that right up until the time when she realized what was happening to her. Then her world had crumbled in terror.

She had no one to blame but herself. If she had been a stronger woman, she would have stayed in England. Instead, from fear, she had destroyed her own life. Far worse, she had hurt her husband horribly.

She had not realized just how much until tonight. Though she had known he would be upset at her leaving, Ross had a quality of calm, confident strength that had led her to believe he would put her from his mind and recover fairly quickly.

But he had not fully recovered, or he would never have said tonight that he had not the stamina or optimism to take another wife. When they had married, he had had the strength and optimism for anything. Perhaps instead of running away, she should have arranged a fatal accident. If she had died, Ross could have mourned her properly, then got on with his life.

Instead she had run, and almost immediately realized that she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Terrified and more alone than she had ever been in her life, she would have gone with Ross gladly if he had come after her and been willing to take her back. But he did not come, and it wasn't long before she committed the ruinous mistake that destroyed any chance that he might ever forgive her.

She wondered what lurid tales had reached England; probably rumors that she had engaged in mad orgies or some such. Not the truth, but enough to convince Ross that it wasn't worth soiling his hands by coming after her.