He had lifted most of his weight onto his forearms. But finally he came down heavily on her again, slid his hands beneath her once more, and thrust slowly and deeply into her once, twice, and a third time, turning his head to sigh against her ear.
And he lay still on her, all the weight of his relaxed body bearing her down into the mattress. She ached and ached for a continuation, but he lay still.
“There,” he said, a couple of minutes later, lifting himself away from her, reaching down to draw the cloth up between her legs. His voice sounded gentle again, as if he talked to a child, and faintly amused. “It is over—the great terror. Did I hurt you very badly?”
“No,” she said. “Not at all.”
“Liar,” he said. He drew her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder, rubbing a hand up and down one of her arms. “It will not hurt again, Abby. I promise. And you will become accustomed to the act itself. I will return to my own room in a few minutes’ time and you can sleep. Does that sound good?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said. “Miles. If you say so.”
He kissed her on the mouth and she listened to his breathing deepen. He was sleeping.
How could he sleep after an earth-shattering experience like that? Abigail did not think she would ever sleep again.
There was a heavy throbbing between her legs. Her nightgown was still down over one shoulder and bunched up about her waist.
His arm was sheltering and comfortable. He smelled good—warm and sweaty, with that cologne smell lingering on his nightshirt.
5
IT WAS NOT FAIR OF HIM, THE EARL OF Severn thought, waking at some time during the night, to be still in his wife’s bed. She was surely entitled to privacy and rest following what had been something of an ordeal of terror for her.
And he had told her that he would leave. How many hours ago had that been?
And yet, he thought, listening to her quiet breathing, feeling the silkiness of her hair over his arm and hand, smelling its clean soap fragrance, she was asleep and relaxed. Her head was still pillowed on his shoulder. Her one hand, he could feel, was at his waist, beneath his nightshirt.
The experience had been very new for him too. From the age of nineteen he had always chosen his mistresses on the basis of their reputation as skilled courtesans. He had been taught all he knew about the pleasures of the body from those mistresses, having been a virgin himself when he employed the first.
He had not realized that there could be something erotic and deeply satisfying about making love to an innocent, to a woman who lay still on the bed beneath him and confessed to not knowing what to do.
He smiled as he remembered Abigail admitting just that when he first kissed her.
He lifted his free hand to smooth back the hair from her face. A shaft of light slanted across the bed from a chink in the curtains. There was nothing at all beyond the ordinary about her, except her hair, of course, and her eyes. Her breasts were firm and feminine but not large. Her waist was not unusually tiny or her hips particularly shapely. Her legs, though slim, were not long. There was nothing about her that could be called truly beautiful.
And yet he had found the bedding of her wonderfully satisfying. Perhaps it had been the strange novelty of knowing that no other man had been where he had gone. Or perhaps the even greater strangeness of knowing that she was his wife, that he could allow his seed to spring in her without having to be careful not to impregnate her. Or perhaps the new luxury of being able to bed her in the familiar surroundings of his own home.
He did not know what it was. But he did know that for her sake he must remove himself to his own room. She was his for a lifetime. He must not demand service of her more often than once in a night.
He was up on one elbow, his palm beneath her head, when she opened her eyes and gazed sleepily up at him in the near darkness.
“Was I sleeping?” she said. “I thought I would never sleep again.”
“I hurt you badly?” he asked.
“No.” Her hand was still at his waist. “But it was all very strange. It astonished me that you were able to fall asleep immediately after.”
He smiled. “You should have woken me,” he said. “I promised to leave you to relax and rest alone.”
“I must have fallen asleep before I could think to do so,” she said.
He chuckled and lowered his head to kiss her. Her mouth was relaxed and warm from sleep. He lingered over it, nudging her lips apart with his own.
He should go. She was not a mistress, to be kept awake and busy at all hours of the night or day. She was his wife. But it was their wedding night, a night that could be expected to be different from all others. Perhaps tomorrow night he could set the pattern for the rest of their married life.