“Are you sore?” he asked her.
“Sore?”
“Here.” His hand ran down her side and touched the cloth between her legs.
“Oh,” she said. Her voice sounded breathless. “No.”
He lowered his mouth to hers again and pushed the cloth back against the mattress. She was warm, slightly moist. His hand stroked her, played with her, parted her.
This time when he lowered himself on top of her, she opened her legs for him and even lifted them to twine them about his. She did not wince when he put himself inside her, though she did inhale slowly and deeply.#p#分页标题#e#
She lay still and felt comfortable beneath him. She had one hand in his hair, one arm loosely about his waist. He rested his cheek against her temple and felt the soft moist heat of her. He wanted this encounter to last for a good long time, he decided, beginning a slow shallow rhythm that he would quicken and deepen when his need outpaced his control.
She neither moved nor spoke during all the minutes that followed. And yet it was not his own isolated pleasure that pounded with the blood through his body and lodged in his mind. Sexual activity had always been for himself. Much as he had appreciated the beauty and charm of his mistresses, much as he had enjoyed the skill of their performances, it had always been just for himself.
But this time, with his wife, on their wedding night, he was very aware of the woman with whom he coupled, very aware of her warm and supple body, of her quiet surrender. He wanted to give her something in return.
“Abby,” he said, moving his head so that his mouth was against hers. “I am going to make you happy. I am going to make you forget your years of loneliness and servitude.”
And he brought himself swiftly to completion, sorry that he had given in to self-indulgence by taking her for a second time.
“You have a greedy husband, my dear,” he said to her after disengaging himself from her body and sitting up at the side of the bed. He lowered her nightgown to the knees. “Forgive me?” He touched her cheek with light fingers. “Sleep well. I’ll not expect you up before noon. I shall leave word that you are not to be disturbed.”
She said nothing as he raised the blankets up over her shoulders, stooped to pick up his dressing gown from the floor, and let himself into her dressing room and through to his own, closing the doors quietly behind him.
He was going to be very well pleased with his marriage, he thought, yawning and climbing into his own cold and empty bed.
He already was very pleased.
Abigail was just the kind of wife he wanted. And more. A good pleasurable deal more.
FORTUNATELY ABIGAIL HAD had the forethought to send a small trunk of clothes to Grosvenor Square the morning before. Otherwise, she thought, descending the stairs and looking about her in search of the breakfast room, she would have been forced to wear her wedding dress again, and a pale blue muslin dress with flounces was hardly suitable attire for breakfast.
“This way, my lady,” a footman said, bowing to her.
“Ah, Alistair,” she said, giving him a big smile. “Is it so obvious that I am lost?”
He grinned at her and opened the door. She was feeling quite comfortable, clad in a brown dress with white trimmings, her hair pinned back in its coiled braids. Well, almost comfortable, she thought, putting a spring in her step and smiling at the butler, who stood at the sideboard. Her husband was at the table, a newspaper spread before him. She felt breathless. He got hastily to his feet.
“Good morning, Mr. Watson,” she said. “Good morning, Miles.” She set her hand in his outstretched one and allowed him to seat her at the table.
“I was not expecting you up for hours,” he said. “Could you not sleep?”
Abigail blushed, very aware of the butler standing at the sideboard behind her.
“I slept like the dead after you left,” she said, and blushed even more hotly.
“Watson,” the earl said, looking up, “you may serve her ladyship and leave. I shall ring when we are finished.”
Abigail nodded her head to the eggs and ham and toast and refused the kidneys and sweet cakes and coffee.
“I am always up early,” she told her husband. “I believe there is a mental clock inside my head that cries ‘Cuckoo’ at a certain time, no matter how late I was to bed. Besides, the morning is the loveliest time of day, though it is not always apparent in town, with its buildings and traffic. In the country there is no time like morning. Unless it is the evening after a day’s work—just when the wind has died down and the dusk has begun to fall. Why is it that the wind always stops blowing when evening comes? Have you noticed?”