Three Weeks With Lady X(48)

The worst of it was that she'd liked it. She had practically begged him  to do it, even knowing that he was marrying another woman. And that Lala  was dreaming of their marriage.

She'd done that to herself, betrayed her own standards. Self-hatred crept up the back of India's throat like acid.

She had always scorned her parents, but they had never done anything  like this. They had danced naked but their intentions were pure, even if  the villagers had never understood. Her mother and father had truly  believed in Diana, the moon goddess.

They hadn't engaged in a sordid affair, thrown up against a wall when  any servant might walk by. They respected each other; no, they adored  each other. They might have been eccentric, but they were married.

For the first time in her life, she had behaved in a way that shamed her parents, rather than the other way around.                       
       
           



       

"I must go," she said. At least she had the tears under control.

"We have to talk," Thorn said, his voice a low rumble.

"We cannot! Anyone might walk down this corridor at any moment!"

Their eyes met, and she saw as he grasped her unspoken point: her lips  were swollen, her hair down her back . . . she even smelled like the two  of them. "I am going to my room," she stated, "and this did not happen.  It will never happen again."

She jerked her arm from his grip, threw open the curtain, and ran toward  the back staircase as quickly as she could. When she made it to her  bedchamber without being caught, she had the impulse to send up a  thankful prayer to the goddess Diana.

Just in case.





Chapter Twenty-eight

Thorn felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck a crowded street and he  was the only one in its path. Sensation rushed through him: strong,  sharp, biting.

What in the hell was happening to him? Had he truly lost his mind? After  India began ignoring him during dinner, there was no further point to  the meal. He kept glancing at her, but she turned her shoulder to him,  laughing and talking with Vander.

He had been closer than he wanted to admit to dragging her out from the  room, carrying her straight to his bedchamber, and losing himself in  her. Only his tight control had kept him in his chair.

But after dinner, when he'd seen India talking to Fleming, he hadn't  been able to stop himself. He'd treated her as if she were no more than a  trull, a woman taken wordlessly by a ruffian who tossed her a sovereign  afterwards. Took, moreover, without using a sheath or giving a thought  to the consequences.

Naturally she had looked at him with betrayal starkly written on her  face. The first time they'd made love, he had promised that she would  never face the possibility of carrying a child out of wedlock.

Now he slumped against the wall, a string of curses running through his mind. He would marry her; that went without saying.

But he couldn't get over the fact that he had neglected to use  protection. It hadn't even occurred to him. Even though it was an  unshakable tenet of his adult life that Thorn Dautry never bedded a  woman without using a French letter.

Finally he tucked in his shirt, buttoned his breeches, and went to find Fleming. He needed to obtain a special license.

Fleming's bushy eyebrows flew up when Thorn told him to send Fred to  Doctors' Commons in order to request a special license from the  Archbishop of Canterbury.

"I believe the fee for a special license is five pounds," the butler said, taking the twenty-pound note Thorn handed him.

"The archbishop will have to leave the license blank, since I am not  there in person," Thorn said. "The clergy do not like to do that, by all  accounts. Twenty pounds should be sufficient persuasion, proffered as a  donation to the poor, of course. Make sure Fred understands that."

"Yes, sir," Fleming said, bowing. "Fredrick is most reliable. I shall send him straight away."

Thorn nodded and glanced over his butler's shoulder, only to meet his  father's fascinated eyes. "A special license?" His Grace drawled. "And I  thought my eldest son was lamentably conservative. I pictured you in  Westminster Abbey. I suppose I should be grateful that you are not  contemplating Gretna Green."

"The cathedral would never allow me through its doors," Thorn said.

"They damned well would take you," the duke stated, his eyes darkening.

Thorn hadn't the energy to discuss the consequences of illegitimacy with  his father. He had to find India and inform her that they would marry  as soon as the next day. Wasn't there some rule that nuptials had to be  conducted before noon? They could marry the day after tomorrow.

"May I inquire as to the name of the bride?" his father asked.

Thorn met his eyes. "I'd be very surprised if you didn't know."

A satisfied smile played around his father's lips. "I suspect that I  do." He fell back a step and swept one of his magnificent bows. "Son.  You do me proud."

Thorn made one of his own perfunctory bows in reply.

Then he retired to his room, brooding over the fact that a blindingly foolish slip would result in marriage to India.

Which meant, in turn, living with India every day, coming home to the  amazing hunger that matched his own. The thought sent fire searing  through him. India's sweet arse beside him in bed, India's blue eyes  glazed with desire, begging him for relief, India's intoxicating moans.

He scarcely touched her, and she was already wet. You couldn't fake that. A woman could fake many things, but not that.                       
       
           



       

And he trusted her, as much as he'd trust anyone. He even liked her.

She was almost like a man, though her mind worked in fascinatingly  different ways from his. India rubber bands were going to be an enormous  success. He knew it in his bones, and he was never wrong about  business.

After a bath, he dressed and walked down the long corridor to India's  room. He entered without knocking and closed the door behind him.

She was curled in a chair reading a book, her face bent to the page. A  wall lamp cast a glow over her shoulders, turning her hair to a river of  white gold.

With just a glance, he began to harden again, even though he'd just had  her, barely an hour ago. Likely their whole life would be like that. He  would spend years dragging his wife into corners, into the hammock, into  their bedchamber.

He would never grow tired of making love to India. He knew it  instinctively, with every fiber of his being. Once they married, her  lush body would be his, his for the taking, for the asking, at any time.  What's more, she would laugh and scold and argue with him.

Perhaps that was even more important.

Thorn stood in the doorway, struggling to control the emotions raging  through him, when India said, without looking up from her book, "I'd  much prefer that you didn't walk into my bedchamber without invitation.  And I have no intention of extending that invitation."

She was angry. Of course she was. He had explicitly promised that he  would never put her at risk of bearing a child. He still didn't believe  it had happened. At the same time, all he wanted to do was pull her  nightdress from her body, sweep her onto the bed, and thrust inside her.

Without a sheath.

He had spent his youth learning the intricacies of pleasuring a woman  from an assortment of females. He had been with many women, more than he  cared to remember, knowing that someday he would bind his wife to him  with his lovemaking, satisfying her in ways that would ensure she never  left him.

Or, more to the point, never left their children.

With India, everything he had learned about slowly bringing a woman to  pleasure flew out the window and all he could think of was-one thing.

"A husband needs no invitation to enter his wife's bedchamber," he said,  his voice coming out husky and rough. Surely she too understood that  they now must marry.

"What a husband does or doesn't need is debatable, but it hardly matters  in this instance, as you are not my husband," she said, turning the  page. She finally looked up at him. "In case you are wondering, Thorn,  you will never be my husband."

"Considering the fact that I had you against the wall a mere hour ago,  you are quite likely carrying my child," he replied, knowing that his  voice had dropped an octave.

Another woman would have winced or been embarrassed. He could have sworn  he saw yearning flash through her eyes. But then it was gone; he must  have imagined it.

India's mouth tightened. "I am not carrying your child."

"You cannot know that."

"No. But I can be reasonably certain."

"There is no certainty in these things. I have sent for a special  license, and we will be married on the morrow or, at the latest, the day  after."