Bought_The Penniless Lady

Chapter Thirteen

The sudden, unexpected invitation into his wife’s bedchamber staggered Hadrian.
Did Artemis realize the step she was taking? If he could persuade her of his desire and prevail upon her to put aside her unaccountable self-doubts, there would be nothing to stop them consummating their marriage this very night. His body roused in anticipation.
Before Artemis had a chance to change her mind, he strode through her door.
The room was softly lit by a single flickering candle in one of the wall sconces. A faint aroma of lavender hung in the air.
“Pray take a seat.” Artemis nodded toward the chair in front of her dressing table.
She closed the door and crossed to the bed, where she perched on the foot of the mattress.
“Go on, then,” he prompted her, eager to refute whatever she might say. “Tell me what makes you so certain you would disappoint me. Everything I have learned about you leads me to believe quite the opposite. Time has proven my early prejudices against you wrong, while I have discovered new qualities to admire in you every day.”
“That is kind of you to say.” Artemis kept her gaze fixed on the rug at the foot of her bed, tracing the pattern with the toe of her slipper. “For such a dynamic, successful man, you have a great kindness about you. But you must not blame yourself for thinking ill of me at first. I gave you ample cause for it. Since then I have tried to atone for my past conduct.”
“I hope you do not think you are obliged to atone for it in my bed!” The words burst out of Hadrian. “Or yours.”
“Of course not!” she cried with a flash of the spirit that had first drawn him to her. “I want you far too much for my peace of mind. But I am certain if you come to know me too intimately, you will soon discover all my shortcomings as a wife.”
“What shortcomings?”
“What shortcomings?” Artemis gave a bitter laugh. “My green-goose ignorance for a start. My advanced age, pasty face, maypole figure—take your pick.”
“Is that what you think of yourself?” He wanted to wrap her in his arms and protect her from the harsh judgments of her self-doubt. “I thought it endearing that you were not vain and self-centered like so many beautiful women. But this? Why can you not see how desirable you are?”
“I treasure your opinion,” she replied in a husky murmur. “When I am with you I begin to feel as if I truly am the way you see me. But I fear where my attractions are concerned, your view runs contrary to that of most men.”
“Does it?” Hadrian bridled. “Then that is their loss, the damned fools! I am arrogant enough to reckon myself more discerning than most men. It is my judgment you may rely on. What do you say to that?”
She glanced up then, transfixing him with the radiance of her gaze. “You are the most uncommon man I have ever met, Hadrian Northmore. There is nothing arrogant about owning it. I envy your confidence and your certainty. I wish I could have your eyes for my looking glass.”
Her words sent him flying out of the chair to kneel at her feet and lift his gaze to her. “You are welcome to use them for that purpose as often as you wish. Then I will have the pleasure of staring at you without having to look away in case you catch me at it.”
Sweet, melodious laughter bubbled up from some secret spring deep inside her. “You have done that, too?”
“I couldn’t help myself.” A thought sparked by their earlier exchange suddenly came clearer to him. “Was there one particular man who had a harsh opinion of you?”
Her features froze into a tight, fragile mask. “What makes you ask?”
“You once told me you’d been deceived by someone you thought you knew. It was him, wasn’t it? He made a fuss over you, then turned and showed his true colors?”
Artemis gave a shamefaced nod, as if she was somehow at fault for whatever had happened. “I was young and foolish enough to fancy myself in love. But my uncles disapproved of the match, so I refused his offer of marriage. I wanted to run away with him, but the family would have disowned me. I would never have been allowed to see Daphne again. She was so young. She needed me.”
The poor lass, bound by duty, all the while knowing she might be forfeiting her only chance for love and a family of her own. Hadrian knew all about hard choices. He admired people who were willing to make them and do the right thing, no matter how difficult.
As for the man who’d won Artemis’s heart only to lose her, he was torn between scathing contempt and irrational envy. “This suitor took your rejection badly, did he?”
“Very badly, though not because I broke his heart. Charles Nugent only wanted me for the distinction of having a titled wife. When I refused him as gently as I could, he took the opportunity to tell me his true opinion of my charms.“
As she related, in halting words, the humiliating abuse heaped upon her by a man she’d trusted and cared for, Hadrian smoldered with indignant rage. Bad enough for the scoundrel to say such things if they’d been true. But to plant such malicious false doubts in a sensitive nature like hers, for no better reason than because she’d been loyal to her family, was downright wicked! If he could have got his hands on Nugent just then, he would have thrashed the bounder within an inch of his miserable life!
“Don’t you see?” he ventured when her voice trailed off. “You cannot go by the judgment of such a conniving rascal. Not even if those were his true feelings, which I doubt. You thwarted his scheme. So he revenged himself in the only way he knew how. I hope you give my opinion more credence than his.”
Artemis did not hesitate. “Of course! You are ten times the man Charles Nugent will ever be. But I fear you are partial in your judgment of me.”
“Perhaps I am…now. But you must recall when we first met. Then, I detested you. I thought you were haughty and superior. I blamed you for what had happened to my brother. In spite of all that, I was drawn to you, against my will.” He had long been ready to surrender to his physical attraction for Artemis. But there were other feelings he needed to guard against, for both their sakes.
The best way for him to resist might be to offer her some final words of reassurance, bid Artemis a chaste good-night and make his escape. When she had first invited him inside, he’d thought of her bedchamber as a glittering treasure box, ripe for plunder. Suddenly, he wondered if it might be a tempting trap.
Not that Artemis intended it to be. She was not to blame for his unruly desire or his insidious doubts. If he walked away from her now, when it was clear she wanted to let him stay, he would only confirm every miserable falsehood Charles Nugent had made her believe about herself. Not to mention that wretched old nurse and the wellmeaning relatives who’d spent a lifetime telling her how little she resembled her beautiful sister.
Hadrian could not let that happen, no matter how it might complicate his life.

What had possessed her to invite Hadrian into her bedchamber so late at night? Artemis chided herself as she stared down at him, kneeling on her carpet with outrage and pity written plain on his bold, compelling features. Had she truly wanted to explain her reluctance to consummate their marriage? Or had she secretly hoped Hadrian would take that decision out of her hands?
Though she was fully clothed, every word she’d spoken about Charles Nugent seemed to strip away one more covering from her heart. If she kept on, she would soon leave it naked and vulnerable.
Her countenance must have betrayed her misgivings, for Hadrian rose from the floor and held his arms open to her. “Are you going to let a blackguard like Nugent continue to stand in the way of our pleasure? Or are you going to make us both pay the price for his sins? If you come to me now, I swear I will put all my skill and experience as a lover at your service. I will initiate you as gently and pleasurably as any maiden ever was.”
His words set her desperate eagerness at war with her agonizing reluctance, wrenching her back and forth until she feared they would tear her apart. But when those two opposing forces were balanced in unbearable tension, Artemis suddenly felt herself no longer bound by either, but free to make a choice. In that moment she knew that although she could never banish all her doubts, she would regret it more if she did not act upon her feelings for Hadrian. Even if she was not entirely certain what all those feelings were.
Slowly she arose from the bed—not like the chaste huntress for whom she’d been named, but as the love goddess, Aphrodite, had emerged newborn from the sea foam. Slipping into Hadrian’s waiting arms, she raised the chalice of her lips for him to fill with the rich, potent wine of his kisses.
For weeks, she had watched his lips whenever he spoke, remembering how they’d felt against her skin and the sensations they had kindled. How often she’d longed to feel them on hers again, not struggling to resist their attraction, but surrendering to it.
Hadrian obliged her with the delectable play of his lips and tongue until she was light-headed, giddy and almost satisfied. Surely a man could not kiss a woman that way unless she roused his desire to a fever pitch.
His fingers plunged into her hair, tugging out the pins that bound it up. Once he’d set it free to cascade over her shoulders, he lavished it with admiring caresses.
“I have wanted to do that almost from the moment I first set eyes on you,” he whispered, releasing her lips to strew kisses down her cheek and neck. “A more glorious head of hair I’ve never seen on a woman. Puts silk clean to shame, it does. And the smell of it…” he inhaled deeply “…like a country garden after the rain.”
She hid her face against his shoulder, intoxicating herself on breath after deep breath of his scent. “I rinse it with lavender water, the way my mother did. It reminds me of her.”
“After this…” his deep velvety murmur made her knees grow even weaker than his kisses already had rendered them “…it will remind me of you.”
He sounded so sincere that a lost, searching part of Artemis could not help but believe him. “Keep talking like that and you will make me insufferably vain.”
“I doubt it.” He nudged her chin with his shoulder, making Artemis lift her face to meet his admiring gaze. “You don’t know how beautiful you are by half. But if you are still uncertain after I’m done with you tonight, I will have failed in my aim altogether.”
With that, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. “You must know by now, I hate to fail. Especially at something so important.”
He lowered her onto the bed with great care, as if she were a delicate treasure he wished to admire at his leisure. But the very next instant, he turned away from her and perched on the edge of the bed. Her bewildered body throbbed with an infernal compound of itch and ache.
One after the other, Hadrian’s boots hit the floor with a soft, provocative thud. Then he slipped off his coat and tossed it onto the chair in front of her dressing table. His waistcoat swiftly followed. Did he mean to disrobe completely, in front of her?
What if he did? Curiosity sought to soothe her ruffled modesty. For all her innocence, she had seen a number of naked male figures in classical statues and paintings. There should be nothing about Hadrian’s bare body to shock her. While he untied his neck linen, she wavered between averting her gaze and continuing to watch him undress. But when he pulled off his shirt, Artemis could not have looked away if she’d tried.
His torso was not as tanned as his face, but enough to give him the look of a Greek god, one carved out of rich, warm mahogany rather than cold, white marble. For a moment, she forgot all her earlier misgivings, lost in her admiration of the ideal proportion and contours of his physique: the spare masculine grace of his bare back, tapering from a magnificent pair of shoulders to a firm, trim waist; the hard, lean muscle rippling down his chest toward his taut belly, lightly shaded with fine dark hair; the powerful swell and sweep of his arms ending in large, strong hands, hands that nimbly unbuttoned his breeches and slid them down over lithe, smooth thighs.
With an abrupt, sickening jolt, all Artemis’s doubts engulfed her once more. Much as Hadrian’s glorious masculinity stirred her admiration and desire, it also intimidated her. What did she have to offer him in return?
The cruel words Charles Nugent had hurled at her ten years ago burst from the locked cupboard of her memory to taunt her. The only way I could stand being wed to such a pallid, scrawny milk-and-water miss would be to engage a plump, pretty mistress at the earliest opportunity.
All that had saved her pride was her relief at escaping the torment of marriage to such a scoundrel. She had never submitted to his mortifying caresses or let him deep enough into her heart to break it.
As Hadrian turned back toward her, Artemis caught sight of something her stolen glances at antique statues had not prepared her for—the rampant shaft of arrogant manhood, rising from his loins. A gasp of awe and a shriek of alarm collided in her throat, threatening to strangle her! Forcing a deep draft of air into her lungs, she pulled herself upright and swung her legs over the opposite side of the bed.
An instant later Hadrian’s arms twined around her. “You’re not running away on me, are you? I didn’t mean to frighten you, just now. But I cannot hide the effect you have upon me.”
She was responsible for that? Preposterous as the notion seemed, it sent a heady surge of power through Artemis.
“I am not frightened.” Dearing pride refused to let her admit otherwise. Besides, it was not her husband’s size and power that intimidated her as much as the renewed consciousness of her own shortcomings. “I thought since you were undressing, I should, too.”
“Taking your own clothes off?” Hadrian raised his hands to her hair and ran the back of one down her neck. “Where’s the sport in that?”
The next instant he swept her hair to one side, draping it over her shoulder. “But since you’re sitting up, I will take advantage of this opportunity to unfasten your gown.”
His fingertips brushed against her back as he slid the mother-of-pearl buttons free from their ribbon loops. Then he eased the short sleeves off her shoulders and peeled down her bodice, exposing her chemise and short stays. A moment later he had her gown off and folded neatly over the back of the chair on which his garments lolled with such careless abandon.
Her slippers were next, and as he reached up under her chemise, the skimming caress of his deft, powerful hands sent shafts of pleasure racing up her legs to converge at the point where they met. At that instant, Artemis discovered a perfect balm for the itchy ache that had beset her earlier. It was her husband’s touch.
Yet even as his touch soothed one yearning, it provoked another—a deep, desperate hunger for which even her self-conscious wariness was no match.
His upward journey halted at the top of her stockings. When his fingertips fluttered against her thighs as he untied the ribbons that secured her stockings, a soft whimper of need escaped her clenched lips.
“There, you see?” Hadrian murmured in a tone of warm satisfaction. “I knew you’d enjoy this.”
Artemis tried to answer, but her mouth craved his kiss with such savage intensity, she could not coax out a single word. When Hadrian tugged the hem of her chemise upward to expose her naked loins, her head thrashed from side to side. She prayed he would not think she wanted him to stop.
“You needn’t deny it.” He nudged her legs apart and knelt between them, looming over her. “Your body will give the truth away.”
He slid a finger into the crease between her legs, the center of her smoldering need. She gasped and writhed as it glided on the slick moisture.
Leaning closer, until his cheek rested against hers and the swift, hot breath from his nostrils tickled her ear, he whispered, “We both show the signs of wanting. Quite a wonder how a man and woman are made for each other, isn’t it?”
A sound of inarticulate need escaped her lips. It was no use trying to deny the fierce passion he had wakened in her body. The proof was there, wet on his fingers, ready to ease the entry of his shaft deep inside her.
Until that moment, Hadrian had been so gentle and controlled even as he drove her mad with desire. But now a tremor rippled through his magnificent body. His voice grew harsh and husky as he whispered, “I wish I did not want you so badly. But I cannot help myself.”
His lips moved down her cheek in search of her mouth. He found it open, her lips moving as if gasping for air. But it was not air she craved, only him. The insistent pressure of his lips upon hers and the ravenous thrust of his tongue filled some long-denied need in her.
Until that moment, she had kept her arms resting upon the bed lest they reveal her awkward inexperience. Hadrian’s kiss shattered the bonds that restrained them. One hand rose to rake through his hair, ready to hold him if he tried to break from their kiss. The other found his smooth, taut torso, stroking it with greedy relish. Her mouth moved, too, her tongue caressing his. Her hips thrust against the sinful delight of his finger’s velvet caress, even as she yearned for something more substantial.
“I wanted to…go slow.” He panted the words into her mouth and she drank them like fiery brandy. “Make the first time…easy for you. But you are just too…I cannot hold back.”
A voice that was not hers gasped, “Don’t!”
Was she urging him on or protesting the abrupt, frustrating withdrawal of his finger at the peak of her need? Artemis was too deep in the grip of pure sensation to be certain. She only knew that her command or entreaty spurred Hadrian to renew their kiss with even more reckless passion.
In place of his finger, the searing, silken crown of his shaft rubbed against her, seeking entry. Spreading her legs wider and tilting her hips, she exposed the sensitive core of her yearning to the sleek friction of his thrust. A sharp burst of ecstasy merged with the hot stab of pain as he dived into her. With each reckless thrust of his hips, wave after shuddering wave of pleasure broke over her, drowning her, filling her.
Then his body wrenched and writhed in the grip of forces too powerful for him to control. Forces she had unleashed.
Afterward, as lazy ripples of delight pulsed through her body, Artemis looked forward to the next time Hadrian bedded her…and the next. Though she wondered how it could possibly be more satisfying, she nursed a sweet, secret confidence that it would only get better.

A sunrise concert of chaffinches, blackbirds and song thrushes woke Hadrian the next morning. For a disoriented instant he wondered why his heart responded with an answering trill of high spirits.
Then Artemis stirred in her sleep beside him, rousing lush memories of the previous night. Slumber enhanced her beauty, relaxing the guarded set of her features to something infinitely more approachable. It brought the pearly glow of dawn to her alabaster skin. While feasting his eyes on her delicate beauty, Hadrian recalled their midnight tryst with a mixture of delicious exultation and bitter shame.
He had not meant to take her with such wanton vigor. He’d promised to proceed with deliberate restraint, the way a gentleman should initiate such a rare lady. He hadn’t wanted to alarm or repel her with his attentions, but to coax her to such a keen pitch of desire that pleasure would ease the sting of her first time. He’d also been thinking of himself, when he’d sought to maintain control. Like a rider on the back of a wild stallion, he’d been determined to master his passion. Otherwise it might run away with him…perhaps into dangerous territory.
A lock of his wife’s rich dark hair lay upon the pillow beside him. Reaching up carefully so as not to disturb her, Hadrian twined the silken curl around his finger. Then he brushed it over his cheek and under his nose, where he caught a tantalizing whiff of lavender.
He had never expected Artemis to thaw so quickly to his touch…then take fire. For all he’d boasted of his experience, he’d never had an encounter so shattering in its intensity. Before last night, he’d always chosen the right instant to surrender control. But when his reluctant virgin bride had suddenly turned earthy temptress, she’d shattered his noble intentions and his iron self-control, making him passion’s willing slave.
Much as Hadrian savored the triumph of rousing her to such powerful heights and the tumultuous ecstasy they’d shared, he feared he had made a grave mistake in consummating their marriage.
He considered stealing away before Artemis woke and he had to face her reaction to his rough lust. But his father had taught him to face the consequences of his actions. He could not turn his back on that lesson now.
Her eyelids fluttered open, just then. For a breathtaking instant, Hadrian gazed into an intricate, intriguing labyrinth hidden in their amethyst depths. If he entered, might he penetrate all the way to her secret heart? Or would he wander forever in a perilous twilight, seeking in vain? Perhaps it would be best for both of them if she despised him for the way he’d handled her last night.
“Good morning.” His voice did not come out in its usual deep pitch, but cracked like a stripling youth’s. In his haste to release the lock of her hair wound around his finger, he tugged too hard, making her wince.
“Forgive me!” The words were out before he could contain them.
But words alone were not enough. He pressed a kiss to Artemis’s head, where he’d pulled her hair. “Not only for that, but for last night.”
“Last night?” She brushed a stray curl off her forehead. “What have you to be sorry for about last night?”
Hadrian hesitated. It galled him to admit he’d erred, even to Artemis. “I did not keep my promise to initiate you as gently as any maid ever was.”
“Oh, that.” She made it sound like a trifle. “I am quite content that you kept the better half of your promise, to initiate me as pleasurably as any maid ever was.”
Enough pleasure to outweigh the hurt? That reassurance brought Hadrian a dizzying sense of relief. But it did not change his mind about the danger of continuing what he’d so recklessly started last night.
“Besides,” Artemis added, “I have heard it gets easier after the first time.”
She cast him a look that was far too inviting.
“So it does.” He edged away from her, worried that the temptation of her nearness and willingness might overpower his honorable intentions. “But I reckon it would be better…if we…not…”
He struggled to find the proper words to free himself from the tangled maze into which he’d so eagerly stumbled.
“I understand. Once with me was enough for you.” Artemis sat up abruptly and slid toward her side of the bed, leaving a rusty stain of dried blood on the sheets as proof that he’d taken her virginity. “I tried to tell you I would be a disappointment. Perhaps this time you should have heeded a naysayer.”
After last night, could those old, poisonous doubts about herself still linger? Hadrian could not let her suffer for his mistake.
“Nay, lass!” He scrambled after Artemis, capturing her in his embrace before she could flee. “Disappointed is the last thing I was. I am not sure your parents named you after the proper goddess. Last night, I could have sworn I had Venus herself in my arms.”
She looked every inch the love goddess this morning, with her wild, dusky curls unbound. Her loose white chemise and short stays even resembled a woman’s garment of ancient times.
She did not melt into his arms as he’d hoped, but remained tense and wary, her face hidden against his shoulder. “Venus—isn’t that what they call those women who hire themselves to men? I knew I behaved too wantonly! I made you doubt my innocence. But I swear, it was because of my inexperience. If you will only have patience and teach me how I should behave, I will do my best to please you.”
Raising her face, she fixed him with a gaze that pleaded for another chance. How could he find the will to resist when his body ached to surrender?
Perhaps he could let Artemis have her way long enough to quell any lingering doubts she might have about her ample attractions. “I promise you, there was nothing wrong with your behavior. It was what any proper man would want from a beautiful woman in his bed. And better than most would dare hope.”
“Then why did you not want to…try again?” Artemis sounded torn between hope and uncertainty.
She was too clever a woman to be persuaded by anything but the truth…at least part of it. “You made me lose control of myself last night. No woman has ever done that to me before.”
“And you did not like it?”
“Quite the contrary! Have you ever done something that scared you half to death, yet gave you such a thrill you’d never felt more alive?”
After a moment’s thought, she replied with a furtive nod. “One winter when I was young, Papa unearthed an old sleigh from the stables and took me for a drive over the high weald. I’d never gone so fast. I squealed and screamed the whole time, certain we would crash and I’d be dashed to pieces. But when we were safely back in the courtyard, I begged Papa to take me again.”
She glowed with the delight of that long-slumbering memory. “And I made you feel that way?”
Even as he nodded, Hadrian sensed only one thing would truly convince her.
Running the tip of his forefinger up her arm toward her shoulder, he flashed a crooked grin. “Would you like to try again? Not quite all the way this time, though. I reckon I can bring you pleasure while still giving your sore parts a rest.”
“Indeed?” She gave his bare chest an admiring caress. “And how do you propose to accomplish that?”
“Like this, for a start.” He inclined his head to graze his cheek over the linen chemise that covered her bosom. His grin widened when she let out a soft gasp and her nipples strained against the fine cloth, demanding his attention.
“That is a fine start.” Artemis gave a voluptuous sigh as she sank back onto the pillows. “I am curious to see what else you will do.”
She might not believe he owed her any recompense for his earlier loss of control, but Hadrian believed otherwise. He owed her another debt for enticing her into bed, despite her reluctance. He could not cast her aside simply because he was afraid of getting in too deep.
To prevent himself from dwelling on all the mistakes he’d made with Artemis, he cupped her chin and gently tilted her face until it was at the perfect angle for kissing. Then he kissed her, again and again, longer and deeper, until he could no longer think of anything else.