It certainly was. How different their lives would have been. But . . . “It would never have been me.” He tugged on his drawers. “Gentlemen do not seduce young ladies. They court them, they secure their affections, and then they propose.”
A sudden gleam in her eye was all the warning he got before she rose to amble toward him with a most seductive walk. “So you don’t think I could have tempted you to seduce me?”
His throat went dry at the sight of her so rumpled and lovely. “Tempted? Yes.” He pulled her into his arms for a thorough kiss, then drew back to stare into her face. “But I would never have acted upon it.”
Her smile faltered. “Are you quite sure it doesn’t bother you that I . . . am not . . .”
“It doesn’t.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m very happy with my choice of wife.”
She eyed him askance. “Even though I’m reckless and impudent and always getting into trouble?”
“I’ll take you any way I can get you, minx—reckless, impudent, and all.” Even skittish and wary. As long as he could kiss the fear from her from time to time.
A sudden knock at the door made them both jump.
“Milord, milady? Dinner is served.”
“Thank you, John!” he called out. “We’ll be there presently.”
“We can’t go to dinner yet,” she hissed. “I’m naked!”
“And you do look very fetching that way, too.”
With a roll of her eyes, she hurried to don her shirt. Or rather, his old shirt.
He followed her. “We have a choice, minx. We can go to dinner late, with you dressed in breeches and me thinking the entire time how I want to get you out of them. Or we can ask for a tray upstairs and head up to my bedchamber or yours. Either way, we scandalize the servants, so—”
“We might as well go upstairs,” she said in a throaty voice as she approached to place her hand on his bare chest. “I’d rather enjoy seeing how the woman-on-the-top thing works in a bed.”
When she ran her finger down his chest and strolled away, he got dressed so fast, it was a miracle he didn’t injure something. At last, they were having their wedding night. And he didn’t intend to miss one minute.
Twenty-Two
A week later, Clarissa headed to London in the carriage with her husband and wondered where the time had gone. Days of easy camaraderie had bled into nights of passion. No nightmares. No fear. No horrible reminders of the past.
Well, she still couldn’t lie beneath him without panicking, but he didn’t seem to mind that she was always on top. At least she hoped he didn’t mind. She had certainly come to enjoy their way of swiving. She liked arousing him. Making him lose control. Watching him fall apart beneath her. It was wonderful. They were together in every respect, and she’d never dreamed that could happen.
And if sometimes she wished she could try making love the other way, she shoved that from her mind. Because better that they do it the way they did, than not do it at all. It certainly did keep him in a far pleasanter mood than he’d been in during the first week of their marriage.
But not today. Staring over at him now, she could see how withdrawn he was from her, how pensive and subdued. Fortunately, she’d begun to understand that it was his way of dealing with things that worried him. He had to pull into himself to mull things over from every angle.
Still, they were going to their wedding celebration at Vauxhall, and she wasn’t about to spend it with him looking dour and gloomy.
“I cannot wait for the party. It sounds like great fun, don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” he said, staring out the window.
She eyed him askance. He hadn’t been so sanguine about Mama’s plans when she’d come out to Hertfordshire three days ago for final approval. Annoyed that she couldn’t find a balloonist, Mama had hired a female tightrope walker and an acrobat who did tricks with a hoop. After Clarissa had grown tired of fruitlessly trying to rein her mother in, she’d amused herself by cataloguing Edwin’s many attempts to restrain his horror every time Mama mentioned some new excess.
So either he’d had a change of heart since then, or he wasn’t paying attention to what she was saying now. She decided to test her theory. “Mama wrote me yesterday to say that she’d enlisted a snake charmer for the party, too.”
“That’s nice.”
She stifled a laugh. “I told her that a lone snake charmer wouldn’t be enough—we needed at least sixteen to do it properly. Preferably with enormous turbans in puce velvet.”
“Uh-huh. Puce velvet. Right.”
“I told her I was sure you would approve the three thousand pounds it will cost.”
“Yes, that sounds—” His gaze shot to her. “What costs three thousand pounds?”
Of course he’d registered the part about the money. “Mama’s sixteen snake charmers,” she managed to say with a straight face. “For the wedding celebration.”
“What? When did I agree to snake charmers, and why the devil would it cost three thousand—”
She began laughing, and as he realized she’d been bamming him, he threw himself back in his seat with a snort. “Very amusing,” he drawled.