"Are you sure?"
"Trust me. It"s one of my areas of expertise."
"Well, aren"t you full of yourself?"
"Yes, I am." He picked her up and carried her to the waiting bed. He laid her down on the thick feather tick and looked down at her. "But I won"t be happy until you"re full of myself too."
She laughed out loud then and lifted her arms to welcome him.
Chapter 29.
Her laughter warmed him to his toes. When she ran a hand down his flat belly and cupped his genitals, the warmth pooled in another place. He leaned down, bracing himself on his palms, and nipped her earlobe as her palm slid over his groin. He was fully erect and straining against the wool. She waggled her brows at him and slanted him a sidelong gaze.
"I think I"m going to like not being serious with you," she said.
"As long as you seriously love me as much as I love you," he said with a laugh. Then his laughter died as he looked down at her. She hadn"t said it outright, but it was suddenly something he needed desperately to hear. "You do love me, don"t you?"
"Oh, yes, Rhys," she said, her eyes shining. "I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you and you took my breath away."
"I"ll do my best to do that with regularity, madam." He stretched out beside her and they sank into the coverlet in a hailstorm of kisses.
Rhys was torn between wanting to draw this loving out and the desperate need to sink into her sweet flesh and find release.
She loved him. All his flaws. All his failures. She knew what he was and she didn"t look away. The wonder, the grace of it, made him weak and strong at once.
She bleated a piteous little sound as he nuzzled between her legs, drunk on her scent. Her knuckles were white where she fisted the linens.
"Only a little longer, Olivia."
She groaned with wanting.
His b.a.l.l.s tightened in response to her need. He wanted to give her the best, and to do that he knew, as she didn"t yet, that delay would mean more delight. He"d taken his time undressing her and working every sensitive place on her body into a frenzy. But now he couldn"t bear her sweet agony for another second.
Without even realizing he"d done it, he found himself positioned between her legs, his c.o.c.k knocking at her gate, poised to slide into her.
His shaft throbbed at the nearness of her soft, wet core. Rhys could deny their need no longer.
He rushed in with one long stroke and she molded around him in a warm, tight embrace. Then his b.a.l.l.s drew up into a tense mound, coiled for release. He held himself motionless, willing the urgency to subside so he could revel in the joy that was Olivia a little longer.
Only a little.
She wrapped her legs around him and hooked her ankles at the top of the cleft of his b.u.t.tocks. His heart pounded in his c.o.c.k, but he forced himself to be still.
Her mouth gaped. Her brows tented in distress. He couldn"t keep her suspended between need and completion any longer. He had to let her go.
He covered her lips with his and flicked his tongue in and out, loving her with his mouth and his c.o.c.k in tandem. She rocked beneath him, urging him in deeper with little noises of desperation that threatened to shred his control.
He moved faster then. Rougher. She rose to welcome his bone-jarring thrusts.
A little longer, please. He was lost in the heat, the friction, the animal joy of rutting, but something else was happening inside him too.
The door to that sheltered part of himself, the part he"d never opened to anyone, was being battered down with every thrust. Olivia was suddenly in there with him, wrapping her sweet self around his secrets, guarding them, loving him in spite of them. All the scattered bits of himself, those pieces of his heart he"d carelessly given away, were zinging back into him. One at a time, Olivia put them back together until his heart was whole.
She pulled her lips from his and turned her head to the side. "I can"t wait any-"
He felt it start. "Now, Olivia, now."
Rhys arched his back, driving in as deep as he could as his life shot into her in steady pulses. Her inner walls contracted around him.
It"s like being born, he thought disjointedly. But instead of going out, he was trying to come in. Into her joy. Into her bliss. Into her love.
Pleasure, sharp as a blade, sliced through him, rending him soul and marrow.
Olivia"s whole body convulsed around him, pulling him into her warmth, her light. He laid his cheek against hers as their connected bodies continued the mad dance of l.u.s.t for a few more seconds.
When it finally stopped, his cheek felt damp.
He raised his head and looked down at her with concern. "You"re crying."
She smiled up at him. "Only because I"m so happy."
He kissed her again, a soft shared breath. And he knew the years of wandering were over. Even if he was never received in his father"s house ever again, it no longer mattered.
He was already home.
Olivia had her way. The next morning, she"d sent her father"s coach back to Barrowdell with all the letters and announcements she"d written. She and Rhys stayed on at Braebrooke Cairn. Each day, relations with Rhys"s sister and brother-in-law improved. By end of the second week, they had formed a jolly house party during the day, though Sarah and Blakesby were careful to give the newlyweds time to themselves.
Little Alex was less thoughtful and latched on to his uncle fiercely. Rhys went galloping through the ancient keep with the laughing toddler on his shoulders. Of the two of them, Olivia didn"t know which was having the most fun.
But Rhys and Olivia enjoyed plenty of privacy by night. And if by the end of their honeymoon she wasn"t with child, it wouldn"t be for lack of trying.
At the beginning of the third week, she was a little distressed to see her father"s coach lumbering back up the long drive. Several large trunks were strapped to the top of the conveyance. Surely even a busybody like Beatrice Symon knew a man wouldn"t welcome his mother-in-law on his honeymoon.
Olivia needn"t have worried. Only Babette and Rhys"s valet, Mr. Clyde, climbed out of the Symon coach, along with Jean-Pierre and two of his best seamstresses.
"Your mother, she thought you would need a trousseau so she set Monsieur du Barry to work," Babette said as she shook the wrinkles out of the new gowns and hung them in Olivia"s capacious wardrobe. "Now all that"s wanted is the final fittings, and bien sur, when you and your bridegroom move to London, you shall take the city by storm."
Her mother must have ordered the trousseau the day after Olivia and Rhys ran off together. No doubt, she"d driven poor Jean-Pierre and his seamstresses ragged to complete so many pieces of a new wardrobe in so little time, but she always paid them extra for quick work. There was a new mauve traveling suit, a peac.o.c.k blue riding habit that would put all the other matrons who rode on Rotten Row to shame, several dresses suitable for receiving guests at home, and a breathtaking cloth-of-gold gown that would outshine royalty.
As Olivia ran an appreciative finger over the exquisite satins and silks, she realized her mother had some very fine qualities after all.
Rhys made himself scarce while Jean-Pierre and his minions made short work of marking places where the darts in Olivia"s new wardrobe would need to be taken in. But he was pleased to be present for a showing of the new gowns, bonnets, pelisses, fans, and other fripperies. Then he dismissed the fawning Jean-Pierre so he could investigate Olivia"s new stays, chemises, and stockings in private.
After a week of excitement over her new things, Rhys led her to the front parlor, covering her eyes. More than a dozen gaily wrapped boxes were stacked on the tea table.
"You were so taken with the trousseau, I decided it would be all right to wait a bit to show you these. Mr. Clyde was entrusted with seeing these wedding gifts safely here and has been fair to bursting for you to open them."
She settled on the settee and eyed the presents, feeling giddy as a child on Christmas morn, but she wouldn"t touch a single ribbon until Mr. Clyde fetched a traveling desk. "We must have something on which to record each gift and who sent it so I can send thank you notes," she explained.
Lady Harrington sent a china chafing dish. Pinkerton and Amanda sent a collection of colorful scarves with fantastical beings possessed of a multiplicity of arms in unlikely poses on them. The Baron and Baroness Ramstead sent an ornate silver snuffbox. Neither she nor Rhys took snuff and weren"t likely to start.
"But it"s the thought that counts," Olivia said as she carefully set down a description of the useless gift for her records.
Even some of the Barrowdell staff sent simple homespun presents-a woolen shawl from the housekeeper and a pressed orchid and progress report on her mare Molly from Mr. Thatcher. Olivia treasured them all.
But one of the last gifts she opened threatened to turn her into a hopeless watering pot.
"Oh, my!" she said when she unwrapped the heavy silver teapot. "It"s Great-grandmother Gentry"s tea service."
Olivia had only seen it once. Her mother had brought it out of storage and explained its significance when the Duke of Clarence first indicated interest in her. The tea set had belonged to Beatrice Symon"s mother"s mother, handed down from mother to first wedded daughter. Olivia knew her mother"s family hadn"t been wealthy. This tea service was the dearest thing they owned, and even though the family might have faced lean times, nothing would induce them to part with it.
The tea service wasn"t as fancy as the ones the Symons used now. The surfaces were polished smooth with no intricate filigree, and a few of the handles were worn thin. But Great-grandmother Gentry"s tea service signified an unbroken line of women whose goal in life was to make a proper home for their husbands and bring gentility to the menfolk who undoubtedly needed the civilizing influence.
When she"d first learned of the tea service, Olivia hadn"t been impressed, but now she hugged the teapot to her breast. It was her mother"s way of saying she understood about the elopement and wished her well.
"And this one"s from me," Rhys said, pulling a small box from his pocket.
"When did you have time to go shopping?" And where would he have done it? As far as Olivia knew, there wasn"t even a decent-sized hamlet nearby.
"I didn"t. You"re not the only one who can write a letter you know." He settled beside her and pressed the box into her hands. "Mr. Clyde picked it out for me."
She gave the valet who"d stood in the corner while she opened gifts a broad smile.
"No credit to me," Clyde said. "Lord Rhys was most particular in his instructions."
The anxious expression on his face told her Rhys was also most particular that she open this present quickly, so she tore away the ribbon and raised the lid of the satin-covered box.
It was a ring. A lovely sapphire set with small diamonds round about winked up at her from its bed of pale pink velvet.
"Oh, it"s beautiful."
"Not compared to you, but it"ll have to do," Rhys said as he slipped the curved nail from her left hand and replaced it with the new ring. He started to put the nail in his pocket, but Olivia eased it out of his hand.
"I want to keep this one too," she said, putting it on her right hand. "So I"ll always remember how we started."
Rhys pulled a face. "And here I thought you were keeping it to use for my nose in case you have difficulty leading me about."
"That too," she admitted with a laugh. Finally, there was only one box left. Rhys picked it up and gave it a shake. A rattling sound came from the package. "Who sent this?"
"I don"t know. There"s no card attached." Olivia took it from him and untied the lovely red ribbon. "Perhaps the sender put the note inside the box so it wouldn"t be lost along the way."
Olivia lifted the lid and saw only cotton gauze inside. She lifted a corner of it to see what delicate finery the cotton was cushioning. A small gasp escaped her lips and she dropped the box to the stone floor.
"What is it?" Rhys bent down and scooped it back up.
"Careful," she said, putting a hand to his forearm. "It"s just like the others."
"Other what?"
"The other thorns," she whispered.
Rhys set the box on the low table before them and removed the gauze to bare the thorn to their gaze. He studied it carefully. "Not exactly like the others. It"s not shiny like the ones we found with Mr. Weinschmidt. I think it"s safe to a.s.sume this one is not tipped with poison. Someone is only sending a message."
"What does it mean?" she asked, her joy over the other gifts evaporating under the relentless heat of some unknown person"s hatred.
"It means this is not over," Rhys said, pulling her into his arms. The attacks weren"t motivated by her possible match to the royal duke. They were personal. "It means you"re still in danger."
Chapter 30.
Winter still held Scotland and the Lake District in its icy grip, but as Rhys and Olivia"s coach neared London, the roads became increasingly muddy and rutted. Just outside the city, one of the wheels bogged down in the muck. Rhys was forced to disembark and put his shoulder to the side of the conveyance while the driver whipped the horses cruelly in order to get them moving again.
As a result, he was more than disheveled from travel. Rhys was an unholy mess, with mud caked from his boot tips to his elbows.
It was not the way he"d hoped to greet his father after more than three years in exile.
He had no choice.
Warrington House was the safest place he could think of, and though he detested asking the marquis for help, Olivia"s security came before his battered pride.
Warrington House was a four-storied Georgian with rows of windows peering into the street from each floor. The panes were graduated in size, slightly smaller the higher in the house they were situated. The architectural trick gave the illusion that the imposing edifice soared even higher than it did.
A set of granite steps led up to the ornate double doors where stone statues of lions en couchant lay in wait for any who deigned to approach unworthily. When the Symon coach, which Rhys had commandeered without his father-in-law"s permission, came to a stop on the elegantly curved Mayfair street, he experienced a moment"s trepidation. His father might turn them away.
He couldn"t allow that to happen, he decided.
Rhys climbed out of the coach and ordered Babette and Mr. Clyde to see to their baggage. They"d left the whining Monsieur du Barry and his seamstresses at Braebrooke Cairn. Sarah and Blakesby had promised to return them to Barrowdell after the designer and his helpers produced a small wardrobe of baby clothes for their coming new arrival.
Rhys helped Olivia down from the carriage. Her complexion was sallow from exhaustion. She hadn"t slept well at the coaching inns at which they"d stopped, and Rhys hadn"t wanted to chance veering off course to stay at the country homes of even his friends, Lord Nathaniel Colton or Sir Jonah Sharp. The fewer people who knew their destination, the better.
Putting a hand to her back, he guided Olivia to the door of Warrington House. He almost lifted a hand to knock, but then he realized the servants would be more likely to obey him if he acted like a returning son of the house instead of a wandering beggar.
He turned the bra.s.s doork.n.o.b and went in. It was almost sacrilege for him to tromp across the Italian marble foyer in his muddy Hessians, but there was no help for it.