The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride (Unconventional Brides #2)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

As Amelia and Andrew entered Longley House after attending a ball hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Arundel, he didn’t say a word, and she could no longer deny that something was bothering him.Nevertheless, she didn’t want to raise the issue in front of others. She’d have to wait until they were alone.

“Well, I am exhausted,” Lady Drake declared, turning to face them as Boden locked the door. “I’ll check on Kate and then go to bed. If I’m not up for breakfast, please don’t rouse me. After such a crush of a ball, I feel like I could sleep for hours.”

“We’ll let you sleep,” Amelia assured her. “Good night, Brigid.”

Lady Drake patted her shoulder. “Good night, dearest. Sleep well.”

While Andrew’s mother traipsed up the stairs, Amelia took Andrew’s hand and tugged him around the corner, into the corridor.

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

Andrew frowned. “What do you mean?”

She nibbled her lower lip, uncertain how much to say. She knew some men didn’t like to be questioned, but he didn’t seem the type to get angry with her if she pried.

“You haven’t been yourself since yesterday afternoon.” She was really hoping his mood had nothing to do with the fact her book was being published.

He’d seemed genuinely happy for her, but had it been an act? If so, did she even care? She wouldn’t let it stop her. But truly, she didn’t want him to be unhappy.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, “but I’ll listen if you’d like to talk.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, and disappointment settled in her gut at the realization he’d likely brush off her concern. But then he sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“Join me in the office for a nightcap?” he asked.

“Of course.”

He led her to his office, opened the door, and gestured for her to sit on the worn leather chair in the corner. He lit three candles on the desk, then opened a cabinet beneath the shelf his ledgers were stored on and withdrew a decanter of brandy and two crystal glasses.

He poured a generous portion of brandy into one glass and a slightly smaller amount into the other, then returned the decanter to the cabinet and offered her the smaller one. When she accepted the glass, he pulled over the chair from behind his desk and sat a few feet away from her.

“Have you ever tried brandy?” he asked.

“No.” She sniffed the brown liquor and wrinkled her nose at its sharp scent.

Andrew laughed. “Take a small sip. It’s quite strong, but once you get past the sharpness of the alcohol, it’s quite sweet and fruity.”

She eyed the drink dubiously. She wasn’t sure she’d find it either sweet or fruity. Nevertheless, she was willing to give it a try. She raised the glass to her lips and tipped it back slightly, then sputtered as soon as the brandy hit her tongue.

“You like this?” she gasped, swallowing in the hopes she’d get the taste out of her mouth as quickly as possible.

His eyes gleamed with amusement, but it was good-humored, not cruel, and she couldn’t help but be pleased that he’d at least partly broken the hold of whatever was causing his uncharacteristically somber mood.

“I do,” he said. “If you drink it often enough, you develop a taste for it. Although one must be careful not to develop too much of a taste for it.”

She grimaced, eyed the brandy, and contemplated setting it aside. But she knew she was in no danger of becoming a drunk from one drink, and she was determined not to shy away from new experiences, so she braced herself and tossed back the rest. It burned down her throat and heated her gut.

Andrew’s eyes widened. “That’s one way to do it.”

“Mm-hmm.” She placed the glass on the floor and folded her hands on her lap. “So, is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

He sipped his brandy, and not a single reaction showed on his face. “This stays between us.”

She nodded. It wasn’t as if there was anyone else she’d tell.

He rubbed his jaw and shifted his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “I’m worried about my ability to provide for you, Mother, and Kate.”

The confession rushed from him on a single breath.

“Why?” she asked softly.

He shot her a look that made it clear he thought the answer was obvious. “I was careless with money once before, and we lost almost everything because of that. I’m afraid of making the same foolish mistake. You all deserve better.”

An ache formed in Amelia’s throat. Feeling awkward, she reached out and touched his forearm.

“I’ve never thought you foolish.” She kept her gaze locked on his as the candlelight played across his features, highlighting them with gold and shadows. “You have a kind heart, and you trusted someone who let you down. Being kind and trusting isn’t a shortcoming.”

He scoffed.

“It’s not,” she said firmly. “But if you’re truly concerned, you know my father can help.”

He stared down into his glass. “I’ve already sought his advice, and I’ve made plans to shift my estate into the management of his personal man of business.”

She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “Then you’re already doing plenty to ensure that history doesn’t repeat.”

He didn’t respond, and she could see doubt etched in the lines of his face. In the dimness, the splotches beneath his eyes appeared darker, and she was struck by the unusual urge to wrap her arms around him and comfort him.

Finally, he raised his eyes. “How can you trust me not to lose your dowry when I’ve proven myself unable to hold on to money?”

Her heart thudded rapidly, and she searched her mind for the right answer, determined not to say the wrong thing and make this worse.

Carefully, she slid her hand into his free one. “Even when I didn’t know you well, I trusted you to keep your word with regard to our agreement even though I doubt any court would uphold it because I am a woman and therefore considered your property, not an equal able to stand on my own feet. You’re a good man.”

His eyes searched hers. “You really trust me?”

“Yes.” She intertwined her fingers with his. “With my dowry… and with myself.”

His forehead furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Amelia’s throat was suddenly dry. She’d shocked herself with that last claim, but now that she’d said it, she wasn’t about to take it back.

“I….” She summoned her courage. This ought not to be so hard. The man was her husband, after all. “I would like to lie with you.”

As he stared at her, a wave of embarrassment washed over her, and her insides churned uncomfortably.

“Only if you want that too,” she hastened to add, her embarrassment growing with every passing second.

“I would.” His generous mouth curved. “But only if you’re sure you’re really ready.”

“I am.”

They’d been married for nearly a month. She knew Andrew by now. He was, as she’d said, a good man. One whose charming smile and twinkling eyes never failed to take her breath away. She trusted him to make this enjoyable for her. Or at least, as enjoyable as it could be. She didn’t know exactly what the marital act entailed.

He drained his brandy far more smoothly than she had, stood, and drew her to her feet. “Your bedchamber or mine?”

“Yours.” She hadn’t seen much of the earl’s chambers yet. Theoretically, she knew she could enter whenever she liked, but it hadn’t felt right to simply go in and snoop around to satisfy her curiosity.

She and Andrew walked hand in hand up the stairs. She’d expected to feel nervous when this time finally came, but all she experienced was a faint twinge arising more from a lack of knowledge than anything else.

Amelia didn’t like to be unprepared, and in this case, she very much was.

When they reached his bedchamber, he opened the door and held it for her. She stepped inside and looked around. Candlesticks burned on the nightstands, and there was a fire in the grate opposite the bed. The drapes were drawn, and the bedcovers were pulled up.

The walls, floor, and bed frame were polished wood. The red drapes and red-and-black mat made the room feel warmer than it otherwise might.

She turned to Andrew. “I don’t know what to do.”

He pushed the door shut and latched it, then smiled warmly as he approached. “Relax. I’ll tell you everything you need to do. Don’t worry about failing. There’s absolutely no way you ever could.”

She exhaled shakily. “All right.”

“Good.”

He drew closer until his chest brushed hers and their legs would touch if either of them swayed toward the other. He rested one of his hands on her hip and lifted the other to cup the side of her face.

Instinctively, she closed her eyes and turned her face into his palm.

“You are beautiful, Amelia.”

She stiffened and lifted her face from his hand. She wasn’t beautiful. Not in the slightest. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

He put his finger to her lips. “Ah, but I do. So don’t argue. I’m going to kiss you now. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” she whispered, suddenly eager to experience a repeat of the kiss from their wedding. He hadn’t kissed her on the lips since then, only on the cheek or her forehead, and she couldn’t help but feel that she’d been missing out.

He cupped her face between his palms and touched his lips to hers. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she closed them, breathing in his sweet and spicy scent as he increased the pressure on her mouth. She gasped when his tongue brushed against the seam of her lips.

“Open for me, darling,” he murmured.

She parted her lips, uncertain what was happening, but confident that she would like it.

His tongue slipped into her mouth and stroked hers. Heat pulsed between her legs, and her breath caught. What on earth was that? How could a kiss make her throb at that secret place at the apex of her thighs?

Instinctively, her tongue twined with his. He groaned, and satisfaction coursed through her. She had been the one to make him feel good. She repeated the movement, eager for more. He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her against his body. Something was different from when they’d embraced before. Something hard and hot.

She drew back, her eyes wide. “What’s that?”

“That’s my cock. When we lie together, I’ll put it inside you.” He slipped his arm between them and cupped her secret spot. “Right here.”

Her hips rocked into his touch, and fireworks exploded in the backs of her eyes. “Why does that feel so good?”

His smile became sinful. “If you think that’s good, just wait. I’m going to make you scream.”

She laughed nervously. Was that supposed to be reassuring?

“Stand in front of the bed,” he ordered.

She did so, and he immediately started unbuttoning the back of her gown. His fingers moved deftly—he was clearly almost as comfortable with this task as a maid would be. When he reached the bottom, the gown slid off her shoulders and pooled around her waist.

A gentle touch landed on her upper arm, and she jumped.

“Shh,” he murmured. “Let me kiss you.”

She shuddered as he trailed more kisses along the top of her shoulder and up the side of her neck. Every single nerve in her body sang.

“Step out of the dress,” he urged.

She shimmied the gown to the floor and hesitated. Clad in only her undergarments, she felt quite bare.

“Look at me.”

She did so.

He kissed her. “You are temptation incarnate. May I remove your clothes?”

“All right.”

He kissed her once more and loosened the ribbons at her back. The soft cotton caressed her skin as it slid down her body. Next, he removed her chemise and stays, until she stood before him, her upper body nude. His gaze skimmed over her, his pupils dilated.

“Stunning,” he murmured.

She bit her tongue to stop the protest that had already formed. She wasn’t beautiful or tempting or stunning or any of the other things he’d called her, but if he wanted to insist she was, she wouldn’t argue. It would be nice to pretend.

He knelt and peeled down her drawers. She kicked them off and removed her silk slippers too.

Now, she was truly nude.

And he was looking at her as though she were a delicacy he wanted to sample.

He stood and wrapped her in his embrace. She shivered as the cool fabric of his suit scraped against her sensitive skin. Heat pulsed at her groin again. There was something awfully scandalous about being completely nude with a fully clothed man.

He removed his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair in the corner. “Lie across the bed, but keep your feet on the floor.”

She perched on the edge of the bed and shuffled backward until only her toes touched the floor, then lay flat on the mattress. He moved, and the air shifted over her nakedness. She shivered, feeling exposed. This was an unusual position. What did he have in mind?

He knelt between her knees and rested one arm over each of her thighs. “Let me bring you pleasure before I take mine.”

She bit her lip and nodded, not quite knowing what he meant but certain that whatever it was, she wanted it. Eyes closed, she waited for whatever came next. When a wet heat settled over her nether regions, her eyes shot open, and she bolted upright.

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

He lifted his mouth from her, his eyes burning into hers. “Pleasuring you.”

“There?”

He grinned rakishly. “Yes. There. Now lie back and tell me if I do anything you don’t like.”

“A-all right.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but he knew better than she did when it came to matters such as this, so she lay back down, feeling a slight tension through her core that wasn’t there before.

This time, when he put his mouth on her, she didn’t startle or push him away. Instead, she caught her lower lip between her teeth and paid attention to how his touch made her feel. His tongue delved into the softness between her legs the same way it had entered her mouth earlier.

She gripped the bedclothes. Surely this wasn’t normal. But oh, as he licked down her center and teased the bud at the top of her feminine parts, it felt good. He moaned against her flesh, and she shuddered as pleasure rippled through her.

He kissed the top of her mound. “You like that?”

“I do.” She parted her thighs wider to give him better access.

He made a sound in the back of his throat and buried his face between her legs. Despite his obvious enthusiasm, he wasn’t rough. He continued to tease her with his lips and tongue until the pulses of heat she’d experienced earlier were thrumming through her constantly.

He moved his arms from over her legs, and she almost groaned in disappointment. There was something delicious about him pinning her down. But then he slid his arms beneath her thighs and angled her body toward him so that he could better taste her.

She rose onto her elbows and gazed down at him. His hair was slightly mussed, his eyes the darkest they’d ever been. He looked debauched in the best possible way, and despite holding her gaze, he didn’t stop lapping at her for a single second.

Her hips twitched as an involuntary shudder rolled through her. His clever tongue nudged her bud and drew tight circles around it. Her lower body clenched, and she almost dropped onto her back, but she managed to hold herself there. She wanted to see this.

Something was building within her, winding tighter and tighter. She stared into Andrew’s almost black eyes and wondered what he saw when he looked at her.

His bluestocking wife?

A wanton woman?

Lord, like this, she could almost believe herself a seductress.

“That’s it,” he murmured against her as her hips began to tip back and forth. “Ride my tongue.”

Oh God.

Her mouth opened on a silent scream as the most intense pleasure she’d ever known barreled through her. She shuddered and whimpered and somehow managed to look into Andrew’s eyes until he’d wrung every last ounce of sensation from her.

She floated in a haze of sated desire, hardly aware that he was climbing over her. She didn’t fully return to herself until he kissed her and she tasted something unusual on his lips. Was that from her?

“So beautiful.” He shifted her around until she was lying lengthwise on the bed with him pressed along her body. He kissed her again, then nuzzled the side of her neck. “This next part might be a bit uncomfortable. ”

She blinked up at him, in a daze. “I trust you.”

He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

One of his hands cupped her, similar to the way he had earlier, but this time, he didn’t stop there. One finger pushed against her entrance and slid inside.

Amelia gasped. It didn’t feel bad, just… strange. She wasn’t used to having things up there, and it was tight. If it was this tight with one finger, hopefully the part of him he needed to insert wouldn’t be much larger.

“Breathe out,” he urged. “Relax your muscles. The more relaxed you are, the more comfortable it will be.”

She exhaled slowly, doing her best to relax, but it was awfully hard to do so on command.

He speared her with another finger.

“You’re so tight.” His voice was thick. “No one else has ever had you before. You’re all mine.”

Maybe. But was he all hers?

She cast the thought aside as he added a third finger. She tensed automatically at the pinch of pain.

“Shh.” He kissed her, tangling their tongues again.

Bit by bit, the tension eased from her body. He pressed his palm flat against that magic nub, and she whimpered.

“I’m going to fill you now,” he whispered. “All right?”

“Uh-huh.”

He got off her and, with rapid movements, removed his shirt, trousers, and drawers. Amelia drank in the sight of him as he approached. His abdomen was flat, his nipples pink, and his torso was dusted with reddish-brown hair. His legs tensed with each step, more muscular than she would have expected, and then there was the thing between his legs.

His cock.

She gulped. It was definitely longer and thicker than his fingers, and with its dusky coloring and the way it jutted forward, she worried it might be more than she could handle.

She inhaled slowly. “That’s a lot.”

He looked oddly pleased. “You can take it. Your body was made for me.”

As he settled over her, she tried to focus on how wonderful he’d made her feel before rather than how uncomfortable this might be. His thumb found her nub and circled gently—just enough to make her hips twitch and heat pool in her core.

“Trust me?” he murmured, holding her gaze.

“I do.”

She rose off the bed and kissed him. As their lips clung together, he notched his cock against her entrance and pushed in. At first, she clenched against the intrusion, and when he continued to inch forward, she had to grit her teeth against the urge to push him away.

But he deepened the kiss, and her body grew languid. As it did, the discomfort eased. When he was fully inside her, he didn’t move.

“Is that it?” she asked. “Is it done?”

He laughed, but a muscle in his jaw ticked. “No, I’m just giving you time to get used to me.”

“Oh.” Grateful he wasn’t pushing her, she tilted her head to look down between their bodies. At the sight of his cock disappearing inside her, the heat in her core blossomed into more. It was oddly stirring.

Slowly, he eased out, then thrust back in. He threw his head back, and a pained sound rumbled from him.

The more he moved, the more consuming the heat inside her became. He stoked the flames of her sated passion until she was desperate for more all over again.

All the while, he kissed her. She couldn’t get enough of the taste of him. She silently pleaded for more, and he gave her everything she desired.

The tension drew taut inside her, and she knew now that it meant that exquisite overload of sensation was nearly upon her. She clutched his shoulders and hooked her feet around his legs so that he kept entering her at just the right angle.

A groan tore from him.

“It’s so good.” She rubbed herself against him shamelessly. “I’m almost there. Please, Andrew. Please.”

“I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

He didn’t falter until she broke apart, crying her pleasure. Only then did his thrusts become erratic. He stiffened and pulsed inside her, his face buried against the side of her neck.

He collapsed on top of her, and even though he was heavy, she didn’t have the wherewithal to push him off. Instead, she just lay there with his warm weight pinning her down, wondering why on earth they’d taken so long to do this.

After a while, Andrew stirred. He got up and retrieved a cloth from one of his cupboards, then brought it over.

“Let me clean you up.”

She squirmed, self-conscious as he dabbed between her legs. It came away speckled with red. She gasped, but he didn’t seem concerned.

“There’s often a little blood the first time a woman is with a man,” he told her. “It’s nothing to worry about, and it shouldn’t happen again.”

“Oh. That’s good. I thought….” Well, she wasn’t sure what she’d thought. Perhaps that her monthly cycle had arrived early. Wouldn’t that have been mortifying?

He wiped himself with the cloth and tossed it on the floor. “How do you feel?”

She tested each of her limbs. There was a faint soreness between her legs, but that was all. “I’m well. ”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He gave her a mischievous smile. “That was my first time being someone’s first.”

She carefully kept her face blank even though she wanted to scowl at the thought of him lying with anyone else. “This is how women become with child?”

“Yes.” A pink flush appeared on his cheeks as he lay down alongside her. “When a man comes—that’s what it’s called when you feel that intense pleasure—he ejaculates his seed into the woman, and sometimes, that seed takes root and forms a baby.”

“But not always?” she clarified, recalling what her mother had said about lying with her husband as often as possible to ensure the job got done.

“No.” He looped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “Sometimes it takes, and sometimes it doesn’t. Some couples are very fertile together, and others aren’t. It’s impossible to know what the case will be for us.”

She nodded, grateful for his explanation. It was difficult to be a woman and not know what may or may not be happening within her own body. At this very minute, a baby might be being created inside her.

Would she like being a mother?

It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about much, since it was generally considered a foregone conclusion that all women would have children. Amelia had no experience with babies, but it might be nice to introduce a miniature version of herself and Andrew to the joys of reading or to explore their new country home together.

She rested her head on Andrew’s chest and closed her eyes. Her mind replayed Andrew’s comment about this being the first time he’d been with a maiden. It certainly wasn’t his first time with a woman in general. Based on how skillfully he’d pleasured her, she suspected he’d had many lovers.

Had he ever made love to any of the women who’d been at the ball they’d attended tonight? She wasn’t sure. She knew many women of the ton conducted affairs—usually after they’d borne children.

Many of them were more beautiful than Amelia. More sophisticated. Had they brought him more pleasure than she had?

If she knew she could expect fidelity from him, it may bother her less, but the fact was, she had no idea whether he would be faithful. It hadn’t been part of their agreement.

Eventually, he’d probably grow bored with her, and she wasn’t sure how she’d handle it when he did.