lay between them like a hedge of thorns. She needed tenderness and affection and the slow slide of those long brown fingers across her flesh, the gentle torture of his mouth on her body.
‘Then let us, as you say, lie together and whatever follows from that.’ Avery flipped back the covers and shifted up the bed to prop himself on one elbow next to her. She could not imagine speaking so frankly with any other man under such circumstances. Somehow that very ease made her sadder. They could have so much, share so much if only they did not have this history between them.
Bold, because she knew what she wanted and needed him to want it, too, Laura pushed the heavy silk from his shoulders and ran her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to kiss her. Avery obliged, his fingers deft in the ties of her negligée, the urgency in contrast to the slow, almost lazy sweep of his tongue between her lips.
Avery disposed of her nightgown with an efficiency that made her smile against his mouth. One warm hand moved down her body, slid between her thighs. She was ready for him, embarrassingly so if she had a particle of shame left in her. Laura pressed against the questing fingers, arched into his palm to find it gone. He shifted his weight over her, nudged her thighs apart with his knee and entered her in one hard stroke.
Surprised, yet excited, Laura curled her legs around his hips and looked up into his face. Avery’s eyes were closed, his face stark, the tendons of his throat taut. He thrust steadily without kissing her, his hands still on the pillow beside her head. Laura struggled to meet his rhythm, to pace her own pleasure. Then he stilled, groaned deep in his throat and thrust hard, hanging over her, his face contorted into a mask of effort. She felt the heat of his release deep inside her, braced herself for his body as he relaxed onto her and held him to her when he subsided, crushing her breasts against his chest.
Her body was throbbing and tingling with unsatisfied desire, but part of her was flattered and titillated by his urgency. She rubbed her cheek against his hair as he lay, his face buried in her shoulder.
Then, taking her by surprise, he rolled off her body, rose from the bed and pulled on his robe. ‘Thank you,’ Avery said politely, as though she had poured a cup of tea or hemmed a handkerchief for him. ‘Goodnight, Laura.’
The pattern continued for four days and four nights. Avery was unfailingly polite, mildly affectionate to her in front of Alice and the servants and consulted amicably about what changes she might wish to make to the house. In the evening he listened intently to Alice’s news, courteously to Laura’s description of how she had spent her day and made unexceptional small talk over the dinner table.
At night he came to her bed, ensured she was adequately prepared for him, which, to her humiliation, was easy enough, and removed himself to his own chamber as soon as he had obtained his own release. Laura was furious and frustrated and had no idea what, short of chaining him to the bed, she could do about it. Easy though she had found it to speak frankly to Avery about desire, she found her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she tried to ask him to stay and actually make love to her.
‘You’re as cross as crabs,’ Mab observed on the fifth morning when Laura managed to upset her trinket bowl on the dressing table, sending ear bobs and silver chains flying. She knelt on the floor, muttering curses under her breath, and tried to gather them up while her maidservant nagged. ‘What’s the matter with you? You’ve got little Alice, you’ve got a lovely home and a fine husband who isn’t lacking in his attentions to you...’
Laura sat up abruptly and banged her head on the underside of the table. ‘Ow!’ She crawled out and glared at Mab. ‘I will thank you not to refer to private matters of that sort. Nothing is wrong.’
‘Then sit down and let me do your hair.’ Mab was, as usual, unsquashable. She swept the brush through Laura’s hair, provoking a gasp of pain as the bristles found a tangle. ‘There, of course! I know what’s wrong, its that time of the month. I lost count, what with the excitement over the wedding and all. That’s why you’re so down in the mouth, just like normal.’
‘So it is.’ Laura rubbed her back, which now she thought about it, was aching. She did some rapid calculations. ‘Tomorrow.’ Now she had the knowledge that she was not pregnant to add to her usual monthly misery. She would be fine by the day after, once she had got through a day of being clumsy, achy and prone to tears and another day of cramps. Tonight, she thought, with the feeling of someone glimpsing a small patch of silver lining in a very dark cloud, she could tell Avery to keep to his own bedchamber for a few nights. He’d be hoping he had got her with child, she was sure, gloomily pleased to be spreading the misery.
* * *
By the time she went downstairs she had talked herself into a more positive frame of mind, although she was grateful that Alice was going to be spending the day with her friends, the granddaughters of Mrs Gordon. Avery had ridden out early to inspect some distant woodland with a view to selling some of the timber, Pritchett informed her.
She had been reluctant to turn off any of her old staff so Avery had agreed to Pritchett taking over at Westerwood while his own butler remained in control of the town house and the Westerwood butler, who had been feeling his rheumatics, moved to the easier duties at the Leicestershire hunting lodge.
Pritchett refilled her coffee cup. ‘Which room do you wish to look at today, my lady?’
The rooms at Westerwood Manor were all in excellent condition, but some seemed dated, others were not very comfortable. Laura had been working round them, making notes and listing necessary work. It made a neutral topic of conversation with Avery and it was helping her learn his tastes before they moved to his main country house, Wykeham Hall. It was best for Alice, they had agreed, for her to become used to the changes to her family in a house she was familiar with.
‘This room, I think... No, the Blue Sitting Room.’ Avery was away, that was the safest time to investigate the room where Piers’s portrait hung.
‘Very well, my lady. I will send Jackson and one of the maids along to assist you.’
‘No need for that, thank you, Pritchett. I do not expect to have to change anything around. I just want to familiarise myself with that room.’
* * *
It took an hour of procrastination before Laura finally shut the door behind her and went to sit at the writing table that faced the fireplace and Piers’s portrait. This was the table where Avery had kissed her with such passion, the place where she had learned the truth about Piers’s return to Spain and his death.
Laura folded her hands on the blotter and made herself look steadily at the picture until she felt her calm return. He looked so young, so unformed in that flamboyant red jacket. Had he really loved her or was it simply a boy’s first calf love? If she had refused to make love with him, would they have drifted apart naturally?
Yes, she thought, sadly. Yes, what we had was sweet and strangely innocent. Or perhaps naive is the better word. If he had lived, we would have married because of the baby and by now we would have outgrown each other and yet be tied together for life.
She got up and went to lift down the heavy cavalry sabre from its stand on the mantelshelf. It was not even scratched, Piers had owned it for such a short time. A bullet in the chest had killed him before he was able to raise his sword in anger at the enemy. Laura touched the tassel that hung from the finger guard, then set the weapon back in place.
It
