upon her now and his eyes were smouldering with such heat it made her want to lean back into the sofa cushions and open her arms to him.
‘Or,’ he growled, ‘face the consequences.’
With a little shriek, she leapt up off the sofa just before he lunged for her. For the next few minutes, he chased her round and round the sofa, uttering dire threats of what he would do if he caught her, which he could have done any time he chose since she was laughing too hard to properly control her movements.
And then the door opened and Mr Brownlow appeared with a full coal scuttle. And came to a dead halt at the sight of his master and mistress playing chase.
‘Dashed cold in here,’ panted her husband as Mary froze in place. ‘Just keeping warm, with a little exercise.’
The look on Mr Brownlow’s face, the knowledge that had he come in a few seconds later he would have caught them rolling about on the sofa rather than running round and round it, was too much for Mary. With a shocked little cry she darted past the scandalised caretaker and out into the corridor, where she made for the stairs.
She heard her husband’s footsteps pursuing her, but this time she wasn’t playing. She really did just want to run away and hide. Without thinking, she made for the only room in the house where she would feel safe. The bedroom in which they’d slept the night before. The embers still glowed in the grate, making the room less chilly than any other, except the kitchen.
Lord Havelock reached it only a few seconds behind her. Before she could even turn round, he’d grabbed her by the waist.
‘Got you,’ he cried, propelling her across the room and flinging her down on to the bed.
‘Now, my girl, we’ll see how long you can keep on laughing at me,’ he growled. Not that she felt like laughing any more. All the humour had gone out of the situation.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
She hadn’t realised she’d communicated her chagrin to him. But she’d definitely tensed up and he’d noticed.
‘I...I’m sorry,’ she said, tears starting to her eyes as he reared up and looked down at her in confusion. ‘It was just...’ She gulped. ‘I can’t believe I forgot Mr Brownlow was on his way to make up the fire in there. A few more moments, and he would have found us... He would have found us...’ She couldn’t go on. Her face flamed though, at the knowledge she’d been about to let her husband catch her and tumble her to the sofa he’d been chasing her round. And let him commence the perfectly thrilling punishments he’d been threatening.
He started to chuckle.
‘It isn’t funny.’
‘But it is, though. Far funnier than almost burning the house down around my ears. And you, madam...’ he gave her a squeeze ‘...couldn’t stop laughing about that.’
He kissed her brow in a comforting sort of way. And then her mouth, as his fingers sought the ties of her bodice.
‘Surely you cannot still be thinking about...about...’ Oh, but he most definitely was. And the minute he slipped his hand inside her gown, she was thinking about it again, too. Not just thinking about it either, but wanting it.
‘Since we’ve been married,’ he groaned, pushing aside an inconvenient swathe of material so that he could get at bare skin, ‘it seems to be damn near all I can think about.’
‘B-but we can’t.’
‘I don’t see why not. Mr Brownlow already knows what we’ve come up here for.’
‘Oh, surely not!’
‘Of course he does. He almost caught us at it in the drawing room, don’t forget.’
‘As if I ever could,’ she cried in mortification.
‘Mary,’ he said more gently, stroking the hair from her forehead. ‘You don’t really want me to stop, do you? Not...now?’
He ran his hand up the outside of her leg, pushing her skirt out of the way. A thrill shot through her, making her heart beat faster, her insides melt and her hips squirm.
‘It would be a positive crime to disappoint Mr Brownlow.’
‘Oh, don’t speak to me of him,’ she whimpered, torn between giving way to the delicious sensations he was rousing and the notion that she oughtn’t, she really oughtn’t, behave like this any more, not now they had indoor servants.
‘Not another word,’ he agreed affably. ‘In fact, I’m sure I can put my mouth to much better use.’
He did. He set about making love to her with such skill that before long her world shrank to the size of one bed, and the only two people left were the two people on it. What had started out downstairs as playful rose swiftly again to a crescendo of desperate need. The urge to scream when her release came was so overwhelming she didn’t know how to deal with it. In the end, she pressed her mouth into his shoulder to muffle the cry.
Afterwards, they lay together panting and just looking into each other’s eyes in a kind of mirrored awe. She was shocked at herself for responding to him with such ardour, in spite of her awareness that the servants must know what they were doing.
And he must be wondering what kind of a woman he’d married. One minute she’d been saying she felt self-conscious. That she really couldn’t...do that. The next she’d been tearing at his clothes in a kind of frenzy, wrapping her arms and legs round him, and coming to such a cataclysmic release she’d...she’d bitten him. She could see the teeth marks on his shoulder!
‘Oh, what have I done?’ She raised trembling fingers to his shoulder. Then pressed penitent lips to the reddening crescent.
* * *
She’d made him feel like a god, that’s what she’d done. He’d never been with a woman who responded to him the way she did.
‘It’s nothing.’ He shrugged with feigned nonchalance, whilst desperately trying to stifle the unfamiliar, and slightly disturbing, emotions welling up inside him.
‘It isn’t nothing. I’ve left a bruise....’
‘A mark of passion. Such things happen between lovers all the time.’
He winced at the look on her face. He’d been trying to make light of a moment he was damn sure was going to live in his memory for a lifetime. Instead he’d made her think of her wondrous passion as something...tawdry.
Sitting up, he turned his back on her and thrust his fingers through his hair in annoyance. He should have just admitted he liked it. He could have done so in a teasing kind of way, so that she wouldn’t guess how deeply she’d moved him, couldn’t he? And then she would have smiled and...
God, but it was damn complicated, being married. The good moments got all snagged up with darker feelings until he couldn’t unravel the tangle.
‘Look, Mary...’ He sighed with exasperation. ‘If ever you do anything I don’t like, I will be sure to tell you. No need to get worked up over such a little thing.’
‘I...I’m
