Page 98 of An Ill-Made Match

Roland uttered a strangled oath, and started moving his hips in earnest. “If you want me gentle, you need to ease your grip,” he warned.

With a reserve of strength she didn’t know she possessed, Eden squeezed him even tighter, using all her strength to haul him against her.

His body shook. “Gods Eden, if you knew what you did to me-” his words broke off, as he crushed his mouth to hers. And then, he was pushing her back into the mattress, driving her into it. Their bodies were a tangle of pulsating need, with their limbs moving together with one purpose. To lose themselves in each other’s body. Eden cried out, when she found herself taken in a tidal wave of sensation and crashed against the rocks, coming apart in a thousand pieces. Only to find herself safe and in one piece once again, clinging to her anchor, which was Roland Vawdrey. He dropped his head and roared into her shoulder when his own wave broke. Eden’s hand flew to catch hold of the back of his neck, anchoring him to her.

By the time she came out of her stupor, she was lying sprawled over his chest, like a limp rag. Roland Vawdrey was on his back beneath her, breathing steadily. She should roll off him. If she could muster the energy. Was this what it had felt like every time for him? No wonder he was always clamoring for her. She cracked an eye open, but could not quite bring herself to roll off him. One of Roland’s hands was tucked behind his head at the pillow, the other rested on her lower back. He was lying still, as if asleep, but something told Eden that if she tried to extricate herself he would have something to say about it. She closed her eyes and gave up the battle before it had even begun.

“Sleep a while,” he murmured. “I won’t let you sleep too long.”

“Lenora returns at ten, don’t forget,” she said and yawned.

**

It was only half an hour later that Roland heard the door to their apartments open. He tensed immediately, and Eden grumbled into his shoulder. The dogs however, did not bark, and he recognized his brother’s low tones. Shit. A sharp rap on the door startled them both. “What do you want?” yelled out Roland, bad-naturedly.

“It’s me,” said Mason’s deep voice. “Come out and have a drink with us.”

Eden gasped and clung to him, so he stroked his hand down her side. “Shhh, it’s fine, love,” he assured her.

They dressed hurriedly, speaking in snatched whispers. He helped her back into her dress and craned his head toward her as she told him in murmurs that she had felt very low after receiving her cousin’s trunkful of clothes. How she had feared that all was lost between her and Lenora but now it seemed they had made it up and everything was resolved. He frowned over her reading of the gift of clothes from her cousin. It seemed to him that she had put the worst interpretation possible on it, but he hesitated before saying anything to put her out. It seemed to him, that he was growing damned tactful as a husband. “Well,” he said, “that’s good all is resolved betwixt the two of you, in any event.” She also repeated the fact her grandmother, who had instigated this whole hearing mess, was heading back home, something Roland had not really absorbed earlier. This news he also managed to accept without an explosion of righteous wrath, but when he stepped back to survey Eden he suffered a set-back to his new equanimity. “You can’t go out looking like that,” he scowled.

“What do you mean?” Eden frowned, turning to look at him. She patted the pink gown she had just hurriedly donned, clearly thinking she looked perfectly respectable.

Roland snorted. “They’re not seeing you like that, Eden. Only I get to see you like that.”

Her hands flew to her hair. “Do I look untidy?”

“Untidy is not the word,” he said dryly.

“What is then?” she asked.

“Tumbled,” he answered with great restraint.

“Tumbled?” She turned to arch a brow at him. “Does that mean what I think it means?” He smirked. “Disgraceful,” she said lightly, and smiled. He felt her smile right down to his bones. “You must have a comb somewhere hereabouts,” she said. “Do you remember,” she added with a hint of shyness. “How I borrowed your comb at-” But he had rounded the bed and pulled her firmly into his arms again. “Roland?” This time when he kissed her, he was gentle, but unhurried. When he finally lifted his lips from hers, she sighed. “That was a good kiss,” she said, and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “A very good kiss.”

“Good is not the word,” he said gruffly. “Besides, all kisses with you are good.” It was nothing more than the truth. She smiled again at that, completely unaware that he never said things like this. Never even thought them. Then again, Eden Montmayne wasn’t exactly famous for her smiles. Yet, here they were. Him spouting sweet words, and her smiling.

If anyone thought they were taking her from him, they were vastly mistaken. There was no chance in hells he was giving her up. Not now, or ever. She was his and so she would remain. It would take more than a royal decree to alter that fact. He shied away from what this meant, and instead led her to the door of his room and dragging back the bolt.

She caught his arm before he opened the bedchamber door. “What will your brothers say?” she whispered, looking worried. “About my having been here tonight?”

“If they’ve any sense of self-preservation, they won’t say a damned thing,” he answered grimly, and swung the door open, taking her hand and led her out into the sitting room.

Oswald and Mason Vawdrey were both sat before the fire, and though their eyes widened at the sight of Eden, they wisely said nothing, except utter a polite greeting. She murmured back in kind and Roland led her to a chair set slightly back from the others. Then he kneeled at her feet and helped her on with her stockings and shoes. The dogs thrust their noses at her over the arms of the chair and she stroked their muzzles. “Does it distress you that your grandmother has left already?” he asked, as it suddenly occurred to him. He kept his voice low, reluctant to have his brothers overhear their private conversation, but no doubt the bastards could hear every word.

“Not as much as it ought to,” she admitted, pulling a face. “She’s seldom at court, and I’m used to only seeing her when I’m at Hallam Hall which is not above twice a year these days.” She hesitated. “It does make me happy that she cared enough about me to cause all this fuss,” she confided in a rush. “Even though it has caused you and your family a good deal of inconvenience-”

“Eden,” he interrupted her. “When all this is over and done with… then I’ll appreciate it too. I just can’t right now, that’s all. We’ll invite her to Vawdrey Keep.” He winced. “When we’ve made it a bit more habitable.”

“What’s wrong with the Keep?” asked Eden defensively.

“Well for a start, there’s no mattresses in the guest bedchambers,” he pointed out dryly. Then his eye caught on a piece of paper on the floor, which he retrieved. The sloping hand was unfamiliar to him, and he stared at it in bewilderment for a moment or two.

Eden looked up from where she was fussing Castor. “Oh, I think that’s mine,” she said. “I must have slipped it into my sleeve cuff to finish reading it later.”

“Yours?” Roland lowered the letter with a heavy frown. “Who wrote this to you?” he asked with a sudden deadly calm.

“Mr Edwin Childers,” responded Eden readily enough.