Page 8 of Her Baseborn Bridegroom

“None of your personal belongings are down here,” he said casually as he moved his arms slowly and deliberately up to rest his hands behind his head on the pillow.

“Er, no,” she agreed nervously. He lay there a moment in silence and Linnet strove to control her shallow breathing. She had just managed to take a deep breath when he spoke again. “Were you expecting to entertain him in your chambers?” he asked.

Her eyes slid over to him. What exactly did he mean by “entertain”? “I hoped to have some private conversation with Sir Roland after the ceremony . . . ” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Our courtship was carried out by proxy and although I wrote to him, it was not exactly a correspondence . . . ” Her words trailed off awkwardly.

He seemed to digest this a moment, staring at the ceiling. “You weren’t expecting a bedding, were you?”

She sat up and turned to face him, clutching the covers around her shoulders. “In truth I did not negotiate my own marriage terms with Sir Roland,” she confided in a rush. “My aunt and uncle took the lead.” She looked down at her hands on the coverlet, swallowing a lump in her throat.

“You negotiated your marriage terms with me,” he reminded her.

She caught her breath. “I did, didn’t I?” When she looked back at him, his gaze was on her hair.

“Take your hair down, Linnet.”

Yes, it was probably for the best if he saw the worst of it at once, she thought dolefully as she reached up to pull out her silver hairpins. They slid out easily enough from her straight hair which as soon as it was freed, slid down poker straight to hang about her shoulders in a gleaming curtain. She ran her fingers through it, hardly noticing that the blankets had slid down showing her pale arms, neck and shoulders. Mason had rolled towards her onto his side towards and reached out to run his hands through the silky strands.

“Like a mermaid,” he said, and Linnet felt herself blush that he should try and compliment her lack of looks. That was kind of him. And unexpected. She felt her heart warm as she set the handful of pins down on the coverlet and mustered the courage to try and meet his eyes. She felt acutely aware of her nakedness and the fact that his gaze had dipped to her meagre bosom. Clutching her upper arms, she was dismayed to find how cold her fingers felt on her own body. Of a certainty Mason Vawdrey would not relish his bride’s touch feeling like wet fish on the slab! She cupped her fingers and breathed on them in the hope of warming them up. His hand slid down the length of her hair to her middle back and then curled around her waist to tug her forward until she was lying on her side, face-to-face with him in the shadowy light of the room. Calm down Linnet! Unsure of her cue, but determined to do her part she reached for him and when she felt the firm muscle of his shoulder, she curled her fingers around it and drew him closer to her as he had done. He was careful as he shifted his far bigger body around hers. She had to fight against her impulse to leap back when she felt his hard body press against hers. He bit back at exclamation when she hesitantly placed her other hand at his waist to mirror his.

“Sorry,” she cringed snatching it back. “Are my fingers still cold?”

“A little,” he said shortly.

“Wait, I’ll warm them,” she said chafing them together. “My circulation is sadly sluggish and my limbs are often cold . . . ” Well done, Linnet, she thought with a twist of her mouth, remind him his bride is a weak invalid! With horror, she thought about her feet which were like blocks of ice. She must not touch them to him or he would be repulsed!

“You’re not wearing your shift,” he said in a low hiss, his breath expelling through his teeth.

“Should I have left it on?” Linnet felt mortified. “Wait, I can fetch it!” When she started to move away, his hand shot out to stay her.

“You don’t need it.” He rested his hand on her hip, and she shivered slightly at the contact although she could feel the warmth spreading out from his palm. He rested his other hand against her breast bone, spreading his fingers wide. Linnet tried to steady her breathing but she was panting as if she’d run a mile!

“Be calm wife,” he breathed against her temple, and she felt his mouth brush against her.

She puffed out her breath and dragged in a deep breath. “If . . . if you just give me a moment to accustom myself . . . ” she asked beseechingly. “I promise I’ll do everything you say.”

“Yes,” he agreed in a low, rough voice. “You will,” and in an unhurried move, he dragged his hand down until it lay between her breasts. Then his mouth was on her throat, and Linnet gasped when she felt his tongue lick her there. He shifted again, until his mouth was next to her ear. “Sweet,” he whispered. “You taste very, very sweet Linnet.”

“Do I?” she whispered feeling dazed. She steeled herself to reach for him again and placed her hands against his broad chest. “You feel very different to me,” she marveled and then instantly felt foolish. “Should I stop talking?” she asked feeling slightly mortified.

He seemed to consider this a moment. “How different?” he asked. His voice sounded husky. Definitely warmer than before. His own hands moved until they cupped her small, high breasts. “You’re little and soft,” he breathed. When she didn’t respond, he asked, “Linnet?”

So he did want her to speak then? “You’re not,” she said in a rush. “You’re big and hard all over.”

“Yes,” he agreed and then bit off his words when he would have continued. His tone sounded different. Amused and something else. She wondered what he was going to say, and suddenly it was important to speak what was uppermost on her mind.

“My feet are cold,” she blurted. “I don’t want you to accidently touch them and be disgusted.”

He stilled for a moment before shifting down and closing his fingers around one foot. “Why would I be disgusted by this little foot?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble from his chest. He drew her knee over his hip and placed the sole of her foot against the back of his thigh. “I’ll soon warm you up,” he promised thickly. Linnet held her breath when his hand traced over her ankle and then slid up to her knee. She swallowed as he followed her leg right up to her thigh. His fingers were hardened and calloused and she felt every brush of his fingers against her prickling skin. She felt hot, short of breath, and tingly. Her leg was resting against him and her body completely open to him. She should feel embarrassed but instead she had the strangest impulse to strain even closer to him. With surprise, she realized she was pressing her foot into his thigh, urging him to close the gap between their bodies.

“So sweet,” he repeated and suddenly his hand slid between her legs and cupped her intimately. She gave a muffled exclamation at the shock and raised her head off the pillow to peer at him. She couldn’t make out the expression on his face but he was panting now as hard as her.

“You please me, wife,” he said gruffly and lowered his mouth to hers where he kissed her entirely differently from how he had kissed her in the chapel. Their kiss there had been chaste and close-lipped. Now his mouth moved over hers in an intimate exploration. His tongue teased and prodded and invaded her mouth in a wet, hot slide that left her gasping and clinging to him, bewildered and reeling. And then his fingers were performing the same dance between her legs, petting and stroking and making her gasp into his mouth both in dismay and in shocked delight. What was this? These were not the facts of bedding as she had learned them from her aunt’s whispering ladies-in-waiting. This was surely something else entirely. She tensed and twisted, but however she moved, she could not escape the strange sensations he was arousing in her body. She squeezed her eyes shut and gave up even trying. He kissed her again, gently this time, on her closed eyelids and then reached down to hook her other leg over his other hip as he loomed over her on the bed.

“Put your arms around me,” he said thickly. “I’m going to take you now Linnet.” His voice was gravelly in warning, thick with promise.

She could be in no doubt that he was keen to get the deed done now and was glad—glad that in this dark shadowy room he had managed to forget that she was freckled and drab, with ugly red hair, and that the cushions were embroidered with the wrong initials. Glad that he had managed to find some pleasure in her unsatisfactory body. She pressed her lips together, and when he pushed inside her and it hurt, she relived the moment when he told her that she had pleased him and called her wife. The tears that streaked down her cheeks were of relief as well as pain, and when he rolled over and drifted off to sleep, she hugged herself and lay staring up at the ceiling thanking her lucky stars that Mason Vawdrey had come into her life.

V