Page 115 of The Favourite

“Have you really … been thinking of me? When we are not together, I mean?” she asked with a catch in her voice.

Her words made something twist in his chest. “Yes,” was the only reply he was capable of uttering. Then Jane did a strange thing. She put a finger across his lips as though preventing him from saying another word.

Alisander’s eyes widened, but he made no objection. Likely, she was just not in the mood to be teased, but he found he was happy to fall in with whatever she wanted from him. Once assured he had received her message, she dropped her hand from his mouth to start unfastening his tunic. He watched her, strangely breathless, as she bared his chest, then turned her head and pressed her lips to his shoulder.

Alisander felt his heart sort of swoop in a way that made him turn quite lightheaded. He had to back away and divest himself of the rest of his clothes, lest he started staggering under the strain. Once he was naked, he joined her on the bed and they started kissing in—what he could only think of as—an oddly intense fashion.

Instead of brushing light kisses along her jaw as he’d intended, he pressed increasingly hungry kisses along her neck, tracing her pulse there with his tongue. When he kissed her palm, in what should have been a tease, he let her feel his teeth there.

When they got down to brass tacks, they made no sound at all, except his ragged breathing and Jane’s bitten off whimpers and the sound of the bed creaking. He had gritted his jaw at the moment of bliss and swallowed his groan. Jane buried her face in the crook of his neck to muffle her cry of completion.

Was this how normal people fucked? he wondered afterward as he caught his breath. Couples who might not want to alert their household. Of course, Robert was mercifully deaf, and Celestia and Bertrand were mere drooling infants. As for Anne, she was far too sensible to let a thing like the noise of her employers tupping bother her.

The fact was, Jane’s bizarre notions of respectability no longer seemed like a challenge to him. If she wanted it this way, he was happy to oblige. Of course, he still had every intention of getting things his own way once in a while, but if she ever initiated, he was more than happy to follow her lead.

When he could bring himself at last to disengage from her, he did so, only to rearrange himself behind her and wrap himself about her. Jane was content to let him, catching his hand and pressing it to her breast so he could feel the rise and fall of her steady breathing.

She did not even remind him supper was in an hour or so. He kissed the tip of her ear and let his eyes drift shut. He felt strangely calm and contented. When they ate, they did so in their room, and both were careful to keep their words muted and non-combative for once.

The next morning, he had woken to find her silently watching him. Instead of teasing her, as would once have been his instinctive response, he had rolled atop her, and they had repeated the mostly silent fucking.

It started out lazy and pleasant; he was in no rush and meant to savor the experience. Then it started getting to him, the way she was aiding and abetting him in the endeavor. The way her fingernails sank into his shoulders, the roll of her hips, her bitten-off whimpers, all of it undid him.

In the aftermath, he kissed away her tears and held her gathered very close against him, holding his tongue even when he felt the impulse to call her his dove again. The next thing he knew, Jane’s voice was breaking through his reverie. “What did you say?” He frowned. Why was she breaking their unspoken pact of perfect silence? He rolled off her onto his back.

“I said I have to go and help the Queen dress this morning,” she sighed.

“Why?” he asked, stretching and smothering a yawn. “Someone else can do it. Come over here and be quiet and still, wife. We still have an hour’s respite left us, if I am any judge.”

He expected her to argue, or at least demur, but instead of doing either of those things, she scooted closer and wrapped her arm about his waist. “Very well but just for a minute,” she conceded.

“Ten minutes,” he argued, tightening his arms about her. There was no getting around it, he was cuddling with her. And he liked it.

“Five,” she bargained.

“We’ll see.”

In the end, it was more like twenty, before he allowed her to drag herself from the bed. Later, that day, whilst climbing a dusty, abandoned staircase, he forced himself to face a few hard facts. He was getting ridiculously fond of his own wife. He remembered his lapdog comment from the previous day and grimaced. The truth was, he could hardly bear to be away from her side.

He was no longer tormenting her when he whispered her name against the delicate shell of her ear or gently bit her lobe. He was tormenting himself. The thought of getting between Jane’s thighs had always excited him, but he had never dreamed that he would derive such strange pleasure in the wake of having her.

He loved being the one to gather her up into his arms and soothe her while she sobbed and whimpered until she was calm again. He tutted and fussed over her like she was something precious and he got some sort of strange enjoyment out of the way she let him. He had always known his personality was a little out of the usual, but truly, he had never dreamed he had such a side to him.

In the bedchamber, it was annoying how hot he burned for her, almost as though he was in her thrall. In the past, he had enjoyed the role of capricious, indifferent lover, taking a bite here or there, then discarding the succulent fruit as though he’d lost interest. That was how you kept lovers on their toes after all. You made it a game so that you did not lose interest.

There was no way he could ever do that to Jane. For one thing, he found it practically impossible to mask his desire for her. He wouldn’t convince her for a second. It was one thing to shake and tremble through your release but quite another to do it when someone briefly touched your face! He shamelessly moaned her name aloud, for fuck’s sake.

He chased her lips, even in the aftermath of bliss. Instead of rising from the bed as soon as he could feel his legs again, he lingered, running his hands over her, squeezing her and petting her in a way that was more tender than lecherous. Then there was the fact that, quite apart from these practical considerations, the very thought of wounding her made his own chest ache.

He could not even deceive himself that the shameful incident that morning, with the embracing, was an isolated incident. It happened every damned time. He sort of looked forward to it in a peculiar way. Like it was his reward at the end of a long day. One time, the previous week, he recalled that he had even done it without having bedded her first!

He had simply reached for her and enfolded her in his arms before Jane’s surprised expression had registered with him. He had not even redeemed himself by whispering something annoying or guaranteed to discompose her before releasing her. Instead, he had just kissed her brow. If he was not careful, he reflected feeling troubled, he would be giving her quite the wrong impression.

After dutifully leaving Jane the previous day closeted with the Queen, he had felt strangely depressed in spirit. It was the prospect of Jane returning to the Queen’s feet, he had realized. He was jealous, even of that. He wanted Jane to like him better than Armenal, damn it! Was that too much to ask? She was his wife, after all.

Then the horrible suspicion that Armenal might award Jane some trifle from her jewel box had occurred to him, making his step falter. He remembered Jane’s previous rapture on receiving that opal brooch from the Queen three years ago. He should be the one to put such a look on her face and him alone.

Giving Jane jewelry was his province and right. Not that she had ever reacted in such a gratifying manner to his gifts, he reflected wryly. The emerald brooch had merely stunned her. She had murmured incredulously about its size, as though that detracted rather than enhanced its beauty. He had not had the opportunity to give her the sapphire necklace yet. Perhaps that would do the trick?