Until You

62

It was his wedding night.

With his shirt open at the collar and his cuffs rolled back on his forearms, Stephen sat in a wing-backed chair in his bedchamber, his feet propped upon a low table, while he lingered over a glass of brandy, giving his bride ample time to disrobe and dismiss her maids.

His wedding night…

His bride…

He looked round in surprise as his valet let himself into the suite. "May I be of assistance this evening?" Damson suggested when his master seemed baffled by what was actually a routine appearance each night.

Assistance? Stephen stifled a smile as his wayward thoughts refused to switch from the pleasurable task that lay ahead of him to Damson's offer to assist him tonight. His mind conjured a comic image of his conscientious valet hovering at Sheridan's bedside, his clothing brush in hand, waiting for Stephen to hand him his trousers so he could hang them properly, then bustling back to the bedside for each additional piece of clothing as Stephen removed it.

"My lord?" Damson prompted and Stephen gave his head a slight shake as he realized he was staring past the servant with what surely must look like an idiot's smile.

"No," he said with polite firmness. "Thank you."

Damson eyed Stephen's open shirt and rolled-back cuffs with disapproval. "Your dressing robe perhaps, my lord, the black brocade?"

Stephen tried, very seriously, to imagine what possible use he was going to have for a dressing robe, and felt the smile tug at his cheek again. "No, I think not."

"The wine silk, then?" Damson persevered doggedly. "Or the dark green, perhaps?" It hit Stephen that his middle-aged valet, who had never been married, was gravely concerned that Stephen was not likely to make a good impression on his new bride were he to walk into her bedchamber casually attired in trousers and shirtsleeves.

"Neither one."

"Perhaps the-"

"Go to bed, Damson," Stephen said, cutting off any discussion of silk neckcloths and appropriate shirt studs, which he felt certain would be the valet's next point of concern. "And, thank you," he added with a brief smile to take any sting out of the dismissal.

Damson obeyed with a bow, but not before he cast a tortured look at Stephen's open shirtfront and the glimpse of bare throat and chest it allowed.

Half-convinced the man would make one more attempt to save him from the unspeakable indignity of appearing for his wedding night inappropriately attired, Stephen put the brandy glass on the table. Then he got up, walked over to the door, and threw the bolt.

Damson did not know, of course, that Stephen had already precipitated his wedding night with Sherry, and as Stephen opened the co

His wife was in her bath, Stephen realized.

His wife… Reveling in the thought and all it implied, he reached for the towels and took them from the scandalized maid. Then he dismissed her for the night.

"But-but my lady will require me to help her dress for bed!"

Stephen was begi

The sight was more than charming, it was downright enticing. His wife! The scent of lavender rising from her bath suddenly made him remember her bold ultimatum about Helene-an ultimatum with which he'd already complied. That memory called to mind her angry tirade about all the other women she'd heard mentioned by the gossips in co

Feeling relatively confident of his ability to do that, he sat down on the edge of her tub, intending to play lady's maid. Reaching into the warm, scented water, he wet his hands, then put them on her shoulders, his thumbs working lightly over her slick, wet skin.

"I'd like to get out now," she said without turning around.

Smiling a little at the joke he was playing on her, Stephen stood up and opened the towel, holding it out for her. Sherry stepped out of the water, and he wrapped the towel around her from behind, folding his arms around her as he did so. She stiffened in shock when she saw his bare forearms encircling her, instead of a maid's hands holding the towel. And then, very lightly she leaned back against him, bringing her back and hips and legs into contact with his full length, and she wrapped her arms over his, turned her cheek, and rubbed it against his shirt. It was a silent gesture of wanting, of tenderness, of love, and yet when he turned her around, she trembled slightly, looking at him with nervous uncertainty. "May I put on my dressing robe?"

It was a request for permission, which struck him as odd in an indefinable way, but since he'd already resolved to linger over her, he answered unhesitatingly and with a smile. "You may do anything you like, Lady Westmoreland." When she hesitated, holding the towel around her, Stephen politely turned his back and went into the bedchamber, a little surprised by her sudden modesty. A little off-balance.

When she strolled into the room a minute later, the sight of her did much more violent things to his balance. Dripping wet, wrapped in a towel, she was delectable. Clad in a low-cut dressing gown made entirely of white lace as fragile as a spider's web, with shadowy glimpses of skin offered up to his view from the tops of her breasts all the way to her ankles, she was the haunting temptress of a male's dreams… ethereal, inviting, not quite naked, but not quite covered. A siren. An angel.

Sherry saw the banked fires kindle in his eyes as they drifted over her, and with only the one night at Claymore to rely on for clues as to what was going to happen, she waited for him to instruct her to take her hair down. She stood there, feeling awkward and helplessly aware of her lack of knowledge-a situation that might not have occurred had the maid not poured handfuls of lavender scent into her bathwater. The reminder of Helene Devernay wouldn't have been quite so bad if Sherry hadn't also gotten a good look at Stephen's mistress two weeks ago, riding through Bond Street in a silver-lacquered carriage with lavender velvet squabs. Julia

It was not a feeling she liked in the least. She wished Stephen had told her he loved her. She wished he had said he didn't see Helene anymore. Now that her memory was functioning, she had a vivid childhood recollection of Helene Devernay's American equivalent-a lady in a startlingly low-cut red gown with feathers in her hair whom Sheridan saw sitting in Rafe's lap one night when she peeked in the windows of a gambling house. The female had been ru