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Merrick decided as he sat there that he would return to London alone the next day. The decision had really been made a few days before, but now he made the conscious choice. His wife would stay at Redlands. Who would blame him? It was quite common for wives to be left in the country while husbands lived in London. The house was quite comfortable and well-run. He would make her a generous allowance. She had achieved what she wanted. She had his name and his title, and was assured of a comfortably secure future. That had been her goal, Merrick was convinced. He had learned in the few days he had spent at her brother's home that they were impoverished. If only he had traveled one day later, they would not even have been in the area but at a village thirty miles distant, where his wife's brother had taken up a position as a schoolmaster. If only he had listened to Horace!
Merrick twirled his empty glass in his hand and resisted the idea of motioning to Dodd again. This was his wedding night and tomorrow he would be gone. The marriage must be consummated. He could not have the girl writing to her brother or to that vicar complaining that she had been cheated, that hers was no proper marriage. Distasteful as the idea was, he must go to her. And, since go he must, there was nothing to be gained from delay. He put the glass down on the table and pushed himself to his feet.
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"I expected to find you abed already," he said as he approached her.
"No," she said. "I have been trying to pull back these curtains. I suffer from fear of suffocation when I am enclosed in too small a space, my lord."
"Then you must instruct Mrs. Rush to remove them altogether tomorrow," Merrick said, and put back with one hand the hair that hung over one of her shoulders. His knuckles brushed the nape of her neck.
"I would not wish to appear too demanding so soon," A
"Nonsense," he said. "You are mistress here now, as I am sure you fully realize. You must begin your relations with the servants as you mean to go on."
His hands moved to her breasts as he looked down into her upturned and dazed face. They were as firm and as feminine as they had felt during the light, exploratory touch he had permitted himself just a few nights previously. Merrick half-smiled down at his bride. He wanted to humiliate, even hurt her. She had schemed to acquire him as a husband. Let her take the consequences, find that she had a husband who would not be content with a discreet exercise of his rights. He lowered his head to hers, took her mouth beneath his parted lips, and nibbled lightly at her lips until they relaxed.
This time he found that his probing tongue met no resistance. He ravished her mouth, one hand spread firmly behind her head. His other hand still fondled one breast, teasing the nipple erect, reaching to undo the buttons that held her nightgown primly closed to the neck. He was hardly aware of the fact that her passivity was gradually melting, that her head angled against his own and her mouth opened wide to his invasion, that her shoulder shrugged aside the nightgown to assist his pushing hand, that her body, naked from the waist up, molded itself eagerly against the brocade of his dressing gown. He was too much involved in the desire that had swept over him in a flood and that made him forget for the time all else except that he held a woman whom he wanted with a passion that was not to be denied. He turned her in his arms and tumbled her to the bed.
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Dreams could never begin to capture the wonder of it all: his long-fingered hands exploring and caressing, finding out unerringly the places that made her ache with longing; his mouth and tongue, which claimed her own and that left hot trails of desire along her throat and on her breasts; his body, so warm and firm and heavy on her own; and his legs, which pushed firmly between her own. And then the moment of entry, so often imagined with terror, so wonderful beyond imagining. She was quite unaware of pain, all her desire culminating in the blazing shock of invasion.
She felt no reluctance. A
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She moved her head slightly until she could feel his thick hair against her cheek. She closed her eyes and concentrated on holding back the tears that wanted to flow. She must not let him see her cry. He might misinterpret her tears. She reveled in the discomfort of his weight on her.
Merrick awoke with a slight start. He had never fallen asleep on a woman before. Most females he knew would have pushed him away long ago. He lifted himself away from his wife with something like reluctance and lay beside her. He turned his head to look at her and found that she was looking back with steady gray eyes. She was the same unattractive A