HIS WIFE WAS lying to him. Someone had been in the garden with her. Blackthorne was almost sure of it. But who? And for what reason? He’d been so glad that he could acquire the funds he needed, along with a beautiful face and an intriguing personality, that he hadn’t asked why, if Josephine Wentworth was willing to spend a fortune to impress her friends and relatives with a royal title, she’d agreed to marry him with so little fanfare and with not one person she knew present. She must have some ulterior motive for becoming the Duchess of Blackthorne. He simply had no idea what it could possibly be.
He had no fortune of his own, so she couldn’t be planning to steal from him. And if she had a lover, why marry someone else? His misgivings led him nowhere. Unfortunately, none of his suspicions kept him from finding his bride as enticing as she’d been the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d led her back inside without another word being spoken between them, but it hadn’t been a comfortable silence. His wife was turning out to be quite an enigma.
The rest of the day had seemed interminable, most likely because he spent it anticipating his wedding night. The guests left in trickles and drabs, but they were all gone by the time darkness fell. After an awkward, almost silent, private supper with his bride, he escorted Josie to her room and asked how long she would need to ready herself for his visit.
She shot him a look that told him a hundred years would be too soon. He watched the pulse throb in her throat before she finally said, in the same whispery voice that had struck her at the altar, “Half an hour.”
Blackthorne paced the length of his bedroom yet again, wondering how much longer he had to wait before the half hour had passed. He missed his grandfather’s watch. He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel and saw, to his relief, that twenty-eight minutes had come and gone since he’d left her at her door. He felt unaccountably nervous. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done this before.
He shuddered when he remembered how difficult his wedding night had been with Fanny. She’d loved him, yet she’d been reluctant to allow him the liberties of a husband. He believed Fanny had eventually learned to enjoy their lovemaking, but she’d never relished it as he did. He couldn’t imagine what the coming night was going to be like, when he’d only known the woman he’d wed—and planned to bed—for a single week.
Except, Josie was as different from Fanny as night was from day. He hadn’t been tempted to kiss Fanny at the altar. He hadn’t carted her through a rainstorm and laughed about it afterward. And he hadn’t kissed her with abandon on the way to their wedding breakfast.
But comparisons weren’t fair. Fanny had been raised to be a proper English lady, a model of decorum, whose impeccable behavior was permanently restrained and reserved. Blackthorne doubted his American wife had a reticent bone in her body.
After they’d returned from the garden, Josie had smiled and nodded to everyone who’d attended their wedding breakfast, without a single protest. She’d laughed with his sisters and listened attentively to his grandmother. She’d even chatted for a few moments with him.
But he’d been certain that, in spite of her constant smile, she’d been preoccupied by whatever had been troubling her when she’d escaped to the garden. His wife was in some kind of trouble. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he didn’t think he was wrong. Josie was a good actress. He just wished he knew what role she was playing.
He tightened the belt on the paisley silk Sulka robe he’d donned to spare his bride’s modesty. He’d bought it in New York, a last stop before heading home to be married to Fanny, after he’d rescued the girl from the Sioux. He wondered where that wounded waif was now. He felt a lingering regret that he’d never heard from her again. Where she was—or who she was—no longer mattered. Whatever hope there had been of perhaps finding her and getting to know her had died with this forced wedding to someone else.
How different this wedding was from his first! For one thing, there would be no honeymoon. Instead of sailing the Aegean, enjoying decadent dinners in Paris, and viewing antiquities in Rome, as he had with his first wife, he and Josie would be spending their time refurbishing Blackthorne Abbey. It dawned on him how unfair that was to his bride.
But Josie hadn’t grumbled about—or even mentioned—the missing honeymoon. Which was another one of those anomalies that made him wonder and worry about his new wife.
Blackthorne glanced at the clock again and saw it was now thirty-one minutes since he’d left Josie. He crossed to the door between their rooms and knocked. He waited, his pulse unaccountably racing, for his bride to invite him inside.
And waited.
He reached for the doorknob but realized he needed—wanted—his wife’s permission to enter her room. As he stood there contemplating whether to knock again, the door opened. The only light in the room came from the fire, which had been built up in the fireplace. Shadows loomed everywhere else.
He stifled a laugh when he saw what Josie was wearing. The white flannel nightgown had a bow at the throat that was tied up tight. The blousy sleeves covered her arms to her wrists, and the heavy winter material left nothing but the tips of her bare toes showing on the Aubusson carpet. His breath caught in his throat when he focused his gaze on the glorious golden curls tumbling across her shoulders.
“I was in bed waiting for you,” she said. “I didn’t think about having to let you in.”
He saw the pale-pink silk sheets on the bed were rumpled, saw the indentation of her head on one of the pillows, and felt an immediate flare of pure animal lust.
She must have sensed his reaction, because she took a step back, gasped, and put a hand to her throat.
He took a step toward her, and she took another step back. He grinned wolfishly. “At least you’re headed in the right direction.”
She glanced over her shoulder and apparently realized that in a few more steps she would be backed up against the bed.
“I’m a little nervous,” she admitted, lifting her chin and standing her ground.
“Me, too.”
She looked flustered at his admission. “At least you’ve done this before.”
“Not with you.”
Rather than backing up any more, she headed for the fireplace across the room, where she held out her hands toward the flames. “I can never get over how cold it is in England in the spring. It reminds me of—”
He wasn’t sure whether she’d stopped speaking because she didn’t want to finish her thought, or because he’d crossed the room to stand behind her and had cupped his hands around her shoulders. He realized he didn’t give a damn what she’d been about to say. He wanted to kiss his wife.
She resisted only a moment before she allowed him to turn her around, so she was facing him. He didn’t pull her close. He had the feeling that if he did, she would resist. Instead, he used a forefinger to tip her chin up. Her gaze remained cast down, so he said, “Josie, look at me.”
She raised her gaze almost defiantly to meet his, but her breathing was erratic, and he could see the pulse leaping in her throat.
He slowly eased an arm around her waist and realized she must be wearing some sort of undergarment beneath her nightgown. He’d felt a layer of something beneath the gown when he’d touched her shoulders, but there was so much additional fabric between his hand and her back that he couldn’t feel the heat of her flesh. That was a problem he could solve later. Right now, he wanted to taste her mouth.
He took his time lowering his head, giving his wife the chance to turn away. Her face remained upturned, and at long last, her lips met his. And clung.
Blackthorne felt ravenous but reminded himself of her behavior when she’d kissed him in the carriage. Naïve. Uninitiated. He must take his time. He must be gentle. Ever so slowly, he slid his tongue into her mouth, seeking the honey inside, while he clutched a handful of her silky hair to angle her head. He kissed her until he couldn’t catch his breath and then kissed her some more. He teased her lips with his teeth and waited for her tongue to seek his mouth. But she seemed content to let him do the tasting.
He felt her struggling and reflexively tightened his hold around her waist, until he realized she was only trying to get her arms up around his neck. Once she did, their figures were welded together from breast to hip. Her hands tentatively slid up to caress his cheeks, to trace his ears, to scratch their way uncertainly up his nape into his hair.
His body caught fire.
Blackthorne broke the kiss to look into Josie’s eyes. He was confused—but delighted—by her behavior. He’d been prepared to counter reticence and restraint. He hadn’t expected his wife to be so willing. He didn’t quite believe what was happening between them.
And he didn’t quite trust her to be honest with him.
Her pupils were huge, her lips swollen from his kisses, her cheeks flushed, and her breathing was even more irregular than it had been when she’d admitted she was anxious about what he might want to do with her—or to her—on their wedding night. She couldn’t be faking those responses.
He pulled the bow loose at her throat and undid several buttons, before pressing his lips against the flesh at her throat beneath her ear and sucking lightly. Her head fell back, and her moan of pleasure caused his shaft to throb.
Blackthorne knew that the first time could be painful. But his insistent body made it impossible to think about anything except putting himself deep inside her.
He scooped Josie into his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her head on the pillow so her hair flowed out like a golden halo around her face in the firelight. He untied his sash and yanked off his robe. Her eyes turned into saucers in the few moments she had to view his nakedness, before he covered her body with his own. He shoved her gown up far enough to reveal her naked belly and spread her legs apart with his knees, leaving her open to his thrust.
“Wait! Stop!”
Her fingernails clawed at his forearms, but her protest had come too late. He was already past the barrier that confirmed her virginity, already seated deep inside her wet warmth. He paused then, and looked at her face in the shadows. Her eyes were luminous. Mysterious. And filled with pain.
She whimpered, and he said, “Shh. The worst is over.”
He remained still, although his body pulsed with the need to move inside her. “Shall I stop?”
It would probably kill him if she said yes. But the necessary broaching of his bride had been accomplished. The marriage could no longer be invalidated on that basis. He hated the suspicion that had brought that thought to mind and forced it out of his head.
He saw the struggle on her face before she said, “You’re not done?”
He felt the smile coming before it appeared on his face. “No. There’s more.”
She lifted a brow in question, and he said, “I’ve yet to spill the seed that creates a child. Shall I continue?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
He’d wondered if his mail-order bride would be willing to bear his child. Apparently she was. He was surprised. And surprisingly pleased.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us continue.”
He lowered his head and softly kissed her while their bodies were joined. His tongue mimicked the thrust of his shaft within her body, and he groaned as he felt her hips rise to meet him. Her fingers dug into his back, sending a shiver through him, while his hand found its way inside her nightgown to her naked breast, to pinch and to play.
Blackthorne had nothing with which to compare what followed. Josie’s legs came up to circle his hips, and she clung to him as though he were the only person left in her universe. The sounds she made drove him to greater heights of excitement, and he kissed and bit and sucked every part of her he could reach.
It was a time out of time. He hadn’t expected his bride to be so responsive. He took the chance of touching her more intimately than he might have dared, finding the bud that would truly make her flower, and restraining his own climax until he felt her body begin to contract and shudder around him.
Her eyes, which had been heavy-lidded, opened wide with wonder, and she made a wrenching, guttural sound that provoked an equally animalistic response from him. Her hips arched high beneath him, and he plunged so hard and deep that her body was forced across the satin sheets. Even so, she met him thrust for thrust. Until finally, his head fell back, and he uttered a harsh, primeval sound, as he spilled himself inside her.