Someone to Love

It was difficult to continue breathing evenly through her nose. And it took effort not to lower her eyes, even close them, so that she would not see him standing there, looking at her—not into her face but at her body and her remaining garments, his eyelids half drooped as they usually were, his eyes almost dreamy.

He went down on one knee to remove her slippers and then began to roll down her stockings one at a time and work them off her feet. He stood again and removed her stays and her shift until she was left with nothing behind which to hide her modesty. Not even any jewelry except her wedding ring. The sunlight made a mockery of the curtains and cast a pinkish glow over everything.

He gazed at her, every inch of her. His fingers had scarcely touched her while he undressed her, yet she was convinced that every brush of the backs of his fingers, every graze from a thumb, every rub of a knuckle had been deliberate. She felt touched all over. He was still dressed in the immaculate more-formal-than-usual clothes he had worn for their wedding, even down to the Hessian boots.

“I was quite right.” His eyes were keen now and looking into hers. “You are perfection, my Anna.”

Even his words were deliberate. My duchess. My Anna. Let me unwrap my gift package. Claiming her as his own. You are perfection. Only the very best would do, his words implied. She was not in the habit of deprecating herself, but . . . perfection? And it was of her body he spoke. She did not believe he was much interested in her character at the moment.

“I have the figure of a boy,” she said.

Characteristically, he considered her words before answering. “You cannot have seen many boys,” he said. “You are woman, Anna, from the topmost hair on your head to your toenails.”

Her stomach lurched. Woman, he had said—not a woman. Somehow there was a difference.

He touched her then, with his fingertips, with the flats of his fingers, the backs of his fingers, the heels of his palms, his knuckles, his whole hand. Light, feathering touches. Over her shoulders and down her arms, over the backs of her hands. Downward from her shoulders, through the cleft between her breasts, around beneath them, over, through again, down her sides to her waist, over her hips to the tops of her legs. Up behind her, along her spine, around her shoulder blades. Caressing her, learning her, claiming her. Downward with just one hand this time over one breast, past her ribs, over the flat of her stomach and down until the back of his hand rested lightly on the mound of hair at the apex of her thighs.

She wondered if he knew what even such light touches were doing to her and thought that yes, of course he did. Of course he did. She suspected he knew everything there was to know about . . . What was the word? Dalliance? Making love? She could almost hear her heartbeat. She could certainly feel it. There was a strange ache and a heavy throbbing within, just behind where his hand was. It was harder to breathe evenly without panting. She wondered if she should be doing something. But no. He was orchestrating this, and somehow he had issued the unspoken command that she stand still and relax.

He was dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, she thought, this small, slight, golden man.

Her husband.

His eyes had moved above the level of her own and he took his hands off her. “Tell me, Anna,” he said, “was it Bertha’s idea to put such great stress upon the roots of your hair this afternoon, or was it yours? And do not slander your maid. I have fond memories of my one encounter with her.” His eyes were on hers again.

“I . . . almost panicked when I retired to my dressing room after luncheon,” she admitted. “I thought—what have I done? I wanted to hide. I wanted myself back. I—”

“Have you lost yourself, then?” he asked, his voice very soft. “Have you given yourself away, Anna? To some savage, heartless brute? You wound me.”

“I wanted to be Anna Snow again,” she said.

“Did you?” he said. “Do you, my duchess?”

“Avery,” she said, “I am very frightened.” Ah. She had not known she was going to say that. And it was not quite true. Frightened was entirely the wrong word.

“But you are in good hands,” he said, raising them to begin withdrawing her hairpins.

“Oh,” she said crossly, “that is precisely the point.”

He drew the pins out slowly, bent to place them inside one of her slippers, and straightened up again to run his fingers through her hair and arrange it over her shoulders, some in front, some behind. It reached now only to the tops of her breasts. It waved slightly at the ends.

“But they are good hands,” he said, holding them up in the space between them, palms toward her. Slim hands, slender fingers, gold rings on four of them. Three of those fingertips had felled a man and left him gasping for survival. “They will protect you all the rest of my life and never hurt you. They will hold you and bring you comfort when you need it. They will hold our children. They will caress you and bring you pleasure. Come. Lie down on the bed.”

Our children . . .

He drew the covers back to the foot of the bed and she lay down and looked up at him. His hair glowed golden in the pinkish light of the room. His eyes roamed over her as he loosened his neckcloth and discarded it. He took his time undressing. It took him a while in particular to remove his formfitting coat and his boots, but he was in no hurry. Anna watched. She had seen his near-naked beauty this morning but from some distance. She saw now when he pulled his shirt off over his head that the muscles of his arms and chest and abdomen were taut and well honed even though they did not bulge. But he was not a man who relied upon brute strength, was he?