She wet her lips. ‘May I ask you something?’
‘I cannot stop you,’ he said, with the faintest of smiles.
She grasped one hand in the other, twisting her wedding ring off her finger and handing it back to him. ‘Why did you give me this?’
‘It was made for you.’
It had not been. She should know for she had taken the specifications herself. Though, if she was honest, she had been loath to let this piece go. He had encouraged her to create a ring no woman could resist and she had used her own tastes as a guide. But to wear it herself defeated the purpose. ‘Surely there was some family ring that was meant for the woman you were to marry.’
She had almost said, ‘For me.’ But none of the Larchmont entail was intended for the likes of her. They both knew it.
He set the ring on the table next to his glass and went to his dresser. He returned with a wooden jewellery box, dumping the contents on the cloth beside her plate. Then he rooted through the pile with the tip of his finger before producing a ring. ‘This.’
She picked it up and examined it with the critical eye of a jeweller. The setting was too large for the stone, which was an inferior grade of opal so old it was losing its fire. Opals were bad luck in wedding rings, for exactly that reason. If the lustre signified the spirit of the wearer, this spoke of a fading soul.
‘Ugly, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘It is,’ she agreed, unable to lie.
He reached forward and gathered her hand in his, then picked up the ring and slipped it back on to her finger. ‘This is not.’
So it had not been an insult at all. ‘When you bought pieces from me, what did you do with them?’
He went back to his dresser and retrieved another box, this one a lustrous ebony. When he opened it, the pieces she had sold him were nestled in the white-silk lining.
‘You did not give them away,’ she said, numb with disappointment.
‘Who would I have given them to?’ he replied with a half-smile rather like the one she remembered from the shop.
‘You spoke of an actress, a mistress, cousins...’
‘I needed a reason to frequent the shop,’ he said, as though pleased with his own cleverness. ‘I saved them. For you.’
No one had seen them. No one at all. She had worked so hard to make them perfect, knowing that the woman on the arm of a marquess would draw all eyes in a room. They would see her jewels and whisper. Then they would come to de Bryun’s.
And all this time, they had been hidden in his bedroom, invisible. Now he was staring at her, as though waiting for her to be grateful for the gift.
‘They were meant to be worn, not locked away in a box,’ she said softly. ‘I’d hoped that people would admire them and ask about the jeweller. It would bring more business.’
‘People will see them now,’ he said. ‘On the Marchioness of Fanworth.’
Then she might as well put them back in the box and take them to the shop for resale. She had no time to parade about Bath in the evenings like a walking advertisement.
‘You never wear j-jewels,’ he added. ‘You should.’
‘I am surrounded by them all day,’ she said, with a sigh.
‘Exactly,’ he said, as if they were in some way finding a common ground. ‘Yet you act as if you are not worthy of them.’
How could she explain that it had never been her desire to wear the things she made? Granted, the ring was attractive. She had designed it to be so. But she had never imagined it on her own hand.
He took her silence for assent and reached into the tumbled pile of jewels, slowly drawing forth a string of pearls and draping it around her neck. It was a long rope with a gold and diamond clasp in the shape of joined hands. It was beautiful, of course, but it did not suit her. Even when wrapped three or more times about her neck it would still be too long for the modest gown she was wearing.
‘Where is the lace?’ he said with a slight frown, tracing the neckline with a finger.
He meant Justine’s fichu, she supposed. ‘I left it at the shop. It was in the way.’
‘It was lovely.’ He shrugged. ‘Not as lovely as you, of course.’ Then he took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet, to stand before a full-length mirror beside his bed.
And so it was to begin. She had convinced herself that she was not nervous. It had been a lie. A few compliments and a touch of his hand, and her pulse was racing. Knowing what was to come had removed the fear from her wedding night. But dread had been replaced with eager anticipation.
He stood behind her now, loosening the back of her gown, until her shoulders and throat were bare and the pearls could rest against them.
‘Luminous, like moonlight,’ he said, tracing them with his finger. ‘But they are no match for your skin.’ He placed his palm flat on the beads, rolling them against her bare throat.
Despite her unwillingness to wear them, she enjoyed the feel of the pearls pressing into her flesh and the roll against her tired shoulders. He released the loop he had been holding and let it slither under the bodice until it swayed between her breasts. Then his hands were behind her again, undoing more hooks and laces until she stood bare before the mirror with her bodice, stays and shift bunched at her waist.
He took up the pearls again, rolling them up the slope of one of her breasts, sliding them back and forth across her nipple. ‘Now tell me, how do you like your own work?’
They were not really her work at all. Though she had made the clasp, the oyster had supplied the majority of this perfection. She had but given them order. But words failed her. Her reflection showed a ring of pearls about her breast. As he tugged on it and as the loop tightened, the skin around her nipple tightened as well. His hand cupped the other breast from beneath, the tip of it pinched firmly between ring and last finger.
He pressed kisses into her shoulder, until his lips rested warm against her ear. ‘I want to take you wearing nothing but pearls.’
He had not stuttered. How strange. But everything about this was strange. She was staring at her own body in a mirror, watching him touch it, hardly daring to breathe for fear he would stop. Now she was helping him as he pushed the skirts to the floor. He settled her own hand to the wet place between her legs so that she could touch herself as she watched the pearls sway against her belly.
It was wicked. It was decadent. And she loved it. She rubbed her back against the wool of his coat for it seemed to heighten the sensation of her own hand to know he was there, hungry eyed, watching her pleasure herself. Her breath caught in her throat as the first tremors of arousal began.
Suddenly, he released her to fumble with the buttons of his breeches. Then he thrust into her hard, over and over. His hands came back to her breasts to hold her so tight to his body that her feet barely touched the floor.
Her self-control snapped, and she reached behind her to clutch at the back of his thighs. Her body tightened to grip his shaft, as if she could draw him into her very soul and keep him there for ever.
It was over too soon. His fingers relaxed their grip on her and his head lolled forward so that his hair brushed against her arm. Then he gave a final sigh of satisfaction and scooped her up in his arms to carry her into the other room and drop her on the satin coverlet.
Without a second thought, she held out an arm to welcome him into her bed.
He shook his head. ‘Only one time left. I must be careful.’ But he did not leave. And then he