‘Yes, it is,’ she said and smiled at the girl. ‘If you will help me to undress and then leave me, please.’
‘Yes, my lady. At what time would you like me to dress you in the morning?’
‘I shall ring when I need you.’
Maddie stepped out of her gown and then stood as the girl unlaced her bodice. A lovely filmy white nightgown was slipped over her head, and the pins taken from her hair, but when Maria offered to brush her hair she shook her head.
‘I can manage now, thank you,’ she said. ‘You may go to bed. I shall not need you again tonight.’
Maria curtsied, wished her happiness and went from the room, a little smile on her lips as she turned away.
Madeline began to brush her hair as the door closed behind the maid. It was a little strange not to have Sally waiting on her, but she would get used to it in time. She enjoyed the feel of the brush on her hair and had stroked it several times when the door opened and Hal entered. He was wearing a long dressing robe of dark-blue velvet and his feet were bare. As he approached she caught the smell of soap and knew that he had washed his face and shaved before coming to her.
‘I am not too soon?’ he asked hesitantly. ‘You know that I am prepared to wait until...’
‘There is nothing more to wait for,’ she said and moved towards him. She slipped her arms about his waist, lifting her gaze to his. ‘I love you, Hal. You are not Lethbridge. I love you and I trust you. Please make love to me. It is what I want—to be yours, to be your wife and to love you forever.’
* * *
Madeline woke slowly to a feeling of well being. She smiled as the memories of Hal kissing her, of his lips lingering in the most intimate places, came filtering back into her mind like sunbeams of pleasure. She had never known that she could feel this way...never known that her body could sing and cry out for more. She had been swept away on a wave of desire and sensual pleasure, reaching such heights as they loved that she’d cried out, her nails scoring his shoulder as she shuddered and moaned with need. All the love she’d shut away inside her for years poured out, welcoming this man who had taught her to feel again. She clung to him and wept when the storm of passion had settled and then laughed at his anxious face as he wiped away her tears, reassuring him that they were tears of happiness and not pain.
‘You are awake,’ Hal said and leaned up on his arm to gaze down into her face. ‘You looked so lovely as you slept that I did not want to wake you.’
‘Yes, I am awake.’ She glanced towards the window and saw that sunshine was peeping through the crack. ‘What time is it?’
‘About eleven, I think,’ he said and bent down to kiss the end of her nose. ‘I kept you awake most of the night, Maddie...but you tempted me so much I could not leave you alone. I have wanted you for so long.’
‘I hope you will always want me as much as you did last night,’ she said and reached up to kiss him at the corner of his mouth. ‘You made me so happy, Hal. I knew that I loved you, but I did not know I could feel that way...so content and secure in your arms.’
‘It is the way I always want you to feel,’ he murmured and bent his head to kiss the little hollow at the base of her throat. He kissed the valley between her breasts and then licked delicately at her nipples. ‘You taste so good that I want to gobble you up.’
Madeline laughed, because she had never known what it was to be teased like this or to luxuriate in the warmth of a man’s adoration and tender love. She trembled as his hand explored and stroked her body, feeling little flickers of desire shoot through her once more. She could feel the heat between her thighs and the moisture as her body welcomed him to her again, lifting her hips to allow him to ease into her, his smooth hardness filling her in a way that brought no pain, but only aching delight and pleasure that grew and grew until it exploded inside her.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arm, talking and laughing, remembering that time when they were young and forgetting the hurt that had kept them apart so long.
And when at last they rose and Madeline rang for her maid, while Hal went away to wash and shave, she knew the true meaning of happiness at last. After eating a light nuncheon they would leave for Hal’s estate in Cambridgeshire, for Madeline had wanted to begin her new life at once.
‘I have clothes enough,’ she told Hal when he’d asked where she would like to go for her honeymoon. ‘Why should I need a trip to Paris to buy more? I would rather spend the money on curtains and things for our home—and then perhaps another year, if we can afford it, we shall go on a little trip somewhere. If not to Paris, to Scotland or even to the coast of Cornwall, which I hear is very wild but beautiful in summer.’
‘We could have a wedding trip if you wished,’ Hal told her. ‘My mother’s brother has written to me. He tells me that I am to be his heir, because his son died in an accident, and asked that I should bring you to meet him in a few weeks. It is like to be some years before we inherit, but I am content to be a country gentleman, if you are content to be the wife of a gentleman farmer?’
‘Quite content, my love,’ she said, ‘but I should like to meet your uncle for he must be lonely having lost his family—and I should like to share a little of our happiness.’
‘And we shall have plenty to share,’ he said and kissed her again.
* * * * *
Sarah Mallory
‘There, ‘tis done,’ said the vicar.
‘So it is.’ The Honourable Gideon Albury smiled down at his new wife. ‘I think we can dispense with this now.’
He reached for her veil, but she quickly put her gloved hand over his.
‘Not yet,’ she whispered.
He laughed. ‘Be careful, my love, I shall begin to think I have married a little prude!’
He expected to hear her delicious throaty laugh but she was silent, merely putting her fingers on his arm as he escorted her to the door.
After the darkness of the stone building the spring sunshine was almost blinding when they stepped outside. He stopped and turned to her again.
‘Now, Miss Propriety, let me kiss you … Good God!’ He stepped back, his eyes widening with horror as he looked down into the face of a stranger.
The very first page in LADY BENEATH THE VEIL is, in fact, the very first idea I had for this story. I wanted to explore what would happen if a man suddenly found himself married to a woman he had never seen before. Of course this is not a new idea—throughout British history many sons and daughters of the aristocracy have been married off for political or economic reasons to virtual strangers—but this was to be no reasoned alliance: it was to be a cruel hoax.
You might think that no one would play such a trick … Well, one only has to look into history to see that life in Georgian England could be cruel and brutally short and, as if in response, the Georgians could be tough, crude and boisterous. There are the much-recorded practical jokes of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland, who played the most outrageous practical jokes upon visitors.
Mechanical hoists were installed so that when unsuspecting guests were undressing the bedroom walls would suddenly be lifted up, exposing them. In one bedroom the bed could be lowered into a tank of cold water, and in another