“S o, my dear, have you kept up with your sketching?” Lord Rothvale asked her at dinner.
“Yes, my lord. I try to put some time into it at least once per week,” Marianne answered.
“Well, I’ve seen your work, and it’s very good. Have you ever considered formal study?”
Marianne shook her head. “No, sir. Your Byrony is the real talent. Her portraits are so intuitive. She will know fame one day, I predict. For me, I just enjoy the sketching as a creative activity, and I only seem to want to paint the sea. It’s the one subject I come back to over and over again.”
Lord Rothvale gently patted her hand. “That’s understandable, my dear,” he said kindly. “When Mr. Mallerton comes for his yearly holiday the two of you should collaborate. He enjoys seascapes as well.”
“I would love to meet him, my lord. The great Mr. Mallerton, here in Somerset, working alongside me? I would be so enamored and dazed, I doubt I would be able to speak, let alone draw anything.” Marianne couldn’t imagine the scenario, but would be so honored to meet the great master himself. Lord Rothvale and Tristan Mallerton had gone to school together and were the best of friends. Moments like these made her wonder if she was indeed dreaming.
Lady Rothvale spoke up, “Marianne, darling, you should have your portrait painted by Mr. Mallerton when he is here. Don’t you agree, Mr. Rourke?”
“I shall inquire for one myself, my lady. There is nothing I would love more than a portrait of my wife,” Darius replied smoothly. He probably would commission a portrait of her, Marianne thought. The very idea was almost too much to consider, but she knew her husband well enough already to know he would do what he wished on the matter.
Lord Rothvale directed his next comment to Darius. “What do you think of your wife’s artistic talent there, Rourke?”
“Well, I think she’s quite accomplished, and I love to watch her at work. The concentration, the furrowed brow, the intensity with which she studies the seascape is fascinating. She’s very hard on herself, though. Never pleased with what she’s drawn when to my eye it looks good enough for your National Gallery,” Darius said.
Lord Rothvale chuckled. “Getting that thing founded will be my life’s work, I suppose, and much harder than it ought to be, but then, worthwhile endeavors usually are. We’ll make sure to leave a nice wall for her.” He winked at Marianne. “Now if I can just get your husband to consider public service, I imagine how much good could be accomplished with men like him in Parliament. What do you say, Rourke? Make a run for the constituency at Kilve?”
“I’m thinking about it, my lord,” Darius told him, but he looked at Marianne. There was hunger in his eyes. Marianne knew he wasn’t thinking about politics right now. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her when he got her all to himself.
The staring only got worse on the ride home. Darius sat opposite her in the carriage, his eyes roaming over her body in a ravenous sweep that left no doubts about what was on his mind. She shivered in anticipation, feeling herself go wet between the thighs. Apparently their frantic session in the library before dinner had only whet his appetite for a more leisurely paced encounter tonight.
“Come to my room this time,” he whispered in her ear when he escorted her up to her chamber. “I’ll be waiting for you, my beauty… and don’t bother wearing much.” He bore the grin of a devil. A very handsome, but lascivious devil.
Marianne chose one of her new French nightgowns, a Madame Trulier specialty. Very scant, sleeveless silk in ice-blue, low cut and close fitting so every curve was emphasized. He’d said not to wear much, and to her eye it certainly qualified. It was a moot point though, because she wouldn’t have it on for long. Darius would have her naked in a heartbeat.
Pushing open the door to the master’s chamber, she felt the muscles in her abdomen clench and the need for air into her lungs increase. His effect on her was consistent. It wasn’t fear for he never hurt her, but he did rattle her—most thoroughly. When Darius wanted her, she got nervous. Not because she didn’t want the intimacy, but because she did. He was a very skilled lover, taking her body to places she could never have imagined, and made her lose herself in exquisite sensations of pleasure and wantonness so intense that it was a little frightening. The anticipation of what was waiting never failed to make her skittish. And she knew something else, too. Darius liked her a little skittish in the beginning so he could woo her and enjoy her submission when he brought her to ecstasy.
The room was dim, and she didn’t see him anywhere in it. He wasn’t in the enormous bed, and he wasn’t by the hearth. She thought it odd that she could have beaten him in preparing for bed. Darius was always the one willing, ready, and waiting on her.
Sighing, she walked to the balcony doors and went outside. The summer air was warm, and the stars shone clear. It was a beautiful night, and she could smell honeysuckle wafting up to her from the vines below. The sweet scent reminded Marianne of her mother.
Now that she was married, Marianne wondered about her own parents. Had they shared the kind of passion Marianne had in her own marriage? She smiled and shook her head. Hard to imagine. Nothing had really prepared her for the intimacy of sex. Being so close with Darius physically, had quickly broken down her emotional walls. Aloofness was impossible when another person was inside your body and making you cry from the pleasures they gave you.
Marianne went back inside to wait. As soon as she stepped through the balcony doors strong arms enfolded her from behind, trapping her securely against a hard, muscular chest. And more than just his chest was hard, too. She could feel every inch of the long, thick length of his cock pressing against her bottom. Marianne couldn’t see Darius because he was behind her, but he was definitely naked, definitely aroused, and definitely intent on having her.
“Darius,” she gasped, “you surprised me.”
He nuzzled her neck, warm lips lingering over her pulse, his teeth nipping gently. Big hands drew up and down her bare arms, slowly and possessively. “You surprised me standing out there in this gown, looking like an angel. I was speechless, so I just watched you and thought about what I’d do when you came back inside… ”
“What are you going to do?” She panted against him, her body heating up from the press of his erection and the whisper of his voice.
“Do you trust me, Marianne?” He swept his hands up her sides, over her ribs, and stopped just under her breasts.
The anticipation of his hands so close, but not touching, made her arch into him in an attempt to meet the distance. “Yes, I do, Darius.”
“Good girl.” His hands engulfed both breasts and squeezed. Her nipples budded up hard and tight, and he tweaked them through the thin silk. Sparks of pure pleasure pricked her skin, and she had to swallow the cry on her lips, knowing this was her reward for entrusting her pleasure to him. “Keep trusting me, Marianne. Trust me… and just feel.”
Marianne shivered, wondering what he would do. It was always the anticipation that got to her. Darius knew how to arouse her until she could do nothing or want nothing but what he could give her. He made her needful.
“I will. I do,” she whispered. And then he draped a silk sash in front of her face and lowered it onto her eyes. He tied it in a knot. Her blindfold was secure, and she could see nothing.
Just feel. That’s what I am going to do.
Darius stepped back and admired from behind. The scanty gown she wore was lovely, but it was time for it to go. He bent, took the hem in his hands, and drew it up, over her head and off. He sighed in contentment. Naked at last. He knew what he did was scandalous but couldn’t imagine having Marianne any other way. Making love with her fumbling in nightclothes in the dark would be a travesty. That luscious body was meant to be devoured with his eyes when he took her.
He cupped the twin globes of her arse, lifting and forcing her to spread her legs a little. “Such a pretty arse you have, so round and smooth.” He squeezed each cheek from the bottom, the fingers of both hands meeting at her cleft and the slippery wet that drenched it.
She shuddered when he fingered her quim and moaned a little in that breathy, sexy way. God, when she made that sound it drove him wild, gave him crazy impulses, turned him into a sexual fiend. The need to penetrate her body shouted from inside his brain.
“I love that you’re wet for me. Soon, my beauty, soon, I’ll be driving inside your sleek, wet quim and making you scream. And then I’ll do it over and over again. All night long until the sun comes up.” She whimpered in protest when he took his fingers away. “Walk for me first. I want to see that beauteous arse. Go on. Take about ten steps straight forward and you’ll get to the side of the bed.”
She took a tentative step, and then another, and another. She walked her pretty arse over to the edge of the bed and stopped. He groaned from the sight of her muscles flexing and shifting as her long legs moved across the distance. She turned to him even though he knew she couldn’t see him through the blindfold.
“What do you want, Marianne?” he asked.
“I want you.” She trembled with need, her breasts vibrating, her nipples hard and peaked.
“How do you want me, my beauty?”
“Inside me. I want your cock inside me.”
Her pleading voice flipped something in his brain. Any control he had maintained throughout the evening simply evaporated all in an instant. He was on her before he could suck in another breath, his hands pushing her torso down on the bed and then gripping to frame her hips. Going at her from behind this way made his cock jerk, like a leaping stallion trying to mount a mare. He became a beast of sorts, wicked and decadent and primal.
Marianne’s breaths were labored as he split her legs further apart. He could smell her tangy essence blooming for him, wet and hot and ready to receive him. Guiding his cock to her entrance, he sheathed himself to his bollocks in one claiming stroke. The sweet, tight grip of her cunny was so good he thought it a kind of pain, but one he could seek again and again and again. Her heavy breaths stopped when he impaled her, in shock most likely, but she took him all the way to the root without complaint, and then ground back as if she could take even more.
She’s so damned perfect.
He had her hard. No doubt about it—this was a hard fucking. But right now, he needed it. Later he could be gentle and slow, but first he had to feed the beast in him. There was only one thing on the menu for the beast, and it was sweet and pink and situated right between Marianne’s thighs. He could get inside her deeper in this position than in any of the other ways. Oh, fucking hellfire, he thought, please never let it end.
Pumping fiercely, he ground into her like a madman, time slipping away behind a veil of carnal sensation. He had no idea how long he fucked, if it was a second, a minute or an hour, who knew?
He reached down a finger to glide over her clit, and the second he did, she came, all at once, clenching and shuddering beneath him. Her orgasm ignited his own release. It was nirvana to pleasure her, to feel her body tense up, to hear her cries. He felt his own need bubble up and overflow like wine from a cask. Her glorious response pushed him over the edge where he could embrace the end he sought so desperately. With a shout and a hiss and a gush of hot seed he melded into her and, for one brilliant instant, knew absolute heaven.
About an hour later she was languid and sleepy in his arms—a well-ridden, thoroughly sated, and stunningly sensual woman. Her blindfold long removed, she had crawled up on him, her head at his chest where she kissed and trailed her sweet lips up to his jaw and his shoulders.
He thought about all that he had known about her before and all that he knew about her now. Darius was happy to realize he’d been correct in predicting the passion in her. His Marianne was a siren in bed. She was also affectionate, and he adored her touches and gestures. After they made love like this, he liked to hold her close against his body, kissing and stroking over her skin. Whenever she did the same to him, his heart swelled. Marianne made him feel victorious, like a warrior, strong and powerful. But there were many facets to her, and in some ways she was more of a mystery now than before. He sensed a kind of darkness in Marianne and that was a concern. Darius knew his feelings for her were growing stronger with each passing day, and with those feelings, the urge to protect and secure her happiness however he could.
“Cara, why did you seem sad when Lord Rothvale asked you about your drawings?”
“Did I?”
“Yes. To me you did. And he even patted your hand to console you a little, it looked like. Why does drawing the sea make you melancholy?”
She sucked in a quick breath before answering. “I think it’s because the sea is so demanding.”
“Demanding?” Her explanation struck him as odd. “In what way?”
“No matter where I go, the sea calls to me, and it has for a long time. I cannot get away from the pull of the waves, and I fear it will always be so. Somehow, capturing one moment of time depicted in a seascape is soothing for me. That’s why I only draw the—” She shook her head and looked at him. “Enough about that. I want to talk about you. Lord Rothvale is serious about you making a run for the House of Commons, and I think he is right. You would be very good, Darius… ”
He smiled and kissed the top of her head, thinking about how she’d just avoided his questions so neatly. Marianne was loving and kind and attentive. He could not fault her as a wife in regards to how she embraced her many duties and responded to him. And he believed her sincere.
So why then was there this persistent nag in the back of his mind telling him that Marianne wasn’t being completely honest?
13th July, 1837
Darius is getting closer to my secret. He wanted to know why I seemed melancholy when Lord Rothvale asked me the question about my drawing. How can I tell him the truth? And if I do, will his good opinion of me be lost? I cannot bear the idea. It hurts me too greatly to contemplate. I need his cherishing too much.
MR
