Maddy laughed. “This looks exciting.”
“You are my prisoner, and if you don’t behave, you will suffer a terrible punishment,” he growled.
“Oh, I’m terrified. What’s the punishment?”
“This.” He kissed her.
“How very dreadful. Do it again.”
“Baggage!” And he did it again.
A short time later the carriage drew to a halt.
“Why are we stopping?” Maddy asked. “Where are we?”
“No questions, prisoner,” he told her. “Just close your eyes.” He waited for Hawkins, the coachman, to carry out the instructions Nash had given him earlier. After a few minutes, Hawkins opened the carriage door. Nash got out of the carriage, and under the guise of lifting Maddy down, swept her into his arms.
“Thank you, Hawkins, that will be all,” Nash said, stepping over the threshold through the open door, and kicking it shut behind him. He kissed Maddy and lowered her to the floor. “You may open them now.”
“Ohh,” she said on a long note of wonder as she looked around the cottage. “How . . . who?”
“Nell and Tibby and Ayisha and Lizzie and Aunt Maude—”
“Youraunt?” Maddy’s jaw dropped. “I can’t work her out. One minute she despises me, and the next thing . . .” She shook her head.
He laughed. “That’s Aunt Maude. Loves to keep us all guessing. She masterminded this. Demanded to know where I was taking you for your wedding night and when I told her here, she was appalled. Ayisha suggested the changes—she and Rafe have a cottage retreat, apparently—but Nell and Aunt Maude ran the operation. And this is the result.”
“I can barely recognize the place,” Maddy breathed. “Look at these beautiful rugs. You always said it needed rugs.” She kicked off her slippers, peeled off her stockings, and walked on the thick, deep, exotic Turkish rugs that covered the entire floor. “So soft . . .” She wiggled her toes in the deep pile.
Nash eyed her small pink toes and suppressed a harsh groan. He wanted her spread out bare on those thick, soft rugs. He wanted to taste those toes, and then work his way up, till his mouth found the core of salt-dark honey at her center . . . Heat slammed through him at the thought. He rammed it under control. Civilized, he told himself. On one’s wedding night, one should approach one’s bride with care and circumspection. And a certain degree ofpolitesse.
A fire burned brightly, and freshly lit candles were scattered around the room, bathing everything in a soft light. Like the night they’d first made love, when she’d bared her silken beauty to his gaze and taken him into herself . . .
The worn, scrubbed table was covered with a richly embroidered tablecloth and was laid for two. An enormous hamper of food stood on a bench nearby, along with a crate of champagne and a pitcher of milk . . .
“Anything and everything one could desire,” Maddy exclaimed, peeping into the hamper. “We could be here for days and not go hungry.”
Nash nodded. He was starved, aching and ravenous, but not for anything in the hamper.
“And look at the bed.” Maddy hurried over to it. “What a beautiful cover.”
Only the faded red curtains were the same. Nash was fond of those curtains and had told his aunt not to touch them. But everything else was new. Fine white cotton sheets had replaced the threadbare old ones, and soft wool blankets and an eider-down quilt lay on top.
Maddy ran her hands over the quilt and picked up a pillow, plumped it, and pressed her cheek against it. “Goose feather, Nash, come and feel,” she invited. She sat on the bed and gasped. “They’ve replaced my straw mattress with a feather one. Nash you must feel this.”
Her eyes met his. Her gaze slowly raked him from head to toe, lingering on the area that ached and throbbed in torment. Her eyes darkened and a smile as old as Eve teased her lips. “Yes, Nash, come and feel,” she murmured. She wriggled back in sensuous pleasure and patted the bed invitingly.
Watching the feather-soft quilt slide beneath her bare calves, Nash cast any notions of control to the wind. In two strides, he crossed the room and launched himself onto the bed beside her.
With a low growl, he pushed her skirts up past her hips in a foam of lace and petticoats. And stared. She was bare to the waist, no drawers, just long, slender legs ending in a wine-colored triangle of soft curls.
His manhood surged, rock hard. Her thighs parted and she reached eagerly for him, fumbling at the fall of his breeches to release him, and then he was braced between her thighs, parting her gently and finding her ready, more than ready. He sank into her heated depths with a groan of satisfaction. She arched beneath him, urging him on with little cries and moans, and he plunged again and again, faster and faster, until with a roar of satisfaction, he climaxed.
Afterward, lightheaded and loose, he held her as his breathing slowly returned to normal. The sweat dried on his skin and the bliss evaporated with it.
Shame prickled his conscience. He’d just taken his new bride with all the greedy lack of finesse of a boy with his first woman, not even taking the time to undress or caress her, just dragging her skirts up and burying himself in her without a care for her pleasure or dignity. As if she were a prostitute.
Beside him, Maddy sat up and began straightening her clothes.
