Very slowly, Mary Rose nodded. But she still just stood there, her hands clasped in front of her, still wearing that very lovely gown her mother had made over for her. It was pale pink with a lot of lace at the neckline and just a straight fall of skirt to her ankles. He was surprised that the pale pink was so very nice with her bright hair.
Tysen cleared his throat, hoped he didn’t sound like a man about to be felled by lust, and said, “I am very fond of you, Mary Rose. And I know you are of me as well. I know that lovemaking must seem very strange to you and—”
His precious bride waved away his words. “Yes, perhaps,” she said, and took a step toward him. “Could you please kiss me?”
And so he did. Very soon, he realized that he wanted her more than he could even begin to imagine, and yet she was a virgin and he remembered Melinda Beatrice, her awful pain, her sobs that first night when he came into her, her sobs after he had come out of her, her sobs when he had wanted her again so very badly he’d nearly cried.
He shook his head. He’d been a boy, hadn’t known a single thing about how to give pleasure, how to take pleasure when it was offered. Not that he knew much more now. But he had, he admitted to himself, during those first months of his marriage, listened to his brothers whenever they spoke of matters of the flesh, which wasn’t a rare occurrence at all. So, he supposed, he had a good deal of theory down very well.
“Let me unfasten your gown for you. Then, if you like, I can go out into the corridor while you put on your nightgown.”
She pulled her thick hair out of the way, and Tysen found that his fingers were extraordinarily nimble on all the buttons of that wretched, beautiful gown. He forced himself to step back when her white back was bare.
“There, it’s done. I’m sorry I didn’t think to place a screen in here.” He left her then, quickly, and paced outside the bedchamber door, up and down the corridor. He found himself drawn to the sound of a woman’s quiet voice. It was Sinjun. She and Colin were speaking in their bedchamber, and the door wasn’t closed.
He, a vicar, a man who would give a good lecture to any of his children were they to eavesdrop, walked closer to that cracked open doorway. He heard Sinjun say, “But Colin, Tysen was only a boy when he married Melinda Beatrice. He knew nothing. He was always so pious and proper that naturally he wouldn’t know anything. He isn’t at all like Douglas or Ryder or you, and never was, for that matter. I’m just concerned that—” She stalled, but Tysen already knew everything she would have said; it was crystal clear in the quiet air.
Then Colin said, “Listen to me, Sinjun. Tysen isn’t a clod, nor is he a fool. He’s still a Sherbrooke, and I swear to you that the Sherbrooke men are born knowing how to make love properly to a woman. Leave be. Come to bed and I will let you seduce me, if you promise to go very slowly so I will have enough time to respond to you.”
Sinjun giggled. Then, “You’re sure it will be all right? You don’t believe you should perhaps speak to Tysen, ask him if he has any questions or perhaps wishes to discuss things? Colin, wait! What are you doing? Oh, goodness, you are an evil man.”
Tysen heard his sister, his baby sister, giggle. Then he heard only silence. No, that was a very deep breath someone in that bedchamber just drew in.
Tysen quickly walked away. So he’d been born knowing how to please a woman, had he? Well, he’d never succeeded with Melinda Beatrice. But that had been so very long ago, and Sinjun was right. He’d been a boy, untried, bowled over with those rampaging feelings he couldn’t control, so eager he’d nearly spilled his seed on himself.
He would simply have to trust himself. As his brother Ryder always said, “If a man can make a woman laugh, she is his.”
Laughter. How the devil did a man make a woman laugh when the man couldn’t think beyond those raw, very urgent surges in his groin?
He came back into the bedchamber. Mary Rose was lying in the middle of the bed, propped up on pillows, the covers to her chin. He smiled at her. He went methodically about the room, pinching out the myriad candles. When there was only a single candle lit near the huge bed, he moved away into the shadows and undressed. He pulled his nightshirt over his head. He came to a halt beside the bed.
“I’m not wearing one of your nightshirts,” she said. “I think you look better in it than I do.”
He pulled back the blankets and came in beside her. He said, looking down at her beloved face, “Do you know we had never even seen each other before a very short time ago?”
Mary Rose pulled her hand out from beneath the mound of blankets and lightly touched her fingers to his face. “Yes, and it both frightens me and makes me believe devoutly that God had very good plans for me. You’re quite wonderful, Tysen.”
Her words stirred inside him, moved him, and he said, “I don’t want you to think that I married you simply because of my honor, because I want to protect you, save you from the machinations of your wretched uncle and Erickson MacPhail. I am very fond of you, Mary Rose. I am very glad that you are now my wife.” He looked away from her a moment, then said, “And we are man and wife now. Or vicar and wife, if you would prefer.” That was an attempt at humor, but it didn’t yield anything except perhaps a tiny smile.
“I can barely see you, Tysen.”
“Well, one doesn’t have intimate relations in full daylight,” he said, although he imagined that his brothers even had intimate relations in the gardens, beneath the oak trees. But he never had. He’d always believed that a wife was precious and should be protected from a man’s lust, her modesty never to be violated. “I don’t wish to shock you or embarrass you,” he said, his voice austere.
“Thank you,” she said, but there was something odd in her voice that he didn’t understand, and he said quickly, “Please don’t be frightened of me. I might not be much good at any of this, but I wish to try. I’m going to kiss you now, Mary Rose, kiss you until I’ve gotten all the way to that crooked toe of yours, and I will kiss it as well.”
She grinned. Aha, nearly a laugh. “All right,” she said, and closed her arms around his neck.
“You taste like strawberries,” he said, “and your hair is as soft as my mare’s mane.”
She giggled when he at last touched her breast. Then she jumped. He closed his eyes a moment, wondering what to do. He knew he was in a bad way, and that surprised him, but it didn’t matter. He said, “I want you to hold still, and I will try not to hurt you.”
He eased her nightgown up, felt her soft flesh, and prayed fervently that she was ready for him, t
hat he wouldn’t hurt her too much. She didn’t pull away, did nothing to escape him. And her kisses had been so very enthusiastic. He had to control himself. So very long, he thought, so very long since he had been with a woman, and that woman had been his first wife. He regretted that in his inexperience he might hurt Mary Rose, that he might deny her pleasure. Then he realized he could only do his best. He could, as a matter of fact, do exactly what he wanted to do, and surely that wouldn’t be bad. He was a Sherbrooke male, after all.
He gritted his teeth, knowing the moment was upon him, and came inside her, pushing slowly, his blood pounding through his body, nearly splitting him apart with lust, but his determination not to hurt her was profound. He was a man, not the boy who had mauled Melinda Beatrice. He moved very slowly indeed. He stopped. “Mary Rose?”
She was looking at him, but she wasn’t smiling now, ready to kiss every bit of his face, ready to let him even put his tongue in her mouth. She was scared stiff, rigid as a log beneath him.