The Caversham Chronicles ~ the Beginning

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Cav led Amelia through Merivale’s study and up the servant’s stairwell to the floor where his rooms were. He was thankful for the dimly-lit hallway and dark staircase. It wouldn’t do for his bride-to-be to discover that he was just as nervous as she. His c**k strained against his breeches, eager to please her. It had been years since he cared about a woman this much. And this one made him feel more alive than any mistress or widow with whom he’d ever consorted.

She tried to continue up another flight when he stopped her. “We would be more comfortable in my room, don’t you think?”

She gave him a look that could only come from a virgin unsure of what she was about, then she gave him a nod and allowed him to lead her the rest of the way down the blue and gold carpet to his rooms. He had to make this experience for her pleasurable, make her want it as much as he. Only when the door was shut, did she speak. “I’m glad we didn’t run into anyone. It would have been awkward.”

Cav agreed then went to the sideboard and poured another glass of wine, this time a sweet red that seemed to be her favorite. He handed her the glass. “Do you have any reservation about what we are going to do?” She shook her head. “Good. Merivale and his wife know we are about to wed. You need not fear I will abandon you after tonight.”

“I am not afraid,” she said softly, yet without reservation.

“Good,” he replied.

Cav watched her raise the wine to her lips and sip. When she lowered the glass, she licked her lips. Their gazes met and the erotic image was beginning to pain him. He wanted to kiss the flavor of the wine from her lips, to taste her sweet innocence and worship it.

Foster, his valet for most of his adult life, entered from the side door and Cav waved him away. He would have warned the man away tonight, had he known this is what they would be doing.

Amelia was staring at him. “I’m surprised you told our hosts about me already.” The slight quiver in her voice told him she was nervous, even if she didn’t admit it.

“I had to.” He hoped he sounded reassuring to her ears. He didn’t want her to fear him, or worse, to flee. “I needed his help getting some messages out and you needed a maid. I would have moved you down here where you belong with the other guests, except that we’re leaving tomorrow. And I’d like to do so without drawing suspicion.”

She held out the glass for him. He set it back on the sideboard and came to stand before her. “I desire you, Amelia,” he whispered as he pushed a tendril that had fallen from her chignon behind her ear. He’d wanted to do that since the wind caught it earlier in the pavilion and blew it into her face. Taking one of her hands in his, he kissed the palm.

Her hand was soft, with tiny calluses on two fingers of one hand. He looked at them closer.

She pulled them away, tucking them at her side. “They’re from sewing pages together before we bind on the covers.”

He lifted her chin, and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m not judging, Amelia. Never that.”

He stared down at her full, moist lips. His c**k stirred in his breeches each time she ran her tongue over them. He could wait no longer.

“I’ve always believed if you have a passion, you should live it.” Taking his own advice, he bent his head and kissed her. Living his passion for the first time in years. Tasting her sweetness, Cav felt more alive with desire than he had during his weekly visits to any of his mistresses. In fact, he’d not felt this way since Lizzie. That was how he knew it was right.

As he kissed her, his hands began to work the tiny buttons on the back of the worn black dress, making a mental note to find her a proper modiste. Buttons on the back of a lady’s dress should not come undone so easily. Then again, given the antique style, he realized the thing was likely almost as old as she. Cav peeled the bodice away and began on the laces of her stays. Once those were removed, it was just a matter of a few more buttons and the dress and stays fell away, leaving his bride-to-be standing in her threadbare shift. She was beautiful—with womanly curves and an innocent expression at the same time. And soon she would be his.

She held his gaze as she began to remove the pins in her hair. When the dark honey blond mass cascaded down the slope of her back, his breath hitched. She was captivating. He began to remove his coat, a great feat to accomplish alone, but he was properly motivated and determined, and within minutes he was in his smallclothes. He felt a little awkward now. He hadn’t done this in a well-lit room with a lady in many years and with a virgin only once. Devil take him, but he wasn’t sure how to proceed. She was going to be his wife for heaven’s sake, he should feel more comfortable baring himself to her. But he was much older than she, and his body wasn’t what it once was. Would she find him unattractive?

He took her small, delicate hand in his and placed it over his heart. “Touch me, Amelia. Feel how I tremble.” The warmth of her palm seeped through his shirt, jolting him, making him feel alive.

“Why are you the nervous one? I’m the one who’s never done this before.”

“I’ve never done this with you.”

Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I’m not unlike other women, Your Grace. And you are so kind to take my considerations into account, that I think we shall get along very well.” She stepped away from him and lifted the chemise over her head, baring herself to him in the candle-lit room. “Remember, your mission is to make me say yes to marrying you.”

Her full breasts were high and firm, the hard peaks of her n*****s beckoned to be laved by his tongue. He scooped her up in his arms, carrying her the short distance to his bed. She was soft all over and he wanted to just drive into her and take what she was offering him, but he knew that he had to go slow if he wanted to have a chance at a happy marital life.

“I believe,” he said as he laid her on the bed, “I have enough experience to make that happen tonight.” Stepping away, he extinguished all but one candle and removed the remainder of his clothing. He joined her between the cool sheets and turned onto his side facing her. “What we’re about to do might be a bit uncomfortable at first, but I promise if you can get beyond the initial discomfort it will get better.”

He lightly stroked her upper arm. “I will do everything possible to prepare your body for mine and to make this pleasurable for you.”

Cav felt a tremor pass through her, shaking him. He’d only had one other virgin in his life, and his bride-to-be was behaving incredibly brave for a woman about to give her innocence to a man. It made him proud to have her. Of course, if she wished to back out now, it would pain him terribly. And as difficult as it would be, he would respect that decision. He had to know she still wanted this. “Are you certain?”

She pushed the sheet away that she’d covered herself with and rolled onto her back. “I… feel things when I am with you. I cannot explain except to say that I want more.”

A low growl slipped from him as her words exploded in his mind. He couldn’t touch her enough, couldn’t kiss her enough, and couldn’t love her enough. He wanted to possess her—not just her body, he wanted her heart, her mind and even her very soul as he didn’t think he could be complete without her. He bent to take one of her hardened n*****s into his mouth as his hands roved over her smooth, soft flesh, stroking, grasping, squeezing. He felt things with her, too, erotically hedonistic things, but was afraid if he performed some of them she would be repulsed. So he would save those acts for later. Right now this ripe woman, this virgin, was in his bed begging him to make her accept his proposal, and he knew just how.

He raised his head and blew across her wet n****e, making the bud even tighter. He traced a finger down from her chin, between her ample breasts and over the soft planes of her belly to rest below her navel. “Have you ever touched yourself?” His palm cupped her womanhood. She sucked in a breath, held it. “Here?” Cav felt her heart racing as he slipped a finger into her wetness and slid it upward to touch her tight bud. Her body arched upward into his hand.

She gave a little mewling cry that told him she enjoyed his touch. “Have you, Amelia? Have you pleasured yourself before?” She nodded. “Say it. Tell me ‘Yes, I have touched and pleasured myself.’”

When she did, he smiled. Her admission pleased him immensely for some reason. “Good.” He stroked her gently, adding another finger and spreading her juices over her c******s so his finger could slide easily. “When was the last time?”

She moaned as he pleasured her. When it was obvious to him she would not answer, he stopped. “When, Amelia?” Her eyes were squeezed shut and her lower lip was between her teeth. “When?” Cav pushed for a reply only because he wanted to know if she had any idea of what to expect when she climaxed.

“Last night.” The reply came on a breathless plea for more of his ministrations.

“After I kissed you.” Cav began to stroke again, this time inserting one, then two fingers into her tight sheath. He drew more of her juices forth and leaned into her and kissed her again, parting her lips with his tongue. She was innocent yet bold, untried yet knowledgeable of her body. “I pleasured myself as well. The entire time I dreamed of this. With you.”

He kissed her again and began trailing a line of tiny little nibbling kisses down the column of her neck. Farther down he went and after suckling each n****e for a moment, he licked and kissed his way lower still, stopping only when he smelled her musk. It had been so long. Too long. He was so hard, so ready, but he’d told her before the night was through she would say yes. He wouldn’t become a rutting boar now.

He parted her with his fingers, exposing her tight little bud for his kiss. His tongue reached out and with his first stroke she bit back a cry. Then inhaled a shaky breath. “Cav, no!”

Without lifting his head, he pressed his palm over her womb to keep her in place. “Oh, yes.”

Her scent and taste intoxicated him and as he made love to her with his mouth, he inserted his fingers again to prepare her for his invasion. Within minutes he felt her inner walls tighten and her entire body tense. The low moan he’d heard became a soft keening cry as she reached for him and caught hold of his hair. A flood of liquid drenched his hand and he slid over her, placing his c**k at her entrance. “Remember what I said about some discomfort?”

She nodded, catching her lip between her teeth

“It cannot be helped.” He pushed into her partially, awaiting her reaction. She moaned. God help him he didn’t want to hurt her. She took a deep breath and began to relax under him.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she said, giving him a slight smile.

“We’re nowhere near done, love.”

“Oh.”

He pushed a little deeper. He could tell she was uncomfortable, but still she said, “That’s… nice.” Her breathing began to get shallow and he knew he had to go the rest of the way now. He seated himself fully and held still a while for her to acclimate to him. His baser side wanted to rush to the finish, now, and bring her with him. But he had to force himself to be patient, to initiate his new lover gently. He kissed her temple and her cheeks before taking her lips and sharing the taste of her.

When he heard that deep breath and felt her body easing under him, he began to move. It wasn’t long before Cav felt Amelia moving with him, racing with him to reach that pinnacle he sought with each thrust. His body took over and set the rhythm for their passion. Instinctively, her legs wrapped around his, giving him deeper access and she sighed as he thrust deeper and deeper.

Her sighs soon became panting as she began to tense beneath him. Her sheath tightened around him with a rhythm that was soon to send him over the edge toward his own orgasm. With a Herculean effort he didn’t think himself capable of, Cav forced himself to hold back. He wanted to see the wonder in her eyes as Amelia experienced her climax. He opened his eyes and gazed down on her, watching as she cried out for him, arching upward. And with several final deep thrusts, his body gave her his seed.

Amelia felt herself shatter, leaving her breathless and without the strength to lift even a finger. She’d been so thoroughly loved that she couldn’t move. And even if she could, she knew there was no place else she wanted to be than in Cav’s arms. Not right now, not ever. As her body still trembled inside from the intensity of their lovemaking, Cav kissed her temple, then collapsed on top of her. Amelia said a quick prayer that he hadn’t died from the exertion. Why, she’d just found the man she wanted for the rest of her life, he’d better not die on her!

Rather than speak his name, she kissed his cheek, slid her hands down his sides, and rested them on his lower back. He lifted his head and smiled at her, his straight teeth barely showing under parted lips.

This was what she would miss out on if she never married, and she couldn’t see not sharing this with Cav. She’d heard stories of younger women than she—her own aunt one of them—marrying men much older than Cav, and having to tolerate unpleasant, sometimes even painful, marital relations. And she felt sorry for those women. Truly, she did, because every woman should have a lover as kind and gentle as this man. One who took the time to prepare his wife for what was to come.

Her lover rolled off her, taking her with him. She leaned into him, relishing the feel of their heated, sweat-slickened bodies. When she shivered, Cav reached down and lifted the covers over them both. “Better?”

“Mmm.” She wanted to tell him everything was wonderful, spectacular, and she couldn’t believe a man such as he wanted to marry someone such as her. But she didn’t. A part of her was afraid that Cav might realize he could do better and change his mind.

“How do you feel?”

“For a woman who woke up this morning thinking the world was about to end for her, I feel remarkably… perfect.”

“How was the world about to end?”

“Remember, I went to bed thinking my aunt would have me forcibly evicted from the property for having bewitched you.” She gave Cav a sheepish sideways glance. “She wanted you for her own, you know. I was fully prepared to pack my dresses in my bag and go to the workhouse for women that she was always threatening to send me to.”

“What a miserable woman,” he muttered. “How did you tolerate her?”

Amelia moved to sit beside him, wincing at the soreness between her legs as she rose onto her knees and wrapped the sheet around her. “Please, I beg you, let us leave Aunt Katherine out of the discussion.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, memories of rejection welling up. She really didn’t want to say that she had no other family that wanted her. Even though it was the truth.

“What kind of relationship do you have with your paternal family? Did you write them to notify them of your father’s passing?”

She took a breath and dove in to her explanations. He needed to know of her lack of familial relationship with her other kin. “Yes, I sent three letters, one to each uncle, informing them of my father’s death, and the cause. In each letter, I advised that I was now alone with no husband, no prospects for a spouse, and no employment. I asked if they might be willing to write me a letter of recommendation that might give me entree into gainful employment commensurate with my station and education. I specifically did not ask for a hand-out, or a position in their home. I can take care of myself, given the opportunity.”

“Have you ever met them? Your uncles?”

She thought back to the only clear memory she had of one uncle. “Well, I remember meeting one, an Uncle Thomas, I believe. I recall that he was the next oldest male to my father. This was many years ago, and after that, never again. My father never spoke of his family. I think it was a painful subject for him. I overheard him and Mama speaking when I was very young, and I think his family did not approve of their marriage and cut off all support. Papa and Mama were very young when they met, he seventeen and she fifteen. I was born shortly after they wed.

“He was supposed to go to university, but never did. My maternal grandfather was the vicar of a small parish, but he also was a book-binder. Father apprenticed with him because he now had a family to care for, and grandfather’s sight was failing. We lived with my grandparents until their deaths. Being a vicar, we had to leave the cottage when grandfather died so the new vicar might have a home. By this time, Papa had opened a shop in Elmbridge. We lived above—my parents, my brother and grandmother.”

Amelia closed her eyes as she remembered her grandmother’s passing, then her mother’s. Tears began to well and she wiped them away before they spilled over. “Harry wanted to study medicine and Papa made sure that he could. Only Papa was not telling anyone that his own eyesight was beginning to fail. The physician prescribed spectacles and they worked for a while but his vision continued to deteriorate. He needed my help for some of the finer details.”

“Is that why you never married? So that you could help your father pay for your brother’s education?”

Amelia nodded.

“Did any of your uncles acknowledge your letter?” His line of questioning was reasonable for someone who didn’t know the woman he was about to wed, but it was his tone that was beginning to bother her. It was accusatory.

Was she perhaps not reading him correctly? Perhaps that tone wasn’t aimed at her, but rather her father’s family. He likely knew them. After all, she had one very notable uncle—one of the most notable personages in the country—though she’d never met him.

“Never. And Aunt Katherine said she was soon to come out of mourning for her husband. She wanted to return to her circle of friends in Town and resume her previous activities. She thought a companion would lend her the air of respectable sophistication needed to land you as her next quar… I mean husband. She does tend to like them older.”

“I’m not that much older than she,” he said, and Amelia realized she’d offended him. Before she could apologize, he added, “A year or two at most.”

Amelia just gave him a knowing little smile. Yes, she knew he was older, but when she was with him, he didn’t behave as the stodgy old men she knew. Cav wasn’t like them at all. Of course, she didn’t know what he was like while dealing with his business and political affairs. She’d only read about him in the papers on the rare occasion. From what she recalled, her future husband was a ruthless Member of Parliament, very conservative, yet compassionate to those less fortunate.

“Aunt Katherine is forty-one years old, and was born several years after my mother. Each of her marriages was to a man above her station, either in title or wealth, and you happened to have both. That’s why you were her target for husband number three.”

The sole candle in the room sputtered and went out just as Amelia began to yawn. Her future husband patted the mattress next to him, holding his arm up for her to lie on his chest. When she was nestled against him, she thought again about how truly lucky she was that he chose to marry her. She wanted to twirl around in circles and giggle aloud because she, Amelia Caroline Elizabeth, was soon to be a duchess.

Cav’s slow and steady heartbeat beneath her cheek and his relaxed, deep breathing were a comfort to her. Suddenly a wave of emotion washed over her as the impact of what she was about to do hit her. She was about to marry a man so far above her that it was sure to get the gossips’ tongues wagging. She was about to be thrust front and center into a world that was completely unfamiliar to her. And when she realized there was no way out of it for her, she could no longer contain those tears.

Gentleman that he was, her husband-to-be stroked her back and let her have her upset. When she was done, he pulled her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. “So, is it a yes, then?”

She was slowly falling in and out of slumber and wasn’t prepared to reply to a question when she didn’t know what the question was. And she was far too tired to get into another lengthy discussion regarding her family. Amelia mumbled something akin to she would tell him in the morning, though she wasn’t sure that was what actually came out.