The Regency Season: Shameful Secrets. Louise Allen

body and, she realised now, reaching his own satisfaction.

      She tensed at the memory, transferring those feelings to Will, wanting to reject him, but her body was sending her clamouring messages of need, of surrender. Of desire. He felt so strong against her. The thrust of his erection pressed against her belly. His skin smelt of musk and, faintly, of last evening’s shaving soap. His morning beard was rough against her cheeks.

      Her body wanted to be seduced. Her common sense, squeaking faintly to be heard against the clamour of emotion, told her that he was her husband, that she should simply allow herself to be swept off to his bed.

      No. Will’s tongue probed along her lips, seeking entrance. Some instinct that she did not dare to quite trust murmured that he would not force her. But he will make my body force me, she argued back. He thinks he holds every card, the arrogant devil.

      Then take control, don’t let him dominate you so. As she thought it she felt her body melting, answering him, demanding with as much urgency as his was. He used his strength and she could not match it, but she could use it against him as a wrestler uses his opponent’s weight to overbalance him.

      Damn you, Will Hadfield, Julia thought as she opened her lips, felt the triumphant surge of his tongue. You will be my husband, not my master. Rather than yield she would give as good as she got. Her own tongue met his, boldly, and then she lost track of time, of coherent thought and, certainly, of speech.

      Will kissed as though this meeting of mouths was the sex act in itself: hot, demanding, intimate. She had no idea what she was doing as her tongue tangled and duelled with his, as the taste of him filled her and her ears were deafened by the sound of his breathing and her thundering heart.

      His robe was too thick. Touch him. Julia pushed it back and found naked skin, hot and smooth over shifting, hard muscle. She wanted to bite, to kiss...

      His hands came down, over her back, down to her waist and he pulled her against him and she felt the hard ridge of arousal pressed against her stomach and the memory of the pain came back, sweeping away the passion in a cold flood.

      Will released her, stepped back his expression rueful. ‘I have frightened you. For a moment I forgot you were a virgin, Julia. It will be all right, I promise you.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ From somewhere she found a smile.

      ‘Those few days we were together before we married—we are still those people. I have not changed so very much and I doubt you have either. We trusted each other. There was liking, I think. We can build on that. And attraction as we have just proved.’

      Attraction, yes. She nodded, it was impossible to pretend otherwise. Trust. But I lied to you. You married a woman who killed a man. I was a fugitive. And now I have to tell you I bore, and lost, that man’s child and I have to beg you to acknowledge it as yours. If I let you lie with me then the marriage is consummated and I will have trapped you.

      ‘I’ll let you get dressed,’ Will said. ‘We’ll meet at breakfast and talk afterwards. You can move into the chamber next to mine and this will all be all right, you’ll see, Julia.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Her smile was slipping, but it was only a few steps to her chamber. Julia closed the door behind her with care. She was shaking, but she made herself walk to the armchair at the window, not collapse on the bed. She would be in control, she would not panic.

      Before she slept with him she had to tell him the truth. Not all of it, not that she was responsible for Jonathan’s death, but about the elopement and about the baby. She owed it to him to be honest about that before he made love to her.

      He would be angry, and shaken, but she had to hope he would understand and forgive her the deception because there was only so much weight her conscience could bear.

      Once she had thought that the guilt and fear over Jonathan’s death would lessen, that she could forget. But it did not go away. It was always there and so was the pain and loss of her child, the two things twisting and tangling into a mesh of emotions that were always there waiting to trip her, snare her, when she was least expecting it. And now Will was home there was the added guilt of keeping her crime from him. But it was not a personal shame like her elopement or the pregnancy. This was a matter of law and she could not ask him to conceal what she had done.

      The sensitive skin of her upper arms where Will had held her still prickled with the awareness of his touch. Her mouth was swollen and sensitive and the ache between her thighs was humiliatingly insistent.

      He was her husband. She owed him as much truth as she could give him and, unfair though it might be, she wanted something in return. I want a real marriage.

      Papa had taught her to negotiate. Know what your basic demands are, the point you will not shift beyond, he had told her. Know what you can afford to yield, what you can give to get what you want. He had been talking about buying land and selling wheat, but the principles were surely the same.

      Julia lay back in the chair, closed her eyes against the view of the garden coming to life in the strengthening sunlight, and tried to think without emotion. She could not risk the marriage: that was her sticking point. She wanted her husband’s respect, and equality in making decisions about their lives and that included the estate and the farm. She wanted him to desire her for herself, not just as a passive body in his bed to breed his sons. Sons. The emotion broke through the calculation. Could she bear that pain again? Could she carry another child, knowing what it would be like to lose it before it had even drawn a breath?

      Yes. Because if I am not willing to do that, then the marriage cannot stand. I made a bargain and I cannot break it. She felt one tear running down her cheek, but she did not lift her hand to wipe it away.

       Chapter Eight

      At length Nancy, her maid, arrived. Julia bathed, dressed and, still deep in thought, walked to the head of the stairs to be greeted by loud wailing rising from the breakfast room. When she ran down and along the passageway she was confronted by a view of the door jammed with all three of their strapping footmen, craning to see what was going on inside. Julia tapped the nearest liveried shoulder and they jumped apart, mumbling shamefaced apologies.

      The wailing female was revealed as Cook, her apron to her face, sobbing with joy on Will’s shoulder. ‘I never thought to see the day... Oh, look at ’im... Oh, my lord...just like when he was a young man!’

      Will had the usual expression of a man confronted by a weeping female, one of helpless alarm, as he stood patting Cook ineffectually on the back.

      ‘Mrs Pocock, do calm down!’ The relief of having some ordinary crisis to take control of almost made Julia laugh out loud. ‘Gatcombe, will you please find someone to take Cook downstairs and make her a nice cup of tea and the rest of you, get on and fetch his lordship’s breakfast. He will think he has come home to a madhouse.’

      ‘My lady, I must apologise.’ The butler glared at the footmen until one of them helped Mrs Pocock from the room, then waved the others in with the chafing-dishes. ‘Cook had retired to her room when you returned last night and the kitchen maids did not inform her until this morning of his lordship’s presence and his good health.’

      ‘Of course.’ Julia took her place at the foot of the small oval table as Will straightened his rumpled neckcloth and collapsed into his chair. ‘I had forgotten that Cook has known Lord Dereham for many years.’ Gatcombe went out, closing the door on the sounds from the corridor and leaving them alone.

      ‘Coffee, my lord?’ Will looked decidedly off balance. Whatever he had been doing for the past three years, he had certainly not been gaining experience in dealing with difficult females. But then, since he had recovered his health, they had probably been all willing complaisance. Julia tried hard not to imagine just how her husband would have celebrated his returning health and vigour.

      ‘Thank you.’ The heavy-lidded look had shivers travelling up and down her spine, but all Will said was, ‘You appear to have