The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [130]
“Everyone finished thirty minutes ago. I’ve been waiting for you to come down. I didn’t think you would appreciate a full table.”
Was that ever the truth, she thought, pinned a smile to her mouth, and walked in, head up.
He grinned at her like a wicked potentate. “I thought perhaps you’d want to speak to me about how I made you feel last night. In private, naturally. I thought perhaps you’d be disappointed because I only brought you to pleasure one time. I’m very sorry you fell asleep, Joan, but I was too much the gentleman to wake you and force you to climax yet again. You’ve been ill, after all, and I didn’t want you to have to feel too much like a wife all at once.”
“You’re very kind, Colin,” she said. She met his eyes and she flushed. He spoke as boldly as did her damned brothers. She never colored up like a silly chit when they were outrageous. She willed her tongue into action; her chin went up. “I’m not disappointed, husband, but I did worry about you. You were too kind. I told you, I would be your wife, but you didn’t allow me to give you any respite.”
“ ‘Respite,’ ” he repeated. “What a gloomy word to use for screaming, thumping sexual pleasure. ‘Respite.’ I must mention that to my friends and see what they think.”
“I would that you not do that. It is a rather private matter. Very well, I will take back ‘respite’ and be more like my brothers. I’m sorry you didn’t have any sexual screaming, Colin.”
“That’s better. What makes you think there was no pleasure for me? I watched you climax, Joan. I watched your eyes get bluer, if that’s possible, then grow dim and vague and it was quite charming. Indeed, I felt your pleasure, for you were trembling beneath my fingers and moaning and when you made those cries in my mouth I assure you I wanted to howl with masculine pleasure. Along with you.”
“But you didn’t,” she said, slipping into her chair.
He gave her a look that was completely unreadable to her and said as matter-of-factly as a fifty-year husband, “Should you like some porridge?”
“Just toast, I think.”
He nodded and rose to serve her. “No, remain seated. I want you strong again.”
He poured her coffee and set her toast in front of her. Then, without warning, he grasped her chin in his hand and lifted her face. He kissed her, long and hard, then very gently. When he released her, her eyes were vague and dazzled and she was leaning against him, her arms loose at her sides.
“Philip told me he would forgive you for lying to him if you asked him nicely,” he said, and walked back to the end of the table. “It appears he understands you very well. He said that you would walk through fire to save me, thus a lie was nothing if it served your cause in serving me.”
She stared at him. Philip was a smart boy. She continued to stare at Colin, at his mouth. A word of affection would have been nice, she thought. Perhaps an endearment. Perhaps an acknowledgment that he was touched that she loved him. She tasted him on her own mouth. She just looked at him helplessly, all that she felt on her face.
He gave her a pained smile that vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Eat, Joan.” His expression remained unreadable, the sod.
She chewed on her toast, wondering why God, in his infinite wisdom, had created men to be so very different from women.
“I also wished to tell you that I intend to question Aunt Arleth this morning. If she was the source Robert MacPherson claims told him I killed Fiona, then I will get the truth out of her.”
“Somehow I can’t believe it was her. But she does cherish an amazing dislike for you. But then again, she heartily disliked Fiona. It was only your father and your brother she loved, if I understand what worked its way out of her mouth. Actually, Aunt Arleth makes little sense at the best of times. Remember all her talk about a kelpie being your father? She’s very strange.”
“It doesn’t matter. Once I’ve either confirmed or rejected her part in this, she’s leaving Vere Castle, her strangeness with her.”