The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [85]
He came down on top of her. “Be quiet. I saw blood on my member, your blood, your virgin’s blood, and I need to see if you’re all right. Did you bleed much? I forgot to warn you. Were you frightened? Blessed hell, I’m sorry.”
She stared up at him. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I feel sticky but I didn’t look at myself. It was dark and you had left me.”
“It’s not dark now. Hold still, Alexandra.” He rolled off her and shoved her thighs apart. “Damn,” he said, “it’s you who need the water Dora is bringing. You’re a mess.”
She was so humiliated, so utterly mortified, that she just lay there, her eyes tightly closed. She felt his big warm hands on her thighs, touching her, knew he was looking at her and it was a bright morning, sun flooding through the windows. She wanted, quite simply, to open her eyes and discover that she was ten years old again, waiting for her nanny to come fetch her for breakfast, and none of this was happening.
She felt the mattress shift and knew he was standing beside the bed now, staring down at her. “Don’t move. I’ll bring the water and bathe you.”
She heard the master bedchamber door open, and she did move, faster than she’d thought possible. She buried herself in the sheets.
“My lord?”
It was Finkle, Douglas’s valet.
“Go away!”
“My lady? Is that you, all muffled? Oh dear. Excuse me, oh dear.”
“Finkle, is that you?”
“Oh my lord, forgive me, but I thought it was you but it wasn’t, it was her—”
“No matter. I do understand, believe me. Go away and bring bathwater. Next time, knock. Her Ladyship still isn’t certain which bed is hers. She has problems with direction, you know, and I have assured her that I quite understand.”
When the door closed, Douglas looked down at the shrouded figure on his bed. It was his turn to laugh, which he did. She burrowed more deeply. Finally, he said, amusement filling his voice, “You can come out now. Finkle is quite gone. Can you imagine how I felt?”
“This is worse. Men don’t seem to care who sees what. They have no modesty.”
“This conclusion, I gather, is from your vast well of experience? Never mind. Get used to me seeing you, whenever and wherever I please. As for poor Finkle, with all those ‘oh dears,’ you and my valet could sing a duet. Come along, there’s warm water in your room.”
She came along, the counterpane trailing after her like a very long bridal veil.
She dug in her heels in the doorway. “I will bathe myself, Douglas.”
“Nonsense, I need to see that you’re all right. I am the one responsible for wounding you, though that is not the appropriate thing to say about the rending of your maidenhead, but no matter. I did it and I will tend you.”
“You will go away. I cannot allow this. It is too embarrassing.”
Douglas frowned. “Do you so soon forget what I did to you last night, madam? Do you so soon forget how you squealed with pleasure? Believe me, I was looking at you then. Now it’s different, but just a bit. Be quiet.”
“No.” She fidgeted. “It was dark last night. You said the blood is natural?”
He heard the fear in her voice, and softened his own. “Yes. I should have warned you, but I didn’t.” He frowned, remembering how he’d felt so utterly stripped of everything comfortable, everything known and accepted at the power of his release, so completely unfamiliar to himself, an alien feeling he hated, that he’d reeled away from her and from the scene of his fall.
“Go away, Douglas.”
Douglas picked up the bowl of warm water and set it on the tabletop next to the bed. He laid the washcloths next to the water. Then he turned to her. Alexandra tried to run but the counterpane tripped her up and she fell into his arms. He picked her up and dumped her onto the bed. He unrolled her, then said, “I am tired of playing Caesar to your Cleopatra, though you continue to unroll well. I am weary of telling you to be quiet and to hold still. I don’t wish to tell you again.”
She lay there, her head turned away, her eyes tightly closed, as he pushed her legs apart and bathed off the blood and his seed.
Douglas