hem, admiring the shape of her calves and ankles. “I’m going to find Fenwick and have the bath and food sent up.” He leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Stay where you are.”
“Or you’ll tie me?” She sat up on her elbows and regarded him with her lips twitching.
Naughty thing.
“I was correct, Lady Welles. You aren’t nearly as nice as you appear.”
34
Margaret awoke the next morning to a slow crawl of butterfly kisses against her eyes, her lips, her cheek, the curve of her ear and her neck. The kisses moved lower, circling her naked breasts and her stomach. Somehow without waking her, he’d managed to pull the sheets off. Margaret was sprawled naked on the bed, her hair spread over the pillows. She’d fallen asleep last night as soon as Welles had carried her from the tub, fed her, and made love to her again.
Welles looked down on her, impossibly handsome, the sapphire circles making up his eyes clearly discernible in the early morning light. One leg was thrown over her so she couldn’t move. A tactic of his, she was learning, so Welles could position her any way he wished.
“Welles.”
“Tony.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“Tony,” she said, her head falling back as her husband’s mouth latched around one taut nipple. “Should we not speak—”
“No. I’ve other things on my mind.”
Margaret immediately softened at the caress of his fingers through the soft down at the apex of her thighs. Welles would have to talk to her at some point. He couldn’t pretend the Duke of Averell didn’t exist except as an object of hatred. Her husband must come to terms with a great many things if they were to be happy. But Welles was stubborn. It would take time.
I won’t give up.
He made love to her slowly, taking his time, every touch and caress drawing Margaret’s blood to the surface of her skin. He brought her to the edge of her senses repeatedly, until she was writhing on the bed, her wrists captured above her head in one of his hands, begging him.
When he at last thrust inside her, agonizingly slow, and released her hands, Margaret wrapped them around his neck, meeting each stroke with the tilt of her hips.
“I love you, Tony,” she whispered. “I love you.” It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t say it back; she could no longer contain the feeling of her heart. He needed to know, even if he didn’t feel the same. But Margaret hoped he would come to love her one day.
Much later, Margaret dozed off, her head on Welles’s chest. Music played in her mind, the beating of his heart keeping time while the notes and colors floated about them, becoming bright once again now that he was with her.
A lingering fear tempered her happiness, hovering just behind Margaret like a dark shadow. No matter how much Welles cared for her or promised never to leave her, he had still not completely let go of his anger toward his father.
Or her.
35
“There you are. Up to mischief, I expect.”
Margaret looked from her stack of chips to the sapphire of her husband’s eyes. Welles leaned against the card table, a glass dangling from one hand. His gaze dipped to the bodice of her dress which was rather modest in comparison to Lady Masterson’s.
“I’m teaching her faro,” Georgina said. “She’s quite good, Welles.”
Her husband leaned over and pressed a kiss to Margaret’s temple. “I expected she would be. Lady Welles is quite intelligent and very accomplished. She also takes instruction with enthusiasm.”
Margaret’s cheeks warmed. “It depends on the talent of the instructor, my lord.”
Welles gazed back at her, fire sparking in his eyes. He trailed a finger along her collarbone, chuckling softly.
If the onlookers at Elysium were surprised to see the infamous Lord Welles, consummate rake and libertine, doting over his bride, a woman most had dismissed earlier as too plain and unassuming to garner much attention, they didn’t show it. No one at Elysium dared ask why Welles didn’t stay out until dawn drinking as he used to, nor why he’d declined to take another mistress.
“I’ve won handily.” Margaret’s hand reached up to tug at the lapel of his coat. Indigo, of course, though her suggestions to wear another color resulted in only black and a brown so deep it was nearly black. She supposed it didn’t matter. Dark colors, with little decoration, left his masculine beauty to shine like a jewel. There were