The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,83

and even triumphs.”

“But we each can have a righteous impact. We can correct a wrong. We can raise honest and loving children. We can appreciate art and the progress of inventors and hear beautiful music. You have had such an impact on me,” he said.

She smiled at him and turned to look at the ocean again. She sat quietly for some time. “Aunt Murdoch did not give me any particulars about tonight, about what will happen later. She told me that there will be times in my marriage where you will need me, need me desperately, perhaps, and I may have to support you and just love you.” She turned to look at him with a broad smile. “She told me she would not give any ridiculous advice, as she could hardly remember what happened in the marriage bed, it was so long ago.”

Alexander did not move a muscle. He may have been blushing, unfortunately, imagining her aunt saying something as outrageous as that. He continued to stare at her as she bent toward him.

“She told me to let you be my guide. To follow your lead. She was certain that you loved me beyond measure and that it would mostly come naturally anyway. She said Eve had produced Cain and Abel with no dutiful instructions from some old woman to either she or Adam. She told me to trust you.”

He continued to stare at her, unsure of himself, praying that he could make her happy. The sun was going down behind them, and the housekeeper had told him there would only be one staff member in the house for that evening, a groom who had apartments over the stables. They would be alone in the house. Totally alone with the vast and rolling sea.

She stood, shook her skirts, and stared down at him. “Will you make love to me, Alexander?”

He jumped to his feet and dusted his hands on his pants, calming his heart and winging his arm for her to take her through the rough grasses ahead. But she would have none of it. She arched a brow over her shoulder and took off at a run, holding her shoes and stockings in one hand and her skirts high in the other. She was laughing at him by the time they came to the low gate of the white fence around the house.

They went in the house together and looked at each other.

“Go somewhere and rinse the sand off of your person. Bring more of that champagne, if there is any of it,” she said and took herself up the staircase. “Mrs. Elliot showed me the bathing room, and I intend to soak a few minutes.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her lashes dropping. Sultry was the only word to describe her look. “You may join me in forty-five minutes.”

She should have been blushing and embarrassed, she thought as she looked in the long mirror at herself in the lacy nightdress and robe she’d purchased for just this occasion. She was not. She saw herself as she hoped Alexander saw her: as an attractive woman, as a survivor, as his wife and mate forever. She felt strangely confident and anxious to be with Alexander in the most intimate of ways. She opened the door of their suite when she heard a tap.

“You hardly need to knock, Alexander,” she said and smiled. “It is your house, and Mrs. Elliot said there would be no one else here until tomorrow morning at eight.”

He continued to stand in the doorway, and she realized he was not looking at her face, but rather at her breasts, barely covered by satin and lace, her nipples hardening under his perusal. He was holding a bottle and two glasses.

“May I take the champagne?” she asked him.

“Oh yes. Yes, of course. May I come in?”

She took the bottle and the glasses from him and went to a small table near the door to the balcony overlooking the ocean. She had left the door partially open, and the long curtains swung in the breeze around her bare feet. She poured a glass of champagne and pushed the bottle down into the ice in the silver bucket.

“Would you like some champagne?” she asked and turned to look at him. He was just inside the room, leaning against the closed door. He shook his head.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

He was wearing a long dark red robe, untied, and she could see a sliver of his chest