The Countess Page 0,47

by then, Richard had wanted her with a passion he hadn't enjoyed even during his first experience as a cal ow youth. By the time he'd straightened, he'd concluded that if the only way to have her was to uphold the marriage George had initiated in his stead then so be it. It would protect al three women from scandal and he'd have a very passionate partner in his marriage bed. It was more than some men enjoyed.

Richard hadn't expected her to be a virgin, however. Bedding an experienced woman who thought she was your wife and whom you intended to al ow to continue to believe that was one thing, slightly inebriated or not. But her virginity had put a whole new slant on things. It meant she'd had a choice. The marriage could have been annul ed and probably with a minimum of scandal for her, since as the man he would be the one thought lacking for not bedding her this last year. But he'd taken that choice away with his actions.

Christiana murmured sleepily and shifted slightly where she lay snuggled half on his chest. It was where he'd put her after finding a cloth and water to clean them both after their exertions, an action that had seemed to embarrass and subdue her, which he found rather charming after what they'd just done. Richard peered down at her with a little sigh. He may not have thought her attractive on first sight, but once she'd got that bug-eyed horrified look off her face she'd been attractive enough, stil too thin for his taste, but passable. And when she'd smiled and laughed with Langley and the others as they danced, she'd been more than passable. But she'd been downright irresistible on her knees with his manhood waving in her face, he thought dryly and knew it was that very manhood that had thought so.

Stil , looking at her now, her face softened in sleep, Richard acknowledged that Christiana was an attractive woman, adorable even, and he was briefly tempted to rouse her with soft caresses and kisses and take her again. However, there was the little matter of a dead George in the carriage outside his townhouse.

The thought made him grimace and ease out from beneath the woman who would now definitely remain his wife. Christiana stirred and murmured sleepily, her hand drifting down to his hip as Richard shifted, and then sliding across his groin in an unconscious caress as he slid out of the bed. The touch was enough to bring his manhood back to life and he had to grit his teeth against the temptation to simply crawl back into bed and forget about George. But that just wouldn't be a smart thing.

His clothes were stil in the master bedroom and Richard made his way silently through the connecting door, grateful for the light cast by the dying fire to guide his way. He found the clothes by the window and started to draw them on, but paused as a glance out the window showed an empty street. Daniel's carriage was gone.

Shifting his feet, Richard frowned, wondering why the man hadn't come in search of him, or at least waited for him to meet him by the carriage. He then worried over what Daniel would do with the body and briefly considered fol owing in his own carriage to find out, but that would mean rousing the servants and waiting while a carriage was prepared, and real y he had no idea where Daniel would take his brother. He wasn't likely to take him to his own townhouse, which meant he would go somewhere else and Richard had no idea where. He could head to Daniel's townhouse and wait to find out, but depending on where Woodrow took the body, he could be waiting for hours. It just seemed better to let the matter go until the morrow. He would go see Daniel first thing and find what he'd done with George, Richard decided.

Satisfied that this was definitely the smartest course of action and that a naked soft and warm woman in the bed in the next room had nothing to do with the decision, Richard dropped his clothes and slid back through the connecting door to Christiana's room. He moved to the side of the bed and peered down at her briefly, noting the way the fire cast light and shadow across her face in slumber, and then she sighed sleepily and rol