First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-440-33819-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

And so it was done.

He was married before the age of thirty, just as his grandfather had expected and he had planned. For convenience he had married one of the Huxtable sisters. Now the other two could make their debut into society and he would feel no further responsibility for them.

He was married, his marriage had been consummated, and soon, it was to be hoped, his wife would be with child. And if he was fortunate, that child would be a boy, and another duty would be done.

Duty! It was something that had weighed him down for more than a year now How he longed sometimes to have his old carefree life back. But it could not be done, and now he had fulfilled his most pressing obligations to his family and his position.

Elliott lay awake for a long time.

Even tonight she had wanted to quarrel with him, staking her claim to be his equal. If she must please him because she was his wife and bedfellow, then he must please her for the complementary reasons.

She had not been educated in the ways of polite society, of course. If she had, she would have effaced herself and accepted the inequalities in silence and with dignity.

The master has spoken. It is to be hoped that you know how to please me since you are my husband and my bedfellow for life.

His lips twitched despite himself.

Vanessa stirred in his arms, muttered something, and burrowed closer.

Strangely, she had pleased him.

He was not at all sure why. She had about as unvoluptuous a body as he had ever beheld unclothed or had beneath him on a bed. And she had displayed no really extraordinary skills.

Perhaps it was simply the attraction of novelty.

The novelty of having such a lover would, of course, wear thin very soon. And then? Well, then he would settle into the rest of his life. It was not a bright prospect, though he supposed one must always hope. That was what she had said of her sister, was it not? Something to the effect that hope for the return of the absent military officer was all that gave meaning to Miss Huxtable’s life?

Hope.

It was a thin chance for happiness.

“Mmm,” she said on a long sigh. Her nose was buried against his chest.

Novelty might as well be enjoyed while it was novelty.

He lifted her chin with one hand and kissed her openmouthed.

She tasted of sleep. She smelled of woman and sex. She was warm and relaxed, only half awake.

He turned her onto her back, covered her with his body, spread her legs wide with his own, and buried himself deep in her.

She was hot and wet.

“Mmm,” she said again, and her legs came up to twine about his while she tilted her hips to give him deeper access. “Again?”

She sounded sleepy and surprised, and he half smiled in the darkness.

“Yes, again” he said against her ear. “What are wedding nights for?”

She laughed softly. Just a few days ago, when she was still in London with his mother, he had remembered her laugh as something irritating.

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