Joan Wolf by A Double Deception Page A

fingers against her hair. “I have often wondered what it would look like down,” he said softly. “It is beautiful.”
    She sat perfectly still, as if frozen into immobility.
     “Laura?” he said. She tipped her head back a little to look at him and he bent forward and kissed her throat. He was still standing behind her and his hands pulled her back against him and then covered her breasts.
    She was trembling, stiff and tense under his touch, and after a minute he let her go. “What is the matter?” he asked in a puzzled voice.
    “I ... nothing,” she answered, bending her head so that her hair swung forward to hide her face.
    He put a hand on her shoulder and forced her to turn around. Then he sank down on his heels in front of her. “Did you have a bad experience before?” he asked patiently.
    “No.” She looked into his brown eyes. “I suppose I shall have to tell you.”
    “I think you had better.”
    She looked away from his face down to her tensely clasped hands. “If I am nervous it is because I have never done this before.”
    “Never done ... But you were married!”
    “It was not a... real marriage. Edward never touched me like you just did.”
    “Good God.” He stared at her, clearly stunned by her revelation. “It was his idea, this separation?” he said at last.
    “Yes! When I married him I did not know...”
    “Did not know what?” he asked gently as her voice trailed off.
    “Edward was not interested in women. Not in that way, at any rate. He married me because he wanted a hostess, a chatelaine, and he wanted to better himself socially. He did not want me . ”
    “I see.” There was a pause, and then he asked quietly, “Did he like men?”
    Laura looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”
    “One sees a bit of that in the navy,” he replied a little grimly. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you tell your parents? You could have gotten an annulment.”
    He could see the color slowly rising under her beautiful pale skin, staining her throat and flushing her cheeks and her forehead. “I couldn’t,” she said a little gruffly. “Edward was very generous to them, you see.”
    “Yes, I do see,” he said quietly after a moment. She found the courage to look up into his face once again. There was an odd expression in his eyes. “I have the strangest wedding nights,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
    She didn’t say anything, and he reached out to gently smooth her hair back from her face. “Poor Laura. Here I have been thinking all along that you knew the whole game, and you don’t even know the first move.”
    “I am afraid that I don’t,” she replied in a very small voice.
    “Well, we start like this,” he said, and drawing her to her feet, he took her in his arms and kissed her. His mouth was gentle, the kiss slow and tender, and after a minute Laura felt herself beginning to relax. He raised his head and laid his cheek against the top of her hair. Her head fit perfectly into the hollow of his shoulder, and she snuggled in there comfortably,her eyes closing in contentment. She felt oddly safe and protected.
    “You are so small,” he was saying. ‘It’s strange, you don’t look small at all, really, but you scarcely come up to my shoulder.”
    She looked up at that, shyly smiling. “I should imagine everyone must seem small to you, my lord.”
    He watched her face as she spoke, and his eyes began to glitter between his half-closed lashes. At that look she felt her own breathing alter, but not this time from fear. He slid his hands into her hair and bent to kiss her once again. This time his mouth was hard, asking, demanding a response from her. And she gave it, slipping her arms around his neck so that her breasts were crushed against the hard wall of his chest, opening her mouth for the startling but sweet invasion of his tongue. After a minute, and without letting go of her mouth, he straightened up. Her feet left the floor and he walked with her