Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
But he seized her arms and made her let him go. He uttered another curse, worse than the last one, then apologized for it, lying her arms upon her chest and drawing a bit away. She felt disappointed but she could see in his face that to go further might be unwise. And that is my love for you…
“I love you,” she said foolishly, as if it might comfort him, but he did seem a little comforted.
“My darling.” He stroked fingers down her cheek, tracing back and forth as if there were some mystery there to know, to uncover. He was all mystery, with his body hard and tense beside hers. “We must stop there. It’s not good to go too far…yet.”
“Before we are married, you mean?”
“Yes. Unmarried people shouldn’t behave so. You know that. We’re not so far from home that you’ve forgotten English proprieties.”
“No. We’d have to travel very far away for that, although when you kiss me, I do forget a little.”
He wet his lips as if he’d like to kiss her again, but he held himself back.
“We’ve lain down together now though, haven’t we?” she said on a brighter note. “So my father can’t have our marriage annulled.”
“Well, as I said, it’s a different sort of lying down. I don’t think I can tell you about it now,” he added, holding his middle section stiffly away from her as he shifted to a sitting position.
“Why not?” she asked, worried for him.
“It’s just…we ought to wait until we’re married. Respectability, you know. It’s not merely lying down in a bed next to one another. More things happen, things of an intimate nature, which I will teach you when I’m your true husband.”
“What kinds of things?” She was wildly curious. What could be more intimate than the kisses and caresses they’d just shared?
“Someday you’ll know, when the time is right,” he promised, helping her sit too. “In the meantime, I’ll continue to exercise control. It does get easier with practice.”
She tried to tame her hair. She felt shy and scattered now that their kiss was done, and they were sitting up properly again. “Will you…” She felt herself blushing. “Will you destroy those comical missives I sent you earlier? Tear them into pieces and fling them into the sea? I was very confused and emotional when I wrote them.”
He stretched his legs before him, hiding a smile. “They may make a charming keepsake one day.”
She was torn between protesting this idea and staring at the muscles flexing beneath his trousers’ well-fitting legs. “I wish you wouldn’t keep them to tease me with. I’ve crumpled yours into a ball.”
“Perhaps I’ll destroy them after we’re married. Though I doubt it.” He laughed at her pointed frown. “I’m already married to you in my heart, silly thing. We can’t reverse this now. You can’t change your mind and go home, or get away from me at this point, ever. You’re right here.” He patted his chest, where his heart powered his spirit. Goodness, his declaration was almost like love poetry, which she supposed was a good enough trade for her notes.
He took her hand while she committed his romantic words to memory. Right here. You’re right here.
“I can’t give you a ring, not yet,” he continued. “And we can’t be married as we ought to, but we’re married enough, aren’t we?”
He was asking her, but she thought perhaps he was really asking himself.
Chapter Eight
Stormy Seas
Marlow sat next to Rosalind at the captain’s dining table every night now, though Lady Woodworth disapproved. It was considered more polite to vary whom one sat beside, but the Providence’s captain and first mate seemed charmed by the blooming romance and indulged their desire to be near one another.
But none of their dinner companions had any idea they spent many more hours together behind closed doors. The freckled young deckhand who visited their rooms to scrub the floors every few days did not notice the broken lock or did not consider it worth repairing. So the two of them lived in many ways like a couple already set up at home, reading together, conversing on various subjects, taking the air when the weather permitted, and—rarely—playing at cards, although Rosalind still complained of never winning. There was no more cheating, regardless.
No spanking either, though he looked forward to future disciplinary interludes. He could not spank her again until they married, for it fired his blood too dangerously and he feared losing control. He had not “lain down” with his future wife since the afternoon they’d argued and ended up in a horizontal embrace. No, he must remain vertical with her even though the stormy Mediterranean seas made it difficult sometimes.
His original thought had been to wait on marriage until they returned to England. That was no longer plausible if he meant to retain his sanity. He hoped they could find a proper, pretty chapel in India where they might be married by a parson before they returned home. If they were married, they could spend the entire journey back to England in a shared berth, in a shared bed where they could pass their days and nights in wonderfully lurid activities. He would teach her everything, every way they might please one another. With any luck, she’d be carrying his child by the time they made port in London so there would be no talk of marital dissolution or annulment.