The Regency Season Collection: Part One
As Marcus had informed her yesterday, sight was usually the first of the senses to be pleased by a lover. Julianna had no doubts of that as she found it hard to do so much as breathe, totally unable to look away from the temptation of that open V as it revealed the silkiness of dark curls that no doubt covered the whole of Marcus’s chest. And lower.
‘Do you like what you see?’
It took every ounce of willpower that she possessed for Julianna to slowly drag the heaviness of her gaze back up to meet Marcus’s piercing green eyes, to sweep the moisture of her tongue across lips gone dry before answering him. ‘You should have had your butler inform me on my arrival if the time is inconvenient for you, after all.’
Dark brows rose. ‘The time is perfectly convenient for me.’
‘I—but—you have not finished dressing after bathing.’ It was nervousness that made Julianna point out the obvious.
‘Deliberately so, for your own delectation,’ he assured her huskily. ‘I thought you said yesterday that you also wished for your own senses to be aroused, as much as the man’s? Does the informality of my clothing arouse you, Julianna? Answer me, pet,’ he ordered as she remained silent.
‘I—yes!’ She had been married to John for three long years, and never in all that time had she seen her husband without so much as his jacket during their waking hours, and he had always worn a nightshirt fastened tightly at his throat on those increasingly rare occasions he had briefly visited her darkened bedchamber, before returning instantly to his own adjoining room once he had spilt his seed.
To now find herself gazing upon Marcus’s muscled shoulders and chest, covered only by that thin layer of the finest linen and silk waistcoat, with those tantalizing glimpses of the olive skin at his throat, was—
Julianna took a step back as Marcus rose to his towering and suddenly predatory height behind the desk. He stepped around it to stand before her, causing her to arch her throat as she tilted her head back to look up into the sinfully handsome face just inches above her own.
Marcus had been aware of the trembling of Julianna’s body and the tightness of her clenched hands the moment she entered his study wearing a gown of pale russet, the colour a perfect foil for the richness of the red-gold curls secured loosely upon her bared head. A trembling that testified to her nervousness, despite the challenge in those deep grey eyes that spoke to her stubborn determination not to turn tail and run.
He felt gratified for that stubborn determination, knowing it was, in all probability, the only thing that had brought Julianna back to him. She had certainly looked less than sure she would return yesterday morning once he had issued his list of dos and don’ts for their meeting this morning. Do not wear those widow’s weeds in my presence again, do not wear the unnecessary—and damned annoying—corset beneath your gown, soften the style of your hair, and so it went on, until Marcus felt sure that Julianna had been tempted to tell him to go to the devil with his instructions.
Instead, she had clamped her lips together before departing Worthing House as anonymously as she had arrived, that black cloak once again covering her from head to toe as she stepped into the equally anonymous carriage.
But here she was, after all, Marcus’s cock instantly leaping to attention as he gazed upon that red-gold hair loosely secured at her crown. Unless he was mistaken, and he was sure he was not, she was wearing no corset beneath the becoming russet gown that revealed the swell of the tops of her ivory breasts. Their proximity also allowed Marcus to detect the faint and tantalizing smell of roses upon that luminescent flesh.
‘I—is your study not a strange place in which to—to carry out our second meeting?’ Julianna now asked nervously.
Marcus smiled slightly. ‘The location of lovemaking, even the danger of discovery, can often be an arousing introduction to the act. Do you not find it more exciting being here, in my study, an obviously masculine room that you would normally never have reason to enter?’
She did, Julianna acknowledged wonderingly. There was something so—so forbidden about being in Marcus’s study with him, the only furniture being that huge mahogany desk and the chair behind it, and an ornate Japanese screen beside the bay window. How delicious it was to imagine sitting upon Marcus’s thighs as he sat in the chair, or having him drape her across the width of that desk—
‘You do.’ Marcus nodded his satisfaction as he obviously saw the flush to Julianna’s cheeks and the fevered glitter in the grey of her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she breathed softly, forcing herself to remain unmoving as Marcus lifted one long and elegant hand to begin removing the pins from her hair, the wideness of her gaze fixed upon his bared throat. She could see the way Marcus’s pulse leapt as he removed the last pin and the cascade of her hair fell loosely onto her shoulders and down the length of her spine.
Marcus certainly seemed to enjoy the sight of a woman’s unbound hair, his expression completely distracted as he gazed appreciatively at the silky length of her curls. ‘I believe I shall one day very soon enjoy the painful anticipation of having the feel of this silky flame draped across the bareness of my thighs.’
Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to imagine under what circumstances her hair might come into contact with Marcus’s bared thighs. Was Marcus saying—was he implying that? Surely there was no reason for her hair to ever be anywhere near the vicinity of his...
‘Have I succeeded in shocking you, Julianna?’ he asked as he heard the softness of her gasp.
Her gaze flew up to meet his. ‘I was merely wondering, considering, attempting to imagine—’ She broke off awkwardly.
‘If one is to truly enjoy lovemaking then not a single inch of a lover’s body should remain untouched, uncaressed, by the other,’ Marcus explained throatily. ‘Every single inch, Julianna.’
Julianna felt completely flustered now as she imagined touching, fondling, caressing the most intimate parts of Marcus’s body. As she thought of exactly where her mouth might be for the silkiness of her hair to lie caressingly across his thighs.
‘You said your anticipation would be “painful,”’ she said abruptly. ‘Why should such thoughts cause you pain?’
‘It would pain a certain part of my anatomy,’ he corrected softly. ‘A part of my anatomy that has been erect with that same anticipation since the moment you walked into my study today,’ he added as she continued to look up at him blankly.
Julianna’s gaze dropped instantly to the front of his pantaloons, her cheeks aflame with heat as she saw the long length of that erection beneath the material. Marcus gripped her chin and tilted her face up, leaving Julianna no choice but to look into those pale green eyes glittering down at her with such displeasure. His cheekbones were taut, his mouth a thin angry line. ‘Whatever you may have suffered at the hands of the man who had no right to call himself any woman’s husband, it will not be any part of what the two of us will share together. Do you understand me, Julianna?’ he pressed gruffly.
She did understand. In that instant, looking up into those beautiful pale green eyes, Julianna understood exactly what Marcus was offering her. Gifting her. It was the gift of appreciation. For her own femininity. For her beauty. And perhaps even tenderness, for her inexperience. Gifts never bestowed upon her by the man who had been her husband for three long years.
Julianna straightened her shoulders, and she stood several inches taller as she looked up unflinchingly into Marcus’s eyes before answering him. ‘I understand, Marcus.’
He continued to look down at her searchingly for several long seconds before giving a satisfied nod of his head. ‘Good.’
‘I—do you intend to kiss me?’ she prompted as he made no effort to release her.
Marcus drew in a sharp breath even as he felt a nerve pulse in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Touch does not enter into your instruction for several more days yet.’
‘But did you not say that lovemaking should always be spontaneous?’
He smiled inwardly as he heard the teasing beneath her challenge. ‘I have also heard it said that anticipation is good for the soul!’ he drawled self-derisively.
‘But painful,’ Julianna reminded, the definite light of mischief now in the dark grey of her eyes as she looked up at him.
It was teasing and mischief that gratified Marcus, as he acknowledged he had not seen that playful light in her eyes for some time now, and realized how much he had missed it. How much he had missed Julianna the hellion.
And how much he wished to do exactly as she challenged and kiss her. A capitulation guaranteed to reveal to her that it was in fact the pupil who controlled the tutor.
A knowledge he could not yet give her.
Marcus released her abruptly before stepping back to resume his seat behind the mahogany desk. ‘I believe that to be enough instruction for today.’ Any more of this and he was seriously in danger of revealing how his love for her ruled him.
‘But I have been here but a few minutes—’
‘I have said today’s lesson is over!’
Just when Julianna had felt herself on the precipice of a discovery, she knew herself dismissed. Quite what that discovery might have been she had no idea, only that she had felt something in the gentling of Marcus’s fingers against her chin, seen an elusive something in his eyes, some nuance of emotion she had not quite been able to grasp before a shutter had come down over his gaze, and Marcus had abruptly released her before moving away and dismissing her.
An elusive something that Julianna, aware of this man in every particle of her being, longed to see and to feel again.
Chapter Five
She hesitated. ‘Shall I return tomorrow morning at the same time?’
Marcus looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘That is our agreement, is it not?’
‘And tomorrow is smell?’ Julianna wrinkled her nose delicately at the thought of what form that smell might take.
Marcus’s tension eased slightly and he gave a grin as he leaned back in his chair to watch as Julianna refastened her hair in preparation for leaving. ‘Somehow I do not believe we are thinking of the same thing at all.’
‘Smell is smell, surely?’ she dismissed as she straightened.
‘One might imagine so.’ Marcus nodded slowly, eyes hooded by heavy lids. ‘Have you ever smelt yourself, Julianna?’
Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘I will have you know that I bathe at least once a day, sometimes twice!’
‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he drawled, all too aware of how many of the ton chose to try to hide their unwashed bodies beneath strong perfumes. Try. Because they never quite succeeded. ‘That is not the sort of smell I am referring to, Julianna. Everyone has a subtle, natural perfume, one that a lover inevitably finds themselves drawn to.’
Such as lemon and sandalwood, and clean healthy male, and an underlying musk Julianna was sure was all Marcus, and which had drawn her to him when he had stood so close to her just a few minutes ago.
‘Your own perfume is that of roses, with an underlying scent of desirable woman—’ He broke off as Julianna’s cheeks flushed a fiery red. ‘You know, of course, of the fluid a man emits during lovemaking? Obviously you do,’ Marcus answered his own question grimly. ‘But have you never smelt the perfume of your own unique arousal? Touched, and perhaps breathed in the scent of the arousal which dampens your thighs?’
Julianna was too shocked now to even gasp. ‘Certainly not!’ But she had, Julianna acknowledged wonderingly, as she recalled the dampness she had noticed when she’d returned home yesterday after being with Marcus, something she had never ever experienced in John’s company, in bed or out of it.
Because she was aroused? Because just looking at Marcus, smelling that lemon and sandalwood she would now always associate with him, and discussing such intimacies with him, had caused a desire she’d never experienced before? If that was so, then what would happen if he should touch her with that same intimacy?
‘Sound,’ Marcus murmured appreciatively.
Oh dear Lord, had she really just groaned out loud just thinking of having Marcus’s hands upon her? She had, Julianna acknowledged restlessly, knowing she had given a low and husky groan of longing as heat flared between her thighs.
She gave an agitated shake of her head. ‘You are right, it grows late and I should leave.’
And, much as he might wish it otherwise, for the moment Marcus knew he must let her go.
But his thoughts were grim as he recalled the look of disgust on Julianna’s face moments ago, when he’d talked of the result of a man’s arousal. Even worse, her pained expression, her surprise, her curiosity, when he’d talked of a woman’s physical reaction to lovemaking made it evident that she had never experienced that arousal with John Armitage.
Damn it, had the man shown no consideration at all for Julianna’s innocence? Was it really possible, that even on their wedding night, Armitage had taken Julianna’s virginity without caressing her, reassuring her, loving her, without giving her any preparation at all? That the other man—damn and blast Armitage to hell!—had just parted her thighs, climbed on top of her, taken his own pleasure, and then left her shaken and disillusioned? And that each subsequent taking had been equally as inconsiderate and brutal?
The possibility of that having been the case filled Marcus with a blaze of hot fury, and caused his eyes to gleam with unholy vengeance toward a man who was no longer accessible to him.
‘Yes, you should go now, Julianna,’ Marcus agreed as he rang for his butler; and she must go now, quickly, if she was not to bear witness to Marcus punching his fist through one of the walls of his own study.
The last thing he wished to do was frighten Julianna with the force of his present turmoil of emotions. Emotions that he needed time, and space, in order to control. An hour or two in the boxing ring might suffice to cool the blast of fury he felt toward the deceased Armitage. No doubt Christian would be only too happy to spar with him. And it would also allow Marcus to question his friend as to what he had known of his sister’s marriage, and why he had done nothing to stop her suffering.
Julianna hesitated. ‘Tomorrow is smell, the day after, taste?’
‘You seem in something of a hurry to complete our lessons’ he mocked.
‘I am merely...curious.’
‘Then yes, the day after tomorrow we shall build upon the sight and smell we will explore more deeply tomorrow. Taste, but also sound—I do not believe it will be possible for either of us to have one without the other, Julianna,’ Marcus drawled as she frowned. ‘I certainly doubt I will be able to taste your flesh without also making murmurs of appreciation.’
Julianna’s eyes widened, her pulse pounding loudly, palms becoming damp, at the thought of Marcus ‘tasting’ her flesh. As she would taste his?
Her gaze was drawn immediately to the flesh visible at his throat, to that tantalizing glimpse of the start of the black hair that no doubt covered his entire chest. What would it feel like to touch that hard and bared flesh, to allow her fingertips to caress and learn the dark contours of his body, not just of that magnificent chest but lower as well?
‘Exactly,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction as Julianna gave a second, breathy groan, a groan to which his cock instantly leapt in response. A loss of control that was unprecedented. ‘Be prepared for a deepening of intimacy as we add each successive sense upon the other, Julianna,’ he warned huskily, still far from sure he would be able to retain control once it came to tasting her.
It was going to be absolute torture for him to taste that bared ivory flesh, with his tongue as well as his lips, and for her to taste him in the same way. So much so that Marcus was not sure he would be able to stop himself from taking that ultimate step of possessing her completely. Something Marcus had promised himself he would not—could not—do unless it was clearly what Julianna wanted too.
She may have asked—demanded—that he teach her, tutor her, in an appreciation of the pleasures of the flesh, but she had not specified whether or not there would be a natural conclusion to all of that lovemaking.
‘Do you have any dos and don’ts for tomorrow, Marcus?’
His gaze felt heavy with desire as it was drawn back to Julianna’s face. She stood across the room looking so vulnerable, and yet so proudly courageous, too. He wished to do nothing more at that moment than go to her and beg her to stay.
Instead, aware that he had to be patient, to tempt and cajole Julianna into loving him, he remained seated behind his desk, his expression deliberately impassive. ‘Do not wear drawers tomorrow, Julianna,’ he instructed coolly. ‘Leaving your thighs naked will aid in my enjoyment,’ he added as her face paled slightly, making those dark grey eyes seem larger than ever.
Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. ‘I—I thought touch was for the day after?’
‘It is my intention for you to touch yourself there,’ he stated evenly. ‘How else can you fully appreciate the unique scent of your own arousal unless you bathe your fingers in it?’
‘I—is that really necessary?’
‘Unless you would prefer that I be the one to touch you?’ Marcus questioned boldly.
Even the suggestion of that caused Julianna’s alarm to deepen, as she once again acknowledged the hornet’s nest of emotions and embarrassment she appeared to have opened up for herself by blackmailing Marcus into tutoring her.
Unless he was just deliberately punishing her for having blackmailed him in the first place?
‘And will you also leave off your own undergarments and touch yourself, Marcus?’ she challenged.
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Yes.’
So much for Julianna’s childish attempt to beat this man at his own game; she should have known better! ‘Very well.’ She nodded, that nod turning to a curtsey as Marcus’s butler opened the door beside her. ‘Until tomorrow, Your Grace,’ she drawled before following the butler out into the cavernous hallway of Worthing House.
Marcus waited only long enough for Wilkins to close the door behind himself and Julianna before standing up and punching his first through the Japanese screen beside the window.
Chapter Six
‘What have you done to your hand, Marcus?’
Exactly what Christian had asked him when the two men met at Jackson’s Boxing Salon yesterday afternoon, when Marcus had also refused any suggestion that the bandage upon his hand prevented him from participating in the sport. Indeed, his turmoil of emotions had still been such that he had felt no pain at all from his bruised hand as he’d bested Christian over the agreed three rounds.
Marcus had removed the bandage earlier for his morning meeting with Julianna, but there was still a certain amount of obvious bruising to his knuckles from his dispute yesterday with the Japanese screen. ‘I assure you, my opponent looks much worse than I do,’ he dismissed unconcernedly, the broken screen having been removed from his study and replaced by a rich, red velvet chaise, which Marcus had yesterday instructed servants to bring in here from his own private parlour.
‘I dined with my brother yesterday evening,’ Julianna came back accusingly. ‘By which time his bruised eye had gone several shades of purple!’
‘Oh?’ Christian had not reacted yesterday to Marcus’s discreet questioning in regard to Julianna’s marriage, but could that only have been for Marcus’s benefit? Had Christian saved his own questions for his sister for later that evening?
‘We always dine together on Tuesday evenings,’ Julianna immediately answered the unspoken question dismissively as she moved farther into his study. Her gown was emerald green today, and perfectly complimented her ivory skin and red-gold curls.
‘Did you do as I instructed and leave off your drawers?’ he asked harshly.
The aching hardness of his arousal, which seemed to have been with Marcus constantly for these past two days and nights, and which now surged up thick and heavy beneath his pantaloons without the benefit of his own restricting drawers, gave an increasingly familiar throb of appreciation for even the idea of Julianna being almost naked beneath her gown.
‘I did. And you?’
‘Yes.’
Julianna felt that now-familiar heat course through her body just thinking of what lay beneath the fine material of his pantaloons. Marcus’s gaze was just as intent upon her, as if he might see through her gown to her nakedness beneath.
A nakedness Julianna had been completely aware of since dressing earlier, her lack of drawers resulting in a sensitivity between her thighs, and a total awareness of the silky abrasion of her chemise against that bared flesh.
A sensitivity that had deepened the moment she’d entered the study and looked at Marcus, and seen that today he had dispensed with his waistcoat as well as his jacket and cravat, enabling her to fully appreciate the muscled width of his shoulders in the loosely flowing white shirt. The fastening at his throat was once again laid bare, revealing even more of his olive-skinned chest than it had yesterday.
Would he dispense with the shirt, too, by tomorrow, the day they were to explore taste and sound together? For surely they would not be able to do so if they both remained fully dressed.
But she was moving ahead of herself again, had yet to get through the ordeal of today’s lesson. For an ordeal it must surely be, if Marcus intended to go through with his instruction of having her touch herself. As she had touched herself yesterday evening after bathing.
Julianna had gazed at herself often in a mirror before her marriage to John Armitage, youthfully pleased with the image reflected back at her, and hoping that her husband would be pleased, too, once she was married. The years of being John’s wife, of his complete indifference to her body or physical pleasure, had resulted in Julianna slowly but surely avoiding looking at her nakedness in a mirror again.
Until yesterday evening.
Marcus’s arousal that morning had shown an appreciation for her body as well as her looks, and had caused Julianna to feel curious enough to see for herself what it was he had found to appreciate.
The reflection in the mirror had shown she was far more slender than she had been at eighteen, but that slenderness only served to emphasize the fullness of sloping breasts tipped with rosy nipples, her waist dipping inwards, with red-gold curls nestled between curvaceous thighs.
Julianna had skimmed her hands along those red-gold curls and up the slenderness of her waist before cupping beneath the fullness of her sensitive breasts. Her eyes had widened at the sensitivity of the rosy nipples at their tips, her knees almost buckling beneath her when she touched them out of curiosity and felt the pleasure of that caress course through the whole of her body before it settled intensely between her thighs. A pleasure Julianna had then touched wonderingly with her fingertips, trembling as she briefly felt the sensitive folds beneath and breathed in her own musky perfume.
Just the thought of having to do that again today, in front of Marcus this time, was enough to weaken her knees all over again.
‘Shall we begin?’ she prompted. ‘I have an appointment with the dressmaker later this morning, the last fitting for the new gowns necessary for my return into society next month following my year of mourning.’
Marcus scowled at thoughts of the man she had supposedly been in mourning for, and at the idea of other gentlemen very soon being able to fully appreciate Julianna’s alluring beauty in a no-doubt delicious array of coloured gowns. Men, he knew, would be intent upon winning Julianna for their own.