Deceived

'Ravenous, my lord,' she assured him, her look smoldering, and then she amended, 'for food also, my darling!'

Laughing, he arose and crossed the room to open the door and bring in an enormous tray which he placed upon a large rectangular table set against one of the paneled walls. He tossed two more logs upon the fire, coaxing the flames higher. Then he took the bedside taperstick and used it to light several other candles upon the table and about the bedroom. 'What shall I bring you?' he asked her.

'What is there?' she responded.

Removing the silver domes covering the dishes, he said, 'Raw oysters, capon, cold asparagus from the greenhouse, bread, cheese, butter, and fruit. And champagne.'

'Everything!' she told him eagerly.

He filled her plate and brought it to her. She had plumped up the pillows and drawn the coverlet up modestly over her breasts. Taking the plate from him, she began to eat with great gusto, swallowing down six raw oysters and then attacking a piece of capon breast. Joining her with his own full plate, he found himself being aroused as she ate her asparagus, sucking the vinaigrette from her fingers, licking her mouth with her facile tongue. He averted his eyes and concentrated upon the consumption of a dozen oysters. He was obviously going to need their restorative powers.

'We have no champagne!' she cried, and putting her plate aside on the coverlet climbed from the bed and padded across the room to pour them two crystal gobletsful. She brought him his, bending first to dip a nipple into the sparkling wine, and then offering it to him mischievously. 'Is it to your grace's taste?' she inquired innocently.

'It will do,' he replied, licking her nipple with a grin and taking the goblet from her.

She climbed back into their bed with her own narrow crystal, sipping it decorously. 'Delicious,' she pronounced. 'Do do you think we could dip your…'

'No!' he said, and he began to laugh again.

'Why not?' she demanded. 'Have you done it before?'

He shook his head. 'It is not advisable, Aurora. You know what will happen if we begin such love play, and then there will be champagne and oyster shells all over the bedclothes.'

'Oh, very well, Valerian, but one day when we are not so encumbered we must try it. Perhaps I shall bathe in a tub full of champagne, and you may lick me dry,' she tempted him.

'How can a girl who was a virgin until a day ago have such lascivious and libertine thoughts?' he demanded of her.

'Are women not supposed to think of it?' she asked him. 'Even after they are wed? That is not fair! Certainly men think on it, and for that matter, men get to do it without any criticism before they are married, and ofttimes after with other women.'

'But we will not do it,' he said, 'with anyone other than each other, Aurora.' Rising from the bed, he took their plates and then brought her a wet cloth with which he wiped her face and hands before doing his own. 'Would you like some dessert? Cook has sent up some lovely grapes, and little meringues.'

'Bring the champagne, and we shall make our own dessert.' Aurora told him. 'I have a great many more licentious and salacious thoughts to share with you, my husband. Perhaps I shall even convince you to act upon them, or perhaps I shall act upon them,' she teased him.

'You have it in your head to kill me,'he said. 'Don't you?'

Aurora chuckled. 'Only with love, Valerian, and only if you promise to slay me with your love too.'

Shaking his head, he refilled her crystal goblet and his own. Then he joined her in their bed, the burning look in his dark blue eyes matching the passion in her aquamarine-blue ones.

PART III

ENGLAND, 1762

Chapter 13

“You will have to leave Hawkes Hill for a short time,' thedowager said to Valerian and Aurora. 'The scandal is too new, and will not die if you remain here for the gossips to feast upon.'

'Just because no one came to call at Christmas,' the duke began, but his grandmother cut him short with a wave of her hand.

'People call at Christmas, even to a house in mourning,' Mary Rose Hawkesworth explained. 'They did not call at Hawkes Hill because of your unseemly haste in marrying Aurora. The apparent lack of good manners you have both shown toward Calandra's memory is considered both outrageous and shocking. I will need time to erase that notion among our neighbors, and I cannot do it if you are both here. It gives the appearance of recalcitrance on your part.'

'I don't give a damn what our neighbors think,' Valerian said in strong and unrepentant tones.

Aurora laughed at her husband's stubbornness. 'I do,' she said, 'and you should also. If we continue to be ostracized by our neighbors, with whom will our children associate as they are growing up, and how shall we arrange suitable marriages for them one day? Not only that the truth will become blurred as time passes unless we can contain it, and stop the slander before it is out of control. It will spread beyond the county, and we shall truly be avoided. No, my darling, your grandmama is correct. We must go off until the gossip dies and the truth be spread about.'

He glowered at the two women, but neither seemed taken aback by his dark look. In fact, both looked rather amused. 'Oh, very well,' he finally agreed, 'But I am not happy about being discommoded by a cackling group of fancy hens. I suppose we could open Farminster House and go up to London for a few months.'

'An excellent idea,' his grandmother said. 'You have not yet had the opportunity to pay your formal respects to the king. Your grandfather died around the same time as the old king, then you were off to collect your bride, and then Calandra was enceinte, so you missed the royal wedding and the coronation both. I think it would be a very good thing if you were to visit London for a time.'

'Will we get to meet the king and queen?' Aurora asked.

'Of course, child,' the dowager assured her. 'I was once friends with the Earl of Bute's mother, and knew him as a boy. Valerian has met him also, and, I believe, sold him some breeding stock for his cattle herds, did you not, dear boy?'

'Yes, about three years ago,' the duke replied.

'The earl stands high in his majesty's favor,' the dowager continued.