His answer hadn’t surprised her.
“Thank you for answering my question honestly,” she told him.
“But those other times were different.”
He’d whispered that so softly she’d barely heard him.
“Let me guess,” she returned dryly. “Because she wasn’t a lady?”
“None of them were ladies.”
None of them? “Them?”
Now he’d surprised her.
“How many—”
“Oh, Chrysanthemum,” he interrupted, “none of them mattered. None of them made me feel anything like you do. Not anywhere even close. Forget them. Just forget them, please. Don’t make me sorry I was honest.”
She was still catching her breath. It took her a moment to respond, a moment to absorb the fact that she was far from his first.
“Are you done with them?” she finally asked in a tiny whisper.
“I’m done with them.” He sounded desperate, but also desperately truthful. “I was done with the last one before I met you. Weeks before I met you. I am so, so done with them—”
“They why aren’t you willing to bed me?” she burst out.
“Because—”
“Oh, I don’t want to hear it,” she cried, cutting him off. “You’re a hypocrite, do you know that? I’m no better than those other girls. You and I are going to marry, so what does it matter? You’re not a virgin, and I don’t want to be one anymore. Please, Joseph, put me out of my misery.”
“What?” He sounded completely nonplussed. “What misery?”
“The anticipation is killing me.” If he could be honest, then so could she. “Martha and Cecily—my older sisters, my married sisters—both told me the first time would hurt. I want to get that over with. I want to come to you on our wedding night free of this worry. After saying our vows, I want to come to you with no reservations. I want to come to you with only joy.”
He was silent for so long, she began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.
Then slowly his fingers moved to unfasten her stomacher.
Her heart soared. She’d won.
She wanted this. She burned for him. And she truly did want her first time to be over and done.
“Are you certain?” he asked, his whisper low and earnest, his fingers fumbling on the stomacher’s tabs in the darkness. His hands fell away. “I’m undressing you, and you’re not stopping me.”
“Yes, I’m certain. I’m not stopping you.” She found his hands and brought them back to the stiff, embroidered garment. “I’m not.”
His hands didn’t move, just rested lightly against her front. Her pulse skittered. Beneath his fingertips, her breasts felt firm and overly sensitive.
A silence stretched between them. When he spoke again, his voice was even lower, more serious. “You do know what you’re asking?”
She began to nod, then stopped since he couldn’t see her. “I know exactly what I’m asking. I want you to make me yours. I want you to rip my gown off,” she clarified, echoing his words from earlier.
Immediately, he made a little sound of capitulation.
The next thing she knew, she found herself locked in his arms, and he had his lips pressed tightly to her forehead in a caress so cherishing it made her heart twist painfully in her chest.
After a minute he pulled back, and his fingers returned to her stomacher, less tentative this time.
Her own fingers fluttered up to unbutton his waistcoat. The stiff stomacher made a soft plop as he dropped it to the stone floor. She pushed his waistcoat back over his shoulders and off of him, then dropped it to the floor as well.
She really had won, she thought, her breath catching in her throat.
Beneath where the stomacher had been, Chrystabel was laced tightly into her bodice. Joseph untied the bow, then went to work on the laces. “You’re sure?”
Why was he still asking? Hadn’t she made herself clear? Hadn’t she, a rather bold girl, been bolder than ever before?
“I’m sure,” she breathed. She couldn’t let him back down now.
Remembering her sisters’ warning, she was nervous. But feeling Joseph’s hands on her, she was also excited. And the excitement overwhelmed her worry.
Every single bit of it.
Suddenly feeling frantic, she reached out to free his voluminous shirt from where it was tucked into his breeches. All she wanted, it seemed, was to feel his skin against her own. He seemed covered with so much fabric. Yards and yards of frothy fabric, all standing in her way.
With a pained chuckle he pushed her hands away. When he seemed to be struggling on the bed, it took her a moment to realize he was drawing the shirt off over his head. She imagined all of his warm, tempting skin being revealed and wished mightily that she could see it.
She couldn’t. But she could touch him. She reached out, running her hands up his bare chest, feeling the taut skin and the muscles underneath.
It wasn’t enough. With a tiny moan of pleasure, she shifted toward him and spread her bodice wide. A soft gasp escaped his lips as she pressed herself against him, the gossamer material of her chemise the only barrier between them.
He felt so good. Her heart beat faster. Her breathing became strangely uneven.
“Now?” she whispered.
“Not yet,” Joseph said, pulling away from her a little. His fingers brushed a breast through the thin fabric of her chemise, and she felt the peak tighten into hard tenderness. Her body arched toward him involuntarily, her breath becoming even more ragged.
“Oh, Chrysanthemum,” he breathed. “I cannot wait. Can you wait?”
“I cannot wait,” she echoed in a whisper. “Now?”
“Not yet.”
Pulling away from her again, he wrestled the heavy bulk of her double-skirted gown over her head. It joined the rest of their clothes on the floor, leaving her clad in only the chemise. She lay there, shivering, not with cold but with anticipation.
“I wish I could see you,” he whispered.
“Feel me,” she invited instead.
And he did. She held her breath while, with whisper-soft caresses,
