Chapter Twenty-Six
The bride wore blue. Meg chose one of Tamsin’s dresses and spent most of the evening embroidering a Tudor knot like a Jumble biscuit in the center of the bodice. She borrowed white lace gloves with matching blue ribbons and wove a crown of flowers stolen from the hothouse at one o’clock in the morning, along with her two half-drunk bridesmaids. She woke with a mildly bleary head and a tonic sent up with her tea by Lady Blackwell. Chartreuse wore his best gold collar and was very handsome.
Meg had to suppress the inappropriate urge to giggle all the way down the aisle. She had never thought she would have this day, and certainly not with a man such as Dougal Black, Duke of Thorncroft. He stood at the end of the chapel, waiting for her. He was patient and so handsome in his simple cravat and paisley embroidered waistcoat, but she could see the glimmer in his blue eyes. He had held out his arm when she approached, escorted by the Duke of Pendleton, who was openly weeping happy tears.
The vicar had put his foot down and there were no ribbons on the altar. He no doubt wished he had reacted differently when he spotted the ribbons tied around the neck of the original Medieval carvings of the baby Jesus and Mary.
To Meg, it was all perfect, down to Chartreuse being whisked outside by a footman when he lifted his hind leg to bless the vicar’s left shoe.
They spoke their vows, exchanged simple rings, and shared a wedding supper with the others. Seeing as they had a special license along with a special dispensation, they did not have to marry before eight o’clock in the morning and chose a more civilized afternoon ceremony. There was plenty of champagne to go with the roast lamb, cucumber salad, thin slices of ham, trout, potatoes and apples fried together, followed by poached pears drizzled with cream and honey.
As night fell, the Duke of Pendleton gave one last toast and send them off to the privacy of the Dowager cottage, which had been cleaned and filled with flowers and beeswax candles. A cold rain tapped at the windows and Meg was encased in a warm cocoon gilded by firelight. Priya’s lady’s maid came to help her out of her dress and her stays, leaving her in her chemise. After she’d left, Meg found a package wrapped in paper on the edge of the bed with her name on it. It was from Lady Blackwell and took her love of ribbons to an entirely different level. Meg unwrapped a nightgown of white muslin so thin as to be transparent, edged with soft lace and held together mostly with wide satin ribbons, all in a bright strawberry red. She ducked behind the decorated screen (painted with ducks, one of whom had three legs) and slipped it on.
She could hear Dougal moving around, removing his coat, pouring port into small crystal glasses. She was excited, happy, and inexplicably shy as she stepped out wearing what felt like very little. Dougal caught sight of her and paused, glass halfway raised. His eyes flared.
Very little indeed.
She was goingto be the very death of him.
It would be a happy death but still. Dead on his wedding night.
Meg had taken her hair down and brushed it so that it fell over one shoulder. Her toes were bare, pink as seashells under her hem. She wore what could only be described as a veil held together with ribbons and delicate stitches he longed to tear apart with his teeth.
He forced air through his nostrils and into his lungs. She was a gentlewoman. He would be gentle, courteous. Slow.
Even if it killed him.
Something in his frozen reaction had her smiling a smile he’d never seen before. Naughty. And when she stepped closer there was a definite sauciness to the sway of her hips.
It was definitely going to kill him.
“May I have some?” she asked, when he’d stood there silent as a lump of dirt for too long. He hastened to hand her the port he had already poured for her. She took a sip, licking her lower lip. He hardened in response. His balls tingled. They actually tingled.
He’d been told that aristocrats did not lust after their own wives. It was considered gauche.
Fools.
“Meg.” His voice was hoarse. He barely sounded like himself. He cleared his throat. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Don’t start that, Your Grace.”
She laughed a little. “I’d forgotten.”
“That you were a duchess?”
“Yes.” She put her glass down and turned to him, all bare skin and red ribbons. He suddenly felt hunted. Haunted by her. He would take this slow and give her the wedding night she deserved no matter the cost to his sanity. He had not courted her properly; he could at least give her this. Candles and soft caresses and gentle kisses.
“I only wanted to be your wife.”
He groaned, utterly undone and he hadn’t even touched her yet. That at least he could rectify. Posthaste. He reached for her, palms smoothing over her shoulders, down her arms and then back up to cradle her face. “Lady Thorncroft.”
Her breath quivered as she looked up at him. He lowered his head to kiss her, brushing his lips over hers, nipping lightly at her lower lip, drawing it out so that he wouldn’t grab her with his scarred hands, wouldn’t maul her like a bear. He licked into her mouth until they were breathing ragged, until his cock strained painfully against his breeches.
He was so gentle she thought she might scream.
If he didn’t hurry up, she might very well lose her sanity. He was holding back, touching her as if she was breakable. Heat coiled inside her, desperate for that last spark, desperate for him. All of him.