Just Another Lady (Xcite Romance) Read Online Free Page B

she lost herself forever in a place she hadn’t known existed until now. It was beautiful – incredible – frightening: she felt the wet trickle of tears on her face.
    ‘Elinor?’ Lucius’s voice had taken on a deeper timbre; his blond hair was dampened with sweat. She had never seen him sweat before, Elinor thought inconsequentially. It made him seem more vulnerable, somehow.
    ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Yes,’ he agreed; and his movements became faster.
    Elinor’s hands went up to grasp him, her fingers digging convulsively into his shoulders as he thrust inside her. She could hear the harsh sound of his breathing; her own breaths were quick and shallow and needy. Then, suddenly, Lucius gave a groan; she felt him spasm inside her, felt a warm wetness between her legs. For a moment it was as if the world stopped; then, he was rolling away, lying next to her, and she found herself staring at him as if she had never seen him before. He smiled at her.
    ‘I’m sorry, my dear. It will be better for you next time.’
    ‘It gets better?’ Elinor felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth.
    ‘Yes, very much so, I promise.’
    ‘I don’t ...’ To her own bewilderment, Elinor found that she was crying; she could not have explained the reason for her tears even to herself.
    She fell asleep with the tears still wet upon her face, with her mind full of nothing but the wonders of intimacy. She fell asleep thinking that her marriage might be the most wonderful thing ever to have happened to her.

Chapter Three

    LUCIUS HAD LEFT THE room by the time Elinor woke up the following morning. The sun was creeping in through the crack between the curtains, lighting a path across the floor. Elinor felt warm and lazy, stretching like a contented cat as she wriggled herself up to a sitting position. She immediately became conscious of her nakedness, and leaned over the side of the bed to pick up her shift. For a second she thought ruefully of the new nightgown she had bought especially for her wedding night but had never worn; but the ruefulness was overlaid with an outrageous sense of contentment as she remembered what the previous night had brought.
    When the maid had brought in hot water, and she had washed and dressed, she joined her husband at the breakfast table. Lucius appeared to be buried in a newspaper, though he put it down long enough to pour Elinor a drink.
    ‘Thank you.’ Elinor took a sip of the chocolate, and asked, ‘Do we have any plans for today?’
    ‘Do you want to relax after the exigencies of yesterday?’
    ‘I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind a quiet day,’ Elinor acknowledged. ‘What about you?’
    ‘I must see the lawyer to go through a few details of our marriage settlement. Would you like to visit your mother whilst I am doing so?’
    ‘That sounds good.’ “Marriage settlement”. Could anything make their wedding sound less romantic and more like a business deal? But then, of course, that was precisely what it was.
    ‘Then, you will want to sort out your clothing and such like,’ Lucius said, with the vagueness only a man could bring to the important subject of clothes.
    ‘Certainly. Where should I put them?’ Elinor asked. ‘Do you already take up the closet space in the bedroom?’
    ‘My clothes are in the next room. Indeed, I thought that you could have the bedroom we occupied last night and I could have the adjoining one, during our stays here,’ Lucius said casually. ‘There should be plenty of room for your clothes in the room – tell me if there isn’t, and I will make arrangements.’
    Elinor frowned. ‘But I thought ...’ She trailed off. She had thought they would share a bed, a bedroom. But when she considered the matter more fully, she remembered that Lucius’s parents had always had a room apiece. It was, indeed, standard practice in upper class households: her mother and father had been unusual in that they preferred to share.
    ‘Yes?’