Chapter 11
Rufus knew where he was going. He always used the same chamber in Fanny’s house. Taking the flagon between his teeth, he flung open the door to a chamber at the very end of the gallery, stepped inside, and kicked it shut.
He set the candelabra on the mantel, the flagon on a small round table, and with a flourish unwound his trophy, setting her on her feet.
“I won,” Portia said breathlessly, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“A moot point,” Rufus said, catching her chin on the palm of his hand. He kissed her mouth, his lips hard and yet pliant, his beard silky against her skin. It was as it had been that morning, and yet there was an added dimension… a sense of absolute inevitability, of destiny. Portia kissed him back with a fervor that matched the beat of her blood. The music, the shouts, the exultant cries came up from below so that she could feel the rhythm and the passion in the soles of her feet.
She was aware of nothing now except the thrilling of her blood, the scent of his skin, the feel of his mouth against hers, the taste of wine on his tongue and hers. His hands ran down her body and she rose on tiptoe, her arms sliding around his neck as she leaned into the caress.
Rufus laughed softly against her mouth. He moved one hand up to palm her scalp, holding her head steadily as with his free hand he pulled his shirt out of his britches, roughly tugged at the buttons, dragged it out of his waistband and shrugged it off his shoulders. All the while he held her mouth captive with his, and Portia’s hands ran up his back, kneaded his shoulders with hungry intensity.
He stepped back from her to kick off his boots, and she followed him, laughing, her mouth swooping and darting against his. And he laughed back, grabbing the back of her neck, pulling her face to his. His tongue plunged and plundered, raiding the soft, sweet corners of her mouth, and she opened her mouth to him, drawing his tongue deep within, refusing to let him go even as he pushed his britches off his hips and had to dance on one foot and then the other to kick them off. Then his fingers were working the buttons of her shirt, his hands sliding inside, running over her breasts, down over her rib cage, then up to her shoulders beneath the shirt, easing the garment off and away from her. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and her nipples ached and tingled with a new and wonderful sensation. She leaned back as he unbuckled and unlooped her belt. It fell to the ground. Her britches and drawers slid over her narrow hips in one movement, and her skin jumped beneath his brushing hands.
A light touch sent her tumbling back onto the bed, the britches tangled around her knees, caught on her boots. Rufus lifted her legs high as he pulled off the boots, tossing them over his shoulder to thump against the andirons. Her stockings, drawers, and britches were dismissed in the same swift, cavalier fashion, and only then did Portia realize on some far-off periphery of consciousness what was happening.
It was a fleeting realization. It contained the knowledge that if she wanted this to stop, she had only to speak. It contained the knowledge that she had issued this invitation and that the man who was about to take her virginity had no way of knowing he was about to do so.
And then it was gone. His flat palms moved up her legs, from her ankles to her thighs, spreading them gently, stroking the silky inner skin. Her core, the most secret places of her body, pulsed, open, vulnerable, aching with a need that she couldn’t form. She looked up into eyes as clear and as bright as a summer sky. They held a soul in their depths. A questioning that was both tender and demanding. And she knew, although she knew nothing of this business, that he wanted to see her response to his body, to feel it within him.
She touched him instinctively, felt his flesh leap against her palm, then he was pressing against the cleft of her body, pressing ever more deeply. She read the flash of surprise at the innate resistance of her untouched body, then she saw comprehension leap into his eyes, but before he could react, she gripped his buttocks urgently, pulling him into her. With a little sigh, he thrust deep and she was aware only of a miraculous opening, of a fullness, a pressure that filled her to the depths of her being.
Then, just as she began to feel the very beginning of some glorious cataclysm of sensation, he withdrew from her body. He fell heavily on top of her, his breathing harsh and ragged, his skin slick against her own dampness, and Portia was left with a curious and aching sense of a void that should have been filled, but was instead gaping and empty.
Rufus slowly rose onto one elbow. He looked down at her as she lay sprawled on the coverlet, her eyes questioning, the hurt of her emptiness as easy to read as a child’s picture book.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was quiet and flat.
“It didn’t matter. It wasn’t relevant,” Portia said, her voice low as she struggled with a disappointment that seemed to penetrate to the very heart of her being. She wanted to weep with the anticlimax, with the familiar and this time overwhelming sense that she would always disappoint in the same degree that she would always be disappointed.
“Are you angry?” The question was thin, bloodless.
“If I were, you wouldn’t need to ask the question,” he replied aridly.
“It didn’t matter,” she repeated, wretchedly aware that her voice was thick with tears.
“Believe me, Portia, it mattered.” Rufus fell onto his back, one hand resting on her belly as if it had been forgotten there. “I do not make a habit of deflowering virgins. And if I did, I would…” He sighed. “How was I to know?”
“You weren’t.” It was only natural that in the face of her blatant invitation he would have assumed that she was experienced in the sexual world. He knew how she’d lived. He knew her parentage.
She swallowed the lump of tears in her throat and surreptitiously turned her head aside to wipe her eyes on a corner of the coverlet.
Rufus sat up again. “Had I known,” he said deliberately, “I would have done things a little differently.”
“How?” Portia was suddenly intrigued despite her wretchedness. “I thought there was only one way.”
“There is,” he said, leaning over her and drawing a finger down between the small, pale mounds of her breasts. “But there are various refinements.”
“Oh.” She was aware of a quickening of her blood as his eyes held hers. She couldn’t read his expression, didn’t know what he was talking about, but a little thrill of anticipation nibbled at the edges of her unfulfillment.
“Tell me what you felt.” He laid the palm of his hand over one breast, covering it completely.
Portia frowned, trying to find the words, to be utterly honest, even while her breast beneath his palm began to tingle and she could feel her nipple hardening. “That… that something should have happened that didn’t.”
He laughed softly. “I thought as much. Poor gosling.” He lowered his head to her other breast, his lips trailing over its softness. He was overpoweringly aware as he had been once before of the incredible softness of her skin. It was like the most delicate tissue, impossibly white in the candlelight. His tongue flicked at the crest of her breast and she trembled.
He raised his head and saw the wonderment in her eyes. The wildness of the dance had gone, the frenzy that had brought them both to this place, and now he read only eagerness and the slow mounting of desire. He moved his hand down.
The hand on her bare belly, pressing as it stroked, made her gasp. She turned her head on the pillow, bewildered by the rush of sensation, the storming tumult of the blood in her veins. His hand flattened between her closed thighs, and her legs parted for him even as she drew breath on a little sob of anticipation. Her body cried out for the intimate knowing invasion of his fingers, and this time the tears in her eyes were of a confused pleasure.