She looked up again, brushing a wisp of hair from her brow, where a slight, puzzled frown marred the smooth expanse. "There's nothing vulgar about driving oneself in the park, Marcus."
"Damn you, Judith! Don't play the innocent with me. You know quite well that driving a high-perch phaeton is as shameless and fast as Letty Lade. You're the Marchioness of Carrington, and it's time you learned to behave properly."
Judith shook her head, and her mouth took a distinctly stubborn turn. "You're so stufly, Marcus. I know it's an unusual carriage for a woman, but unusual doesn't necessarily mean bad… vulgar… shameless… fast."
"Where you're concerned, it does," he snapped. "Oh? Why so?"
"Because, my obtuse wife, someone of your dubious origins cannot get away with things that someone of impeccable family and background might. And as my wife you have a duty to uphold the honor of my family."
Judith paled. How had she thought this would be a simple confrontation, about a simple matter? "My family and my 'dubious' background have nothing to do with this. No one here knows anything about me, good or bad, and I'm perfectly capable of setting my own style without damaging your family's honor. I tell you straight, Carrington, that I will drive what I choose to drive." Breathless, she subsided to rearm.
"Madam, you've forgotten one essential fact." His voice was dangerously quiet. "You are my wife, and you owe me your obedience. You took a most solemn vow to that intent, as I recall."
And it wasn 't worth a groat in a court of law. "I have a greater right to my own freedom. I can't be expected to obey unreasonable commands that trespass upon my right to make my own choices."
"You have no such right. Obviously you don't understand the nature of marriage," he said, white-faced, his voice cold and level. "You should have thought of its uncomfortable aspects before you decided to become my wife."
"But I didn't decide to become your wife," Judith objected.
"Didn't you?" Marcus's eyes drilled into her.
Judith's lips were dry and she wished with all her heart that she'd never started this. "This isn't about our marriage," she said desperately. "Or not really. It's about something much more simple. I want you to trust me. My judgment has served me well all these years, and what I choose to drive is no concern of yours. I employed my brother as my agent-"
"I must remember to express my gratitude to him." The caustic interruption was delivered in the same cold, level tones. "As for you, ma'am. If your brother doesn't want those horses, then I'll send them to the block at Tattersalls first thing tomorrow." He turned away, as if the subject were closed.
"No! I won't tolerate such a thing."
"My dear wife, you have no choice."
"Oh, but I most certainly do. I shall simply keep the horses in my brother's stable and drive them whenever I please."
The gloves were well and truly off. Marcus, a white shade around his thinned mouth, advanced on her. "By God, ma'am, I am going to have to teach you that I mean what I say."
"You lay hands on me, Carrington, and so help me I'll shoot you!"
Judith sprang to her feet. Her knees caught the edge of the low table, sending it flying. Chess pieces tumbled and the massive marble board fell heavily across Marcus's feet. He yelled in pain, hopping from foot to foot.
"Oh, now look what you made me do," Judith said, anger forgotten in her consternation. "I didn't mean to hurt you!"
"No, you only meant to shoot me," Marcus muttered, standing on one leg as he bent to rub his left foot. "Make up your mind, woman."
"You know I wouldn't do such a thing," she said, wringing her hands. "Oh, dear, are you very hurt?"
"Abominably." He lowered his foot gingerly to the carpet and ministered to the right one.
"I am very sorry," Judith said wretchedly. "But you made me so very cross. I didn't do it deliberately."
"God only knows what pain you'd cause if you were trying." He lowered the right foot and straightened. His eyes narrowed abruptly. In her agitation, the silk wrapper had loosened at the neck, exposing the soft, creamy swell of her breast, lifting rapidly with the raging emotions of the last half hour. The golden eyes contained anxiety and the residue of her anger; her lips were parted in dismay.
"I think," Marcus stated deliberately, "that you will conduct the remainder of this heated discussion on your back. I'll feel safer that way." Reaching across the fallen table, he caught her under the arms and lifted her clear across the debris.
"What the devil are you doing?" Judith kicked her legs as he held her with relative ease.
"What do you think I'm doing?" He lowered her to the floor, his hands sliding to her waist, his eyes still narrowed, a predatory light in their ebony depths.
"No!" Judith turned her head aside just as he was about to lower his mouth to hers. "I will not permit you to make love to me when we're quarreling."
His lips, missing her mouth, found instead the soft spot behind her ear. His tongue darted suddenly, wickedly, and she squirmed as the hot lance probed her ear.
"I haven't asked your permission," he responded against her ear.
"Damn you, Marcus, no! You don't want to do this!" She pushed against him with her hands, turning and twisting in his hold.
"I'll be the judge of that." He bore her inexorably backward until she felt the edge of the bed behind her knees. Her arms flailing wildly, she fell back on the bed,twisting her body against him, pouring forth a string of expletives in every language she knew.
Marcus hooked a finger beneath the thin silk tie at her waist and pulled it loose. He caught her thrashing arms and pulled them above her head, gazing down into her flushed face, reading in her eyes the unbidden excitement that warred with her determination not to give in to him.
He looped the tie around her wrists. Judith craned her neck sideways, gasping with a mixture of anger and excitement as he fastened the tie to the carved cher-rywood pillar behind her head.
"Now," he said cheerfully, "you may fight me with your tongue, my lynx, but nothing else. However, I'm willing to wager twenty guineas that I can defeat you handsomely with the same weapon."
Judith abruptly ceased her struggles. "Twenty guineas?"
For answer, he plucked the sides of her peignoir apart. Bending his head, he drew a tongue stroke down between her breasts and over her belly. "Unless you wish to make it fifty?" He parted her thighs, holding them wide with flat palms. His breath whispered cool yet warm over the secret sensitivity of her core.
Judith lost all interest in conflict. "I'm not fool enough to defy these odds," she managed to articulate, before coherent speech was denied her under the grazing mouth, the hot, sweet strokes of his tongue.
He should have listened to his brother-in-law, Marcus thought dreamily, as he fed upon the pleasure growing within her. Direct confrontation was a crude and exhausting tactic, doomed to failure. Defeating her with delight was an infinitely more subtle strategy for achieving mastery.
Her whimpers of pleasure were building to a crescendo, her thighs tautening as the spiral coiled ever tighter in her belly, until with a shuddering cry her body arced, taut as a bow string, and then she fell back on the bed, her breath swift and shallow.
Marcus moved up her body, dropping a light kiss on her mouth, brushing her closed eyelids with his lips, and she opened her eyes, giving him a dazed smile.
"You work miracles, sir."
"One of my minor talents," he said with a smug grin, holding himself over her on an elbow, while fumbling one-handed with the waistband of his britches, pushing them off his hips. Reaching above her, he pulled loose the silk tie that bound her wrists. "I think you're sufficiently tamed now to have your hands back. You might need them for the next stage."