DeButy & the Beast Read online

  Poor Julian, he went quite red in the face. “You have a… a fork, Anya. Use it.”

  She glanced around the room. Cousin Valerie was lustily eating her own cake. Seymour ogled the maid who was filling fine glasses with lemonade, and Grandmother was trying to convince the preacher to stay for a piece of cake. None of them were watching the bride and groom, at the moment.

  “It tastes better this way, see?” She lifted her finger to his lips, dabbing at his mouth with the white frosting. He grabbed her wrist but it was too late. Her finger was there, the frosting was there, and when he parted his lips, no doubt to tell her to desist, she slipped her finger into his mouth. He had no choice but to close his lips around her finger and suck off the frosting. Her heart beat a little harder as he sucked so briefly against her finger. She felt the tug of his mouth and the warmth of his tongue… everywhere.

  “See?” she said as he pulled her hand away. “That is so much tastier than the same frosting taken to your mouth on a cold, silver fork.”

  “Will you behave?” Julian whispered as he released her and licked a small amount of frosting from his lips.

  “No.” She laid her recently freed hand on his knee and he twitched.

  The preacher took his leave, and Grandmother took her usual place at the head of the table. She smiled so sweetly, Anya was forced to smile back.

  “How is the cake?”

  “Very tasty,” Anya said. “But a poor substitute for—”

  “Anya,” Julian interrupted.

  She smiled and said nothing more, but her hand climbed a little higher up her husband’s thigh. Oh, it was a nice, firm thigh, she noticed as she gave it a little squeeze. Beneath the table, he took her hand, lifted it, and placed it firmly on her own knee… where it did not stay long. This time she placed her hand even higher on his leg, and he jumped. His knee banged against the underside of the table.

  The table shimmied, just a little, the glasses of lemonade quaked, and all eyes turned to Julian.

  “Pardon me,” he muttered.

  Anya’s hand slid up his thigh. Her fingers slipped beneath the hem of his jacket.

  With a surge of energy, Julian pushed his chair back and stood. “You look chilly,” he said through clenched teeth. “Here, let me give you my jacket.” He began to unbutton the garment, but stopped short of removing it.

  “I am not at all chilly,” Anya said calmly.

  “Humor me.” Julian deftly turned so that his back was presented to all those at the table. He slipped off the jacket, stood behind her chair, and slipped it over her shoulders. She even leaned forward to accommodate him.

  When he returned to his chair, moving quickly, she could not help but see the bulge in his trousers, the evidence of his desire that he tried so deftly to hide.

  “It scratches, a little,” she complained, lifting her shoulders to shrug out of the garment.

  As she tried to push the jacket off, Julian reached over, grabbed the lapels and pulled them together so that they covered her breasts and caught her hair. “Please,” he asked.

  Anya was demanding, she did not deny it. She was accustomed to getting what she wanted, whatever she wanted, without question. But she was also a woman, and she knew when she had gone far enough.

  “If you wish,” she answered softly, lifting one arm to snake it through a sleeve, then lifting the other to repeat the process. Once that was done, her husband released his hold on the garment and sighed in relief.

  “Julian?” she said, leaning slightly forward. “Would you assist me?”

  He shot a suspicious glance her way. “Assist you in what way?”

  She lifted her arms. Her hands were hidden beneath the long sleeves of his jacket. “Would you roll up the cuffs so I can eat more of this delicious cake without getting frosting on your wedding clothes? I will, of course, use a fork.”

  He efficiently and quickly turned the sleeves up until they were well clear of her wrists.

  “Thank you, caro,” she said, her soft words for his ears alone.

  Julian moaned lowly and leaned over his wedding cake.

  Anya smiled. This was going to be much too easy.

  *

  Julian paced across the Persian rug in the opulent bedroom that was to be his for the next four months. The coverlet and draperies were in shades of deep blue, the fine furniture crafted of mahogany. The lamps would be filled each day, so that he would never have to worry about conserving oil.

  He was in such pain, he barely noticed the unaccustomed luxury. His physical arousal had decreased hours ago, but inside—deep inside—something still churned.

  A test, he reminded himself once again. Anya was a test, sent to try his courage and his principles and his moral fiber. But who had sent her? God or the devil himself? At the moment, Julian suspected a demonic hand in this particular trial.

  The door that connected his chamber with the sitting room opened, and the demon herself walked in. Tonight she had not even bothered with a scarf around her waist. Everything had been taken off. She was all fair skin, red hair, and the gleam of one small gold wedding band.

  “Must we sleep in separate rooms?” she asked, pouting prettily.

  “Yes,” he insisted. Her own bedchamber was on the other side of the sitting room. Too close, he thought as he averted his eyes. Much too close.

  Undeterred, she walked to the bed and lifted his nightshirt. “Do you sleep in this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to get chilled in the night.”

  “It is very warm here. You will not get chilled,” she sounded very reasonable, and so he was on guard. “I think you are much too concerned about getting chilled, cher. This afternoon in the dining room, tonight in your own bedroom.” She sighed. “When a man and wife need never be chilled,” she added, lowering her voice to a slightly deeper pitch.

  He ignored the way his gut clenched, opened his eyes, and looked at her. He would have to learn to deal with the sight of Anya, no matter how unnerving she might be. “It isn’t proper to sleep unclothed.”

  “But it is much more comfortable. My grandmother bought me several nightgowns.” Anya wrinkled her nose. “They all scratch. I tried to wear them, I swear I did. But I always woke in the middle of the night and tore them off. I felt like they were choking me, binding me down. Do you never feel that way when you wear your nightgown?”

  “Nightshirt,” he corrected testily.

  Anya gave him a wide smile and lifted the garment to hold before her bare body. “If you insist.” She lowered her head and sniffed lightly at one sleeve. “Your nightgown—night shirt—is much softer than mine.”

  “It’s old and worn,” he confessed.

  Anya hugged the garment to her body. “I rather like it.”

  “You may have it,” he said, hoping she would take the nightshirt and go. She made no move to leave the room. “In fact, why don’t you try it on right now.” Yes, clothing would be good, if she insisted on remaining here.

  She lifted the garment and her arms, revealing more than he wanted to see… and he could not make himself look away as she pulled the nightshirt over her head. The linen hung on her, loose and misshapen. So why was she still beautiful, in an impossibly endearing sort of way?

  “It is not so scratchy,” she admitted, raking her hand over the linen. Her fingers danced over her full breasts and down across her flat belly, the motion making the linen cling to her flesh for an all-too-brief moment. “Not like the nightgowns my grandmother gave me. But if I take your nightshirt, what will you wear to bed to keep from getting a chill?”

  “I have another,” he said sharply.

  Anya very slightly puckered her full lips. “Too bad.”

  He simply could not bear four months of this. They’d been married a few hours, and already Anya was beating down his defenses. Beating them down, slipping past, sneaking inside…

  “Anya,” he said sternly, “have a s
eat. We need to talk.”

  She ignored the chair he indicated and sat on the side of the bed. She crossed her legs as she had the day before, but fortunately tonight the length of his own nightshirt concealed the forbidden view he had been afforded at that time.

  He gathered his courage and faced her. Hands behind his back, he glanced down at her. “I will not allow you to seduce me. We have not married for your amusement.”

  “Then why have we married?” she asked, wide-eyed and deceptively innocent.

  “We have married so that I might make you into a proper young lady. So that you might take your place in society and make your grandmother proud.”

  “I would rather make you proud,” she said, her voice low and slightly husky. “I would rather make you…”

  He ignored her. “It looks as if I will have to set some rules for you to follow.”

  “Rules?” she smiled. “Marido, I make rules, I do not follow them.”

  “You must behave like a proper lady,” he continued. “There will be no more episodes where you… touch me beneath the dining room table.”

  “When can I touch you?”

  “Never,” he answered quickly.

  “Never?”

  “It would be best if we maintained a platonic relationship.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we will be friends, and that is all.” He nodded with a note of finality.

  “You do not want me to touch you?” she asked, her voice low. He had expected she might be angry, as she had been that afternoon, but she took the new edict very well.

  “That is correct.”

  She left the bed, moving with a cat’s grace. “If you wish, querido,” she said agreeably.

  The hairs on the back of Julian’s neck stood. “I appreciate your agreement on this issue.”

  She headed for the door to the sitting room, turning just before she reached it. “You will find that I can be a very agreeable person. Thank you for the nightshirt,” she said, running her hand over the soft linen, letting the palm of her hand hug the curves of one breast, her side, one hip. “I like it very much. It smells of you.”

  His traitorous body reacted as she had no doubt known it would. Who was he kidding? She didn’t have to touch his body to tempt him. She could be two rooms away, whisper a word, and he would respond.

  “Marido,” she said, her voice softly accented and so low his ears strained to hear each syllable. “You are here to teach me, I know, but I have a feeling I will become the teacher before many days have passed.”

  “Anya…”

  “You think I am the beast, but be warned. There is a beast waiting within you. It sleeps deep and quiet, but it is there. I see it. It has fangs and claws and it is hungry.”

  “I do not have—”

  “I am going to awaken the beast, cher. And then I am going to tame it and make it mine. And then I am going to feed it well.” With that, she turned and left the room, tossing back a cheerful, “Sweet dreams.”

  The devil, Julian thought as he collapsed onto the bed. Anya had most definitely been sent by the devil.

  Chapter 3

  “I refuse to wear that,” Anya said, pointing at the monstrosity that lay across the foot of her bed. Constructed of wires and strings and bones, it was an instrument of torture her grandmother had enticed her into once. That was a mistake she would not make again, no matter how ardently her husband insisted.

  Julian walked to the edge of the bed, bent forward to study the corset through narrowed eyes, and finally reached out to pluck the thing between two fingers and lift it as if the ghastly garment might decide to bite. “Your grandmother insists that you learn to dress properly, and the corset is apparently a part of the required ensemble.”

  Anya planted her bare feet and lifted her chin. “If you want me to wear that hideous thing, you will have to hold me down and place it on my unwilling body. I will fight you.”

  Julian barely canted his head in her direction, laying his eyes on her fully for the first time this morning. “In truth, I have no liking for the corset myself. It isn’t at all healthy.”

  Anya smiled.

  “We will save the corset for special occasions,” he finished.

  “No matter how special the occasion, I will not willingly don that… that…”

  “You will fight me.”

  “I will.”

  Julian lifted his eyebrows and moved his attentions to the other garments on the bed; a pale blue dress, a lacy chemise, petticoats, drawers, hose, garters… shoes. “What a lovely dress.”

  “Ha! There is nothing wrong with what I am wearing.”

  Her husband sighed. “You’re wearing a scarf and half of your grandmother’s jewelry. That’s hardly proper attire for a lady of your standing. For any lady at all, to be honest. You’re more naked than not.”

  “You should try being more naked than not,” she shot back. He wore layers and layers of proper clothing. Shoes, trousers, a starched shirt, a tie, a jacket, things beneath it all, she had no doubt. And it was such a lovely, warm day! She longed to feel the sun on her skin, the warmth of a spring breeze. At times she felt like she was suffocating in this fine house.

  Julian lifted the chemise. “We will begin with this.”

  “We will not.”

  Her husband assumed a superior air. “Must I assist you as if you were a child?”

  Anya smiled. “Yes, you must.” She rather liked the idea of Julian the Beauty dressing her. He had asked her not to touch him and she was doing her best to comply, but he had said nothing about him touching her.

  Julian, however, obviously realized that it was not in his best interest to follow through with his threat. He sighed, dropped the chemise onto the bed, and raked his fingers through his hair, as he often did when he was distracted. She found his discomfiture unexpectedly charming.

  “Surely you understand the concept of compromise,” he said lowly.

  “Of course.”

  He paced beside the bed, his eyes falling now and then to the feminine garments that had been placed across the yellow bedcover. He was clearly uncomfortable being in her private chamber, among her private things. She wondered if as he paced he pictured her sleeping in that bed, wearing only his nightshirt.

  If his thoughts took that turn, he did not allow the weakness to show. “Perhaps in these early days, as you accustom yourself to your new surroundings and customs, you could wear this appropriate clothing during the early hours of the day. Your grandmother will be pleased, your cousins will be relieved, and Peter will not have to divert visitors from your path. In the evening, when you and I are alone in our quarters…” He sighed again and pushed his fingers through his hair, mussing the dark strands. “You can wear whatever you want.”

  Anya glanced at the clothing on the bed, and then up at her harried husband. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” he snapped. “It’s a perfectly generous and reasonable offer.”

  “I like things better as they are, when I wear what I want all day long.”

  “But it isn’t…”

  “Proper?” she finished. “I do not care for being proper.”

  “So I have noticed,” he mumbled.

  “I gain nothing with this so-called compromise,” she said brightly. “Why should I agree? It is true that you are stronger than I am, and I have no doubt that you could force me to the bed.” His eyes flickered up and met hers. She licked her lips. “And you could very easily hold me down while you place that detestable clothing onto my body.” He swallowed hard, and she lifted her arms and offered her crossed wrists. “You could hold me down, press me to the bed with your body against mine—”

  “Anya!” he interrupted.

  She dropped her hands and shook her hair back so that the thick strands no longer covered both breasts. One was revealed, and her husband’s eyes fell there and stayed. “You could force me to do as you wish, but as soon as you let me go I would remove the clothes an
d rip them into shreds. Still, if you would like to try…”

  He turned his back to her and took a deep breath. And another, and another. Anya smiled at that broad back. Those wide shoulders. His long legs.

  “All right,” he said tersely, turning around to face her again, pinning his unerring gaze on her face. “You want something from me.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I understand you like to read.”

  Anya’s eyebrows arched. It was not the offer she had expected. “Read?”

  “Your grandmother says you’ve gone through every book in her library.”

  “Yes.” It had been her only peace in this household, closing herself in the library and reading all those marvelous stories.

  “My own things will be arriving soon, including a collection of books. If you cooperate, I might be willing to share.”

  No, it was not the offer she had expected, but she found the prospect of more reading material… intriguing. “What kinds of books do you have?” She tried, very hard, not to reveal her interest.

  “Shakespeare.”

  “I have already read Hamlet,” she said, sniffing as if she did not care. “It was quite good.”

  “There is more to Shakespeare than Hamlet. Much more. Have you read Romeo and Juliet? The Taming of the Shrew?”

  “No. The Taming of the Shrew sounds intriguing.”

  “Of course it does,” he said, his lips twitching just slightly.

  “What else do you have that I might like?”

  He quit fighting the twist in his lips and smiled at her. Oh, he did have such a lovely smile. “Tales of men who have traveled the world.”

  Her heart nearly skipped a beat. “What about women who have traveled the world?”

  “Sorry.”

  “What else?”

  “Medical books,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You would likely not be interested in those. I also have a few volumes of poetry, and a couple of novels I have never found the time to read.”