The Valentine Gift: Seven Grooms for Seven Sisters - the Prequel (A Caversham Chronicles Novella Book 0) Read online

  He slid his fingers out and gave her nub several strokes, sending her tumbling into that first blinding orgasm. Her slick passage spasmed as he pulled away from her. Her core ached, needing to be filled.

  “Mine,” he whispered as he slid up and over her. “The most beautiful woman in the world is mine.”

  “I love you, Trey.” Her voice cracked with the emotion the brought out in her. He made her feel desired and cherished. He aroused and stimulated her in bed and out. And he was going to be a wonderful father.

  His lips traveled upward, along her body, until he held her face in his hands, his lips hovering above hers. “I adore you, Caroline.” He kissed her softly. “I have from the day you and that ancient groom came to my home asking to see me about making trades for you on the royal exchange. I knew then I had to marry you.”

  Caroline tingled all over and her hands trembled as she stroked his back and buttocks. The hard planes of his lean body were smooth and perfectly formed. And except for the scars on his thigh, back and front, where he’d been stabbed by that damned bayonet, her husband was perfectly formed and perfectly beautiful. The jagged scars were puckered and faded, and the skin had become lighter than the rest of his flesh over the years of healing.

  Trey slid off and lay back on the bed. Caroline knelt over him, wanting to give him the same pleasure he gave to her knowing he enjoyed it as much as she did. She ran her fingers on the rippled muscles of his abdomen, then lower. His intake of breath when she traced a finger over the scar so close to his groin made her feel powerful—empowered by his reaction to her touch. She then reached for his engorged flesh and started stroking him.

  “Caroline.” His voice strained to say her name, and she smiled.

  “I need you, my love,” she whispered. The heat rising from her body surely warmed the entire room, for Caroline burned from within. Her desire for this man frightened her at times. She never heard of a woman, other than perhaps a mistress or prostitute, who enjoyed making love as much as she did. Good wives were supposed to do their duty and be thankful for their husband’s attention. Weren’t they? Thankfully, Trey needed her as much as she desired him.

  Her husband’s manhood was both satin smooth and iron hard. Tossing her hair behind her, she lowered her mouth onto him, taking the head and swirling her tongue around it. She loved the salty taste of him when she did this. She loved the sounds he made as she took him deep into her mouth, and she caressed him with her tongue.

  Trey groaned and pushed his hips upward, letting her know he appreciated her ministrations.

  “Caroline… that feels… so good.”

  “Mmm…” She stroked him with her mouth until suddenly his hands stopped her. “I need to be inside you,” he growled.

  She have him a coy look and grinned. “But you were.”

  Caroline straddled him and he grabbed her buttocks and positioned her over his very erect penis, then slammed upward, into her. She gasped as he stretched her, and filled her fully. He ground into her, which caused her inner muscles to clench around him.

  Then he started to move. And her ache was fulfilled with his thrusts. She met his movements with her own, causing the sensations to build inside her, pushing her toward another orgasm. His hands held her in place as he drove upward into her depths racing toward his own release. He smelled of his soap and their sweat, and the scent of their love-making emanated from every inch of them.

  She rode him fast, matching his pace as he, too, sought his climax. Within minutes he began to growl, the sound telling her he was close. Her body read his cues, and it climbed even higher toward that sensation her body craved. She was ready to fly, but she didn’t want to go alone. Trey squeezed her bottom, holding her still while deeply imbedded. It was nearly her undoing. Her walls immediately began to clench on his shaft and her entire being tensed in preparation for the release she sought. He thrust upward, one, two, three more times and she shattered.

  When she cried out his name, he exploded within her and together they rode the climax to its end. Caroline collapsed onto Trey’s chest and he cradled her to him.

  She felt cherished and loved. She felt adored and worshipped. And she hoped she conveyed the same to her husband. Because she loved him infinitely.

  Reginald ‘Trey’ Wilson, Dragoon Guard captain and veteran of the Napoleonic wars, most notably, the battles of Salamanca, the Pyrenees, and Orthez, loved his wife so much, that he would give everything he owned to be able to give her a child. And today, there was a reason to hope. His good friend and new father, Christopher ‘Kip’ Fenwicke, Viscount Huddleston, had come to tell him of a doctor he’d heard of in Edinburgh. A doctor who might help Trey determine if he was, indeed, sterile.

  If he could meet with the man and have him perform whatever tests he needed, then at least he would know with certainty. And if those tests proved that he was incapable of siring children, then he would talk to Caroline about adopting children. He would agree to any number she wanted, if she could just forgive him for not telling her about this concern before they wed.

  He tucked the counterpane under her chin as Caroline lay cuddled against his side in their bed, sated from their lovemaking. The injury that had ended his career in the military very nearly took the ability to satisfy a woman, and likely did take his ability to sire children.

  Orthez had been a nightmare. He ran his hand down to his upper thigh and rubbed the scar where the enemy foot soldier stabbed him completely through his thigh, with the bayonet that had been in the man’s hand. The man had come at Trey’s horse from his off side. As soon as Trey saw the man coming toward him, he’d wheeled his horse so that its rump struck the man, knocking him to the ground. But before the man went down to his gruesome death beneath the hooves of his horse, he’d stabbed Trey high in the inside of his right thigh, the blade sticking in the seat of his saddle. The bastard Frenchman had aimed the long blade at Trey’s gut, but instead pierced completely through Trey’s upper thigh. He’d missed his balls by inches, and the artery carrying his life by even less.

  After his attacker was down, Trey noticed the blade pinning him to his saddle, and ripped it from his leg. The blood made the seat of his saddle slick. Thinking he was not long for the world, and with a roar that came from some inner demon inside him, he attacked the two enemy soldiers coming for him, slaying them both with a precision slice from his saber.

  The battle had been so fierce for so long, that Trey had lost track of time. Eventually he fell off his horse, unconscious from the loss of blood. One of his men saw him go down and rescued him from the same death as the man who’d stabbed him, under the hooves of the cavalry horses.

  It had taken over two years for him to fully recover. And for most of that time, he’d contemplated swallowing a ball from his pistol because he thought his ability to make love to a woman had been taken from him forever. He’d been twenty-four years old when he was injured and at the time, thought he would have to live the life of a celibate. Not a whole man. He’d frequently cursed the French bastard that stabbed him for not hitting the artery. Death from bleeding out would have been preferable. Or so he thought at the time.

  He’d been extremely angry, even asking for the name of the man who’d rescued him so he could kill the man for depriving him of a normal life, and sentencing him to live as half a man. Fool that he was then, he was now much wiser, and glad he hadn’t ended his life.

  His ability to make love to a woman returned, eventually, with the help of a skilled mistress who’d seen the same injury in other men. It was a common thing to be stabbed in the thigh during battle, she told him, though uncommon to survive.

  Mariah was able to help him get an erection and keep it long enough to satisfy a woman. And except for the ache in his hip, likely from the fall itself, and his muscle seizing on occasion, he’d thought he had his normal life back.

  But, while his ability to make love to a woman had returned, he remembered the words of the field surgeon who’d stitched him up and sent
him on to a chateau near the village of Baigts which had been turned into a British field hospital. The man didn’t think Trey could hear him when he’d told the two men carrying him to the wagon, that if Trey didn’t get gangrene and he survived the coming fever, his injury had likely rendered him unable to function as a man at worst, and at best he’d be sterile.

  Because of those words, Trey never thought he’d get married. But he’d recovered the ability to get erect, and sometimes he even climaxed, so he began to entertain the possibility.

  Then he met Caroline and knew he had to have her as his wife. She was beyond merely beautiful, she had a keen head for numbers and finance. She had come to him when her father had lost a large sum on a ship he’d invested in. Caroline had a plan to restore his finances, but she needed the help of a licensed broker.

  Trey was that licensed broker. Caroline had found him by researching his public record of trades. She hired him to make her trades on the exchange for her father when he’d had his first attack of the heart, shortly after learning the magnitude of loss he’d suffered. Trey had invested for Caroline, and she’d done what she intended—restored her father’s fortune. Even now, she continued to direct trades for her father, making Lord Randolph a very wealthy man.

  But as an only child, Caroline wanted children. Each month that her menses returned was a stab at her heart, and at his conscience as well for never telling her that he might have been left sterile by his blasted injury.

  In the year he and Caroline had been married, they’d not yet conceived. She wanted as many children as possible she said, because childhood had been lonely time for her. Whereas for him, third of four sons, with four sisters as well, there had never been a dull or lonely moment in their home. When Caroline was among his multitude of nieces and nephews, she was in her element. She loved children and would make a wonderful mother.

  Conniving bastard that he was, he had married her knowing he might not ever be able to give them to her. There was always the possibility, but he just didn’t know.

  His wife stirred next to him. He looked down into her slumberous blue eyes and grinned. Her soft, contented smile stirred immense pride that he was able to satisfy her. Especially when he recalled those early days after the fever broke and he was returned to his family to recover. Those dark, dark days, when he had wanted to die because he couldn’t force his cock to rise.

  Caroline pushed the hair from her face and raised up on her elbow, holding his gaze. “We should get dressed for dinner, don’t you think?”

  “I’m content staying here the rest of the day with you.” He was, too. Trey wished he could stay here with her for the rest of their lives. He wished he’d never been injured at Orthez. Then he wouldn’t have to lie to his wife about his upcoming trip to Edinburgh.

  “I don’t necessarily have to eat in the dining room. I’ll have Nelly tell Mrs. Greaves to bring us tray.”

  “Do that.” He stroked her rosy cheek with the back of his hand. “There’s nothing I want more than to remain abed with my wife. Especially when I need to leave for Edinburgh soon.”

  Taking the sheet with her to cover her nakedness, Caroline sat up in the bed. “When did this come about?”

  “Just this morning,” he replied. “There’s a business that I would like to look into before I try to persuade my clients to invest in it.”

  “Oh.” A deaf man could hear the pout in her voice. “It couldn’t wait until spring?”

  “I’d rather not,” he replied. “Others might take the opportunity from me. I can be back in a few weeks, I will go straight there and return—” He traced a finger over the curve of her breast through the sheet. The touch caused a shiver to run through them both. “—to your side as fast as is humanly possible in the middle of winter.” He meant it, too. He didn’t like leaving her any more than she disliked his being away.

  Caroline plopped back onto her pillows with a sigh. “I wish papa was not ill, then I would insist you take me with you.”

  “How is he today?” He changed the subject, thankful for the distraction from his lies.

  “Getting better, but he’s still unable to walk unassisted. He gets very dizzy just sitting upright for very long. But he is taking his tonic and eating more. Today is the first day I feel optimistic that he might recover again.”

  “That is good news. I imagine your mother is much relieved.” Trey was happy for Caroline, because he didn’t want to imagine her heartbreak when Lord Randolph died. She was incredibly attached to her parents. He had been as well, and never had an opportunity to mourn his father. He’d received a letter from his eldest brother, Albert, that their father had died, right before his regiment had left for Salamanca. He was a young officer, with little experience, and in command of men who looked to him for instruction. There wasn’t time to be a son mourning for his beloved parent. It was something he’d had to do after he returned to England.

  “She is, as am I.”

  “After I return from Edinburgh and we feel certain your father is well, I should like for us to make a trip west to Lancashire and see my mother.”

  Caroline giggled. “We should, sweetheart. As soon as we’re certain not to be snowed in.”

  “That was no accident, my dear,” he replied. Their four days all alone in the woods with nothing but each other and his instincts for survival were among the best memories he would ever have. “I’ll have you know, I planned getting snowed in at my brother-in-law’s game cottage last year.”

  “I’m sure you did.” His wife rose, wrapped his robe around her, and tugged on the bell pull. “I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. I wonder if cook has any of that apple pie left. I’m craving a sweet.”

  As she went into her dressing room, Trey said yet another prayer that this doctor in Scotland could help him. Because he didn’t want to think about what he’d do if the man couldn’t.

  Chapter Two

  Several days later, Caroline poured tea for her mother as the maid stoked the dying embers of the fire in Lady Randolph’s morning room, before adding more coals to the grate. Caroline’s father was resting comfortably in his bed upstairs, and before Caroline went home to an empty house, she’d thought she’d try to broach a subject that had been plaguing her of late. If only the maid would finish her tasks and leave.

  Now that Caroline was married, she hoped she could to talk to her mother about certain things. Things she wanted to know, especially since she wanted a child. And even more especially since she hadn’t been able to conceive one as yet, even though she hoped and prayed she had succeeded this time.

  She felt awkward, but needed to broach this subject. She needed answers.

  Caroline handed her mother the cup and saucer, then she took her normal seat across from her. Her mother added another lump of sugar to the one Caroline had put in her cup, then stirred.

  “Caroline, where has the captain gone this time?”

  “To Scotland, to check on a potential investment.” She needed to ask she reminded herself. Her mother would drag her into a conversation about the weather in Scotland if she didn’t just plow forward and ask.

  “Scotland? In winter? I cannot imagine it! He couldn’t wait a few months for the weather to turn? It’s so cold there at this time of year, and you know how the cold bothers his leg…”

  “He has a coat, mama.”

  “Well, does he have a warm hat for his head? And a knitted scarf? They are very important, you know.”

  Caroline loved her mother, even though she worried over the most trivial things. She supposed that’s what all mothers did when those they loved were braving the elements—whether it was the heat of summer or dead of winter. The maid finished with the fire and silently removed herself from the room, leaving the two ladies alone.

  Ask her!

  “Hopefully he’ll not be snowed in where he’s going,” her mother added. “If he is, you’ll not see him for a month or more.”

  “He’ll be home in a few weeks, Mama.”


  “Will you be safe, home alone, for all that time? Perhaps you should stay here…”

  “No Mother, I’ll be fine.” She had to ask her questions so she could be on her way. If she stayed much longer, Mama would insist she remain here and implore her father to make her stay. And Caroline was never good at telling her papa no. Nor her mother come to think of it.

  “Mama,” she began, wondering how she could phrase her question so that she wasn’t prying into her mother’s private affairs. This wasn’t going to be easy. She took a sip from her cup and set both cup and saucer on the side table. “Mama, did you ever want more children after me?”

  The clink of her mother’s bone china cup landing on the saucer reverberated through the room. Caroline held her breath and waited. A minute or more went by while her mother collected her thoughts, took another sip, then put the cup on the table next to hers. The silence stretched so long that Caroline wondered if her mother would even answer.

  “You know I always wanted sisters and brothers, Mama,” Caroline said. “My cousins and friends all had siblings.”

  Her mother grew more nervous, obviously uncomfortable speaking on a topic that was painful for her. “Well, of course I did, Caroline. It just wasn’t… wasn’t to be. The good Lord saw fit to only grant me one child.”

  “Mama, I’m sorry if this upsetting, but I have to ask. Did you…?” This was so awkward. “Mama… did you try? Because I… Trey and I, we are trying, and… I have been unsuccessful. And I’m wondering if there is any pre-disposition to—difficulty. In conceiving, that I do not know of.”

  Her mother began to fan herself with her kerchief and her color rose in her cheeks. “Oh, my… You know your father’s side of the family is very fertile. Every one of his brothers and sisters have many children.”

  Her mother blotted her forehead. Caroline was beginning to think that the maid shouldn’t have added so much coal to the hearth, because she, too, was beginning to feel the excessive heat. Or maybe it was the subject matter she was attempting to discuss with her mother. The woman who never told Caroline a thing about her body, or the marriage bed. Thankfully, she’d had a governess, a maid, friends, and books to explain… things.