A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! What better way to celebrate than with the first part of a honeymoon fic? Especially since Mary and Richard so obligingly married on the 13th of February. I hope it's just what the doctor ordered for the bereft AGIB reader. ;)
1. The Morning After
14 February, 1913
Ritz London Hotel
Before Mary so much as cracks an eye open the morning after the wedding, she knows her husband awoke before her.
"Didn't I say you'd be catching up on the evening papers while I slept?" she says hoarsely, rubbing the crust from her lashes as she rolls onto her back; the light from the bedside lamp glares even through closed eyelids.
The crinkle of newsprint and the creak of box springs precedes his voice, sounding near to her ear as Richard eases down the pillows to lay beside her.
"I read those hours ago." His words are a nuzzle against her cheek, tickling her ear. "I'm on to the morning editions now."
"Hours?"
Mary's groggy mind struggles to keep pace with her husband, though he can scarcely have slept; she feels newly weighted down by his hand resting heavily on her stomach-her bare stomach, the chiffon skirt of her nightgown having hiked up around her waist as she slept. She opens her eyes to see his face blurred but that, she realises, is due to his close proximity to her nose as he kisses the tip.
He smells of fresh strong coffee and a recent cigarette, and it occurs to her that she never thought about his smoking habits before now. What does his morning routine involve when he's not rushing off to the office, a slice of toast in hand as he climbs into his Rolls Royce? Of course, he likely has no other, and will have to make up new ones as they go. As will she.
"What time is it?" she asks.
She expects him to roll over and retrieve his watch from the bedside table and check. Instead, he tightens his embrace, hooking one leg over hers as he mumbles that he doesn't know-sometime after nine thirty, he thinks-and kisses her lips. Mary keeps them pressed firmly together, only returning a peck, thinking that her new morning routine must involve an earlier wake up to brush her teeth. Richard seems to disagree, however, his mouth insistent on hers, the tip of his tongue coaxing her lips apart. The mattress dips beneath his knees as they straddle either side of hers.
Although she felt his arousal against her in the night-more than once-and in the dark she responded with bold touches of her own, a flush prickles over her skin at the press of it through his dressing gown. His energy is impressive, and she is unsure if she can match it, returning his kisses tentatively. After a moment, however, she realises that there is no urgency to the movement of his mouth upon hers, that the stroke of his thumb at the edge of her breast is feather-light, that his hips do not nudge against hers for more. In fact Richard seems almost lazy, which is a quality she never would have imagined him capable of. She returns his languid passion, running her fingers through the curling ends of his hair, hooking one leg over the back of his thigh to allow his weight to settle a little more heavily against her. She could go on like this for some time-and she loses all sense of how long they do-until her stomach emits a loud, churning gurgle against Richard's that makes him pull his lips from hers and push off her. The pleasant prickling flush now burns up her neck and into her cheeks like wildfire.
"I'm sorry," he says. "You must be starving. Or..." One fair eyebrow quirks on his forehead in an uncertain expression. "It isn't morning sickness, is it?"
Mary shakes her head on the pillows, avoiding his gaze. "I'm past all that, thankfully, though I do feel better if I eat sooner rather than later. And...I don't think I managed to eat much at all yesterday."
Richard's arm moves across her chest as he cups her chin, turning her face to his. "You are entitled to breakfast first."
He leans in to peck her reassuringly on the lips. It has the desired effect, and Mary's fingers slip beneath the collar of his dressing gown-a Liberty paisley print in autumnal greens, browns, and golden hues-to stroke the warm skin of his neck.
"First?"
His eyes glitter, his desire evident, and Mary's own arousal grows as she comes a little more awake and notices the shadow of stubble across his chin and cheeks, lending an unexpectedly attractive ruggedness to his usually polished sharp features.
"You'll want fuel for our morning activities. Especially since you're eating for two."
"Yes, let's blame it on the baby, shall we?"
"I'm sure it won't be the first time."
Richard pats her stomach, then pushes himself upright, swings his legs over the edge of the bed, slides his feet into the slippers placed strategically and tidily on the floor beside it. He picks up the receiver of the bedside telephone, and Mary retreats to the en suite bathroom to tend necessities and make herself a little more presentable, self-conscious again as she hears Richard's muffled tones from the suite beyond, ordering their breakfast. At the same time she is grateful that he is not silent, for the sound of his own voice may deafen him to, or at least distract him from, the morning rituals she's accustomed to performing in private. Marriage, it seems, brings a world of new intimacies beyond the sexual.
As she brushes her teeth and runs a comb through her tangled hair, inexpertly let down by Richard last night instead of Anna, Mary studies her reflection intently in the mirror, searching it for some new sign of maturity, or that she is at least up to the challenge of his experience. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she plaits her hair over her shoulder before deciding to leave it down, a small portion pulled back from her face with a diamond barrette-too much, she's sure, but a ribbon seems childish and her husband will be pleased to see her make use of one of his extravagant gifts.
If he heard anything embarrassing from the bathroom Richard gives no indication of it as she re-joins him. He glances up with a quick smile at the demure pink bed jacket she has donned over the deep vee neckline of her nightdress' sheer georgette bodice.
"There's coffee on your nightstand if you like," he tells her, returning his attention to shuffling sections of various broadsheets about on the bed. "Tea's coming with breakfast."
She settles herself next to him, cradling her coffee cup in her hands as she peers over his shoulder, suddenly more interested in the morning news than she ever has been as she remembers the wedding. "Did we get a good spread?"
"You think I'd settle for a good spread?"
"I beg your pardon. Did we get a spread worthy of royalty?"
"The write-up of your trousseau rivals Consuelo Vanderbilt's."
"And I didn't even have to marry a duke." Mary reaches for that page eagerly, though as she scans the minutely detailed descriptions of corsets, chemises, petticoats, and drawers printed in bold typeset on crisp newsprint, she remembers suddenly the tour Richard gave her and Aunt Rosamund of the Daily Telegram facilities, when he announced above the roar of the double-octuple presses that his paper has a circulation of over one million.
"Heavens." The newspaper flutters to her lap as she leans back against the pillows and gulps her coffee to counteract her light-headedness. "Over one million people reading about my underclothes."
"I'm sure not all of them bother with the society pages."
"Well then, if it's only a quarter of a million, I shan't be self-conscious," she says, and he chuckles low, though she's unsure he's entirely paying attention, intent upon the paper through which he pages, perusing for more articles about the wedding. "Your mother's right, you know."
That gets his attention. "My mother?"
"You're a show-off. You like the idea of everyone in London knowing how many corsets your bride has and that they're trimmed with Valenciennes lace."
Richard doesn't deny it-in fact, his dimples and the deepening of the lines at the corners of his eyes confirm it.
"Did you say Valentine?" he asks.
"No." Mary quirks an eyebrow. "Is that a joke, or ought I to be worried about your French with us bound for Paris tomorrow?"
"I must have misheard you because of this." His tone seems almost evasive, but the newspaper he shows Mary thoroughly distracts her from suspicion.
PUBLISHER WINES AND DINES VALENTINE BRIDE,the headline reads, followed by a series of pictures and blurbs about the late-night party at the Cave of the Golden Calf. Allusions are made to the foreign influence of Mary's American relatives, Richard's family from Edinburgh, and the Austrian-born nightclub owner, but she doubts any of them would take references to their un-Englishness as the slight intended.
"And we thought we were being so clever by marrying on the thirteenth," Richard says. "It never occurred to me the festivities might carry over to the day itself. Or that my competitors would capitalise on it."
"What will this do to your reputation? Everyone in the country will know you're secretly a romantic."
She's teasing, of course, but Richard's glance holds genuine alarm. "And you."
"Well..." Mary scuffs her thumb over a shadowy image of them dancing the Argentine tango, snapped by some photographer she never noticed because of her focus only on Richard. "I suppose it's preferable to a card?"
Though she says it in the blasé manner she's perfected to a science, if she's honest about the one moment from the whole of their wedding day she could have captured on film, even above any of the posed portraits or even the candid moments of her entering St Paul's on Papa's arm or exiting on Richard's or cutting the cake at the Ritz, it would be the dance. It encapsulates everything that characterises their relationship-their confidence in themselves and in each other, the mutual disdain for the rules of society which drew them together in the first place, and of course the love and desire that bound them-and recreates that pivotal moment when she knew, beyond all doubt, that she wanted him.
Any uncertainty she felt upon awakening that she wanted him now gives way to a surge of desire which she imagines must be on a level with those that made Richard wake her in the night. But as she lays aside the newspaper, touching his face with the intention of drawing him in for a kiss, Richard lifts a hand to ruffle his hair in back, meeting her eye with an almost schoolboy sheepishness.
"As a matter of fact, I do have a card for you."
Mary's huff of frustration turns into a puff of laughter as he climbs out of bed and pads across the opulent hotel suite to the writing desk. She laughs harder, annoyance forgotten entirely, when he opens the briefcase lying on the surface. Only Richard Carlisle would bring a briefcase on his honeymoon and keep a Valentine card in it; when he asks what she finds so amusing she tells him so.
He glances back over his shoulder, his features sloping sharply downward in profile. "It seemed a practical place to keep everything pertaining to the honeymoon," he says, taking out a pen. "My apologies if that bursts your romantic bubble."
"You should be glad if it does. Though I think you might earn back a few romantic points by having the foresight to purchase a Valentine card in advance of our honeymoon."
"In that case, I'll admit that I'm only just now writing a note to you in it."
As he scratches away, bent over the desk rather than taking a seat in the Queen Anne chair tucked under it, Mary's appreciation of his backside is interrupted by a knock on the door of their suite. Richard remarks that will be breakfast and lays down his pen, striding through the door to the drawing room of their suite to answer it with no thought to being clothed in only a dressing gown while she, despite being quite properly dressed for a hotel in her robe de chambre-and the whole of London having read about her nightgowns, anyway-clutches the bedclothes over her chest for modesty. Until the glimpse of red envelope at the edge of the writing desk catches her eye.
Leaning over the edge of the bed to see around the doorframe and ensure that Richard is still occupied in the other room, she throws back the covers and slips out of bed, hurrying on tip-toe across the room to pick up snatch the card. She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh; it struck her as singularly uncharacteristic that Richard would get her a Valentine at all, but the card he chose is even more so: a pastel watercolour depicts a golden-haired cherub driving a Model T while a brunette angel lounges in a backseat filled with fat red hearts.
"I'd no idea Cupid was a motorist," she says, hearing the scuff of Richard's step on the carpet behind her, the hotel staff gone again.
"Much more efficient than winged flight, I should think, with a figure like that."
She turns the card over to read the message scrawled across the back: From our first unchaperoned ride in the Silver Ghost, to my cross-country jaunt in the T, you've driven me- He'd got no further, due to the arrival of breakfast.
Facing him, the curved back of the chair brushing the hem of her bed jacket, she says, "I hope you weren't planning to conclude this with you've driven me mad since September, 1912."
"I believe I had something in mind about how you've driven me down a rather bumpy road to love, but now that I hear it aloud it sounds so cloyingly sentimental that I think I won't complete that thought."
"Wouldn't a telegram be more your usual style? M STOP I WANT YOU TO BE STOP BE MINE STOP XX STOP R?"
"After the way you reacted the last time I sent you one?"
"It wasn't the telegram I took issue with, but your oblivion to why I might."
Richard's eyebrows draw together heavily above his hard eyes, but Mary is not intimidated.
"For heaven's sake, Richard, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you less than a day into our marriage."
"Saving it for a later date?" he retorts, but the corner of his mouth twitches upward and the lines of his face relax slightly.
"Well-you did call it a bumpy road to love."
"I didn't actually write it down, so it's not a direct quote." His smirk fades as the furrows on his forehead deepen again. "Don't you want me to smooth out whatever bumps I can, Mary? You said yourself, we didn't have much in the way of courtship."
Her heart feels as if it is pressing against her ribs. "So you gave me a Valentine card."
Richard glances away, his long fingers going up to tug again at the ends of his hair, as he nods. Mary steps toward him, covering his hand on his neck with hers. She lifts her face to take advantage of the angle at which his head is turned and kisses him at the base of his jaw. His stubble rasps over her lips.
"I know I said your rough edges need smoothing, but I must admit I'm growing to like them."
"Are you, now?"
She smiles against his skin at the feel of his voice rumbling and of his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows.
"Mmm."
He nudges against her, tilting his head to meet her mouth, but before he can she arches onto the balls of her feet to brush a kiss across his cheekbone.
"The sharp lines, too."
His cheek muscle flexes, and his grip on her hand tightens as his other hand settles on her hip.
She kisses his ear. "And the bumps."
This time when he moves to kiss her, she does not evade him, but allows him to capture her lips, her arms encircling his neck as his hand slips out from beneath hers at the back of his neck to grasp her by the hips. He leans into her as his tongue sweeps into her mouth, and her backside bumps against the desk.
Richard murmurs an apology for taking her so literally, and to ask doesn't she want breakfast first? When Mary replies that the bed is the other direction, he kisses her again as his hands move down from her hips to cup her bottom, lifting her off the ground-but not, as she expects, to carry her across the room to the bed as he did last night; he perches her at the edge of the desk.
A thought flits idly through her mind as her feet dangle off the floor that he can't really mean to make love to her atop a hotel writing desk, but then his hands slide out from beneath her bottom and push the ankle-length skirt of her nightgown up and she quickly realises that yes, he does mean to do exactly that. She can't fully envision how this will work, though Richard clearly knows what he is doing as he nudges her knees apart so he can stand between her bare thighs. Not wanting him to think she's not up to speed, she grasps the belt of his dressing gown with one hand and with the other pushes it off his shoulder.
If she was at all self-conscious about her own forwardness, the feeling vanishes when he leaves off kissing her again and she sees the rakish grin which tilts his lips and speaks plainer than any words how pleased he is by it. Further emboldened, Mary unties her bed jacket's pink ribbon closure and slips out of it, but as she grasps the hem of her gown and starts to peel it off she becomes distracted by the hard planes of Richard's chest, the roll of his shoulders as he shrugs off dressing gown and, reflected in an oval mirror across the room, the ripple of his back muscles beneath his pale skin as the robe slides down to puddle at his feet with a swish of velvet. Only when his hands close over hers in her lap, gently prising her fingers from clutching her gown, does she divert her gaze.
He lifts the nightdress over her waist and breasts, and Mary raises her arms to draw them out of the fluttery short sleeves. As the flimsy chiffon falls away, Richard's warm mouth covers the tip of one breast, his lips pulling at her nipple, while he cups the other in his hand, teasing with his thumb. Arching her back in response, her elbow knocks against something cold and metallic, followed by the sound of shattering glass.
They fly apart at the sound, and Mary claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry at the sight of the stained glass shade of the desk lamp lying in glittering shards among the folds of her nightgown.
"I suppose we'll be purchasing a new Tiffany lamp that will never grace our home," Richard remarks.
"You'd best exercise a little bribery, or some enterprising Ritz employee will leak the next headline: RAISED IN THE CAVE? AFTER NIGHT IN CLUB, CARLISLE AND BRIDE VANDALISE HOTEL."
"God, you're good," Richard mumbles against her throat; his hands go around her waist, drawing her down the desk as he steps sideways to put a little more distance between his bare feet and the broken lamp. "Are you seeking employment? Only I think you'd make a top-notch society writer."
"Reporting on what? Our torrid love life?" Mary trails her fingertips over his scalp, ruffling his fine hair as he kisses along her clavicles. "Tempting, but my current desk job doesn't allow time for breakfast as it is."
There is no further conversation, though Richard does make a low wordless sound when she tilts his face up to hers and kisses him hard. His fingers dig into her bottom as he draws her to the edge of the desk, her heels into the backs of his knees as she hooks her legs around him when he presses into her.
It isn't as intimate as the intercourse they shared in the night, certainly. There are no tender embraces, the position requiring each of them to brace themselves with palms splayed across the desktop or grasping the edge, and the creaking of the desk beneath her weight and with Richard's rocking thrusts keeps Mary partly detached from the moment for fear their escapades will break more than just a lamp. Yet it is equally enjoyable, in its own way, the pure physicality oddly taking her back to the early days of their relationship, when the slightest touch of his fingers at her back, the lightest brush of his lips on her cheek, made it impossible for her to resist his advances as everyone said she ought.
Was it the allure of sex that drew her to him in the beginning? A silly question, she supposes, in light of the fact that it was she who instigated their illicit tryst. Of course, Richard saw that less as something illicit than simply enjoying the benefits of marriage a little early.
Nevertheless, as he shudders against her on the desk, Mary's cry is as much an exclamation of relief as it is release, that for all Richard's promises to do things properly, the rebellious aspect of their relationship is not at an end simply because they are now wed in the eyes of God and most of England. Being Richard's wife required her to give up those old notions of marriage as a means to a title or an ancient estate, but with him she gains so much more: the chance to make a world on their own terms.
Or destroy one, if the broken lamp is any indication.
"Well," he says afterward, breathless and with trembling limbs drawing out the chair to sink down on, "what's that you said about our torrid love life?"
"Quite." Mary brushes an errant lock of hair from his forehead. "But just wait till I've had breakfast."