The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (34 page)

She shook her head. “No, I mean don’t say those things about Freddy.” She gasped the words out between soft pants. “Better he should have survived than me. I was so unworthy of everything he gave me.”

“Hush! Never say such a thing in my hearing again.”

“I killed him. Killed him!”

“I don’t care.” James voice was hard, cold. His body had gone rigid.

“Wha…” She began to tremble.

“I tell you that I killed him and you say you don’t care?”

He grasped her shoulders and pushed her back then bent his face closer to hers. “That’s right. I don’t care.”

“Oh, God! God! What manner of cousin are you?”

He regarded her for a moment, his expression revealing nothing. Then he released her and took off his greatcoat then draped it over her shoulders.

“What manner of man are you?” she demanded.

He pulled the collar of the coat together. “I don’t care about Freddy. I don’t care about anyone else in this world, not the way I care about you.”

“Oh, God.” Those were the only words her mind could form.

“No matter what you tell me, Catriona, I will never betray you. I will protect you with my dying breath. That I vow.”

His gaze blazed into hers. She believed him.

“Now tell me everything that you have held back. I must know.” He cupped her face in his large, strong hands. “If I am to protect you, I
must
know.”

She couldn’t resist now. “He-he caught me in an intimate act.”

“An intimate act?”

“A most private, solitary one. Do you understand?”

He nodded then caressed her cheeks with his thumbs, still holding her face, forcing her to continue looking at him.

“I-I tried to be discreet about such things, but this time he came into my chamber. He had stopped coming there. I didn’t expect him to come there.”

“He didn’t knock?”

“Well, he was my husband.”

“But he was no longer your lover at that point? You shared no physical intimacies.”

She shook her head. “No, not by then. He had grown too ill and he…well, he was no longer interested in such games.”

“Then he should have respected your privacy.”

“I would not have intentionally hurt him, not for all the world. I didn’t even hear him enter the chamber, I was so lost to my own imagination. I didn’t know until he was standing over my bed.” She closed her eyes. Words tumbled from her lips and three years fell away and she was back in her bedchamber.

“What manner of wife are you?” Freddy had hurled the words at her as he leaned over her, so close that his spit had flown into her face.

His eyes! Twin orbs of gray flames, searing into her! Oh heavens, how angry he was!

She didn’t know what to say. What possible defense could she give?

Her face flaming with shame, she tried to yank her skirts down.

He seized them, held them in place above her waist. “Let’s keep you on display, just as you are. A spread-legged whore with her skirts rucked up.”

“Freddy, please, don’t…”

“What manner of wife are you?” he repeated, even more angrily this time.

“I am sorry,” she said, her voice small, devastated.

“Do you intend to show me just how miserably I have failed as a husband? As a man?” He leaned closer, his nose not an inch from hers. “Is that it?”

“No, no.” She bit her lip and swallowed. Tears poured from her eyes. “I never, ever…”

“Shut your mouth! Just shut your mouth!” His eyes blazed hotter, fiercer. “It’s not enough that you shame me in public, flirting with mere footmen in my own parlor. My own damned parlor!”

She cringed back against the pillow, her heart thundering against her rib cage. She had never seen him so furious.

Had never seen the look of hate in those beautiful eyes. Hate for her.

Nausea rose in her throat, bitter and hot. She swallowed it back. “I am sorry, Freddy, you must forgive me. It has been three months since my-my misstep. I have been good. I have been a model of respect—”

“You call this respect!”

“It is my own chamber, my own bed.”

He scowled. “What manner of woman are you? Are you so driven by passion?”

“You once approved of my passion.”

“A wife’s passion should be dependent on her husband’s. If he needs her, she is happy to comply. If he doesn’t need her, not in that manner, then she remains chaste, loving him with a spiritual quality.”

She stared at him, shamed beyond all. She had never been a very spiritual person, at least not wholly. She had burned in her lonely bed.

He finally released her and straightened up. “I am going to put you aside, Sunny.”

Images of ruin and scandal filled her mind. “Oh no, Freddy, no, please—I’ll be good.”

“You’re still a virgin.” He froze. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course, of course!”

“Then it will be a simple matter to obtain an annulment. It will be expensive and lengthy but it can be done.”

Horror washed through her. “No, no! Please.”

“I don’t want to stare at the light under your door each night, wondering what you’re doing in here. By God, it is too much to be shackled to a wife who must fuck herself because I am too frail to—” His voice broke and his face mottled red. “I want you gone!”

“I’ll go away. Quietly. I’ll make no trouble.”

“That’s not good enough. I don’t want you carrying my name. I don’t want the reminder of my own failures.” He sneered. “I don’t want you using the title of Lady Blayne to contract a fine marriage after I am gone.”

The intensity of his rancor towards her was shocking. She felt as though she’d been kicked in the ribs. “Yes, you have a legitimate grievance against me. I know it. I admit my sins. But if you seek an annulment, you will hurt everyone who is associated with the Blaynes. Do you want that?”

“I don’t care! I loved you, Catriona! You were just an ill-bred little commoner, but I loved you as you were and I made a lady of you. But you, you damned ungrateful chit! You never loved me.”

“That is not true—I loved you! I still love you, but you will no’ let me love you now.”

He shook his head. A strange light came into his eyes. “No,” he said, firmly, resolutely. “You never truly loved me. If you did, you could never shame me over my weakness.”

“I never tried to shame you. I have tried to love you. You turned away from me.”

“How could I do aught else? You used to be such a delicate, dainty girl. Innocent.” He leaned back and swept his hand down her body. “Look at what you have grown into!”

Oh, mercy, what could she say? She loved sensual pleasures, she had become accustomed to indulging in sweets, rich foods and rich wines. Too accustomed.

“You don’t look like a wife.”

A sob escaped her.

“You look like a damned courtesan! Ripe for fucking!” The vivid coloring of his face intensified. “Don’t you think I see how men look at you? How those looks turn to pity because everyone knows your husband is too much a bloody invalid to avail himself of your bonny charms!”

She gaped at him. For several moments, there was no sound in the chamber except for her pounding heart beat and his angry breathing.

“No one thinks that. You’ve deluded yourself into believing something that is no’ true,” she said.

“They also see that sultry glint in your eyes—”

“There’s no glint in my eyes.”

“Of course there is. You burn with it, day and night. Your eyes smolder with desire. Reminding me of how badly you need a good hard fucking and how I shan’t ever be able to give it to you.”

“You can no’ really be so bent on dissolving our marriage? You’ll ruin the both of us; you’ll ruin the whole family.”

“I don’t bloody care! I have been shamed, deeply shamed, and I’ll have my damned revenge on all of you.”

She gaped. “All—”

“You! And my mother—damn her. She pressed me into this hell of a marriage.”

“You do no’ mean that. You’re just hurt and angry.”

“No, I am not just hurt an angry. I am surer of this than I have been of anything else in my life. I only hope I can manage to do it before my heart gives out and makes you a perfectly respectable widow.”

The future flashed before her, the scandal and shame. Then something occurred to her. “Too much time has passed, surely?”

“You’re a virgin. A physician will attest to that.”

“Your mother will fight you on this. She won’t want the scandal. And she loves me! She won’t let you treat me like this!”

“Ah, yes, mother loves you so well. So well, she had to buy you off your parents. And your papa was only too happy to oblige!”

His words cut straight into her heart. “You have never done any business without her hand there to guide you. How will you manage?” The last flew past her lips before she thought and terror caused her to scramble backwards on the mattress as his eyes began to bulge. His face mottled darker splotches of red, with shades of magenta and purple. He clamped his hands to his head and emitted a harsh, choking sound. He gagged and she thought he would vomit.

But then he went rigid, his body arching as though he had developed tetany. She leapt to her feet and shoved a hand under his waistcoat to feel his heart. He pushed her away with a gurgled snarl and stumbled backwards onto the bed. She jumped onto the mattress, yanked back the coat and felt his heart. The organ pumped rapid and hard, and she slumped back away from him in relief.

His body twitched. Sunny froze. Tremors wracked him. His whole body arched, as taut as it could possibly go. He bucked again and again. With his eyes
bulging, his mouth open, his teeth clenched as his breath came in short spasms, loud, harsh hisses, he scarcely looked human.

Her heart slammed against her chest. Pound! Pound! Pound!

His frame bucked harder, harder, harder.

Then he went limp.

Sunny stared, frozen in horror. Queasiness rose in her, shaking her with hot chills that went straight to her bones.

She sucked in a scream then raced to her bellpull.

Sunny came to herself, the stones cold and damp against her knees and legs as she knelt on the floor of the roof. She gagged, and vomit flooded up in her throat, too quickly to swallow back. She hadn’t realized…

“Bend!” James’ voice broke through the last of her memory-induced daze. His hand was like iron on her neck, forcing her head down.

She didn’t resist but bent forward and down, slapping her palms to the cold stones to balance herself. Her midsection convulsed and she gagged and coughed and spewed everything inside her up and onto the stones. Nothing remained in her stomach, but her body continued to convulse painfully for several moments.

Then it was over, and she panted with the wind cooling the beads of sweat on her face. “My selfishness…” She gulped for breath. “My lack of love. It killed Freddy.” She swallowed against the taste of acrid bile. “Now do you no’ see how wicked I can be?”

James massaged the back of her neck. “You didn’t kill him, Catriona. Freddy killed himself with bitterness. His cold, selfish heart finally gave out.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

A slight shaking woke James. The odor of sweat tinged with fear filled his senses, and beneath that was the more beguiling scent of jasmine. He tightened his arms around the soft, feminine body beside him and found Catriona’s bare flesh still damp with perspiration.

Catriona moaned, a low, distressed sound.

He put his lips to her cheek.

She didn’t open her eyes but emitted another distressed moan, more lingering than the first.

Her agitation tore into him. He’d fallen asleep with her words of the night before echoing round and round in his mind.

How she had been hurt!

Not just by Freddy but by them all.

He pressed his cheek to hers. Should he wake her from her tormented dreams? Or should he let her sleep? She had been so exhausted , he had barely been able to help her strip off her soiled, sweat-soaked chemise before she had collapsed into the bed.

He wished he’d been able to get her to drink some wine but she had closed her eyes and refused to rouse. The purple shadows around her eyes had alarmed him, and he had given up and lain beside her, drawing her clammy form to his body for warmth. But also because he’d felt an urgent need to wrap his arms around her and shield her.

She had been so hurt!

So hurt.

The words repeated in his mind. Kept repeating.

He was still in a shock of sorts. His heart aching.

He had never imagined that even Freddy could be so cruel.

And to such a warm, loving woman.

Freddy should burn in hell for all eternity and good riddance.

Catriona muttered in her sleep. James’ heart wrenched.

I must ensure that she is never hurt again, that she shall never feel want or need again.

Her trembling subsided, and he released a slow breath. She seemed to be sleeping more deeply.

The clock chimed six times.

He recalled his impassioned words to her last night, about caring for her more than any other person in the world. Such words had been impelled by finding her there, poised to throw herself from the roof.

He did not regret his words.

He’d meant them. Perhaps—in that moment after having found her so near the roof’s edge, having been afraid that she would fall—or throw herself over the edge to her death—perhaps he had spoken in too dramatic, too impassioned a manner. Of course he had. He always made such a Shakespearian fool of himself when under her influence.

However, he did care for her more than any other person.

After the shattering confessions and intimacies she had shared these past weeks, how could he help but care deeply for her?

But it wasn’t love. He would never love anyone again. Not like he had once loved her. Back when she had been Sunny.

He would keep Catriona, discreetly, of course. Probably in the country. Maybe even in the highlands. Maybe he would find her a grand castle and keep her stashed away. He would visit her at times when he could be hers completely. Meanwhile, he would find, court and marry a suitable woman of his own class. Some wide-eyed nineteen-year-old heiress with the right political connections. A proper virgin.

Family honor would satisfied.

He would respect and honor his wife.

He would spoil and adore Catriona. He would cherish her, protect her. Her every need would be satisfied. She would never have to suffer the strain and stresses—and let it not be forgotten, the constraints—that came with being a proper Society hostess.

It was all going to turn out fine. He would ensure that it did.

He frowned. So, why then did his stomach keep twisting?

****

James awoke again, sitting up with a start. The sound of retching, ugly and harsh, echoed in the chamber. He bolted from the bed and found her on her knees, her head over the chamberpot.

H He knelt and swept her hair out of her face, then held her as the tremors wracked her.

But nothing was coming up.

Of course. Sunlight filled the room. It was late morning. She’d had nothing to eat or drink in hours.

He released her shoulders then caressed her back with slow motions. “Easy, easy, sweeting.”

She coughed then gagged softly. He sat on his haunches and , pulled her close, caressing her back as she continued to gag. “Easy, easy, my love,” he crooned.

He had never crooned in his life. Not even to a horse or a beloved hound. But with a sudden sense of what would calm her, he crooned now.

Her body convulsed but less intensely. And she had stopped gagging.

“That’s it, love, that’s it,” he said.

She moaned.

“It’s all right. It’s all right now.”

She swallowed deeply, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Freddy…”

He understood from something in her tone. She wasn’t addressing his cousin, thinking herself with him. She was speaking of her tormented dreams. She had seen Freddy’s death throes in her dreams.

“It’s all right now, love,” he repeated, smoothing her lank hair off her sweat-dotted forehead. “How often does that happen?” His heart contracted. His voice had broken. “How often do you wake like that?”

“Often enough,” she said, hoarsely.

“Do you ever see him now?”

“No, I haven’t seen him for some time. On the roof last night, for a moment I thought I heard him calling me. But that turned out to be you.”

He made a sort of gasp, an odd choked sound that forced itself out as he remembered his frustration  when he had shouted her name, sure that the next instant he would see her slip over the edge. “Indeed, you did hear me calling you.”

“You were very angry with me.” Her voice was small, sad. Contrite.

She moved her head and then she was looking up at him. Fluttering her lashes, with a hint of her dimple denting her cheek.

Her cheeks were ashen, her lips dried and pale. Her eyes shadowed with purple. And yet, he saw the old Sunny reflected her in eyes. Saw that former sparkle. Her former spirit.

She also smelled appallingly of sweat and sickness. He could sense her current exhaustion in the way she leaned against him, her body limp.

He remembered bathing her the other night.

Remembered it with a pleasure that was not sexual or even purely sensual. It had been a type of closeness he’d never felt with anyone. A closeness he’d never expected to feel, nor knew he’d even wanted to feel.

He wanted to be close to her like that again.

He caressed her hair, then bent over her and put his lips to her cheek. “Catriona…” he said against her ear and heard his impassioned tone. He did not even wince. “Catriona, let me care for you.” He kissed the hollow beneath her ear, pressing his lips to feel her pulse better. “Let me care for you.”

Her body seemed to relax even more. She sighed.

Tension released in his own body. Sudden joy filled him.

Unable to keep from smiling, he stood then bent and lifted her. Carried her to the bed. He brought wine, cheese, bread and a pear tart that the servants had apparently left that morning. They ate the meal in Catriona’s bed and her with not a stitch on her gorgeous body. And she was wholly natural about it. Wholly unselfconscious.

His erection pressed insistently against his trousers. But he ignored it and went about heating water and filling a large, wooden tub in the kitchen.

Shortly, she appeared, wearing her rich green velvet wrapper. She hugged herself and exaggerated a shiver.

“Och, but ‘tis cold in here! My scones willna ever rise in this dreary weather! Close the door, lad, close the door!” She aped a heavy brogue, her tone and expression and the way she stood with her hands on her hips just so putting him immediately in mind of Mrs. Mac Kinney, the cook at Landbrae. The soundness of her imitation told of just how much time she had spent in the cheery kitchens with the large stone hearth blazing, keeping company with the servants.

Which told him that perhaps she had been just as lonely at Landbrae as he had been as child.

He’d forgotten how adept Sunny was at mimicking others, always doing it in such a way that it was a fond tribute and not mockery.

Suddenly, he remembered the servant with fondness himself. “I could do with one of her pear tarts now,” he said, not realizing at first that he’d spoken aloud or that he hadn’t indicated who he meant.

It didn’t matter. Catriona nodded.

“No one can cook like she does,” he said.

“Aye, they put too much nutmeg in that tart today.” Catriona feigned a small pout. “And no currants.”

She grinned, her dimples flashing in her cheeks as she began to dance the steps of a solo minuet about the spacious kitchen. Soon the lyrics to “Fine Knacks for Ladies” sounded in her soft, soprano voice. As she turned in the dance, she  grinned in that teasing way which said she knew perfectly well she was being silly. And playfully invited one to join in.

The rare glimpse of the carefree, cheerful girl he had once known held him spellbound. Her playfulness energized him. He couldn’t help smiling.

She could turn the most mundane moments into ones of shimmering joy. Just to be near her, to feel her inner joy come bubbling up like this.

This was why he had loved her.

The thought stunned him.

But no, he had also loved her for her ladylike demeanor. For her purity. Her kindness.

Yet, the feelings surged forward, clear and vital, as though he were  back in one of those precious moments of the past, feeling his love for young Sunny. He clearly remembered now as it truly had been.

Not as he would have it be now.

What did that mean?

He had loved her merely because she was a winsome, entertaining little chit? His heart began to thump.

No, no! I truly loved her. I grieved for her too much not to have truly loved her.

Surely, he had truly loved her?

Or had he been in love with the way she made him feel, carefree and joyful, as he did in this moment?

He must think on this later. he could never think clearly in her presence. She brought out the most irrational, emotional sides of him.

He held out his hand. “Come, my lady, your bath.”

She turned her back then glanced over her shoulder at him. Her glance singed him. Sent a tingle of lust down his spine and into his loins. Then she laughed, softly, but with an undernote of a woman’s carnal wickedness. And the look she gave him then…

Christ.

His cock reared to life.

Yes, reared to life. He’d seen that line in one of those naughty books she’d wheedled him into purchasing, when he had read to her to ease her mind. He’d thought it rather a foolish phrase then.

But now, nothing else could better describe the sensation of blood rushing into his erection.

She slid the robe down one shoulder, moving slowly. Painfully slow.

He’d been impatient with her before, not in the mood to be teased. But now he felt joyful. Indulgent.

Content to let her tease.

Enjoying her teasing as she dragged the moments out.

God, she was gorgeous. From her shining golden-brown tresses to her broad, round arse. Her long, shapely legs.

She turned to him with her eyes cast down.

God—

“Into the tub,” he said, more curtly than he’d intended.

She complied quickly, keeping her head bent.

He approached the tub, then picked up the soap and cloth.

She had her head bent forward, her hair a thick, curling veil. He swept the mass aside.

She glanced up, her eyes sparkling, biting her lip, appearing as though she were trying not to laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“Your face.”

“My face?” he repeated, somewhat dumbly.

“When I turned, your face—you looked like someone had just…” She chuckled, a hoarse, wicked sound.

“Looked like?” he asked, grinning now himself.

“It was quite a look.”

“It was quite a view,” he said.

She glanced down and went quiet. “You wouldn’t feign something like that just to be kind, would you?”

“No.”

“Do you truly like my body?”

He let the soap and cloth drop and then he reached into the water and pulled out her hand. She didn’t resist as he drew it to his fall. He pressed her hand and felt her fingers attempt to curl about his rod through the confines of the wool. He throbbed for her. “What do you think of that?”

“It is rather fierce.”

“Fierce?” He chuckled.

“Aye, fierce. Mighty.”

“You think I can feign that? The way a woman can feign her pleasure?”

She gave a little shrug.

He could tell from her expression, from the taut, expectant way she held herself, that she wasn’t teasing. “I cannot feign that, Catriona.”