The Heart Denied (25 page)

Again Thorne nodded. "Safe journey, Radleigh. God speed."

He had no delusions he'd ever see that money again.

* * *

Mid-afternoon, thick clouds hung over Wycliffe Hall and unleashed a cold, torrential rain. Watching it run down the study windows, Thorne grimly contemplated Elaine Combs' whereabouts. Hobbs had taken the Wycliffe road, while Thorne had searched high and low off the road to Northampton, even forcing Raven halfway up the side of a wooded ravine where he knew of a small, hidden cave. Inside he'd found only small bones, long dried out, with some droppings.

Why was he so concerned for a servant--a lone, unwed, pregnant castoff of his stableman, at that?

Because she has no one
, he answered himself crossly.
And because the man who should be standing beside her in all this has just bedded Caroline's maid.

But there was more, and Thorne knew it. Combs' quiet, unassuming air, and the way her poise and grace went hand in hand with such steely determination, fascinated him. Her voice, by turns as soothing as the flow of the beck or as clear and musical as the ring of silver on crystal, seemed tuned for his ear in particular. The innate honesty and clarity in her dove-gray eyes riveted him, and the joy and appreciation he saw there for the smallest of pleasures made his heart swell. And not once during all these weeks of ostracism by her peers had she ever bemoaned the new life she carried within her. Indeed, Thorne knew beyond a doubt that from the day of her child's birth, Elaine Combs would lavish upon it all the love and tender care of which a mother was capable.

How he had enjoyed her presence here on recent evenings. He loved the room by day, when sunrays streamed through the solar and sought out the aged, mellow hues of furnishings and books, but there was something more compelling in those quiet hours when the shadows lengthened and receded in the rich warmth of the fire's glow. He'd sensed an expectant air, a palpable quickening in the atmosphere. It seemed the room anticipated Combs' arrival as eagerly as he did.

Each evening she had bowed her head in greeting, mindful of his request to omit the curtsey, and had kept a decorous silence until he spoke. At first she'd sat far across the room to do her reading; later she'd hesitantly agreed to leave only one fireside chair between them. In the meantime, Thorne's covert glances had committed her classic profile to memory. He'd also stolen glances at her thickening waist. Though guilt tweaked his conscience, he'd savored a keen sense of patriarchal protectiveness.

He'd noticed something else those evenings. The library, always his father's domain, now seemed his own. In making it Combs' sanctuary as well as his, Thorne had taken true possession of it.

But the last two evenings had kept him away. He could hardly blame Caroline for Wednesday night, when he'd deliberately and perversely spurred a confrontation. Yestereve was another matter. Thanks to Lord Whittingham and his own brand of perversion, Thorne had missed his library sojourn again.

Something else must have occurred in those forty-eight hours--something significant enough to provoke Combs to flee without regard to her condition and her lack of means. Thorne had initially pinned his hopes on Markham, but the old seamstress, though bewildered and sad, knew of no reason for Combs' departure or of any change in her circumstances.

Nothing. It was all anyone knew. It was all Thorne felt. 

Finishing some of the work he'd neglected that morning, and thinking Gwynneth secluded in her chamber with no prospect of riding today, he returned the wedding record book to her day room. He'd hoped to deduce from it which guest might be Hobbs' sister, but the book had offered no more than a bittersweet look at Elaine Combs' genteel handwriting, leaving Thorne to conclude either Henry Pitts or Clayton Carmody had heard wrongly.

A trace of lemon verbena hung in the air of the deserted day room, spurring him to open the drawer hastily, but as he replaced the wedding book he noticed a framed miniature. He picked it up and turned it over.

Between small shards of glass stuck in the frame, his mother looked back at him with an enigmatic smile. Thorne frowned. With a bit more petulance in her expression and smoldering fire in her eyes, Catherine Neville could almost be mistaken for Caroline Sutherland.

Staring at the tiny painting, he walked slowly back to his study. He carefully pried the bits of glass out the frame and, without quite knowing why, propped the portrait on the desk where he could view it at will.

Perhaps the next best thing to a likeness of Caroline?
mocked his inner voice. He turned grimly away from the miniature and strode from the room. 

He was taken aback to find the very subject of his thoughts in the library. Silhouetted against the gray light of the solar windows, Caroline watched his hesitant approach with no rancor in her expression, and quietly thanked him for his rescue during the night. "If you had not come when you did," she said, "you might well have had to send for the undertaker this morn." She nodded solemnly at Thorne's stare of disbelief.

"Surely you don't mean to say he'd have murdered you."

"Quite likely, but only after forcing himself upon me. Surprise, bondage, and cruel force are just a few of his trademarks. 'Tis a wonder I survived our marriage with all my limbs and features intact."

Thorne averted his gaze. "Then I wish I'd killed him."

"Because of me?"

Jaws clenched, he fought to keep his voice level. "Because he has imposed himself upon my family time and time again, even before my father's death. Now the bloody bastard nearly rapes and kills a guest in my house, and how do I repay him? After little more than bloodying his nose and blacking an eye, I send him away with a full purse!"

"You acted with righteous anger. And whether or not you admit it, you defended my honor, as is your way."

"My way," Thorne scoffed, his eyes pinning hers. "And was it my way, Caroline, when I nearly crushed the life out of you in this room two evenings ago? Was I so righteous then?" His voice tightened as Caroline touched her swollen lip. "You speak of 'cruel force' at his hands--did I not use the same against you?"

"There is no comparison. And you more than made up for that aberration by flying to my rescue last night."

"Aberration." He gave her a grim look. "Have you forgotten our exchange behind Townsend's hedgerow? I suppose that was an aberration as well."

Caroline pursed her lips, then turned away. "I shall take my leave, you're unreasonable this morning."

She turned as Thorne grabbed her hand, and the irony in her eyes acknowledged the familiarity of the gesture.

"Caroline, please." He gave her a mirthless smile. "What I'm trying to say, with piss-poor results, is that I'm heartily sorry for my behavior yesterday and that night at Townsend's house. There was no excuse for it. You'd every reason to call me a cad, for no matter what effect you have upon me, I haven't the right to impose my...impulses...upon your person, or to accuse
you
of impropriety...not then, not now, not ever. Intellectually, morally, I know this. But..."

"But what?" Caroline prodded.

Abruptly he let go her hand and went to the hearth, where he stared into the fire. "But," he said with soft deliberation, "I cannot promise it won't happen again."

Caroline watched closely as he turned to face her. Even with his back to the light, there was no mistaking the cynical gleam in his eyes.

"Shall I send for your coach?" he asked.

"No," she whispered.

Each regarded the other in silence. A challenge had just been flung--and met without hesitation.

The stroke of four of the clock broke the tension. It seemed to startle Thorne onto a different tack.

"Something has perplexed the devil out of me since your revelation last night."

Caroline merely arched her brow.

"When I first told you of Lena, I mentioned her father's pet name for her, which was Maddie...do you recall?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you make the connection? Surely you knew Lord Whittingham had lost a daughter. Was your fear of revealing his identity all that overpowering?"

Caroline stared at him in horror. "Heavens, no--oh, you must have thought me a monster since last night! No, Thorne, no, a thousand times no. He never mentioned a daughter to me, nor was there any trace of her existence. I assumed he was childless. I
swear
to you, Thorne, I hadn't the least notion Lena's father was my first husband! You must believe me."

"I do." He smiled weakly, but not before Caroline saw the terrible disappointment in his eyes. "Well, no matter. I was only curious." He settled into a chair and glanced at the clock. "Tea's on the way. Wait with me, Gwynneth should be along presently."

Caroline took a seat, still hearing the poignancy in his voice as he'd spoken of Lena.

No matter
, he'd said.

But it does matter,
Caroline thought glumly.
It matters more than he will ever say. You were right, Toby, there is much wrong with this marriage. But there are only three people who can hasten its end.

And I am not one of them.

Lying on his cot in pitch-blackness, Hobbs heard the nickering of the horses--and then another noise.

Footsteps. Slow and stealthy, they entered the passageway and approached his door, which he never bolted when alone.

The Sutherland maid again? He doubted it. Caroline had probably clipped her wings for good.

He slipped a hand beneath the mattress. Fingers curling around cold steel, he waited until the door began to move. In one fluid motion, he sat up and drew the pistol, cocking it and aiming it squarely at the dark doorway.

And then smelled lemon verbena.

"Shite!" He kicked the covers once before remembering he was naked. "Pardon my language, my lady, but I nearly shot you." He laid the flintlock down and rolled off the cot, winding himself in the blanket. He knotted it at his waist, then lit the stub of tallow on a table. His heart sank at the look on Gwynneth's face. This was no friendly visit.

"Milady," he said as if he were gentling a horse, "wait in the stables while I put on my breeches. I'll join you in a trice."

"I shall stay where I am, thank you all the same."

Uncertain, he took a gamble and held his arms out away from his naked upper torso, knowing his muscles would ripple and his skin gleam bronze in the candlelight. "Very well then, have at me. I deserve it."

Before he could even register her quicksilver advance, she slapped him full across the face.

Her voice shook. "Why? When only days ago you embraced me in these very stables--" She blinked away tears, fury in her eyes. "How could you even
think
of taking that little trollop into your bed?"

Hobbs resisted touching his stinging cheek. "She meant naught to me," he muttered. "A penny-arsed harlot would have mattered no less. And forgive me, my lady, but you are not entirely without blame."

"What? How dare you!"

Already he felt his arousal hardening under the wrapped sheet. "How dare I? You know bloody well 'tis you I want. Am I to live like a monk while your husband takes his pleasure with you at will?"

Gwynneth recoiled. "You are saying I drove you to...oh,
spare
me, Tobias Hobbs, I am not one of your stupid, simpering whores, and I shan't listen to any more of this!"

He sprang for her as she rounded on her heel, but stopped short at the venomous glare she turned on him.

"If you lay so much as a finger on my person, I shall scream!"

Hobbs' heart began to pound. "Then save your breath, Milady." His voice lowered, turning husky. "But I vow I can make you want more than my finger on your person, and in short order."

Gwynneth's face flushed scarlet.

"Night after accursed night I lie on this cot, thinking of naught but you, my lady. I see you next to me in the darkness. I reach for you, only to find mocking emptiness. Thin air, my lady. And thin air does little to comfort a man suffering the agony of a denied love."

He edged toward her. She did not retreat.

"To know that you are just behind those walls," he murmured, his throat constricting, "and that
he
lies beside you in that big, soft bed and runs his hands over your milky-white skin and tastes that rosebud of a mouth--" Hobbs clenched his teeth. "And that he sheathes his sword where I would give everything I own to trespass but
once
--"

"Stop it!" Gwynneth said in a choked voice. She made no move to flee, only clutching her cloak tight around her neck.

"I was in
torment
by the time that giddy little wench offered herself to me," Hobbs muttered, "but in my mind's eye they were
your
lips I kissed, and 'twas your body I pleasured..." With one more step, he took hold of Gwynneth's shoulders, his face contorting with arousal. "God's blood, my lady, don't you know that you drive me mad?"

The green eyes narrowed on his. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," Gwynneth said coldly.

Hobbs made a sound that was half chuckle, half moan. "Mark me, my lady, God knows the hell I've endured of late. He has already forgiven me."

Gwynneth made no protest as he began to unfasten her cloak, indeed she surprised him by shrugging the heavy velvet off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.

He gathered her to him with a groan. All that came between them was her shift, and as Gwynneth's breasts pressed against him, his manhood surged triumphantly beneath the blanket, his quest for Lady Neville nearly at end.

His mouth covered hers. He let out a roar as passion turned to searing pain and disbelief--Gwynneth had bitten bit his lip and then his tongue.

He wrenched free of her, tasting blood, and stumbled backward, grimacing in pain.

"
God
may have forgiven you," Gwynneth snarled, then wiped her sleeve across her mouth. "But I haven't! How
dare
you think of me whilst you paw and rut with that ignorant little slut!"

Hobbs jerked his head aside and spat, then raked blazing eyes over Gwynneth's scantily clad body. "Easy enough, with all your teasing and come-hithering. You've deliberately primed my pump on more than one occasion, my lady baroness!"

"You
lie
, you spawn of Satan!" Gwynneth's face turned livid. "So help me
God
, if ever you lay a hand on me again or speak to me unbidden, I shall see to it you're relieved of your situation immediately!" Her lip curled. "I've only to lie and tell my husband you've admitted fathering the bastard in Combs's womb--trust me, you'll be out on your ear then. And now that I know you for the filthy vermin you are, I suspect 'tis true! Lie with dogs," she said in a vinegar-syrup voice, "rise with fleas."

Blood thrummed in Hobbs' veins and pounded in his ears, drowning out all such niceties as title, station and pedigree, and leaving him with but a single thought. This woman--the only one he had ever loved--might just as well have plucked out his heart and stomped it into the ground while he watched.

He lunged for her.

* * *

Gwynneth's scream died as Hobbs clapped a hand over her mouth. Again she used her teeth, sinking them viciously into the web of skin between the stable master's thumb and forefinger.

Hobbs growled like a cornered beast as he tore flesh to yank his hand free. Grabbing Gwynneth's wrists in his good hand, he pinned them against the rough wall above her head.

Gwynneth jerked her knee upward, but managed only a glancing blow to his groin--just enough to enough to fuel his anger.

She cried out as Hobbs ripped the embroidered yoke of her shift from neck to waist with his bleeding hand.

Her cry faded as she took in the shocking sight of her bare, heaving breasts. She couldn't afford to be rescued. Her very presence here, in these clothes and at this hour, would condemn her. Defense--survival--was entirely up to her.

Still holding her wrists, Hobbs pushed his thighs against hers, immobilizing her knees. Outraged, Gwynneth squirmed within his grasp. Her anger turned to fear as she saw the animal lust in his eyes. She froze.

The smell of man-sweat invaded her nose. As Hobbs's golden head swooped down to capture a nipple in his mouth, his free hand smearing blood on her alabaster skin, Gwynneth found her voice. Her frantic threats turned to pleas as he yanked the flimsy shift upward and bunched it between her chest and his midsection. She struggled with renewed vigor, which only seemed to inflame his lust. In vain she strove to cross her thighs while his long, nimble fingers wriggled between them and slipped easily through her silky thatch of curls. Tears of fury and humiliation squeezed from under her closed eyelids, as he found her hidden folds of flesh with unerring deftness and grunted his satisfaction.

Gwynneth prayed she would faint. Then maybe Hobbs would unhand her and leave her limp body lying in the straw. She only wanted to be left alone--by him, by Thorne, by everyone. When Hobbs suddenly withdrew his probing fingers, hope burgeoned--and died almost immediately as he jerked the blanket from around his waist and flung it to the floor.

Gwynneth's instinctive glance and horrified gasp prompted a proud, throaty chuckle from the stable master.

"Puts his bloody lordship to shame, doesn't it?" he rasped. "Aye, Milady, 'tis not for naught I'm in demand from here to London."

Gwynneth could barely stifle her scream as Hobbs wedged the fleshy club between her trembling legs. Slowly, her limbs gave way under his brute strength. She moaned in desperation.

"Aye, sweeting, you'll have it soon enough," he assured her, his voice trembling with obvious anticipation. Bending his knees and bracing his stance with her wrists still in hand, he spit into his hand, took his proud manhood in hand and guided it up to its goal, his eyes meeting Gwynneth's with proud excitement. His entry was slow, constricted. "Tight as a drum," he said with relish.

Pinpoints of light exploded behind Gwynneth's eyelids; a keening moan of pain burst from her lips. The stableman seemed to take it for surrender as he tightened his grip on her wrists, pawed a breast, and thrust deeper into her, nearly ripping her apart.

Something warm and dribbled down her thighs. Hobbs grunted his pleasure and drove himself in and out of her body with increasing speed and violence. She wanted to scream, to sob hysterically, but the risk of discovery terrified her even more. Nor would she give Hobbs the satisfaction. She would bear the consequences of this rash visit the way martyred saints had endured torture before their deaths. It was the only grace she could salvage from this abomination. Her pain receded into blessed numbness as she imagined various ways Hobbs would be tormented in hell for his unforgivable crime.

His guttural gasp jolted her to awareness, and her body stiffened as his rutting motions accelerated to a frenzy. Sensing the end of her ordeal was at hand, she held her breath, then uttered a muffled cry as she felt the explosion and heat of his spewing seed deep within her.

With each spasm of Hobbs's release, Gwynneth was bitterly reminded why she had come to the stables tonight, as over and over through clenched teeth her ravisher chanted the words like a mantra--

"I love you...I love you, Gwynneth...I love you..."

* * *

Hobbs looked away as Gwynneth pulled the two useless halves of her shift together. Knotting the blanket at his waist again, he glanced at the bite wound on his hand, where the blood had long dried. He picked up her cloak and handed it to her.

"You'd best be getting back. He might come looking for you in your chambers. God knows I would." His eyes roved Gwynneth's pallid face. "I'm sorry for the damage to your shift. Burn it, no doubt you've another. Next time we'll remove it properly." He guided her as far as the outer doorway. "I dare not walk you to the Hall," he said, growing unnerved at her silence. "The moon is still high. If worse comes to worst and you're seen, you can say you were unable to sleep and visited Abigail as I slept. Are you all right?"

"Yes." Her voice sounded far away.

"Good. Come to me again as soon as you can." He pressed his lips to the back of one limp hand. "Goodnight, Gwynneth...my love."

Her eyes met his for the first time since he'd ravished her. They may as well have belonged to a stranger. "I gave you no leave to call me by my Christian name," she said tonelessly. "Nor shall I acknowledge your term of endearment. You have presumed far too much this night, Tobias Hobbs, infinitely more than my own husband has, and you shall pay for it."

"My lady," he protested, but broke off at the sudden hardness in her expression. Watching her go, he shook his head. One never knew with gentlewomen. One minute ice, fire the next, and then ice again.

Back in his cramped quarters, he lit the lamp and poured fresh water into a basin. Cleaning away the sticky evidence of his tryst, he rinsed the cloth, then stared with growing wonder at the water's odd tint. He glanced down at his nakedness.

He knew immediately the blood wasn't his. Nor had he felt a trace of moisture when he'd entered Gwynneth.

Smeared from tip to base and onto his thighs, it mocked him--thin but abundant, and garishly bright.