A Sense of Sin (22 page)
“Welcome, my lady,” Mrs. Level made a deep curtsy, and welcomed Celia with a sunny, open smile.
Celia returned her smile as best she could. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Level led her in. Although old-fashioned in layout, the house was scrupulously clean, with large, sashed windows in every room. “How very pretty.” Celia felt very conscious of making a good impression despite her discomfort in being so closely watched. She kept a smile pinned resolutely to her face. “And well kept. Is there other staff I might meet?”
“I get three girls from the village, days, when his lordship is here, and Level will get some boys for the stable if those carriages are to stay. Will you need a girl, my lady?”
“No, thank you. My maid, Bains, follows with the baggage. She’s been with me in Dartmouth, so she’s a countrywoman. I hope you’ll like her.” There was a clattering and jangling of brass and leather as the second carriage drove into sight. “Here she is.”
Bains disembarked directly. “If I might ask, my lady, how long are we to be here, so I might get up the bags.”
“I don’t know. I shall have to ask Viscount Darling.”
He still stood by the door, stripping of his gloves. “This, madame, will be your home.”
Celia nodded and moved away, anxious to conceal the film of heat in her eyes, but Bains seemed oblivious to the tension between them.
“Right then, my lady. If you’ll show me where am I to take my lady’s things?” Bains asked Mrs. Level, who turned to Viscount Darling.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and walked away.
Celia felt her face scorch with embarrassment. His disdain, especially in front of their servants, was completely humiliating. He might as well have posted a notice—they were not to be intimate in any way.
She was offered tea, either in the drawing room or in the sunny central hall, but Celia asked if she might take it upstairs in her new room. She had no desire to take tea alone and she’d much rather be busy with Bains than fall into purposeless self-pity as she began the task of settling into her new home. It would keep her from wondering if Viscount Darling had any plans to make it his home as well.
Bains’ back soon grew sore from lifting, and there were more trunks to bring up from the pile in the forecourt. Without any footmen on hand to help Bains shift the heavy baggage it was slow going.
“Bains, you just concentrate on that lot. I’ll get the rest.”
“My lady—”
“Stop, Bains. I’ve carried heavier buckets up from the river, you know I have.”
“That’s not the point, miss. He should have—I mean you’re mistress here now, and you should have staff provided for you, so you don’t have to do such things.”
“Please don’t, Bains.” Celia might think the same thing, but she would not give in to self-pity, nor let Bains be disrespectful to Viscount Darling. They had enough trouble as it was without borrowing more. “I don’t mind, truly. You leave me to it.”
When she had managed to heft one middling-size chest onto her back and drag another small one alongside, Viscount Darling reemerged from whatever lair he’d crawled into. Striding angrily down the steps to stop her, he growled, “What in hell do you think you are doing?” He pulled the larger of the two out of her grip and hoisted it himself.
“I’m baking a cake. Obviously.”
The Viscount was predictably unamused. “If that was an attempt at humor, my lady—”
Anger burst out of her like hail from a cloud, pelting down icy bits of cold resentment. “It was not an attempt at humor, my lord. It was an attempt at sarcasm. Something with which you are all too familiar.”
He cocked his head back at that.
Good.
He wasn’t the only one who could be curt and surly. It kept her from examining the pain that radiated from her heart whenever she was in his uninterested presence.
He wasn’t the only one who could be curt and surly. It kept her from examining the pain that radiated from her heart whenever she was in his uninterested presence.
“Madam, I am only trying to keep you from getting yourself hurt.”
“Then, my lord, you are several days too late.” With that she turned around and slammed her way into the house. She would not cry. She would not. She had not endured a blackmailer and seduction and spite just to turn into a watering pot because Viscount Darling still found her too skinny a Christian to bother eating. She would not cry.
But it was hard to stay hurt and resentful in such beautiful surroundings. She went out the doors that led to the moated grass terrace at the back of the house. The constant sound of the flowing water was a balm. Beyond, on the other side of the moat were lovely naturally planted gardens, which gave way to lawns and woods. On the lawn was a sweeping view down the hill toward the wide river Severn. It was magnificently, serenely beautiful.
Celia could no more stay away from the water than could a duck. Algae and plants were rooted in the brick walls of the moat channel, but not a large variety, from what she could see. She crossed the moat carefully by the small removable footbridge, which was little more than a reinforced plank, and followed the water upstream until she was following along the banks of the stream that fed water into the channels. It was, much to her delight, teeming with aquatic plant life.
She may have been deprived of finishing her survey of Devon plant life, but she would have ample time to begin anew there. Once Viscount Darling was gone off, she could do as she liked with her time. She would have to see if there was suitable space for a workroom in one of the outbuildings along the stable courtyard. If Viscount Darling was to abandon her, she could order the house as she liked. She could even have her own study and book room. What a brilliant idea!
Celia turned back to the house with fresh eyes. She did not know enough about architecture to know the name of the style of building, but she knew the house appealed to something within her, something that recognized a need for balance and harmony. Lord knew, she would find little enough of it in her marriage. At least she would find it in her surroundings. The manor house was perfectly symmetrical, in the shape of a shallow
H
, though the land inside the moat was roughly rectangular in shape. How serendipitous that Viscount Darling should bring her to a house so shaped by the course of water.
H
, though the land inside the moat was roughly rectangular in shape. How serendipitous that Viscount Darling should bring her to a house so shaped by the course of water.
She had wandered out of doors without the benefit of either shawl or bonnet, and soon enough she felt the lack of a hat. After the gray of the morning, the sun shone down in all its summer fierceness. Her fair skin would be reddened and freckled in no time.
She wandered slowly back towards the south side of the house, and the attached, walled stable yard and gardens. The stable yard was still busy with the housing of two coaches and nine animals, so she went on to the kitchen garden, a large plot with herbs and vegetables all neatly set out in rows behind low boxed knot hedges. Her favorite herbs were lined up like friends ready to be greeted. They warmed her as only friends could.
A step led up, out of the walled stable court back into the house. The kitchens, where she could hear Mrs. Level clattering away at dinner were down to the right, but to the left was a study. She was astonished to find it completely filled with books!
Celia stepped towards the entry. With all his stories of being mad to leave school for the Marines, she had never imagined Viscount Darling as a reading man. But such a room, filled to the brim with books packed tight on the shelves and scattered in piles on the large central table!
She would have stepped in, but she saw him then, Viscount Darling, seated at a large desk between the windows at the far side of the room, scribbling away at some important document or other. She pulled back into the shadow of the corridor and watched him surreptitiously. He had removed his coat and was clad in his loose, unbuttoned linen shirt and waistcoat. Now that she had seen him stripped of his veneer of civility, his mask of civilized gentleman, she knew hardened flesh and sinew lay beneath. Sculpted chest and broad shoulders. Pale gleaming skin. Bunched muscles along his abdomen, and lower where the trail of gleaming blond hair disappeared into the waist of his breeches.
She turned away from the doorway, pressed herself flat against the wall of the house, and clenched her thighs to dispel the startling ache deep in her belly.
This would not do. She could not spend the rest of her life yearning and panting after a man who found her so utterly and deeply uninteresting and unappealing, he was prepared to leave her behind in this house while he went back out into the world.
There were only two things she could do. She must either learn to live without him, or make him want to stay.
After Celia’s very clear warning, Del stayed away from her for the rest of the day and throughout the evening. He took dinner in his study and was informed his wife took hers on a tray upstairs. Yet, his thoughts, though he tried to busy himself with work, were with her constantly. He had only to look outside his window, and there she had been, trying to haul boxes heavier than her entire body weight up two flights of stairs, arguing with him in the courtyard, lying flat on her stomach on the lawn to search the moat for plant life or examining the herb beds, rattling off Latin names like incantations. Perhaps she was muttering incantations and casting spells against him. What had she said?
I hate people. They are so lying and deceitful and hateful
. She might as well have been describing him. Perhaps she was.
I hate people. They are so lying and deceitful and hateful
. She might as well have been describing him. Perhaps she was.
But he was hopelessly spellbound. Despite all his injunctions to the contrary, he couldn’t stop himself from looking. And wanting. Wanting to hold her and soothe her spiky anger, ease away the fears that lurked behind her haunted eyes. Perhaps it had to do with how alike she seemed to Emily. Except what he felt for Celia wasn’t the least bit brotherly. It was barely civilized.
It was compelling—compelling him to quit his study and wander through the gardens in the bright moonlight, letting the constant sound of the water soothe the misbegotten tension out of him. But as soon as he returned to the quiet of the house, he was compelled to seek her out, to prowl through the empty, darkened rooms, climb the creaking staircase and seek out her door. Compelling him to try the handle.
It turned silently in his hand. She had not locked him out. Was it relief or resolve that flowed through him?
Del waited until his eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight streaming through the open windows. She was asleep, though she was not a peaceful sleeper, his Celia. The bedcovers and linens were a complete tangle. She was turned over onto her belly and her nightclothes had slipped off her shoulder to reveal the pale triangle of her shoulder blade. Her feet were spread apart, separated, one bare foot and ankle defiantly projecting out from beneath the covers, over the side of the bed. Oh, God, it was strangely beautiful, the arc of her calf
.
It rose from the scoop at the back of her foot in an elegant swoop of muscle and sinew.
.
It rose from the scoop at the back of her foot in an elegant swoop of muscle and sinew.
How ridiculous. Young ladies didn’t have muscle and sinew. They were all pillowed softness and heady, drugging scent. And gracefully toned calves.
As he watched, she stirred, turning first one way and tossing the other, pulling the nightdress taut against the outline of one perfect breast. Del felt an instant flood of pure arousal. But he moved no closer. He had no doubt he could wake her with kisses and ease her into his arms. But he couldn’t do it. It was too important. She had to choose. He could only pray she would choose him.
Del dropped down into an upholstered chair and kept his eyes on her, on the beautiful, rumpled, delectable image she presented, letting lust wash through his body like the warmth of the night breeze. He wouldn’t think about why he felt such desire or what he was going to do about it. He wouldn’t think at all. Because he would find it damned inconvenient, not to mention bloody-minded, to desire and be aroused by a girl he had once pledged to hate and never touch.
C
HAPTER
22
HAPTER
22
D
el watched Celia wake slowly as the bright morning sun streamed in the east windows and fell across the bed. She stretched and blinked at him, rubbing at her face as if the cobwebs of her dreams still clung to her.
el watched Celia wake slowly as the bright morning sun streamed in the east windows and fell across the bed. She stretched and blinked at him, rubbing at her face as if the cobwebs of her dreams still clung to her.
“Did I dream you?” she breathed.
No hysterics. No protests. No coldness. She radiated warm, curious interest.
“It isn’t a dream. I’m here.”
He could hear the sounds of the house stirring to life below—Mrs. Level in the kitchens and Bains climbing the north stair with an uneven, burdened gate, likely hauling up Celia’s morning water. He could not linger.
“I’ve been here all night, but I must go.” He stood.
“Wait,” she protested and threw the covers off, revealing those pale wondrous calves and bare feet. There was something erotically intimate about the sight of her long elegant feet, as she padded silently across the floor towards her dressing room, looking for a robe. As she passed near him he could see one shoulder beautifully revealed and the peaks of her nipples visible through the cotton of her nightdress as the morning’s chill air reached her body.
“Come riding with me. I’m going out. Come with me.” He hadn’t meant it to sound like a command.
She stopped and turned, and the morning sunlight backlit the translucent cotton of her nightdress so he could see the exquisite silhouette of her naked body beneath. God’s balls, he was instantly hard. She hugged herself against the morning air, folding her arms across her body, around the middle, but the move only seemed to accentuate the press of the thin fabric against her breasts. The sweet rose of her nipples stood out starkly, begging for his touch. He took a step towards her.
But she had already turned for the dressing room, yawning and raking a hand through the riot of her curls. “I’ll come. I’ll come. Let me get changed.” Bains was at the dressing room door, giving him a disapproving look before the two of them disappeared behind closed doors.
He swallowed and shifted slightly to ease the tightness of his cock against his breeches. Why had he not taken her? Why did he persist in torturing himself?
Because as much as he wanted her, he wanted her to be willing. No, more than willing. Eager. He wanted Celia to need and want him just as much as he needed and wanted her. To love him just as much as he loved her.
Nothing else was good enough. Nothing else mattered.
He took less than a quarter of an hour to wash, scrape the beard from his face, and change his clothes before he was in the yard. He had just realized Celia was going to have to ride one of the carriage horses, when he heard her quick footsteps. He kept his hat low over his eyes and tried to hide his hunger at the sight of her running out of the house and across the stable yard towards him, flushed and breathless, so obviously anxious not to keep him waiting.
She was dressed in a different riding habit from their outing in Dartmouth—a bright, matching green jacket and waistcoat, fitting snugly across her chest and arms, over a lighter-colored, country skirt—though she wore the same lace fichu secured with a knot at her neck, covering any view of her flesh.
A few minutes saw them off. Del led them across the bridge and into the fields to the west, towards the Severn, down the gentle hillside to a wooded path along the river.
When they reached the river she spoke. “Thank you for bringing me out. It is a pleasure to explore the countryside hereabouts with someone who knows the area. I missed this.”
“Riding?”
“Yes. I didn’t ride at all in London. But mostly, I missed being in the countryside. If I try hard enough, I can imagine I’m still in Dartmouth. I’m very glad there’s a river. And the stream and moat.”
“Did you not like London?”
“It was exciting. And different. The Royal Society was beyond my expectation. But I fear I am a countrywoman at heart. This is excellent country.”
She was looking with interest at the river, no doubt picturing the various pieces of interesting glop she would fish out to draw. There were still dark smudges under her eyes, but they were sparkling with curiosity and light.
“I have no idea, of course, but I imagine it will be possible for you to find specimens for your drawings here, although the water is somewhat more brackish than along the Devon coast.”
“Oh, my study has been of only freshwater plants, not the coastal.” She looked away to avoid giving full answers.
Del could not quite understand her. She seemed at turns anxious to please and drawing away, at odds with herself. Or him. What a pair, they were—neither of them knew their own mind well enough to be other than confused and confusing. But he would not give up.
“Will the stream by itself provide enough subjects of interest for your study?”
“I suppose. It depends.” Her manner was hesitant, and when he looked at her face, he could see the lines of confusion pleating her brow.
“Do you not plan to take up your study anew here?”
At his question she took a deep breath and asked, “Will you let me?”
“Let you?” He was her husband, not her keeper. But it stung, she should think so little of him. After all they had been through, after all they had spoken of, she ought to know him better. She ought to remember.
He
had been the one to buy the bloody microscope. How could she have forgotten? “I had thought a dedicated scientist would simply insist. But I suppose you’re not the insisting type, are you?”
He
had been the one to buy the bloody microscope. How could she have forgotten? “I had thought a dedicated scientist would simply insist. But I suppose you’re not the insisting type, are you?”
“No.” She swallowed and kept her eyes away, hiding herself from him. Retreating into obedient passivity.
His carefully forgotten anger of the previous day boiled to the surface. “Is there anything you’re going to insist upon in this misbegotten marriage?” Frustration colored his voice but he didn’t wish the words back. It seemed as good a time as any to have it out, once and for all. He had to know.
But Celia didn’t seem inclined to row with him. She squinted over the vista of the estuary and answered with her own question. “Why were you in my room this morning?” Her voice trembled slightly, but there was nothing accusatory in her tone. She projected a quiet, if slightly anxious curiosity. It seemed there were things she had to know as well.
Del felt the bluster pass out of him. “Honestly? I meant to show you there would be no locked doors between us. Ever again.”
She nodded, more in acceptance, he thought, than agreement. “I’m sorry. I should not have done so at the inn. You were injured and bleeding and I should have let you in, but I was . . .”
“Afraid. You were afraid of me.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes down. The answer was the barest whisper. “Yes.”
He realized she was not angry, or still afraid. She was ashamed. Ashamed of being afraid. As ashamed as he was for frightening her. “You needn’t be afraid. That’s why I stayed in your room last night. To show you I am not a ravening animal. I slept in the chair all night because it seemed the best way to prove you can trust me.”
She looked at him fully. “You’ve always been trustworthy. Even when you said I shouldn’t trust you, I always could. I should have remembered that.”
The knowledge of his fault lanced through him. He had not always been trustworthy. He had thought the worst of her. He had acted badly towards her. “I called it willful kindness, this way you have, but now I know its true name: generosity. You are very generous to me.”
She blushed, the sunlight beaming down on her face. The wash of pink across her cheeks brought out the scattering of freckles across her nose. “I was dreaming of you, this morning, and then—there you were. It seemed as if I had conjured you out of the dream.”
“What did you dream?”
“I was thinking of you when I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep, because I owed you an apology for my rude behavior.” A frown pinched lines between her brows. “It had gotten late. The house was quiet. Everyone else was already abed, I suppose. But I like that time best, when everything is quiet and still and washed in moonlight. I went down to your study, looking for you. But you weren’t there, so I took a glass of brandy. Or cognac. I’m not sure I know the difference.”
It was a charming, if contradictory, picture she painted. “I didn’t think you touched spirits.”
“Oh, I am not so completely naive or green as that, Viscount Darling. I have had wine and sherry. But not brandy.” She glanced up at him from under the brim of her hat as she spoke. “You will think I’m foolish, but I thought the brandy smelled like you. I thought if I drank a bit of it, it would taste like you.”
Del felt the pulse of arousal fill his veins, a low kindling of heat from deep in his gut, spreading slowly throughout his body, warming him. But desire was not the only thing he felt. There was something else. The tightness in his chest began to ease, to be replaced by a feeling of lightness, of buoyancy. It felt very much like hope. “And did it? Taste like me?”
She was still looking at him with her brow puckered into a small frown. “I don’t know, do I? I can only imagine. You stay away from me so assiduously. You are very angry with me.”
Her manner wasn’t flirtatious, neither was it an invitation to prove her wrong. He could see the etching of hurt in the corners of her eyes. She was looking for an answer. Scientifically. Honestly. Courageously.
He needed to be equally courageous, equally daring. “I am not angry at you. I—”
“But you do not wish to be married to me. You regret the necessity.”
He regretted it only for her sake. He regretted they had been forced. Because he selfishly wanted to be chosen for himself alone. “Celia, nothing in the world could have forced me to marry you if I did not wish to do so.”
She shrugged and hitched up her shoulders, a twisting, defensive posture. “Yet, you take no pleasure in it. I am quite sure you do not want me to feel any of the pleasure I feel in your company.”
The seed of hope in his chest expanded into life. She took pleasure in his company—despite the fact that of late he had not been fit company at all. Willfully kind. Generous.
“Did you like the brandy? The taste?”
“It was very strong. I’m not sure I actually liked it—or that I’d go so far as to say I liked it, but I did like the way it made me feel afterwards. All . . . pleasant and warm. I can see why gentlemen like it. All the cares of the world seemed to slowly dissolve away.”
“Why, Viscountess, I think you got a bit foxed. I’m sorry I missed that.” He smiled at her to show he was teasing.
“I don’t know,” she said politely, not understanding him. “I didn’t feel intoxicated, foxed as you say. I didn’t want to sing bawdy songs or wander through the house, or cast up my accounts in the shrubbery. I just felt . . . happy, or happier at least.”
But her tone was anything but happy or satisfied. She was confused. She was disappointed. In him.
They’d arrived back at the house, and Level was in the yard, waiting. “Ostler’s here for the horses, sir.”
“Yes, just a moment.” Del dismounted and practically ran to Celia’s side to help her down before she could accomplish it on her own. He would have kept his hands on her waist. He would have picked her up and carried her inside. He should have. But she stepped back.
“Thank you for escorting me. “I’ve—” She stopped herself.
It was obvious to him she really hadn’t enjoyed herself. She was just trying to be polite but couldn’t bring herself to outright lie.
He wouldn’t make her. He did the only noble, trustworthy thing he could think of. He bowed to her and let her walk away.
Del was determined to charm her anew. He had done it once before and could do it again. He asked Mrs. Level to serve them a luncheon, as they had had no breakfast, in the more intimate confines of his study, where Celia had come looking for him. And had taken a drink. To taste him.
They ate at the small worktable. He cleared off the haphazard piles of books as Mrs. Level laid everything out.
Celia was looking at a framed architectural plan of the house. “Was it really designed by Sir Christopher Wren?”
“This house? I honestly don’t know. It was advertised to me as ‘very likely by Wren’ when I bought it, but it has never been confirmed. I just think of it as my ‘navy house’—bought and paid for with my prize monies. What do you think of it?”
“It is very pretty. I like it very much.”
Del took a chance. “Shall you be happy here?” he asked quietly.
She stopped and looked up at him. Her answer was careful, and he thought, a little bit hopeful. “I shall try. What about you?”
“I shall try as well.” He was quite determined. “Come and sit down.” He held out a chair for her.
She smiled, a slow, tentative lighting of her face. He was struck anew with how fresh and pretty she was up close, how real she appeared, with her brandy-colored eyes, dusting of freckles, and ripe, bitten lips. But he wanted more than just proximity—he wanted intimacy.
“Tell me something about you, something no one in the whole world knows about you.”
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