Bluestocking Bride (25 page)

"My lord?
Have you decided to accompany me to the theater tonight? If you do you will probably provoke the ton to scandal, for no one expects so noble a lord to grace his wife's side." She spoke merely to cover the threatening silence and to distract his attention from her neck as she drew her shawl securely over her bosom. "The
Levins
are below. Did you speak with them?"

Still he said nothing, but reached out one lazy hand to grasp her shawl and pull it off her shoulders to reveal her naked throat.

"Really, my dear," he drawled, making Catherine quake in her shoes, "I have tried to impart a modicum of taste to you. You surely don't intend to wear sapphires with that dress? It has tiny pearls sewn into the bodice. Does that not suggest something to you?"

"Yes, I see what you mean, Richard." She brazened it out. "I should have chosen another gown to wear, since I particularly wanted to wear my grandmother's sapphires tonight. It won't take me a moment to change. Would you send Becky to me?" she moved away from him toward the wardrobe and began frantically to search for something that would suit sapphires.

"You are late, Catherine. It would be much simpler to change the sapphires than the dress. Let me help you." He turned her around and she felt his hands brush against her breast as he slid his fingers down the bodice of her gown to release the catch of her brooch. Then he dropped it with a clatter and reached out to grasp her by the elbows and pulled her down to sit before her dressing table. She looked into the mirror and she flinched to see the iciness in his eyes. He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.

"Where are your pearls, Catherine?" His voice was low and even, but Catherine heard the menace behind the soft words and she gazed at him speechlessly.

"You won't tell me?" He smiled then, as if he were entertained by the charade he was forcing her to go through.
"No matter, my dear!"
The drawl was back in his voice, and Catherine stilled her breathing, wishing she could drop her eyes from his, but she was afraid to. He slipped his hand into his coat pocket and withdrew a box that Catherine recognized at once, and removing the pearls, he fastened them around her neck.

"How beautiful you are, my love, like a virgin queen, with just a touch of sensuality glowing in those tawny eyes. How desirable you look. No man gazing at you would know whether to protect you or ravish you." He noticed her chin lift, but did not find the gesture charming, as he might normally have done, but merely another sign of a wanton and rebellious disregard for a husband's authority, and he dug his fingers cruelly into her arms. Catherine gasped in pain and wrenched herself free, knocking over the chair in her alarm. At that moment there was a light knock at her door and before he could reach her, she called out sharply, "Enter."

"The earl and countess are anxious to leave, my lady."

"Thank you, Becky. Please stay and tidy my room. I was on the point of joining them."

She turned to
Rutherston
, a small smile of triumph hovering on her lips.

"If you will excuse me, my lord, I must go now."

Becky looked in consternation from one to the other and hastily removed herself to the far end of the room where she averted her eyes and made a
pretehse
of tidying up.

"You have merely won for yourself a short reprieve, madam." She was at the door ready to bolt if he made one move in her direction, and he relaxed his tense posture. Her cool, unruffled demeanor needled him into an attempt to provoke her to anger or jealousy.

"You can have no objections if I seek other . . . um, diversions,
my
dear?" He spoke in a nonchalant undertone so that her maid would not hear.

Emboldened by Becky's presence in the room, and incensed by
Rutherston's
veiled reference to his mistress, Catherine tossed her head and with a rapier thrust slipped under his guard. "My lord, would a wife put restraints on a husband that she is unwilling to accept for herself? It would be monstrous unjust!" And flashing him her sweetest smile, she flounced out of the room and hastened downstairs to escape and safety.

When Catherine entered the house later that evening, her pulse began to quicken, and she delayed in the dim interior of the vestibule, her eyes and ears straining for any indication that
Rutherston
might be about, but she could detect none.

"Has his lordship come in yet, George?" she asked, with as much unconcern as she could command.

"I don't believe so, my lady. He advised me not to wait up for him." George's stoic demeanor in the face of every eventuality was still a source of wonder to Catherine and she strove to emulate his example.

"But he did go out?"

"Oh yes, my lady.
Immediately after you left."
George's tone evinced a faint surprise at Catherine's query and she became instantly more circumspect.

"Thank you, George. Then perhaps you had better follow his lordship's instructions. I need nothing more tonight."

If Catherine's butler was conscious of the note of strain in his mistress's voice, he gave no sign, but merely bowed in acknowledgment of his dismissal and turned to move off sedately in the direction of the domestic quarters. His lordship and her ladyship might think that they had no need of his services, he intoned to himself, but he hoped he knew his duty better than that. He would maintain his unobtrusive vigil until his lordship returned.

Catherine remained unmoving for a moment or two, stripping the gloves delicately from her fingers, and the wretched state and uncertainty of her feeling were borne in upon her. Her extravagant impulse on Henderson's behalf paled to insignificance in comparison to
Rutherston's
infamous conduct with Lady Pamela. Whilst she had no wish to encounter her husband for what must be, she thought fearfully, a stormy interview, she felt that his absence from the house to be with his mistress was an intolerable insult, and it left her angry and confused. Deep in thought, she crossed the hall and began to mount the stairs toward her room.

She remembered her bold taunts thrown carelessly at his head as she had left him that evening and she cursed her rash stupidity. But when she recalled the insult that had provoked her to such anger, her sense of injury grew, and tears filled her eyes. She was besotted with a man who regarded her as nothing more than a chattel, a possession, and as a woman she had no recourse to redress the wrongs of a husband. She reached her door and flung it wide open and slammed it ferociously behind her, as if it could relieve the fury of her mind.

"My dear, one would think that the hounds of hell were after you. Shall I give the alarm?" In the flickering gloom, she saw a dark form detach itself from a chair and move toward her. Catherine froze. He moved to within a step of her, and she could smell the brandy on his breath.

"R . . . Richard! Are
you here?

"Indubitably, my love, though I have no doubt that

you
are fervently wishing me elsewhere."

The feigned drawl in his voice roused her to anger once more, and she looked boldly into his indolent stare.

"What's this?" she asked scathingly. "No diversions in London to distract the noble Marquis of
Rutherston
? And do you think, my lord, to be diverted by me?" She moved to push past him, but he caught her by the shoulders, and turned her to face him.

"No more evasions, madam. You have had your respite. You will tell me the whole story, if you please, of this afternoon's ridiculous adventure." He stood watching her closely, waiting for her to begin, but the intimacy of the darkened room and the warmth of her skin under his touch inflamed his senses and he was acutely aware of how long it had been since she had admitted him to her bed, and he knew that he would tolerate her refusal no longer.

"Catherine," he murmured, slipping his arm around her waist, "none of it matters."

She twisted from his grasp. "No! I will not. . . ."

At the unexpected movement and her denial of his claims upon her,
Rutherston's
self-control gave way. Catherine saw the fury blazing in his eyes and she shrank backwards across the room, keeping just out of his reach until her shaking legs came hard against a chair. She twisted behind it, using it as if it were a shield to protect her from his attack.

"What a fool I have been! I told you once, did
I
not, my dear wife," he said with biting sarcasm, "that one sigh from you could bring me to heel? By God, from now on, I will teach you to be a docile wife and come to
my
heel when I give the command."

He flung the chair aside in his mad lunge toward her, and seized her by the waist, swinging her into his arms. Catherine pushed futilely against his chest with her hands, but his grip tightened ferociously and she stilled. He twisted her till her head tilted back, and his mouth came down savagely upon her lips, his tongue ravaging the soft recess of her mouth.

He moved toward the bed and threw her hard upon it, and as he knelt beside her Catherine cried out with fright. With unhurried deliberation, he slid his hands around her back to undo the buttons of her gown, and she could hear his breath rasping in his throat as he disrobed her till she lay naked beneath his hands.

"Richard, do not do this!" She put out her hand in a gesture of appeal, but the movement seemed to enrage him further. She heard his muffled oath as he threw off his dressing gown and pulled her roughly to lie under him.

His hands, brutally compelling, moved across her body with a fierce possessiveness, demanding her submission, and she steeled herself to lie unflinching beneath his weight. But the urgency of his need and longing communicated itself to her, blotting out her feeble resolve. She sensed the deep hurt within him and could not bear it.

"Don't, love, don't!" she whispered against his ear, and her hands slid over his shoulders to caress his neck in a comforting gesture.
Rutherston
felt her soft and yielding beneath him, and his anger instantly abated.

His touch gentled to a caress and his warm lips teased her mouth to open and accept his tongue. Then, patiently and relentlessly, he seduced her to passion and at last heard her deep-throated gasps of pleasure. But he moved back, waiting for her clear response that she would welcome him.

"Catherine?" She heard the hesitancy in his voice, and she reached for him, moaning his name against his mouth. He needed her, and she wanted only to heal his lacerated heart. She went to him willingly, and all the uncertainty and pain were forgotten in his arms.

But
Rutherston
delayed the final moment of their rapture, cherishing Catherine's uninhibited response to his lovemaking. Nor would he take possession of her until she returned his softly murmured endearments of love and longing. They moved as one, and their sweet yearning was finally assuaged in the wave of wondrous ecstasy that washed over them.

She lay with her face turned away from him, her eyes gazing unseeing into the darkening room. For the first time it occurred to her that he had come from his mistress's bed to hers, and she could not endure the thought. His hand reached out to touch her shoulder and she shook him off.

"Catherine?" His voice was disbelieving. She hardened her heart against him and slipped out of bed to find a wrapper to cover her nakedness.

"Catherine, what do you want me to say?" There was an edge of exasperation in his voice, and still she stood mute.

"For God's sake, Catherine, is it only your pride that is wounded? Was not my pride wounded also when you gave my bridal gift to clear another man's debts?" He reached for his dressing gown and shrugged into it, gazing all the while at her rigid back. "I did not take you against your will."

She turned on him furiously, directing all the anger that she felt at herself onto a more fitting object. "But you would have, my lord, would you not? In your maddened rage, what would you have done? Gone away quietly? I think not!"

Her contemptuous words made him shift uncomfortably, for he was appalled at the unreasoning jealousy that had provoked him to such fury against her. But he knew of a certainty that he would never have harmed her.

"You cannot believe that I would hurt you, Catherine. For God's sake, you are carrying our child!" His voice finished on an incredulous note. Presently, he went on more quietly, "I wanted only to love you, and you wanted our lovemaking just as much as I did. You cannot deny it."

"It was fear of your brute strength," said Catherine hotly, "that made me submit to you."

He knew that it was not true, but it angered him to hear her say so.

"Did it please you, my lord? A docile wife is what you said you wanted, I believe?"

"What is Henderson to you, Catherine?"

"Henderson?" she asked warily, startled by the sudden change of topic.

"I think you heard me the first time.
The man for whom you were willing to risk my wrath.
Those pearls have cost me dearly, for I have paid for them twice over."

"Adrian," she retorted with emphasis, "is no more to me than Lady Pamela is to you, my lord." She saw the flush of color suffuse his face and felt the desolation of a hollow victory.