Faith (11 page)

Sixteen

F
aith stared at the plate of food placed before her. The roast was overcooked, the carrots boiled nearly colorless, and the bread bordered on stale. It hardly mattered. Her appetite had fled the moment the servants departed, leaving her alone in the room with two spindly chairs, a small table, her husband, and a bed.

The bed dominated her thoughts. It was, as beds went, nothing special. Much smaller than her own bed at home in Pelthamshire, it was not even close to the size of the luxurious one in which she slept when she visited Grace. Even so, small though it was, it was the most intimidating piece of furniture she’d ever seen.

“Have you finished eating, my lady?”

Startled, Faith tore her eyes from the bed and glanced at the serving girl who stood at her elbow. “Why, yes,” she said quickly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very hungry,” she added as the buxom girl picked up the still-full plate and then bent forward and reached across the table to retrieve Gareth’s, providing him with an unobstructed view of her ample chest. When his eyes lingered for a moment on the proffered sight, Faith felt a spurt of annoyance.

She sat primly silent for a moment after the serving girl left, then stood. Resolutely, she walked to the bed. There were two rather flat pillows at the head, and it was covered by a single blanket and sheet. She chewed on her lip a moment before remembering the appreciative glance Gareth had given the endowments of the tavern maid. With a great deal of satisfaction, she snatched both pillows
and
the blanket from the bed, carried them to one corner of the room, and dropped them on the floor under the window.

Gareth watched from his place at the table. She laid the blanket down and folded it once lengthwise, then placed the pillows at one end. She took a step back, surveyed her work, and gave a small nod as if satisfied.

Gareth wasn’t sure what he expected to see when she turned to look at him, but it certainly wasn’t the small, polite smile she gave. He almost smiled in return before he caught himself and managed to retain his carefully aloof expression.

Her smile faded and she fidgeted. “My lord?”

Gareth raised a single eyebrow.

“Might I have a moment of privacy?”

A small blush stole across his wife’s face as she stood, patient, the moonlight streaming in through the window behind her and turning her hair into a gilded halo. Though her face held the same remote, serene expression as usual, the faint pink color that tinted her cheeks made her seem a bit less composed. Approachable, even. Adorable. Completely kissable.

His thoughts returned to the promise he’d made her sister. Suddenly, he felt peevish and disagreeable.

He scowled. “No,” he replied decidedly.

Faith blinked, not certain she’d heard correctly. “Excuse me, my lord?”

“I said no, princess. You may
not
have a moment of precious privacy. I might not be able to make you my wife in every sense of the word, but I will not, in order to protect your maidenly sensibilities, be put out of my chamber when I’m ready to go to bed.”

He stood and removed his jacket, tossed it over his chair, and pulled his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. Faith stood stock-still and stared as he began unfastening the studs that held his shirtfront together. A wider and wider expanse of chest began to appear, allowing her a glimpse of the crisply curling dark hair that covered his bronzed skin. She gasped and came to her senses when he began shrugging out of the garment, but not before she saw his broad shoulders rippling with lean muscle.

She took a quick step back and turned away, stumbling across the blanket she’d just laid down. She caught the edge of the windowsill to keep herself from falling, then closed her eyes and rested her hot forehead on the cool pane of glass in sublime embarrassment.

She stayed that way even after the shuffling stopped behind her, didn’t even turn around when her husband spoke. “Will you be sleeping in the bed or on the floor, my lady?”

“The floor,” she managed to choke out. She heard him pull back the thin sheet and settle onto the creaking bed.

When the noises stopped, she looked cautiously around. Gareth was lying on his back under the inadequate covering of the sheet, his hands locked together behind his head, staring fixedly at the ceiling. Faith’s eyes ran down the length of his covered body. With a start of shock, she realized he wasn’t wearing anything beneath.

Flames leapt once more to her face. She looked longingly across the room at the small valise she had packed, realizing she wouldn’t have a chance to change into her comfortable sleeping attire unless she did it in front of Gareth. With a sigh of resignation, she bent and straightened the blanket she’d knocked askew when she’d stumbled. That done, she removed her slippers, adjusted one of the pillows with her toe, and stretched out with her face to the wall. She heard the bed creak as Gareth leaned over and blew out the lamp. Silence descended with the darkness upon the small room.

Gareth lay flat on his back and smiled grimly at the ceiling. This was not exactly how he’d planned to spend his wedding night. Visions of Faith paraded through his mind, and always she was in his arms: whirling down that balcony in a solitary waltz, melting against him in Amanda’s garden, shaking with laughter on the settee in her sister’s drawing room.

He stole a glance at her prone form lying beneath the light blanket. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and her head cradled on one bent arm. The moonlight flowed in through the window above where she lay, seeming drawn to the pale strands of her silken hair, touching it gently until those locks glowed a cool silver against the rough floorboards. With a small pang of guilt, Gareth realized how uncomfortable she must be on the hard floor. Yet she did not move or shift, or even whimper in complaint.

He watched her for a while, watched her shoulders go from the rigid stillness that let him know she was awake to limp and relaxed, as sleep overtook her. When her breathing finally became deep and even, Gareth sat up.

Quietly, he pulled on his trousers and walked across the room to kneel beside her sleeping form. He leaned over to look at her face. Her lips were serene and her eyes closed, the russet lashes casting long shadows upon her cheeks. There was a small pucker between her eyebrows, making Gareth think her dreams must be perplexing. He stifled a chuckle. No doubt she was dreaming of him. His inward smile faded, though, as he reflected upon how very true that likely was.

Resolutely, he quelled the resentment that welled within him. Despite their differences, there was no reason for either of them to spend the balance of the night cold and uncomfortable. He gathered her carefully against his chest, blankets and all, and lifted her in his arms. He walked back to the bed and set her down. She stirred and murmured something, but didn’t awaken. Gareth walked back to the window, retrieved the pillows, and tucked one under her head.

He took a step back and contemplated her sleeping form. She still looked quite uncomfortable, dressed in her traveling gown, but he didn’t see how he could remove it without waking her. With a shrug, he tucked the blanket and the sheet around her shoulders and walked around the bed. There he yawned, unbuttoned his trousers, and stepped out of them. Carefully he climbed into the bed next to Faith, pulled up the covers, and went promptly and comfortably to sleep.

Seventeen

T
he felt far warmer and safer than she could ever remember feeling. Still half-asleep, Faith smiled dreamily and snuggled deeper into the cocooning comfort that enveloped her, easily slipping back into the very pleasant dream she’d been having. She couldn’t imagine being anywhere more agreeable.

At the same moment, Faith’s gentle wriggling woke Gareth. He found himself cradling her securely in his arms, her hair tumbled across his face, one of her hands curved trustingly within his. A feeling of peace stole through him. He turned his head, buried his face deep into her silken curls, and purposely lost himself in her intoxicating scent; he could indeed fall back to sleep in such perfect conditions. But then Faith wriggled again, and his peace was shattered.

With her back cradled against his chest and her long legs bent at the knees, her body closely followed the angle of his own beneath the blanket. But that wasn’t what truly disrupted his comfort. What disturbed him was the wriggling. Faith’s trim backside was pressed into the hollow created by his bent knees, and each little wriggle she made was arousing him beyond words. Arousing him to the point that he was sure she would notice.

He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, forced himself to think of the progress that should have been made on the roof at Rothmere during the time he’d been in London. When that didn’t work, he tried thinking about the modernizations he was having made to the bathing rooms.
That,
however, was an enormous mistake. The first image that popped into his mind was of Faith immersed in the large marble bathtub, surrounded by bubbles, her long golden hair cascading down her shoulders and across her back in wet, glistening ropes.

He gave his head an abrupt shake to clear it of the unwelcome image, but the movement finally caused Faith to stir. Yawning, she raised her arms over her head and stretched, then stopped when she felt the unresisting body behind her. Always slow to rouse from slumber, Faith looked around the unfamiliar room with a dazed frown. When she still couldn’t recall where she was, she tilted her head backward on the pillow. Her sleepy gray eyes locked on a pair of warm brown ones.

With a gasp she came fully awake, horrified at the rush of information flooding her mind. Before she could fully process a thought, the next tumbled through her head, worse than the one before. She was, she recalled, at an inn a half day’s drive from London. She was in bed with a man who was, apparently, wearing no shirt. That man was her husband. And she was lying, quite comfortably, within the circle of his arms.

At that last realization, she gave a startled yelp and sat up, frantically clawing her tousled hair from her face. When she could at last see clearly, she looked down at the mess she’d made of the bed and the covers and realized Gareth was not merely shirtless. He was also trouserless.

Heat flooded her cheeks. In a flurry of tangled bedclothes and petticoats, Faith scrambled to escape the bed, catching an ankle in the twisted sheets. She reached for the wall, caught nothing but air, and tumbled unceremoniously to the floor.

Gareth leaned on his side and looked down over the edge of the bed. Faith was sprawled in an angry, undignified heap below. He grinned. “I’m so sorry. May I help you up, my lady?”

Faith glared at him. “You have no clothes on,” she accused.

“You talk in your sleep,” he countered.

Her mouth dropped open. “I do not!”

Gareth gave her a smug smile, happy just to have shaken her from the calm, icy demeanor she’d displayed the previous evening.

Faith realized her mouth was still hanging open and closed it with a snap. “Just what was I doing in that bed anyway?”

Her husband raised his brows. “Sleeping,” he replied, then thought a moment. “And talking.”

“No,” she argued, her teeth clenched in exasperation. “I meant how did I
get
there?”

“I put you there.”

Faith looked perplexed. “Why?” She raised questioning gray eyes to his deep brown ones and held his gaze for a long moment. Something passed between them, an intangible feeling Faith almost recognized. She’d felt it even in their earliest conversations. It was as though she knew him, had always known him. Her eyes softened imperceptibly. “Why, please?”

Gareth, too, felt the impact when her stare met his, but that only served to remind him of all he’d hoped would come of their union—all he now suspected they’d never have. He scowled at her softly put question.

“Because, princess,” he drawled, “you’d be nothing but a damned nuisance to drag about the countryside if you became ill from sleeping on the cold floor.” Abruptly, he rolled from beneath the covers to the far side of the bed, standing and reaching for his trousers.

Behind him he heard Faith’s shocked gasp and the rustle of her wrinkled skirts as she turned away from the sight of his naked form. He dressed quickly and walked to the door. “We’ll depart in half an hour,” he told her, and raked her with a contemptuous glance as she finally turned to look at him. “I trust you can make yourself presentable in that time?”

Faith remained silent, but her lips thinned and two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks—testament to her barely suppressed anger. Gareth gave a low chuckle, opened the door, and left, pulling it firmly closed behind him. An immediate thud on the wooden panel told him he’d just narrowly missed being clobbered by something, most likely one of the slippers she’d worn the day before. An identical thud followed a second later, confirming his theory.

Smiling broadly, Gareth made his way down the narrow hall to the stairs. Provoking his wife beyond the limits of her self-control had definitely improved his mood.

He was nearly finished with his breakfast twenty minutes later when Faith appeared, a sweet expression on her face. She sat down across from him, nodding regally as he politely rose.

“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured, and began eating from the plate a footman set before her, taking delicate bites of the poached egg and creamed beef on toast. There was no hint of the anger she’d displayed earlier, neither in her expression nor demeanor. Gareth sat back down to finish his breakfast, then politely waited for her to do the same.

Faith kept her expression neutral. Inside, though, she seethed with fury. She stole a quick glance at her husband when he bent his head to light a cheroot. He looked a bit impatient, she thought, watching his eyes fall pointedly on her still-full plate.

With immense satisfaction, Faith took a delicate bite half the size of one she’d normally take, laid down her fork, and folded her hands in her lap. Deliberately, she chewed her bite a full twenty times before she picked up the fork again. Four bites later, Gareth finished his cheroot and roughly pushed back his chair. Faith looked up at him, her gray eyes wide with innocence.

“I’ll just go see if the coach is ready, my lady,” he said, hoping she’d take the hint to eat faster. He strongly suspected she was deliberately goading him but couldn’t prove it without giving her the satisfaction of knowing she had succeeded. Refusing to concede even a small victory, he bowed and strode from the dining room without a backward glance.

Faith waited until she was sure her husband had gone, smiled to herself, and began eating at her usual pace. When finished, she counted slowly to one hundred, stood, stretched, then sauntered slowly toward the door. Just before she stepped outside, she pasted a calm, serene smile on her face and glided out into the inn yard.

Gareth was pacing impatiently back and forth in front of the lowered steps of the coach. When he caught sight of her, he stopped and waited beside the steps to help her inside. “We’ve a great deal of time to make up if we’re to reach Rothmere before nightfall,” he stated flatly, a note of reproach in his voice.

Faith nodded in apparent deference, her eyes cast carefully downward to conceal the gleeful glint she knew must be there. This, she vowed silently, would be the longest, most frustrating trip of her husband’s life. Between not allowing her to express her misgivings before the wedding, his surly demeanor during the ride to the inn, and the entire farce of a wedding night they’d just shared, she’d had enough. And the peremptory way he’d begun ordering her about this morning had quite pushed her over the edge.

She climbed in and settled comfortably back against the velvet seat, watching through the open door as Gareth issued some last-minute instructions to the coachman. In profile, his face was starkly handsome, a face the great artists of the Renaissance would have loved to capture on canvas. Something one of the outriders said made him break into sudden laughter, and Faith felt her heart constrict wistfully. Laughter transformed his face from a thing of chiseled beauty to one of boyish roguishness, but the metamorphosis vanished when he climbed into the coach, the momentary glow of humor fading and turning his eyes from warm chocolate back into glittering chips of obsidian.

Faith swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat and looked down at her hands, willing herself to remember the reasons they were at odds. With that forced memory, her resolve came flooding back, restoring her serenity.

They’d only been traveling twenty minutes when Faith delicately cleared her throat. “My lord?” She made her voice as weak as she could manage.

Gareth looked up from the document he was reading. “What?” he asked, his voice curt.

“May we stop a moment, please?” she asked. “I’m quite unused to traveling at this speed, and I’m afraid I’m feeling rather ill.”

Gareth bit back obvious annoyance. “Perhaps if we slow down a bit,” he suggested, though clearly loath to lose more time and possibly end up spending another night on the road.

Faith shook her head. “No, my lord,” she protested with a hand to her stomach. “I really
must
get out for a moment.”

She looked as if she would retch at any moment, so Gareth rapped abruptly on the roof. Seconds later the horses slowed and came to a halt. As soon as the doors opened, Faith bolted from the coach, leaving Gareth to stare curiously after her. Funny, he thought, he’d never imagined he would see Faith bolt anywhere. Mostly she seemed to glide from place to place.

Faith slipped into a grove of elm trees without looking back at the coach. She walked until she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, then turned and crept carefully back until she could just make out Gareth’s conveyance. Nobody had followed to be sure she was all right, she saw thankfully. Gareth was still standing near the door, staring at the grove of trees.

For a moment it seemed his eyes met hers, and Faith shrank back involuntarily. She leaned against a tree trunk and for the second time that day counted to one hundred. Then, carefully, she peered at the carriage again. Gareth was pacing alongside the road, looking like a thundercloud. Faith smiled to herself and smugly counted backward from one hundred.

When she reached zero, she straightened from the tree trunk upon which she leaned and smoothed her skirts. Carefully, she pulled a couple strands of hair from the sedate chignon she’d fashioned that morning. Satisfied, she sauntered slowly out of the woods and back up to the waiting coach.