Guilty Series (70 page)

Only someone who could make her feel like that could have hurt her so much. Never again. Still, he did have a point about Sir George. She looked up at her secretary. “Remove Sir George's name from the list, Tate.” She glanced at John, saw his smile. “For Dylan's sake,” she added. “I would hate to have fisticuffs break out at a ball and have Dylan get hurt. You may go.”

“Yes, my lady.” Tate took the sheet of names from Viola's outstretched hand and, being a woman of common sense, she did not ask if she was to add Lord Hammond to the guest list. She dropped a curtsy to her and one to Hammond, then departed, closing the door behind her.

John spoke before she did. “Are your trunks packed? I have a cart here to take them. We can ride in my carriage. Which residence did you choose?”

She sighed. They were going to have another fight, and she did not want it. “Hammond, my trunks are not packed. Before you say a word, let me say a few.”

She stood up, facing him across the desk. “We both know that if you wished, you could drag me
off. We both know that if I wished, I could run to the Continent or America and you might never find me. Both those options are undesirable. Divorce is not possible.”

“You and I in agreement? Things are looking up already.”

His voice was still careless and light, but she heard the determination behind it. She used the only recourse she had left. “Before I agree to return to your household, I would like some time to become accustomed to the idea,” she said with dignity.

“Accustomed to what idea? Making love with me again?”

No careless lightness in his voice now. He sounded more than just determined. He sounded angry. What did he have to be angry about, in heaven's name? She was the wronged party here. “The situation of living together.”

“Stalling, Viola? Hoping if you can stall long enough, I will just walk away?”

Yes, damn you
. She looked at him, cool, detached, striving to feel nothing at all. “You always have before,” she answered with a shrug.

He sucked in his breath, and she knew her shot had gone home, but she took no satisfaction in that. She just wanted him to leave. Leave and never come back.

“There she is,” he said, almost as if to himself as
he stared back at her. “The disdainful, unforgiving goddess who looks down at the sorry, flawed mortals below.”

Though it was exactly what she wanted to be when it came to him, his description still stung. Viola's hand tightened around her quill. “And before me is the master of the cutting remark,” she answered.

“Forgive me if your contempt from on high always brings out the worst in me.”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten that the sorry state of our marriage is all my fault.”

“No, it is not all your fault. Nor is it all mine.” He was serious now, and earnest, no sarcastic edge to his voice, no razor-sharp wit attached. He actually sounded sincere, the cad. “I wish you could see that. I have.”

“Have you, indeed?”

“Yes.”

She watched him lean closer to her, resting his hands on the polished rosewood top of her desk. She looked down at her husband's long, strong fingers and wide palms. She remembered how it felt when those hands had caressed her. She also knew how it felt when she imagined his hands on some other woman's body. Even now, after all he had done, it still hurt to think of it, and that was why she hated him. By all rights it should not hurt anymore. Her icy shell began to crack.

“I am not the one who was unfaithful,” she
choked. “I am not the one who lied. But I am the one who has spent eight long years alone.”

“Just because a man has a mistress, it doesn't mean he isn't alone, Viola.”

Was that supposed to make her feel some sort of empathy for
him
? She stared at his hands, and pride came to her rescue, as it so often had before. She sat down and returned her attention to the papers spread out before her. “Then go find yourself a new mistress. I'll wait to read about how
alone
you are with her in the society papers.”

“Here we go again,” he muttered with a sigh. He moved around her desk to stand just behind her chair. “This is what always happens when you and I are in the same room for more than ten minutes,” he said. “We start finding fault, placing blame, bringing out the worst in each other. Five minutes ago I almost made you laugh, and now we're at each other's throats. How do we manage to do that?”

She bit her lip.

He moved closer. His hip brushed her shoulder. “I do not want us to spend our lives finding endless ways to tear each other apart. It takes too much out of me.”

“I do not want that, either,” she said quietly. “But nor do I want to live with you again.”

“You have made that quite clear over the years, believe me. Saying it yet again is not necessary.”

Whatever she said was the wrong thing, it
seemed. “Do you intend to honor my request or not?” she asked as if it were a matter of supreme indifference to her either way.

“You are only postponing the inevitable.”

“Perhaps.” She turned her head and looked up at him. “Perhaps not.”

“I am not going to walk away, Viola. Not this time.”

Of course he would walk away. He always did. It was just a matter of time before he left her. Then the pretty face or shapely figure of some woman would draw his attention, catch his desire, and she would have to sit across from that woman at some party. Again.

He saw her thoughts in her countenance. He raked a hand through his hair. “How much time are you asking for?”

The rest of our lives.
She thought about how long it would take him to give up and walk away and leave her in peace. “Three months.”

“Not a prayer.” He walked back around her desk and faced her. “I shall give you three weeks.”

“You are not serious.”

“Three weeks, Viola. And during those three weeks, we are going to be spending a great deal of time together.”

She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. “That is not possible. We both have commitments, engagements—”

“We shall be forced to rearrange some of them.
We are going to spend time with each other.”

Panic swamped her. “Time to do what? We have no mutual friends. Except for Dylan and Grace, of course, and only because they refuse to take sides. We have no shared interests, nothing to talk about, nothing in common.”

“We used to find plenty of things to talk about. And plenty of things to do. Remember?”

There was something almost tender in that last word. She ignored it. “We do not even go to the same parties. We move in utterly different circles.”

“That is going to change. It won't be long before Lord and Lady Hammond begin receiving the same invitations about town. I shall see to it.”

“Oh, heavens,” she said, appalled. “I was right. You
do
live to torture me.”

“If there is ever going to be a truce between us, it starts with being together, whether we are living in the same house or not.”

“I don't want a truce. I don't want to be together.”

“But you do want time,” he pointed out. “You want those three weeks, you agree to the terms. Otherwise, I will petition the House of Lords right now and you and I will be sharing the same house and the same bed in about two days.”

He meant it. When John got that amber-hard look in his eyes, there was no moving him. She had learned that from bitter experience. “Very well,” she said, capitulating even as resentment filled her that she had no choice but to do so.
“Three weeks it is. But I warn you, Hammond, I am going to do everything I can to make you see this attempt at reconciliation is futile and that it would be better to abandon it altogether.”

“I am warned, then. Be ready Wednesday at two o'clock.”

“Where are we going?”

“I'm taking you to my house in Bloomsbury Square.”

She eyed him with suspicion and a hint of alarm. “Whatever for?”

“No need to look so distressed, Viola. I'm not kidnapping you. I simply want you to see the place. If you choose that as our London residence when the three weeks are up, you might wish to make some changes to it beforehand.”

“I doubt it.”

“You may spend whatever you like.”

“Thank you so much for your generosity, Hammond, in putting my income from Anthony at my disposal, but—”

“And my income as well,” he interrupted. “The estates and investments of the viscountcy are highly profitable, and that is thanks to both of us.”

She hated it when he was reasonable. That made her feel some stupid sense of obligation that she had to be the same, and she did not want to be reasonable where he was concerned. “I appreciate your offer to allow me to redecorate your house,”
she said with complete insincerity, “but to my mind, it is an exercise in futility.”

“Your unwillingness to take on this project baffles me,” he said. “I fail to understand why you are not overjoyed at the prospect.”

“Overjoyed?” She looked up at him, saw a teasing gleam come into his eyes.

“Yes,” he answered. “You love to redecorate. You always have. And this provides you with the perfect excuse to go shopping at my expense. Given such an offer, any other man's wife would be jumping up to shower him with grateful kisses.”

“You only wish.”

“Indeed I do. I live for the day. Of course, when that day arrives, I shall probably be overcome by the shock and expire on the spot. And then you'll be sorry you didn't shower me with kisses long ago.”

Don't tease me. Don't. Just go away.
She drew in her breath and let it out slowly. “I can never make up my mind which side of your wit I dislike more,” she said. “The razor-sharp kind that can cut others to pieces, or the clever, amiable kind that others find so charming.”

“There was a time when you loved them both. The irony is that neither of them have ever expressed my deeper nature.” With that enigmatic comment, he bowed and walked away.

“I mean it, Hammond,” she called after him. “We are not reconciling!”

“The odds of it do look slim,” he agreed. “I must place a bet for my side at Brooks's. I shall rake in a substantial sum when I win.”

She felt a pang of dismay. “They are betting on our reconciliation at Brooks's?”

He stopped and looked at her with surprise at the question. “Of course. And White's. And Boodles, too, I understand. Will Lady Hammond return to the marriage bed before the season is over? And what will Hammond do if she doesn't?”

She gave a moan of mortification. “God save us poor women from gentlemen and their clubs.”

“Buck up, Viola,” he advised, grinning. “It is quite a compliment to your stubbornness and strength of will that the odds are currently favoring you by a substantial margin.”

“Only because all the men think I am such a shrew you won't be able to stick it,” she said dryly.

He laughed, the wretch. Leaning one shoulder on the doorjamb, he folded his arms. “I will not discuss what is said in the clubs. No woman should ever know what men talk about among themselves. Your sex would be so appalled that we should never enjoy the pleasures of your company again.”

“A great loss to women everywhere.”

“It would be a great loss, for the human race would die out.” He turned and disappeared
through the doorway, but his voice echoed back to her as he walked down the corridor toward the stairs. “Wednesday, Viola. Two o'clock.”

He always managed to have the last word. Hateful man. Spending time with him was the last thing she wanted to do. Still, it was better than living with him, and she did gain a three-week reprieve today. She just hoped waiting him out was a strategy that would work, for she had no other options.

T
wo days later John had cause to wonder if his idea to show Viola his town house might have been unwise.

He had begun leasing the London residence for the season two years earlier, when he and Viola stopped pretending for society that they had any kind of a marriage. He was the one to take that final step away, deciding there was no point in keeping up a conventional appearance during the season when everyone in the ton knew they lived separate lives the rest of the year. More than that, he had been unable to tolerate one more tortuous spring of separate bedrooms. It hurt too much, knowing the door to hers was never open for him.

Now, as his carriage took them toward his house, the only sound was the light spring rain that danced on the leather roof. Viola maintained the distant, untouchable demeanor that had become so characteristic of her over the years, the
cold goddess he despised. It always flicked him on the raw and brought out the most sarcastic side of his nature, because that demeanor was so uncharacteristic of the laughing, passionate girl he had married. That girl had given him some of the most enjoyable pleasures of his life, but she was little more than a hazy memory to him now. He hated the judgmental creature who had taken her place, especially because he knew he was partly to blame for the transformation.

He studied his wife as the carriage made the slow crawl up New Oxford Street. She was staring out the window, refusing to even look at him, and as he thought about the change in her that time had wrought, he felt no anger this time, just an odd emptiness. He had lost something valuable when that girl vanished eight years ago. Something beautiful and fragile. Something he could never get back.

Her unwillingness to see his side of what had gone wrong was something he did not know if he could ever break down. Charm and wit had worked to win her so long ago, but things were different now, so much damage had been done by both of them, and he did not know if he could ever charm her enough or be witty enough to coax her back.

He knew he had put on a good show the other day, but the blithe confidence he displayed to her was pretense. He wondered as he looked at
her smooth, expressionless profile if he could ever make her want him as she once had. Two days ago he'd almost made her laugh. There might have been a tiny hint there of the girl he had married so long ago, but today that hint was gone. She had kept him waiting in Tremore's drawing room for half an hour before coming down, and had not spoken a word to him since then. A truce, a passionate wife, and a son all seemed a long way off.

The carriage pulled into Bloomsbury Square and came to a stop before his door. The footman opened the door and unfolded the steps. John exited first and held out his hand to Viola. She hesitated, looking not at him but at his gloved hand. After a moment, she placed her own hand over it, allowed him to help her down, and they went inside.

Compared to Enderby, their villa in Chiswick, this house was plain. He had only a few servants, for he never entertained here. It had some furnishings, a few carpets and paintings, and plenty of books, but little else.

As he watched her take in her surroundings, he felt compelled to speak. “You see? It is quite sparse. That is why I thought you might wish to purchase some things for it.”

She did not reply. She pulled out her hat pin, took off her hat, shook it to release the droplets of rain that clung to the straw, then wove the pin through one side of the crown.

She had always hated wearing hats, he remembered, watching her. That was something he'd always liked about her. When a woman had hair like sunlight, hiding it under a bonnet was a tragedy.

She studied the limestone floor of the foyer, the polished walnut staircase, and the butter-colored walls, then without a word, she started toward the back of the house, carrying her hat in one hand.

He gave her a tour of the rooms on the ground floor, then took her through the kitchens and the servants' quarters. The entire time, she said nothing.

“We could find a bigger town house next season,” he told her as he led her to the drawing room. “This one is a bit small for entertaining.”

She did not even bother to nod, and his pessimistic thoughts during the carriage ride began to deepen into downright gloom. His reference to next season got no rise out of her, and it ought to have. When he could spark her feisty side, when she was quarreling with him, he knew what he was dealing with, knew she felt something. This cold silence was what he loathed, and though he wanted to break it, he did not know how.

“The drawing room is here,” he told her as he gestured to a set of open doors on the first floor.

She started into the room, then stopped so abruptly he almost ran into her from behind. “Heavens above, I don't believe it,” she mur
mured, the first words she had spoken in the hour and a half they had been together. She took several steps into the room and made a slow turn, staring about her in complete surprise.

John watched her, tense, wondering if she would notice the first thing that had struck him about this room.

“Pink wallpaper,” she murmured, confirming that she had, indeed, noticed. She looked at him in disbelief. “You leased a house with pink wallpaper.”

“It is crimson, Viola,” he said, contradicting her, “not pink.”

“Crimson?” she cried, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no, Hammond, that won't do. It is pink. Rose-pink.” To his utter astonishment, she smiled. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Even more astonishing, she began to laugh, a low chuckle deep in her throat. “John Hammond, of all men, with a pink drawing room. Who would have thought it?”

He stared at her, feeling rooted to the floor as he listened to her laughter. It was something he had not heard in years, yet it was so familiar. No woman laughed like Viola, low and throaty like that. So wicked, and so erotic, and from a woman who looked like an angel, that laugh had always been able to arouse him in the space of a heartbeat. It still did. He felt desire flaring up inside him with sudden, unexpected force.

“Hammond, whatever is the matter?” she asked as he continued to stare at her while arousal coursed through his body, thick and and warm.

“I remember that sound,” he murmured. “I always loved the way you laugh.”

Her laughter stopped. Her smile faded. The grandfather clock began to chime, and she looked away. “Four o'clock already?” she said, and started toward the door. “You had best show me the rest quickly. Lady Fitzhugh's dinner party begins at eight, and I must return to Grosvenor Square and change.”

He forced down the lust that had flared up so suddenly, but could not stop hearing that low, throaty chuckle in his mind as they started up to the second floor. Viola's erotic laugh. How could he ever have forgotten the sound of it and what it did to him?

At the second floor, he turned left and led her down a short corridor. “Our suite of rooms is here,” he said, opening a door about halfway down the corridor. “This one will be yours. Mine adjoins it.”

Viola hesitated a moment, then stepped into the bedchamber. She glanced around at the grayish-blue walls, darker blue draperies and walnut furnishings, but expressed no opinion of the room.

“Repaint if you like,” he said, following her through the doorway and moving to stand beside
her. “I know you do not care for blue walls,” he went on, glancing at her as he spoke, “so—”

He broke off, watching her as she stared straight ahead, saw the sudden hardness in her face and the way her brows drew together. He heard the rustle of straw and looked down to see that she was clenching the brim of her hat so tightly the straw was crumpling in her gloved hand.

Following her gaze across the room, he realized she was looking through the doorway into his bedchamber. He returned his attention to her as she stared at the bed itself, a wide comfortable affair with thick feather mattresses, fat down pillows, and maroon velvet coverlet. There was no mistaking the pain in her face.

He felt impelled to speak. “Since I have lived here, no woman has slept in these rooms, Viola.”

She turned away without replying and walked to the walnut armoire. Her back to him, she opened it and began to examine the empty interior as if it were a matter of vast importance.

He wished he could think of something to say that would make her laugh again. He wished she would say something—talk about the furnishings, mention she liked the Gainsborough on the wall, say that yes, she would repaint this room—anything. When she did speak, her question caught him completely off guard.

“What is your intention, Hammond?” she asked
without turning around. “When the three weeks are over, and if I do not fight you in the House, and if we resume a life together, are you going to begin imposing your husbandly rights immediately?”

He blinked. “What?”

“It's a straightforward question.” She faced him, but lowered her chin at once. She stared at the carpet beneath her feet, tapping the hat in her hand against her thigh. When he did not reply, she looked at him. “Are you?”

Christ
. John let out his breath in a slow sigh. The brutal truth that had kept them apart—that making love with him would be as distasteful to her now as it had been throughout most of their marriage—was one he kept shoving out of his mind. Even the other day, when she'd asked for time to get used to the idea of living with him again, he hadn't wanted to think about that. But now, standing in the bedchamber that would be hers, faced with a question like that, asked like that, it was something he could no longer shove aside to think about later.

He'd known resuming a life together was going to be awkward and difficult, but to have her looking at him as if she were actually afraid, and asking when he intended to start imposing his husbandly rights…how the hell was any man supposed to answer a question like that?

John rubbed a hand over his face, utterly at a
loss. Viola, timid about making love? He couldn't believe it.

He thought again of the early days of their marriage, and though it had been a long time, the uninhibited way Viola had once made love with him was something he had never forgotten, something that made her contempt for him so much harder to bear. Looking at her now, he felt dismay hit him like a kick in the stomach. What if he could never make her feel that way again? What sort of life would they have?

“God, Viola,” he said, forcing the words out past the sudden sick fear that clenched his guts, “is it all gone? All of it?”

She frowned in perplexity at the question. “What do you mean?”

“There was a time when all I had to do was look at you, or you would look at me, and we were racing for the nearest bed.”

She winced and glanced away. “Don't.”

“There used to be sparks between us,” he went on. “And fire. I remember how you used to love it when I touched you. God knows, I loved it when you touched me.” As he spoke, he could feel desire rising up again, the desire that had been burning deep within him like banked coals when he'd heard her laugh again. “It was good with us once. Remember?”

Her face suffused with color, her chin quivered. She did not look at him.

He pushed, knowing he had to make her remember what it had been like back then. “Hot and wild and good. I can't believe you've forgotten how it felt when we made love. The ache, the burn, the bliss—”

“Stop it!” she cried, and threw her hat at him.

The bonnet swirled into his chest, bounced off, and fell to the floor in a flutter of straw, silk, and feathers. He stepped over it, his thoughts, words, and memories setting his body on fire. “Are we now reduced to talking about the way we make love as something I will impose on you? Is there none of that magic left between us? Do not tell me we destroyed it all.”

“I didn't destroy anything!” she burst out. “You did.”

John didn't give a damn right now who was to blame or for what. She could still arouse him as quick as lighting a match, and he had to find out if he could still do the same to her. If he couldn't, there was no hope. As he took another step closer, she took one back, hitting the open armoire behind her.

“You said the other day that our life together was hell,” he went on, pulling up long-buried memories as he spoke. “But when I look back, I don't think of it that way. I remember how much fun it was. I remember you always liked making love in the mornings best, and how we used to eat breakfast in bed. Blackberry jam was always your favorite.”

She turned as if to flee, but he was in front of her before she could. Enough running away for both of them. He brought his arms up on either side of hers, trapping her, gripping the shelf of the armoire behind her. He leaned down closer to her, inhaling a soft, delicate fragrance he needed no time to recognize. Violets. She still smelled like violets.

He thought of the mornings so long ago when he'd wakened to that scent and her warmth filling his senses. He closed his eyes, breathing in, images of the past flashing through his mind—their wedding journey into Scotland and three months at a secluded cottage there, making love and more love, with her tawny hair falling across his face like golden sunlight. Autumn in Northumberland and the massive mahogany bed at Hammond Park, snowy muslin sheets, the scent of violets and Viola all around him. Lust coursed through his body as he thought of all those mornings when he'd kissed blackberry jam off her lips for breakfast. Perhaps she was right about their life together being hell, because right now his body was getting hotter than hellfire. But it was a lovely way to burn.

“I remember how bad you are at chess,” he went on, his eyes closed, saying anything he could think of about those early days. “I remember racing horses on the downs with you, and how you'd tear off your hat and toss it up in the air, laughing.
And how much I always liked the way you laugh.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Even though you look like an angel, you've got a laugh lustier than any courtesan could ever have.”