Married to the Viscount (33 page)

“You are not paying that woman any more visits,” Spencer ordered as he hurried her through the house. He nearly stumbled in a corridor, the only indication that he wasn’t quite in command of his faculties. But he caught himself quickly enough to continue their ridiculous march. “Not tomorrow, not ever.”

“You’re insane.” As they halted in the foyer, Abby wrenched her hand from his grasp. “I may be your pretend wife, but that gives you no right to choose my friends.”

“Watch your tongue, for God’s sake,” Spencer hissed, jerking his head toward the footmen standing nearby.

“Why? You certainly aren’t bothering to do so. At least I’m speaking sense.”

With a sullen scowl, Spencer ordered a footman to call for his carriage, then turned back to Abby. “I’m merely looking out for my wife.”

“By embarrassing her before the world? Tell me something, Spencer. If Lady Brumley is such an untrustworthy gossip, why on earth would you give her something to gossip about by behaving like a complete madman in front of her?”

He opened his mouth to retort, then shut it. Good. At least the idiot had enough sense left in his brandy-soaked head to realize she was right.

A footman helped her on with her pelisse, while another edged close enough to offer Spencer his coat and hat. Spencer grabbed both and clapped his hat on his head, but he
dropped his coat. When Abby reached for it, he glared at her as he bent to snatch it up himself. Surprisingly, he didn’t overset himself, but he fared less well with getting it on.

He finally threw the thing over his arm with a mumbled “It’s not cold enough for a coat.” When she merely raised an eyebrow, he added, “I’m not foxed, I tell you.”

“No, of course not,” she said primly. “Eau de brandy is all the fashion these days.”

A profound change came over him. He looked wild, almost desperate. “What have those women done to you?”

She blinked at him. “What women?”

“Lady Brumley. And Clara. You used to be so—”

“Your carriage is here, my lord,” the footman said.

Spencer nodded, then offered his arm to Abby. “Come on then.”

Abby hesitated. “What about Evelina and Lady Tyndale?”

“They got tired of waiting for you and found another way home.”

The implied criticism sparked her temper again. Only with difficulty did Abby hold her tongue until they were inside the carriage.

But the minute they were in their seats and headed home, she tore into Spencer. “Isn’t it enough that I’ve spent half my time learning the waltz and how to curtsy and a thousand other ridiculous rules that I’ll never use after this? Must I also put up with your bad moods and your controlling ways and—”

“I don’t give a damn if you learn to waltz. But you promised to see our sham marriage out to the end, and I won’t have you breaking your promise.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lady Brumley and the money she gave you.” He leaned forward, his fierce gaze lit by the carriage lamps. “I know about the fifty pounds. And whatever other funds she handed you tonight.”

Abby gaped at him. “She didn’t hand me any other funds. She did give me a fifty-pound note last week, but that’s all.”

“She gave you something tonight, too,” he persisted. “You put it in your reticule.”

As it dawned on her what he meant, she opened her reticule. “It wasn’t money.” Finding the papers Lady Brumley had given her earlier, she thrust them at him. “It’s a contract with that apothecary who’s selling Heaven’s Scent. She wanted me to look it over before I signed it.”

When he unfolded the sheet to find that she was telling the truth, he seemed only slightly mollified.

She snatched it back from him. “And anyway, it’s none of your concern what she gives me.”

With a steely glint to his eyes, he grabbed her hand before she could put the contract away. “I thought you said half of the business belongs to me as your husband.”

“You said you didn’t want it, remember?”

“And you said you’d see this out to the end. But now you think to get enough of your own money to buy passage to America and sneak off before I can even stop you.”

So
that
was what had set him off, making him behave like a complete idiot. He still worried about his stupid scandal. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m not sneaking off anywhere. What would make you think that?”

She tried to tug her hand free, but he refused to let go. “You didn’t tell me about the fifty pounds.”

“Why should I? It had nothing to do with you.”

Setting his shoulders mutinously, he extricated the contract from her hand and shoved the folded paper into his coat pocket. “Then you won’t mind if I show this to my solicitor. To make sure Lady Brumley and this Jackson fellow don’t cheat you.”

Of all the low, controlling—“I can handle my own business affairs, thank you very much. And since I’ll have to do
so eventually, I might as well start now.” She held out her hand. “Give it back to me, Spencer.”

“After he’s looked at it. After you’ve fulfilled the terms of our agreement.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable, you know.” Preparing herself for a fight, she stripped off her gloves and stuffed them into her reticule.

“I am not.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t know Lady Brumley like I do.”

“And you don’t know me like you think you do either. I’m not the naive little incompetent you persist in seeing me as. Lady Brumley isn’t taking advantage of me, I assure you. And furthermore—”

She broke off when the carriage shuddered to a halt. The footman swung the door open and Spencer leaped out, then turned to help her down. In the moment when his hands gripped her waist, she reached inside his coat to grab the contract. Then she hurried up the stairs, confident that she could outstrip him in his current state.

But he surprised her by overtaking her at the top. “Damn it, Abby, give me that,” he said, grabbing for her arm.

Thrusting her elbow into his ribs, she spared only a glance to see him stumble back a few steps before she hastened inside. Ignoring his low oath behind her and the footmen’s astonished expressions, she breezed past them, tucking the folded paper down inside her bodice. Spencer would certainly not go there for it, not when he was so determined to stay free of her temptations.

She headed straight for the stairs, hoping to escape to the safety of her room, but Spencer caught up to her on the second step. Swearing under his breath, he seized her by the waist and hauled her back toward his study.

“Stop it!” she protested, digging in her heels. She hadn’t entered his study since that horrible night last week. “I’m not
giving it to you, no matter how you browbeat me.”

Spencer halted. “Unless you want me to grope inside your bodice right here in front of the servants,” he warned in a low voice, “you’d best come along like a good girl.”

Abby glanced back to see three footmen and McFee gaping at them. She blushed. “You wouldn’t dare act so scandalously.”

“After what I just did at the breakfast, do you really think I’d hesitate to act scandalously in front of my servants?”

She swallowed. Good point. This time when he tugged, she went willingly. But as soon as they were inside the study and he’d shut the door, she broke free.

Spencer watched in fury as his wife backed away from him. All right, so he was behaving like a besotted ass, but between the brandy fogging his brain and the nagging fear in his gut that she’d flee to America the second his back was turned, he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

As he stalked toward her, she crossed her arms over her chest, her dark eyes alight with anger. “Don’t you dare try to get this by force.”

“Then give it to me.” Holding out his hand, he approached her. “I won’t have you taking the proceeds of your scent and scurrying off to America when I’m not looking.”

She darted behind his desk. “I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“That was before,” he said as he edged around the desk, “when you thought I would stay married to you. Now you have no reason to stay.”

To his surprise, anger exploded in her face. “Except my promise. Which you apparently think means nothing. I’m only a frivolous American chit, right? I don’t believe in honor or principle or—”

“That’s not what I meant. Where the hell do you get these maggoty ideas?” He rubbed the back of his neck in acute frustration. “I only meant that…well, I know you hate me now. After what I did to you here in this very room—”

“I don’t hate you for that.” Warily, she slid around the opposite end of the desk. “You did me a favor by showing me the futility of my hopes.”

“Ballocks.” Good God, he really was foxed to use such crude language with her. But her dishonesty infuriated him. Abby had never lied to him before. “You’re formal and distant with me…you put on airs as if to mock me—”

“Mock you!” Shock warred with anger in her face. “You warned me off, and I took you at your word. I’m only doing what you wanted.”

“I didn’t want you to turn into this…this…” He scoured her with a contemptuous glance. “This coldhearted creature who never gives a genuine smile and sneaks around behind my back.”

“How dare you!” Color stained her cheeks as she balled her hands into fists at her sides. “Yes, I acted without consulting you, because you wanted that. You wanted me to stay out of your way and not to bother you.”

She had him there. “Yes, but—”

“And as for my airs, you complained when I was the naive foreigner with the thoughtless tongue, trailing after you like a…a lovesick puppy. So I worked hard to make myself the perfect pretend viscountess you thought was necessary to your plans.” To his horror, tears filled her eyes, and she brushed them away fiercely. “But that didn’t please you either. It seems nothing is good enough to please you, Lord Ravenswood.”

Two things hit him at once. One, she’d actually thought that he wanted a perfect viscountess. Two, she still cared enough to want to please him. “I never complained about what you were, only what you wanted from me.”

“It’s the same thing. I wanted to be your wife in truth, and that didn’t suit you. Today I even figured out why. You thought I was just like the stepmother who left you—foolish and reckless and all those things you didn’t want in a viscountess.”

She’d taken everything all wrong. And Liverpool’s stupid words had only made it worse. “You were nothing like Dora, do you hear?” he said firmly. “There was
nothing
wrong with how you were. You were perfect from the beginning.”

She glared at him. “Certainly. I was so perfect that you went to extraordinary lengths to shatter my hopes for our marriage. I was so suitable to be your wife that you…you humiliated me and threatened me.”

Bloody, bloody hell. All this time, he’d been so focused on keeping himself from seducing her that he hadn’t stopped to think how she might see his adamant refusals. “I swear that your suitability had naught to do with it. I told you from the first—”

“Oh, yes, your career prevents you from marrying.” Her bitter sarcasm cut him to the heart. “I’m not an idiot—we both know it has nothing to do with it. In August, Parliament will no longer be in session and you’ll have time to settle in with a wife. If you want to, which you don’t.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “At least not with me.”

Her every word sank him deeper into hell. All this time she’d thought it was she he objected to, while he’d blithely gone on assuming that she’d believed his facile explanations. He should have realized she was too clever for that.

But how could she think he didn’t want her for his wife when he spent every hour aching to keep her? “You’re right, I lied about my career having anything to do with it. But I swear my desire to remain a bachelor had nothing to do with your suitability—”

“Stop it! You’re only saying that because you’re worried about me running off and causing a stupid scandal. Well, I’m not running off, but neither will I stand here and listen to your lies. Whether you like it or not, I’ve got my business going, and I won’t let you interfere just because you don’t trust me to keep my promises.”

Taking him off guard, she lunged for the door. With a
curse, he bounded toward her, somehow managing to intercept her at the end of the desk. Grabbing her by the waist, he lifted her and set her atop the desk, then sandwiched her legs between his thighs to trap her.

She beat at his chest. “Let me go, you…you bully, you!”

“I can’t,” he said hoarsely. He caught her flailing hands and pulled them behind her back. “I know I should. I know it would be better for both of us, but I can’t.” Pure instinct drove him now, instinct and need and a hunger for her that wouldn’t be assuaged. It was pointless to fight it anymore. “I won’t let you go.”

Her struggling lessened as she stared at him, disbelief painfully evident in her face.

Drawing her hands together behind her back, he manacled both with one of his own. “It has nothing to do with a fear of scandal, not anymore. I want you to stay, and I’ll do whatever I must to make sure that you do.”

Lifting his free hand to his mouth, he used his teeth to remove his glove. He kept his eyes on her as he reached inside her bodice to search for the contract. When a purely female gasp erupted from her and her fearful gaze softened, his own need flared into white-hot desire. It took all his control to focus only on searching for the contract between her breasts and not think about tearing her bodice in two so he could feast on the tender flesh that brushed his fingers.

No, he could never let her go. “I don’t want you to leave, not now, not ever.”

A hint of despair crossed her face. “You don’t know what you want.”

“Wrong again.” He found the contract and removed it, tossing it across the room well beyond her reach. Then he leaned close to brush his mouth against her ear, drinking in the lilting fragrance of her hair. “I know exactly what I want. I want you.”

When he kissed her ear and she shivered, he exulted in her
response. He might have wounded her deeply, but at least she still felt this for him. And it had been so long, too long…

“I won’t be your mistress, Spencer,” she whispered. “Not even for a few weeks—”

“I don’t want you to be my mistress.” He should never have made that idle threat. He should have realized from the beginning that he would always want her to stay. That would have saved them both some pain.