Reckless Viscount (33 page)

“I bet you wish you had slowed your pace.”

“Not at all,” Abbigael replied quickly. “This place is magnificent.”

Leif paused and eyed her with an odd look, as if he didn’t quite believe her.

“Well, given time…” His voice trailed off as he looked around. Then clearing his throat, he pushed his hand back through is hair, ruffling the damp locks. “Mr. and Mrs. Davies, the caretakers of Dunwood Park, are occupied today with a wedding in the village. I had planned on interviewing for other servants tomorrow so we are on our own until morning.” He gestured toward the stairway. “Several bedrooms have been aired and cleaned. I hope,” he muttered with suppressed exasperation, then continued on a lighter note. “The kitchen is in working order and stocked with some basic items, so we won’t starve.”

“Excellent,” Mrs. Helmstead interjected with a clap of her hands. “I will just go to my room and refresh myself, then head to the kitchen to fix us all a light repast.”

Without waiting for a response, the old bird strode confidently toward the back hallway from which Leif had previously appeared.

Taking a few steps after her, Leif called out hastily. “Ah, a servant stair leads up to the second floor where you should find a room to suit your needs. The kitchen is on the ground floor in the south wing. When you come back down the stairs you will need to turn down the hallway to your right.”

Mrs. Helmstead’s chuckle bounced around the empty hall. She called back over her shoulder as she turned the corner out of sight. “Goodness, my lord, it’s as if you expect me to get lost. I know where I am about.”

Leif looked to Abbigael with his brows raised in question and she smiled.

“Mrs. Helmstead believes she has returned to her childhood home.”

Leif nodded in understanding. “I probably should have sent you a word of warning about what you’d find here. The place is in worse shape than I expected. The last fourteen years have done significant damage.”

“It has been that long since you were last in residence?”

“Since
anyone
had been in residence and another decade more since my father had spent any time here,” he replied in a distracted tone. His sharp gaze roamed over the details of neglect that surrounded them. Stalking to the fireplace in long strides, he smoothed his palm over an area of carved granite that had been chipped violently away by some long-ago striking force.

“Finally, I have the means and the freedom to change that,” he said quietly enough that Abbigael could barely make out the words. But she did hear them and understood that he was referring to the fortune her father had released to him the day of the ball. “When I am finished, Dunwood Park will no longer be a godforsaken reminder of our family’s cursed history.”

“Not godforsaken,” Abbigael argued gently. “The years have not done so much harm as to hide the natural strength and beauty still present all about.”

She stood silent as her husband turned to face her.

His eyes were guarded in a way she had not seen before. There had always been a shadow behind the sparkle of mischief and teasing seduction that shone in his gaze. Here, at this monolithic castle that was his childhood home and the legacy he was clearly desperate to restore, the sparkle was all but extinguished. And the shadow had grown, welling up from that place within himself he had not yet chosen to share with her.

Sadness filled her for the little boy who had been left to grow up as neglected as the cold, dark castle itself and she shivered with the chill of recognition that swept through her. She understood the darkness in her husband. The same loneliness resided within herself.

She had always believed the adage that said the eyes were windows to the soul. And since she had met Leif, though he was far better than most at only revealing what he wished to, she had felt as though somehow she had been able to see beyond the façade he presented to the rest of the world.

But now, he was more guarded than he had ever been before. His eyelids were lowered, shielding his gaze from her view.

And she felt the loss of intimacy deep in her core. A choking sadness urged her to retreat, but Abbigael couldn’t bring herself to deny her own desires.

Because she wanted him.

Because sadly, she realized in that exact moment that she loved him.

She lowered her gaze, anxious to conceal the unexpected emotion, too tender and too vulnerable to share.

“I have kept you standing in the hall long enough. You must be cold and weary from travel. I will show you to the room that has been prepared for you.”

Abbigael had no desire to rest.

Four days away from Leif had been an unexpected lesson in a new kind of longing. She hadn’t realized how much she had grown accustomed to his presence until it was gone.

She had missed him and she had no patience for being coy.

“I would rather you showed me to yours.”

At her honest declaration, a flicker of something unrecognizable appeared in his gaze then flitted away. But not before Abbigael saw it and stiffened at the chill she felt in that fleeting moment.

Leif lowered his eyelids over his gaze then lifted them again as he smiled.

Abbigael knew him well enough now to realize it was a practiced smile.

Her heart skipped a beat, but she wasn’t sure if it was in anticipation or apprehension. There was little warmth in the sensual smile that spread his lips. He had never looked at her in that way before and her stomach twisted uneasily even as her body reacted with instinctive readiness to the suggestion in his gaze.

Stopping before her, he lifted his hand to sweep the back of his knuckles against the curve of her cheek. Then he took her hand and brought it to his lips. Kissing her chilled and sensitive palm, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. The swirling colors were dark with mystery.

“If that is your wish.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Leif pushed open the door to his bedroom and gestured for Abbigael to enter.

As she passed by, he caught a whiff of her scent. Her sweet freshness in the midst of the crumbling decay that surrounded them struck him as terribly incongruent. She didn’t belong in this dank and wretched place.

Dunwood Park was in far worse shape than he had expected. His father had succeeded in his goal of ensuring that nothing of value would pass to his only son. The jumbled collection of ramparts and towers and wings had been battered and rundown during Leif’s youth, but he was surprised by how much the place had deteriorated in the years he had been gone. Very little of the house’s current state recalled Leif to how it had been when he had left it for the last time to make his way through the boudoirs of London.

Even his old bedroom had been stripped bare when he’d arrived. He had been forced to go on a hunt through the house for his old furniture and other personal possessions. Luckily, the items held no real monetary value and had just been moved to storage rather than sold. It took an entire day, but his room nearly looked as it had when he was young. A large bed dressed in muted blue-grey coverings took up one wall. Across from it was a modest chest of drawers, a bookcase lined with heavy tomes and an old padded-leather chair that was turned toward the fireplace.

Leif watched from the doorway as Abbigael walked slowly about the room. Seeing her here hit him in the gut with a jolt of discomfort. He was prepared to face the hardships of living in the empty stone shell of Dunwood Park until it could be made suitable for human existence. The majority of the work would take months. She would be miserable within a fortnight of struggling to retain her footing in this uncertain place.

She didn’t deserve this, he thought as he watched her inspect the details of his bedroom. Did she find the room lacking? Of course she did. It
was
lacking.

Leif pushed his hand back through his hair and stepped forward into the room. “The master suite is in an older part of the house and is currently uninhabitable,” he said in a voice harder than he intended in his attempt to keep from sounding apologetic. “We will have to make do with using the lesser apartments for the meantime.”

He had already set up another guest room for her. Something grander. He had stumbled upon some feminine-styled furniture and bed coverings in a shade of green only slightly darker than Abbigael’s eyes during his search for his personal items. They had likely belonged to his mother and so had escaped his father’s notice when he had needed funds for his London lifestyle. His father would have stayed far away from anything that had once belonged to Leif’s mother.

“The work that must be done to make this place even barely livable will no doubt take me a lifetime,” he explained as she continued to peruse the room in silence.

Abbigael turned to him and smiled with encouragement. “With my help, perhaps only half a lifetime.”

Leif did not respond. The optimism and hope in her expression made him feel like a cad, reminding him that she had expectations he could never fulfill.

He recalled Lady Carlisle’s words again, a phrase that had been echoing through his head for days.

“It doesn’t change who you are.”

She had been right. Nothing could change the man he had become. The man that history, his father and cursed bloodlines had made him. He was the Viscount Neville, a position that had been doomed for generations to being carried out in wasted lifetimes. Leif had always believed the family legend about a curse was an excuse created by one of his ancestors as a means of deflecting from his own monstrous shortcomings. But he had recently started to re-think that. Leif may have gotten the fortune he needed, but he had already solidified his path of destruction. He would always be what he had been since that night long ago when he crawled from his lover’s bed and accepted the gold she had offered in gratitude.

Abbigael remained still in the center of the room. She met his gaze with wavering pride that held strong in spite of the uncertainty he saw in her eyes. She looked awkward and out of place as if she were starting to sense that things were not so rose-colored as she would like.

Leif told himself it was a good thing. She had to start seeing him for what he really was. She had to learn to accept a different future than what she had hoped for herself.

He could be her lover, a role he knew well how to play. It was a sad delusion to think he could be anything more.

His delusion and hers.

“Come here, Irish,” he commanded in a low voice.

He saw her lips part and her eyes dilate in anticipation. Yet she hesitated. Something she had not done since their marriage.

An internal struggle was taking place within him. His newfound conscience warred with his desire. But in that brief and sudden moment when she paused, Leif knew he could not bear for her to turn away from him. Not yet.

Leif held out his hand to her and smiled, an easy, sexy grin designed to soothe skittish nerves and stir sensual currents.

She finally slid her small hand into his and stepped up to him. He knew by the way she lowered her gaze that she felt a need to guard against him. The wrenching twist in his gut started to mellow to a hollow ache. He was already losing her trust.

“Tell me what you want, sweetheart.”

She licked her lips and lifted her chin so her eyes met his. The impact of the emotion present and visible in her crystalline gaze hit him like a thunderclap.

“Make love to me.” Her reply was half-plea, half-command.

Leif swallowed hard and lifted his hand to trail his fingertips down the side of her throat until he reached the fastenings of her traveling jacket. She stood still and compliant as he released all of the moorings then eased the jacket from her shoulders and tossed it aside. He turned her around and began working on the delicate buttons of her dress that ran down the length of her back. His fingers felt stiff and uncooperative as he worked at the familiar task. His proficiency at undressing the female figure dropped away with each inch of her body that he uncovered.

He wanted to savor the moment, already knowing it may never again be quite like this.

When she stood clad in only her underclothes and boots, he trailed his fingers down the length of her spine, watching as chills lifted the fine hairs on her pale skin. He could do this at least, give her body pleasure even if he could not give her the joy she deserved.

Her body softened and relaxed beneath his touch. He hooked the strap of her chemise and dragged it down over her shoulder. Slowly, intentionally. Though he couldn’t see it, he imagined the lace-edged top grazing past her nipples and fluttering over her belly as her chemise fell to the floor and his body tightened painfully with a heady rush of sexual need.

Sliding his hands to the curve of her hips, he urged her to turn and face him, her body pale and beautiful in the muted light of the rainy afternoon. His throat felt tight with emotions too uncomfortable to acknowledge and he said nothing at all as he began unlacing her boots and removing them one at a time before rolling her stockings down and easing them from her feet.

Finally, she stood naked before him. Her gaze was soft and slightly unfocused as she looked at him from beneath a thick fringe of lowered lashes. She waited for him, her anticipation as palpable as his own thundering desire.