The Duke's Bedeviled Bride (Royal Pains Book 2) (13 page)

Though it killed him to do so, he pulled out of the kiss. “That is not the kind of marriage I want, either.”

“Then what kind do you want?”

Grinning lasciviously, he said, “I would much rather show than tell you.”

Complicity twinkled in her eyes. “What about the coachman?”

“Bugger the coachman.”

She giggled. “Only if you watch.”

His heart winced in protest. “Do not suggest such a thing, even in jest.”

Concern furrowed her brow. “Did you not enjoy watching me with Juliette?”

“I confess I did not.”

A smile danced on her lips, the minx. “Because you were jealous?”

“Aye. Insanely so.”

“It gladdens me to hear it,” she said, looking pleased with herself.

“I shall be true, Maggie,” he said with all sincerity. “Please believe me. I would give up anything and everything to make you happy.”

“I do believe you. And shall miss you fiercely.”

“I’ll miss you just as fiercely.”

The closeness of their bodies had made him hard underneath her. Lifting her hips, she took him into her. He thrust upwards, burying his full length in her enveloping humidity. The sensation was so sweetly sublime he nearly howled like a wolf. How he would miss the heaven of her body when he was in London. Hell, he’d pine for a repeat of this state of grace long before he got there.

He cast the thought away. Better to focus on the here and now. They were together, their bodies joined in the most sacred form of communion he’d ever known, and nothing else mattered. Not the king, not the pope, not even his devious brother.

Reaching up, he caught her face with his hands and pulled her mouth down upon his. He kissed her with passion, lips parted, tongue plunging deep.

As they kissed, he drove into her with gusto time and again. The erotic slapping of their merged bodies was music to his ears. He was all striving virility and she was all welcoming lushness. And she was his. His wife. His Rosebud. His angel from above.

Save me, Maggie.

As he pounded her with abandon, the orgasm gathered in his cods until it bordered on pain. Then, the exquisite tension released, shot up his shaft, and burst like a skyrocket. As pleasure exploded through his body, he shuddered and groaned into her mouth.

She sat up and smiled down at him.
 

Looking up at her, his heart overflowing, he was surprised to find he had tears in his eyes.

“Tell me you love me, Rosebud.”

She touched his face with a tenderness that made him ache to his core. “I love you,” she whispered, “with every scrap of my being.”

“I love you, too.” His voice cracked and his heart broke as he said the words. “Just as much. And shan’t know a moment’s happiness until I am back in your arms once more.”

Chapter Seven

Almost the moment Robert’s coach pulled away from the castle, Hugh became a different person. Barking orders at all within earshot, treating Maggie like his personal hand-maiden, and, in general, acting as if he was lord and master over all he surveyed.
 

And perhaps he was—or would be if Robert failed to return from London. She had every reason to worry for her husband’s safety, not the least of which was his failure to write in more than a fortnight.

“Could you not write to someone at Whitehall to make inquiries about your brother’s well-being?” she asked Hugh across the dinner table.

“As I’ve stated before,” he returned with a glower, “I will do so when more time has elapsed. As you well know, the post betwixt there and here is prodigiously slow. I am sure my brother is perfectly well and will write as soon as he is able.”

Maggie, poaching in disappointment, returned her gaze to the bowl of mutton broth before her. Yes, mail from London often took weeks to arrive. Yes, Robert had embarked during inclement weather, which would have prolonged his transit time considerably. The chances were good he had not yet reached his destination. There were scores of logical reasons why he’d not sent word.

But since when was a pregnant woman rational?

Praise God and all of His Saints! She was with child and still reeling from the news. She’d only just had her condition confirmed by the local midwife. When she was not fretting about her husband’s well-being or trying to come up with a satisfactory name for the child, she was near to bursting with joy. She wanted so badly to tell Robert the news, but could not post a letter until she knew where to write him.

If he yet lived.

That he might have been killed en route struck her with the force of a blow to the chest. No, she must not think such thoughts. Of course he lived. If he had perished, if their connection had been severed, she would surely feel the separation at some deep-down level of her soul.

Hugh, to her tremendous vexation, seemed not to care a jot whether his brother lived or died. No, wait. He did care, only with different aspirations. The marquess seemed intent on getting Robert out of the way so he could claim the duchy for himself. Heaven help her. And Robert. What had become of the affable young man she’d once known? Either he’d stripped the goodness from his disposition by soaking too long in a solution of resentment and envy or he’d been playing a part the whole time.

Maggie stole a glance at Juliette, who always seemed to watch her. The present moment proved no different. Their gazes met briefly before she shifted her focus back to Hugh.

When he caught her looking his way, he said with a hateful scowl, “I did warn you not to marry Robert, as you will recall. But did you listen? Of course not, because you saw your chance to be a Duchess instead of a lowly marchioness. What I could offer was not good enough for a fortune-hunter like you. And now that you’ve made your bed, you must be content to lie in it, mustn’t you?” With a cruel laugh, he added, “I’ll wager my brother will write you when he tires of his whores. Though, in light of his reputation, that could take several weeks.”

Maggie gawped at him, unsure what to say. As Hugh went back to slurping his soup, Maggie searched for a way to deflect the conversation from herself and her husband. Finding a topic she believed would do the trick, she said to her brother-in-law, “Pray, do you know much about your wife’s family? I would ask her myself if not for the language barrier.”

“You really should learn French.” His tone was admonishing, as was typical of late. “It surprises me greatly my brother has not taken steps to educate you properly. Had you married me, I should have made sure you acquired at least a passing knowledge of all the modern languages.” He paused to slurp another spoonful of broth. “And as to Juliette’s bloodline, she is the illegitimate daughter of Guy Armand de Gramont, Count of Guiche.” Meeting Maggie’s gaze head-on, he added, “Do you know the name? Or has my brother neglected your education in the social sphere as well?”

Incensed by his overweening attitude, she wanted to defend Robert, to explain how her husband, far from neglectful of her education, had been schooling her in history and philosophy, among other subjects, but thought better of it. Let Hugh take his digs. All would come to right when her dear heart was restored to her in the Lord’s good time. Besides, she now had the reprieve she’d prayed for. Juliette was not her sister and therefore, their tryst had been a harmless mistake instead of a mortal sin.

“I confess, I am unfamiliar with the Count of Guiche,” she told Hugh as she captured a spoonful of broth in her bowl. “But do feel free to enlighten me about the gentleman’s claims to fame.”

Though she cared naught about the Count, she’d much rather pass the meal listening to Hugh prattle on about his father-in-law than squirming under his venomous glares.

“The Count is dead now, of course,” Hugh began, “but when he yet lived, he was quite the most notorious playboy in Paris.”
 

Maggie forced a smile. “Was he? How interesting.”

“He also was what’s known as bi-sexual.” As he spoke, he studied her countenance for her response to the term. “Do you know what it means to be bi-sexual?”

“I believe I do,” she said primly.

“Then tell me, so I can be assured you speak the truth.”

She sipped more soup as she formulated a definition she felt comfortable communicating aloud. Though she was not particularly hungry, she would eat her fill for the baby’s sake.

“The term applies to a person who derives pleasure from sex with either gender,” she said at last.

Hugh grinned at her in a reptilian way that made her skin crawl. “It gladdens me to discover my elder brother has not neglected your education entirely. Not that I believed for a moment he would when it came to fleshly matters. Do tell me, Maggie: How far did your corruption extend before Robert took his leave?”

The heat of a blush scorched her cheeks, giving her away even as she said, “That is none of your affair.”

“There, you are wrong.” His gray-green eyes narrowed to slits. “As long as Robert stays away, I shall be the duke and Juliette, the duchess. And you shall be relegated to the role of servant to us both. Do I make myself clear?”

Maggie, stricken by shock and affront, rose from the table and threw down her napkin. “How dare you speak to me thusly? I am mistress of this household and your stating differently does not make it so. And, if you should persist in these mutinous assertions, I shall summon the Ballie and have you put out.”

He rose from his chair, set his hands upon the table, and stared her down in a most intimidating fashion. “Do not make threats you cannot back up. You will be in no position to summon Mr. Watt, I assure you. And, even were you able to do so, he is a Covenanter who would gladly see me take my brother’s place. In fact, he and some of the other prominent Presbyterians hereabouts encouraged me to return when word reached them of my conversion.”

His words shook Maggie to the core. “What are you talking about? Since when did you change religions?”

A triumphant grin bowed his lips. “Since I married a Huguenot and converting promised the advantages birth so cruelly deprived me of.”

Maggie could not believe her ears, though Hugh was clearly in earnest. “You villain! I shall find a way to stop you if it’s the last thing I do!”

“Will you? That will prove a considerable feat when you are bound, gagged, and locked inside my brother’s chamber of sexual perversions.”

The blood drained from her face. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Would you care to make a stake on that? Balloch Castle and the duchy, perhaps?”
 

He started toward her, his expression and posture menacing.
 

Maggie backed away, her heart caught in her throat. She had no doubt he would carry out his threats and she had nowhere to run, nowhere to turn to, no way to summon help. Still, she could not simply stand here and let him capture her. She took off running—toward the kitchen. Maybe the servants would help her. She could not see how, but neither could she see an alternative.

The moment she reached the doorway, Hugh overtook her, seized her by the hair, and pulled her back. She shrieked in pain and fell hard against his chest. “You are mine now, Maggie,” he whispered in her ear. “To do with as I please.”

As he dragged her down the corridor toward the library, panic threatened to shut out her thoughts like a great heavy drape. She could not allow that to happen. She must keep her wits about her, must think this through. If he’d plotted against Robert from the beginning, that meant—oh, dear God!

The pieces fell into place with devastating, breath-stealing clarity. Robert would never return from London, if, indeed, he’d made it that far. Because Hugh and the other Covenanters had arranged to have him killed along the way. Her only hope was her husband had somehow survived the ambush. But she had no hope of finding him if she was Hugh’s prisoner. She’d have no access to pen and paper or the means to smuggle correspondence in or out of the castle. No, if she wanted her freedom, she’d have to play along with Hugh’s scheme. ’Twould mean being reduced to servitude, but better hard work than being locked away with no hope of escape.
 

“All right,” she conceded. “You win. I will do as you wish. Just, please, I beg of you, do not lock me up.”

“You must think me a fool.” His humid breath brushed her smarting nape.
 

“I swear to you, I am in earnest.”

“I shall decide if you are to be trusted.” Still pushing her toward the chamber, he added, “After putting your obedience to the test.”

* * * *

As the
berline de coupe
creaked and quavered over the cobbles of Drury Lane, Robert congratulated himself for having the good sense to leave his wife behind in Dunwoody. During the fortnight he’d been in transit, he’d been set upon not once, but twice. By the same scurvy band of would-be assassins, oddly enough. Covenanters, by the look of them, though he was hard pressed to understand why they’d targeted him. Aye, he was a Catholic—reason enough, he supposed—but they could not know he’d be traveling this particular road at this particular time. No one knew of his plans outside those at Balloch Castle, and he refused to entertain the notion anyone there had conspired against him.

Hugh may be deceitful, but surely he would not stoop to plotting the murder of his own brother.