The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (78 page)

But he had not intended to fall on her like a ravaging beast the moment he entered the house.

Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, he forced himself to turn his attention to the connecting rooms that had once belonged to his parents. He was prepared for the lavender satin wall panels and delicate rosewood furnishings that had replaced the dark, decidedly ugly furniture preferred by his ancestors. He had, after all, been aware of every alteration made to the townhouse. A rueful smile found his lips. He might have been willing to give Amelia the time and distance needed to heal her wounds, but he hadn’t been prepared to leave her unprotected. Which was precisely why he had ensured that several members of her staff happened to be his own loyal servants.

“Lovely,” he murmured in genuine appreciation. “I knew that I could leave the renovations of this house in your capable hands. You have always possessed exquisite taste when not being ridden roughshod by your mother. I am anxious for you to turn your talents to Rosemount.” He turned back to watch Amelia scramble to sit upright, her eyes dark with an awareness she was clearly determined to deny. “Unlike my relatives I find little to be admired in shabby medieval furnishings and dour portraits of long-dead Spauldings. I wish you to make the manor house a home.” He paused, giving her a smile of anticipation. “
Our
home.”

“I did not refurbish the townhouse to please you.”

“And yet I am pleased.” His smile widened as his gaze lowered to the enticing curve of her breasts. “Very pleased.”

Her chin tilted, but Justin did not miss her tiny shiver. “I want you to leave.”

He reached to thread his fingers through her satin curls, which shimmered like flames against the pure ivory of her skin, his arousal pressing painfully against his breeches.

“Not until I have what I have come for,” he said, huskily.

“Are you batty?”

His lips twisted. “There are many gentlemen who would consider me mad to have waited so long to take what is rightfully mine.”

“Rightfully yours? I am not your property.”

“No, you are my wife.” Barely aware he was moving, Justin settled next to her on the mattress, his fingers fisting in her hair as he was besieged by a surge of sheer male possession. He had waited for months to claim this woman as his own. He would wait no longer. “And soon to be the mother of my children.”

He heard her breath catch. “So, that’s the devil’s bargain, is it? Never.”

“Come, Amelia. You knew that we could not continue to live estranged.”

“Why not? There are any number of couples who choose to live separate lives.”

Justin bit back his instinctive words. He had known when he travelled to London that Amelia still harboured her bitter resentment. And that she was not yet prepared to accept what he had to say. He would have to tread with care.

“Only after they have produced the necessary heirs,” he said. “Surely you do not believe I would have gone to such effort to salvage my estates without the hope that we will one day pass them to our children?”

“And because it is what
you
want my own desires are meaningless?”

“On the contrary. Your …” He bent forwards to graze a soft kiss over her mouth. “Desires are of utmost importance. That much I can assure you.”

For a dazzling moment her lips softened in ready pleasure and Justin swallowed a low groan. Christ. If she only knew how many nights he had lain awake, plagued by his craving to have her in his arms, or lying beneath him as he sheathed himself deep in her body. He vividly recalled the honeyed sweetness of her lips and her gratifying moans of encouragement as he had discovered how best to please her. Then his memories were shattered as her hands lifted to his chest, pushing him away with a small cry.

“How dare you?”

Justin struggled to leash his desire, pulling back to regard her with a brooding frown.

“I have not forgotten how readily you responded to my kisses, to my touch,” he said, his voice thick. “You desired me. You still desire me.”

“No.”

“Yes.” His fingers tightened in her hair, his body clenched with frustrated hunger. “My God, I have missed you, Amelia. Do you know on how many occasions I started towards London only to return to Rosemount? Or how often I stood at the window and imagined you rushing up the drive and into my arms?”

An indefinable emotion flared through her green eyes. “No doubt there were plenty of women to comfort you?”

“Jealous, my love?”

“Certainly not,” she muttered. “You are welcome to take as many lovers as you wish.”

His eyes narrowed in warning. “I fear I cannot return the generous offer. If I were to discover another man in your bed I would kill him.”

“You have no right.”

“You are my wife.” He made no effort to hide the stark possession in his tone. “I have no intention of sharing what belongs to me.”

She gave a wild shake of her head. “I must have been out of my wits to ever have believed that I—”

They both stiffened as she abruptly cut off her words, their gazes clashing with the violent emotions that had never been resolved between them.

“What?” he demanded softly. “That you loved me?”

With a muttered curse, she yanked away from his grasp and slid off the bed. She wrapped her arms around her waist and nervously paced the floor. “Do not say that.”

“There is no shame in offering me your heart,” he said, resisting the urge to hoist her back on to the bed. “I have sworn to protect it with my life.”

She glared at him with smouldering resentment. “You have brought me nothing but shame from the moment you decided I was a gullible enough fool to believe a man such as you could ever truly care for me.”

“A man such as me?”

She waved an impatient hand. “Handsome. Elegant. Toasted by all of society. While I was a pathetic wallflower with nothing to recommend me but my grandfather’s wealth.”

His brows snapped together, his temper flaring. Amelia could brand him as any sort of scoundrel, but he would not listen to her demean herself.

“That is not true. I was fascinated by you from the moment we were introduced,” he gritted. “I had never met a female who I could truly converse with on important subjects rather than having to spend the evening exchanging shallow flirtations.”

“And if I had not possessed a large dowry?”

He flinched at the blunt question. “What would you have me say, Amelia?”

“What you should have said from the first.” She moved with jerky steps to the window that overlooked the small rose garden below, her profile tense with the anguish that Justin knew could be laid at his feet. “That you never gave a damn about me and without my dowry you would never have taken me as your wife.”

He clenched his hands, hating the knowledge he might very well have destroyed any hope of happiness with his wife.

But what else could he have done?

After several generations of reckless, devil-may-care Spauldings, the once impressive family fortune had been drained dry and the estates had slipped into ruin. By the time Justin had shouldered his inheritance, the lands had been deeply in debt and his tenants mired in shocking poverty. He could not allow them to continue to suffer.

Or at least that was what he had told himself.

It was not until he had been forced to watch the joy fade from Amelia’s eyes to be replaced with a bitter resignation that he realized that some sacrifices were too great. And that he should have carved out his own heart before wounding this beautiful, excessively fragile woman.

“I have always cared for you,” he said.

She absently straightened a Sèvres plate on the carved mantel, the tremble of her hand revealing she was not nearly so composed as she would have him believe.

“No, if you had then you would have been honest with me about your need for an heiress.”

“Even a gentleman in my position has his pride.” His smile was self-derisive. “I intended to reveal the ruin of my family fortunes in time.”

“But only after you compromised me and ensured I would have no choice but to wed you or be publicly shunned.”

Justin rose to his feet, his expression hardening. He had been blindly stupid for too long. Perhaps not astonishing. Mere hours after his hasty wedding, his wife had abandoned him in a painfully public fashion, and his steward had sent him a frantic note revealing that the roof of the long gallery at Rosemount had collapsed, injuring several servants and threatening to destroy what remained of his ancient home.

He had done his best to concentrate on what he could mend rather than brooding on those troubles that seemed beyond his skill.

Over the past weeks, however, he had devoted a significant amount of time to recalling the exact details of that fateful night and coming to a startling conclusion.

“I did not force you to accompany me to Lady Granville’s conservatory that evening,” he pointed out in soft tones. “Nor did I force you to respond to my kisses.”

Her cheeks flared with colour. “So it was my own fault that I was deceived and manipulated?”

Crossing the Persian carpet, Justin grasped her hands. “We are neither to blame for what occurred in that conservatory.”

“You expect me to believe that it was random fate that offered you the perfect opportunity to coerce me into marriage?”

“Not fate.” He squarely met her accusing gaze. “Your mother.”

“You …” Jerking her hands out of Justin’s grip, Amelia glared into his handsome face. “Bastard.”

His lips twisted. “You can hurl any number of insults at me, but I most certainly am not a bastard.”

With a toss of her head, she headed towards the door, more out of fear of being alone with Justin than his wild accusations. She could not think clearly when he was near. Not when her heart was pounding and her stomach fluttering with an unwelcome awareness.

How could she still ache for the damnable man when he had so ruthlessly destroyed her?

“I will not stay here and listen to you insult my mother.”

She had nearly reached the door when Justin’s fingers closed around her upper arm and he turned her about to meet his burning gaze.

“We can have this conversation in the midst of your friends, if that is what you prefer,” he drawled, “but make no mistake we will be finishing this discussion.”

“I am no longer the innocent fool you wed, My Lord,” she said coldly. “You cannot lay your sins at the feet of another and assume I will blithely forgive you.”

“I accept my numerous sins, but I will not be accused of seducing you in that conservatory and ensuring we would be discovered.”

Amelia bit her bottom lip, the agonizing memory of that night seared into her mind.

The dazzling pleasure of strolling about the crowded ballroom on Justin’s arm, knowing she was the envy of every female in London. Preening beneath his bold glances of frustrated desire, and shivering when he had bent his head to whisper in her ear. And then he had urged her from the ballroom, leading her through the maze of hallways until at last they were alone in the perfumed shadows of the conservatory.

She shivered, still able to feel the branding heat of his kisses and the intimate exploration of his hands. She had been so eager for him that she had not even considered the dangers of allowing him to peel away her God-awful dress. Her only thought was the shocking pleasure of his lips closing around the tip of her breast as he had suckled her with obvious skill.

It was not until the door to the conservatory had been thrust open and the sound of shocked voices had shattered the illusion of privacy that she had realized just how stupid she had been.

“Are you telling me that my mother urged you to lure me from the ballroom and remove my gown?” she gritted.

“No.” His hooded gaze swept over her pale face. “But, I have never disguised the fact that I desired you from the moment I first held you in my arms and we waltzed across the floor of Almack’s. By the evening of Lady Granville’s ball I was nearly mad with my need to assuage my hunger for you.” As if to prove his point, Justin wrapped his arms around her and hauled her roughly against his aroused body. “And in all honesty, if we had not been interrupted, I am not entirely certain I could have halted my urge to take your innocence regardless of the discomforts of our surroundings, or the obvious danger of discovery.”

Her mouth went dry at the potent feel of his erection pressed against her hip, his warm scent teasing at her senses. A melting heat flowed like lava through her veins, pooling in her lower stomach.

“Then how can you possibly blame my mother?” she rasped.

As if sensing her grudging reaction to his touch, Justin skimmed his hands down her back, his eyes darkening to molten gold. “If nothing else, your mother has always been a clever woman capable of taking advantage of any situation.”

She could not argue the truth of his words. Her mother possessed a calculating mind and a ruthless lack of sentimentality when it came to using her daughter to achieve her own social ambitions.

“My mother wanted me wed, not get involved in a scandal that might very well have ruined me,” she protested.

“Correction, my love, she wanted you to capture a title. The greater the title the better.”

“Why you …”

He easily caught the hand she lifted to slap his face, pulling it to his mouth so he could press his lips to her palm.

“Steady, Amelia,” he murmured.

“Are you implying that my mother assumed that the only means for me to acquire a husband was by trapping him with public humiliation?” she hissed.

“Calm down and listen to me.”

“Have you not insulted me enough for one evening?”

“I am well aware you had received any number of proposals before we were introduced.”

She curled her lip in disdain. “Worthless fortune-hunters.”