The Wyndham Legacy (13 page)

He stopped in the doorway when he saw her, seated next to the fire, a book in her hands. She was dressed charmingly, even he realized that, in a gown of gossamer yellow muslin, her beautiful black hair loosely braided and wound through with yellow ribbon on top of her head. She wore no jewelry.

Except for that plain golden band on her third finger, that damned wedding ring she'd shoved on her own finger. He certainly hadn't done it, damn her.

She smiled at him. “Would you care to have dinner now, Marcus? It's very late, but Badger prepared dishes that wouldn't be ruined if you weren't here earlier, which, of course, you weren't. Or would you care to change and bathe?”

Marcus stopped himself. With great difficulty, he managed to keep his mouth shut, managed to keep the furious words unsaid, at least for the moment. He strolled into the room. He pulled off his cloak and tossed it over the back of a chair. He walked to the fireplace and stretched out
his hands to the flames, for it was an unseasonably cool evening for early June. It would rain later, the air was thick with moisture.

“How are your ribs?”

“Yet another question, Duchess?”

She said nothing more.

“Yes, my ribs are better. There is still pulling, but I hadn't really noticed them all that much. As you know, I intended to visit my mistress this evening. But it is such a very odd thing.”

She remained studiously silent. He said in a low furious voice, “Couldn't you at least flinch? Perhaps raise a flush on those pale cheeks of yours?”

She said nothing.

“It seems Lisette is gone. No one was able to tell me where. She left in the early afternoon in a very nice carriage, all her valises piled atop. Do you find that strange, Duchess?”

“Should I believe it strange, Marcus?”

“Where did you send her, Duchess?”

She said without hesitation, “I sent her nowhere, Marcus.”

“I see,” he said. He looked down at his hands. Slowly, he unbuckled the sword from around his waist. He gently folded the leather belt, laying the sword carefully over it in a chair. Then he straightened, his back to the fire. He leaned his shoulders against the mantel. He crossed his Hessians. Spears kept them so clean he could see his face reflected in them, even after a long day. He saw that he was frowning, that he looked ready to explode. He forced all expression from his face, then said, “It seems as well that my own lodgings are bereft of my belongings. I could have gone to a friend's apartment but I decided that you were right. You and I need to talk about the future.” He saw it then, the exquisite relief that flooded her face.

She rose swiftly. “Could we dine first, Marcus? I am very hungry.”

“Certainly,” he said politely. He extended his arm to her. “Madam.”

She sent him a wary look and he saw it. It pleased him. It pleased him inordinately. For the first time since he'd come to her small cottage in Smarden a year ago, he felt himself in control. All because he'd held his fury inside. All because she no longer knew what to expect from him. He smiled down at her, saying nothing. Let her wonder what was in his mind without shouting it at her.

He seated her at one end of the table and took himself off to the other. The food was already there, between them, beneath silver domes to keep it hot.

“Badger has outdone himself,” Marcus said, closing his eyes as he slowly chewed on the chicken with orange and tarragon. “The onion is sweet, the Stilton cheese utterly perfect—pale at the rind and pale yellow and creamy inside.”

“I was just thinking that same amount of detail myself,” she said, staring at the Stilton cheese she hadn't touched. What was he planning to do?

“Wherever did Badger find such delicious oranges?”

“At Les Halles. He spends several hours there every morning.”

“Ah, yes,
le ventre de Paris
—the belly of Paris for the past six hundred years.” He forked down more chicken, made ecstatic rumbling noises as he chewed, then smiled at her again. “You don't appear to be enjoying your dinner, Duchess.”

“I ate a tremendous luncheon,” she said.

“Were you busy today? Perhaps you were shopping? Visiting friends? Visiting mistresses? Visiting your new husband's former lodgings to remove all traces of him?”

“I didn't do all that much today, Marcus.”

“Ah, yet again I asked more than one question which gives you the perfect chance to answer none of them. Eat your chicken, Duchess.”

“I am waiting for Badger's London buns. They're
delicious. He says it is the quality of the lard one uses that makes the difference, he says—”

“I will have to wait,” Marcus said, sitting back in his chair and lacing his fingers over his belly. “I have quite stuffed myself.”

“You were hurt. You need food to regain your strength.”

“You want fat on my manly charms, Duchess? You don't really care, then, for you say nothing. Well then, this dining room is quite charming, as is the rest of the house. Since you are now a very rich young lady, I fancy you didn't even blink an eye when you were told the rental.”

“It is rather expensive, but as I told you, if you wish it, I will leave for London. If you wish to remain here, why, you are very rich yourself now, Marcus, you can well afford it.”

“Yes, I am rich now, aren't I? It is interesting that during the ten months when I believed myself to be the real earl as opposed to the temporary earl, I never forgot the value of money and what it was like to consider purchases. I doubt I will change now. I was just thinking of the poor American Wyndhams—all for naught, the poor sods now have nothing at all.”

“They didn't deserve to have anything,” she said. “It is all yours. It was all meant to be yours.”

“Oh no. It was meant to be Charlie's and if not Charlie's then Mark's.”

“They died, Marcus, five years ago. It was no one's fault, certainly not yours.”

“How very interesting. You blame your father.”

“Yes.”

He realized in that moment that he couldn't bear it, none of it. The Duchess, sitting at the opposite end of the table, her face in the shadows, but her damned voice sounding like a serene Madonna's, no, he couldn't bear it. He rose and tossed his napkin onto his plate. “I'm going out,” he said, and strode toward the door of the dining room.

“Marcus.”

He paused, then said over his shoulder, not turning to look at her, “Yes? Am I forbidden to leave the house once I'm inside it? Will I find your bully boys on the front doorstep waiting to shackle me and drag me back inside?”

“Marcus, we haven't spoken yet.”

Now he did turn to face her. In a voice that held no passion, no anger, naught of anything she could hear, he said, “I fear I am not up to it now, Duchess. There are things I must think about, things that concern only myself and only my future. Surely you must understand that?”

She was very afraid that she did. The words were choking in her throat, but she couldn't make herself ask if he was now considering an annulment. She said nothing, merely stared at him in silence until he turned again and strode quickly from the dining room, from her.

B
ADGER TUGGED ON
his right earlobe. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He tugged more, then said finally, “Mr. Spears, it worries me nonetheless. We have discussed this and we are in agreement. I understand the need, indeed, but she is very innocent. It was her mother, you see, and the situation she was in. She was a mistress, Mr. Spears, and thus her daughter was a bastard. She sought to protect the Duchess, and that, in her mind, meant keeping the girl appallingly ignorant.”

“Mr. Badger, I realize this situation is not one that either of us would wish, but you must stop pulling on your poor earlobe, it's getting quite raw. The strain these two have created is enough to drive a sane man to immoderate drink, or to yanking at his earlobe. Would you like a brandy, perhaps? No? Well then, it must be done and you know it. His lordship just might be seeing to an annulment this very moment. She would be most upset were he to succeed. She is willing to do it. Indeed, she must do it. I will myself ascertain his lordship's mood this evening before she proceeds.”

“And if he's in a ripping foul mood?”

“Then, Mr. Badger, she will have no choice but to wait. I wouldn't trust him with her if it were so.”

“Damned bloody young fool! I should like to snaggle him in an alley and pound that stiff pride out of him.”

Spears sighed. “He is a young man, Mr. Badger. Young and strong and proud and he sees her as the source of all his problems.”

“But she saved him!”

“Yes, but it changes nothing. In his view a man should do the saving, and if he isn't able to, then no one should, particularly a female.”

“Poor little mite,” Badger said.

“Then she had the gall to inherit that fifty thousand pounds, leaving him in a most humiliating position. An allowance, Mr. Badger, an allowance! For the earl of Chase. Could you think of anything that would belittle him more than that?”

“But none of it was her fault!”

“Certainly not. But she was there, don't you see? She went from being a harmless bastard to being a legitimate heiress, and the heiress part took all that belonged to him,
by right.
Ah, it makes no matter what is in his mind. She will do what she must. She always has.”

“She shies from nothing, I'll say that,” Badger said, rising from the comfortable rocking chair near the fire in Mr. Spears's sitting chamber. “Well, she shies but she makes herself act.”

“Do let me tell you, Mr. Badger, that the chicken with orange and tarragon was superb.”

Badger nodded, still clearly distracted. “But Mr. Spears, what if he hurts her?”

“She will bear it. And then it will be done.”

 

The Duchess was wondering if she hadn't suddenly stepped over the edge of sanity and become quite mad. She paused at the closed door, listening, but hearing nothing.

Was he already asleep? It was just past midnight. If it were a normal night, she certainly would be sleeping by now.

It was a reprieve if he was.

She shook her head. She didn't want him to be asleep. She wanted him awake and willing. A reprieve would only put it off and she was afraid to put it off. Marcus was unpredictable, he was slippery, she had no idea what he
would do and when he would do it. Very quietly, she turned the brass doorknob. The well-oiled door eased open with no betraying creaks or groans. There was a sluggish fire still burning in the fireplace, casting off shadowy light. She stepped quickly into his bedchamber, quietly closing the door behind her. The room was warm, which was a relief, she supposed.

The carpet felt thick and soft beneath her bare feet. She followed the line of his discarded clothing beginning from near the fireplace toward the bed. She saw that his sword was still in its scabbard fastened to its leather belt. The belt was carefully wrapped and laid atop a table. She very nearly tripped over one of his Hessian boots that stood drunkenly at right angles to the bed. His cloak was spread on the floor, looking for the world like a black bat in flight.

She stood beside the wide bed, staring down at him. He was asleep, lying on his back, one arm flung over his forehead, the other at his side, palm up and open. There was a single sheet covering him and it stopped at his waist.

He was big, his chest covered with black hair and hard with muscle, as were his arms. She realized he looked as splendid out of his uniform as he did wearing it. She smiled before she realized that she hadn't yet really begun to sift through their differences. She could see him outlined beneath the sheet, the largeness of him, and that was surely something to think about.

She saw that his ribs were green and blue with faint tinges of yellow. She wondered if they pained him much.

It was then she wondered what to do. She thought of the book Badger had handed her silently that afternoon, not quite meeting her eyes, just mumbling, “This might be of some assistance, Duchess. There are, er, drawings.”

“Drawings, Badger?”

“Yes, drawings. Did your mother tell you anything about what happens between men and women?”

She very slowly shook her head. Badger said, “Look through the book, Duchess. If you have questions, I'll ask Mr. Spears to see you.”

She thought, on the face of things, that he looked better than any of the rather crude drawings that filled that strange but very informative book. She lightly touched her fingertips to his jaw, still bruised, covered with black stubble. Then she lay her palm over his heart, feeling the steady thudding against her flesh. His hair was crisp and curling beneath her fingers. He moved then, turning slightly, then falling back again. His arm came down to rest over his belly.

What to do now?

She wasn't afraid, just stymied, for unlike any of the male drawings in the book, Marcus was asleep. There was no eagerness, no leering smiles to be seen on his face. He certainly wasn't ready to leap on her like many of the men in those drawings.

He opened his eyes and stared up at her. His eyes were blurred and vague, but his voice was sharp. “By all that's strange and beyond strange. You of all people, in my bedchamber. What do you want, Duchess?”

“You,” she said. “I want you, Marcus.”

He said nothing, merely smiled at her, and closed his eyes again. His breathing was deep and even in but a matter of moments. It was then she realized that he hadn't truly been awake. But he'd sounded awake. So, it was up to her, completely up to her.

She wiped her damp palms on her dressing gown. Slowly, knowing there was nothing more for it, she untied the sash at her waist and slipped the dressing gown off her shoulders. It pooled at her feet. Her nightgown, she thought. She had to do it. In a moment, she was still standing there beside him, now naked. She felt the warmth from the fire against her back.

She leaned over him and touched her mouth to his. “Marcus,” she said. “Please wake up. I'm not all that certain
what to do. I mean I am certain what has to happen, but I'm not certain how to make it happen. Please wake up, Marcus.”

He smiled at her words and said softly. “Ah, Lisette, won't you let me get any sleep at all? You're more greedy than a bloody man.” His hands came up and cupped her loose breasts. She sucked in her breath, but managed to hold herself still. He was kneading her breasts now, lifting them, massaging them, filling his hands with her, all the while, his eyes were closed. She saw the outline of him change beneath the sheet. She knew what that meant. It meant that this particular part of him, the most important part in terms of what she had to accomplish, was more awake now than not.

But he believed she was his mistress.

Suddenly, his hands moved from her breasts to encircle her waist. He lifted her over him, pushing at her legs so that she was straddling him, her hands supporting herself against his chest, her hair coming over her shoulders to touch him. His hands were again on her breasts, and he was moaning softly as he caressed her.

She was too terrified to move.

“What is this?” he whispered, then laughed over a moan. He slipped his hand beneath her buttocks and drew the sheet down. She felt him hard beneath her. The heat of him was incredible. She hadn't imagined anything like this.

He breathed deeply, and now both his hands lifted her and she felt him stiffening, felt him now hot against her, and didn't know what to do.

“What is this, Lisette? You're not ready for me yet you want me to wake up and pleasure you again? Hold still, yes, that's right, just hold still and let me enjoy you.” He pulled her forward so that she was lying on his chest. He found her mouth and she felt the heat of him, the sweet warmth that made her open her mouth immediately, wanting the taste of him, and his tongue touched hers and she jumped slightly, and he laughed softly into her mouth. She focused on his
tongue, on the movement of his lips until suddenly his fingers were on her, pulling gently at her flesh and easing inside her. She cried out, she couldn't help it, but he soothed her, stroking her hips, as if she were an animal, she thought wildly, and he sought to calm her. His fingers hurt but he didn't stop what he was doing, going in and out of her, stretching her, and she raised her face, biting her bottom lip to keep quiet. She knew what he would do. She wasn't stupid, but she didn't want it, for the pain was building now, raw and deep and she'd felt him before he'd pulled her forward to lie against his chest, and she knew he was much larger than the two fingers inside her. Now she felt the dampness of herself and it was embarrassing, but she didn't have time to consider that because he was pushing her upright again, over him, then lifting her and she felt him hard and pushing against her and suddenly he was inside her and he was groaning with his pleasure in it.

She didn't want to cry out. She refused to. She splayed her palms on his chest, closing her eyes and her mouth as he deepened inside her, deeper and deeper until he was pressing against her maidenhead and she felt it, actually felt him there, pushing harder and harder until, with no warning, he threw back his head and gritted his teeth, his hands tightened around her flanks and he lifted his hips even as he brought her hard down on him.

A cry ripped from her throat, she couldn't help it. The pain, the deep burning, was horrible. Surely he could go no deeper into her, but then he did and she didn't think she could bear it further.

He was lifting her and lowering her now, rhythmically, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips, and he was breathing hard, jerking his hips, and she opened her eyes and looked down at his face. There was a dark flush on his cheeks, his eyes were closed and his lips were parted. He appeared to be in pain. That made two of them, she thought, then all rational thought dissolved when he quickened his
thrusts until he was frantically jerking into her, his legs and chest heaving, and his breath was catching in his throat and he groaned loudly, his head thrown back on the pillow now and she was crying, she tasted her tears in her mouth, the salt of them, felt the pain of his fingers digging into her hips and the endless pain of him deep inside her.

Then it was over. He was utterly still beneath her. He sighed deeply and his head rolled to the side. His hands fell from her. She felt his legs sprawl beneath her. He was still deep inside her, but the pain had lessened now for there was wetness from him, his seed, she knew, and it helped, at least it helped reduce the intense pressure inside her.

She felt the rumbling in him as his chest heaved slightly, and again he opened his eyes. He frowned up at her. “Duchess,” he said. “By God, it's you, isn't it, Duchess? Pretending to be Lisette this time. Why are you here? Why am I inside you? This can't be, it can't. I'm dreaming. Yes, it's a dream.” His mouth closed. He shuddered then fell perfectly still once more. She felt him come out of her, and very slowly she slipped off him to stand beside the bed. Her legs were sore, the muscles of her inner thighs trembling.

The single sheet was tangled around his knees. She stared down at him, at his flat belly, at the tangle of black hair at his groin, at his sex, soft now, but wet with himself and with her, she supposed, and with her blood. She shuddered and quickly pulled the sheet back to his waist.

She jerked her nightgown over her head, then pulled the dressing gown over it. She didn't cry until she was in her own bedchamber, huddled beneath a mound of blankets. She couldn't seem to get warm.

She fell asleep, a sleep fraught with phantoms that had no faces, that brought her pain, she knew it was pain, yet she couldn't seem to move, and they were laughing and laughing. Then suddenly, she was more awake than she was the moment before and she felt more warmth than she should feel. She turned into the warmth, the flesh that felt
so wonderful pressed against her. This wasn't a phantom and if it was from her dreams, then she would hold it tightly to her for there was no pain here, no faceless fear. Large hands that were stroking down her back, pulling her closer, molding her to him, and she felt the thick hair of his chest against her breasts, and then lower, the heaviness of him, and he had her hips in his hands and pushing her rhythmically against him. She awoke with a start.

It was no phantom spun from her dreams. It was Marcus. He was in her bed and he was naked and she was naked as well. What had happened to her nightgown? His hands were sifting through her hair as he kissed her neck, the lobe of her ear. He blew softly at the tendrils of hair in his way. He kissed her chin and then her mouth, and she didn't know what this was, this immense warmth and urgency that was beginning to invade her. She felt her legs pressing against his, hers so very smooth and his hard with muscle.